AfD faces new storm in Germany over its Nazi sympathisers

Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland is facing a new political storm after a just-elected Berlin MP described refugees as “disgusting worms” while another party candidate was caught selling Nazi-era medals in his antique shop.

On Sunday, AfD member Kay Nerstheimer was elected to Berlin’s state parliament, despite describing Syrian refugees on Facebook as “parasites, feeding off the German people”.

His Facebook page also contains entries describing as “guerrilla fighters” Nazis whose murder of civilians in the second World War was “lawful”. Beneath a photograph of Nazi soldiers in uniform, he added the caption “Each one a fine example to the people”.

He described German guilt for the second World as “all a LIE”.

‘Degenerate species’

Mr Nerstheimer, a former member of the extremist German Defence League, used another Facebook post to describe homosexuals as a “degenerate species who can have no children” and thus “deleted by nature like errors in a [computer] program”.

AfD leaders in Berlin distanced themselves from Mr Nerstheimer, who won one in four votes in the eastern district of Lichtenberg. However, they have not ejected him from the party and he will sit as an Independent in the state legislature. An investigation into Mr Nerstheimer was opened a year ago but not pursued by AfD Berlin leaders.

He’s not the first AfD figure in Berlin to make waves after another, Ronald Gläser, described Winston Churchill as a “war criminal”.

Meanwhile, controversy grips the AfD in the southwestern state Saarland, where a candidate in next year’s state election there stands accused of peddling Nazi paraphernalia.

Undercover journalists for Stern magazine and ARD public television said they were both sold outlawed swastika medals and Nazi concentration camp money by Rudolf Müller in his antique shop.

The trade in Nazi paraphernalia is illegal in Germany, a law Mr Müller claimed he was not aware of. Confronted with the sales, he acknowledged it was “not behaviour befitting” someone seeking public office.

These controversies follow a stand-off over anti-Semitic remarks by an AfD deputy in the western state of Baden-Württemberg that split the parliamentary party there.

AfD officials insist they do not tolerate pro-Nazi or anti-Semitic views in their party. But the serial controversies have not had any noticeable effect yet on political support. Now sitting in 10 of Germany’s 16 state parliaments, continuing fears over the migration crisis have seen it bounce in national opinion polls to about 14 per cent.

‘Credibility problem’

Alice Weidel, a senior AfD member, said extremist figures had no place in the party.

“They damage the party and weaken us against our opponents,” she said. “If we tolerate such thinking we would have a real credibility problem, and everything built up with great effort would be torn in a short time by such people.”

For Dr Sahra Wagenknecht, co-leader of the Left Party in the Bundestag, the AfD embraces such problematic candidates “to appeal to the corresponding [political] spectrum”.