AfD ordered to restore membership of expelled leader
June 19, 2020
A German court ordered the far-right AfD party to temporarily restore the membership of the former Brandenburg state party leader Andreas Kalbitz on Friday.
The national party leadership kicked Kalbitz out of the party four weeks ago for not disclosing that he was allegedly a member of the now-banned Heimattreue Deutsche Jugend (HDJ) organization. The HDJ — which approximately translates to German Youth Faithful to the Homeland — was a right-wing extremist group with links to neo-Nazis and was reminiscent of the Hitler Youth.
Kalbitz denies such membership, but said it was "not unlikely" that his name was on an old HDJ list.
The Berlin Regional Court declared that the suspension of his AfD membership was inadmissible as his past membership in the group could not be proven. The court ruled that Kalbitz can again exercise his rights as party member and participate in party committees, pending further court action.
This will apply until a decision is made by the AfD's Federal Arbitration Tribunal.
Alongside Thuringia's state party leader Björn Höcke, Kalbitz is considered to be the most important representative of the right-wing nationalist movement in the party.
Despite being kicked out of the national party, the Brandenburg branch voted to keep Kalbitz as its regional chief. The decision caused a rift within the party and contributed to Germany's domestic intelligence agency putting the branch under surveillance.
The head of Germany's domestic intelligence agency (the Bundesverfassungsschutz) for Brandenburg state, Jörg Müller, said at the time that German intelligence believed there was "sufficiently important evidence" to indicate that the branch was "striving against the free democratic order."
The state branch was "de facto being lead by a right-wing extremist with no party affiliation," Müller said.
aw/msh (dpa, AFP, AP)