Hate groupsBundestag rejects AfD recruit on suspicion of terrorism

Published 19 April 2018

The staff of the German Bundestag have denied an entry card to a German soldier recruited by an opposition far-right parliamentarian. The soldier was suspected of being a member of a right-wing, nationalist network within the German military plotting to kill politicians supporting liberal immigration policies – and then blame Muslim immigrants for the killings.

The staff of the German Bundestag have denied an entry card to a German soldier recruited by an opposition far-right parliamentarian. The soldier was suspected of being a member of a right-wing, nationalist network within the German military plotting to kill politicians supporting liberal immigration policies – and then blame Muslim immigrants for the killings.

Die Zeit reports that the Bundestag staff rejected an application by “Maximilian T.” for an ID card which would have allowed him to enter the Bundestag complex. Maximilian T. is a soldier in the Franco-German brigade who was investigated last year as part of the investigation into the terrorist actions plotted by “Franco A.,” a German officer charged last year with being involved in a  plot to kill political figures and then blame Muslim refugees for the killing (see “Increasing number of far-right extremism cases in German military,” HSNW, 12 April 2018; “Germany failing to use language and dialect recognition tech to ID asylum-seekers, extremists: Critics,” HSNW, 31 May 2017; and “Reforms in German army after neo-Nazi terror plot discovered,” HSNW, 11 May 2017).

Germany’ press code requires that the last names of suspects not be disclosed.

Jan Nolte, one of 92 deputies from the populist, far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) – which enjoyed Russia’s covert and covert support in Germany’s last-September election — requested an entry card for his “personal assistant.”

Bundestag staff, conducting a routine background check, found a warning from the German internal intelligence service not to issue him the special clearance needed to access to parliamentary buildings. Such access privileges are given to parliamentary assistants, journalists, and lobbyists.

Nolte, who represents the AfD in the Bundestag’s Defense Committee, told Die Zeit he employed Maximilian T. part-time, for about seven hours per week. Nolte denied his assistant had anything to do with the Franco A. plot.

I’m convinced that he is innocent,” Nolte said, adding that he knew T. as a “level-headed young person.”

Die Zeitquoted a spokeswoman for the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Karlsruhe as saying that the investigation of Maximilian T. was continuing.

The French AFP news agency quoted a German army spokesman as saying T. was still serving with the brigade, and had sought a permit for secondary work.

Die Zeit noted that it was unusual for a Bundestag entry permit to be denied to an assistant to an elected member of the body.

One famous instance of such denial involved Christian Klar, who had served jail time for terrorist acts committed while he was a member of the Red Army Faction (aka Baader-Meinhof gang). A Bundestag member from the Left party asked for Klar to be given a permit to enter the Bundestag so he could serve as the delegate’s political assistant, but the Bundestag rejected the request.

The decision on granting or rejecting entry permits is made by the Bundestag speaker, a position currently held by Wolfgang Schäuble, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party.

A detailed report – titled “Der braune Schwamm” (the brown sponge) — published this week the left-leaning Berlin-based daily Tageszeitung (taz) estimates that 23 of the 300 staff members working for 92 AfD Bundestag members had “links to extreme right-wing parties, think tanks, media, fraternities or other organizations.”

The report says: “[Far-right] groups and networks now have their own representatives in the Bundestag…. The AfD workers are not only paid out of public revenues but also have access to sensitive information, such as confidential intelligence service findings.”

Since last September’s electoral success of the AfD, Taz has been tracking the party and those who work for it in a series of blog posts under the title “Rechercheprojekt Netzwerk AfD.”

Die Zeitnotes that such information includes documents from Germany’s domestic intelligence agency on left- and right-wing extremism.