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Two politicians for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) who were sidelined over remarks they made relating to the Nazis have been welcomed back into its parliamentary group after the party’s historic performance in the German general election.
Maximilian Krah resigned from the AfD’s federal executive board before the European elections last June after telling an Italian newspaper that not all members of Adolf Hitler’s SS had been “automatically criminals”.
Matthias Helferich was elected to the German parliament in 2021 but resigned his seat after prompting outrage by his declaration in a leaked internet chat that he was “the friendly face of the Nazis”. He insisted he had been simply “parodying” online leftwingers.
Krah’s resignation followed pressure by other far-right parties, including Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National, Italy’s Lega and the Danish People’s party.
The controversy sparked by his remarks – as well as by the arrest of one of his advisers on suspicion of spying for China – led to him being suspended from the European election campaign by the AfD leadership.
It also prompted the AfD’s expulsion from the now defunct Identity and Democracy group in the European parliament, with Le Pen saying it was necessary to create “a cordon sanitaire” between the AfD and other parties.
The AfD, working with far-right parties from seven other EU countries, founded a new parliamentary group, Europe of Sovereign Nations, in the European parliament.
At the time Krah said on X: “I recognise that truthful and nuanced statements made by me are being misused as a pretext to damage our party.”
Krah and Helferich are now part of the AfD’s newly elected parliamentary group after its inaugural meeting on Tuesday at which it was decided not to exclude the two MPs any longer.
The decision was announced on the sidelines of the gathering in the Bundestag. The new group also includes allies of Björn Höcke, the figurehead of the party’s most extreme flank, known as Der Flügel. The former history teacher has been convicted of using the banned Nazi slogan “Alles für Deutschland” (Everything for Germany) in campaign speeches.
After their admission, Krah and Helferich can only be removed from the group with a two-thirds majority.
Krah, who is popular with young male voters and won the most votes in his constituency in Saxony, is now poised to sit in parliament alongside co-leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla.
The two were jubilant after the anti-Islam, anti-immigration AfD more than doubled its voter support to more than 20% on Sunday, making it the second largest group in the German parliament, with 152 seats.
The reinstatement of Krah and Helferich led to renewed calls for an attempt to ban the AfD, which was last debated in parliament at the end of January.
Carmen Wegge, of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), said she would continue the cross-party campaign that has the support of more than 100 MPs, even though it is not thought to have much chance of succeeding.
“The AfD poses the greatest danger to our democracy,” she told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung newspaper.
“This is clearly shown by the fact that the AfD parliamentary group has now reinstated Mr Helferich (and admitted Krah), having considered him too far-right in their previous legislative state. They are consciously deciding to put their most openly rightwing extremist faces in the front row,” she added.
Helferich said he welcomed his inclusion in the parliamentary group and would now do “patriotic-parliamentary work” for the AfD in the Bundestag. As a member of the parliamentary cultural committee, he said he hoped to be able to “answer the left-wing cultural struggle with right-wing cultural policy”.
