Pressure from France

AfD: appearance ban for its own lead candidate

The AfD imposes an appearance ban on its leading European candidate Maximilian Krah.(Bild: AFP)

A political bombshell on Wednesday morning in Germany: the right-wing populist AfD party has imposed a complete ban on its own EU lead candidate Maximilian Krah. This is the federal executive committee's response to the 47-year-old's countless scandals. 

The appearance ban for the controversial politician applies to all AfD election campaign events and other federal party events, a party spokesperson confirmed to the AFP news agency after a conference call of the Federal Executive Committee on Wednesday.

Krah resigns as a member of the federal executive committee
Krah himself declared on X that he would forego further election campaign appearances and resign as a member of the federal executive committee. "You can never fall lower than in God's hands. I take note of the fact that factual and differentiated statements by me are being misused as a pretext to harm our party. The last thing we need at the moment is a debate about me. The AfD must maintain its unity. For this reason, I will refrain from further election campaign appearances with immediate effect and resign as a member of the Federal Executive Committee."

Number 2 on the AfD list should also no longer appear
It is unclear how the AfD's European election campaign will continue. According to the party leadership, the number two on the European list, Petr Bystron, is also no longer to appear due to investigations by the public prosecutor's office.

Pressure from France as the main reason
The background to Krah's appearance ban is the announcement by the French Rassemblement National on Tuesday that it would be terminating its cooperation with the AfD in the EU Parliament.

The AfD imposes an appearance ban on its leading European candidate Maximilian Krah.(Bild: AFP)

AfD works together with Le Pen's party and the FPÖ in Brussels
The AfD leadership would like to continue its cooperation with the RN, according to party circles. In the EU Parliament, the AfD works together with Le Pen's party, the Italian Lega and the FPÖ in the ID (Identity and Democracy) group.

There have been disagreements between the AfD and the RN for some time. Following the revelations by the media outlet Correctiv about a meeting of right-wing extremists in Potsdam in January, Le Pen voiced clear criticism.

Marine Le Pen finds the AfD's policies too radical. Her party ends cooperation with the Germans.(Bild: APA/AFP/STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN)

Uproar after SS slogan
According to French media reports, it is about an interview Krah gave in the Italian newspaper "La Repubblica" at the weekend. In it, he claimed that not all members of the SS were criminals. "I will never say that everyone who wore an SS uniform was automatically a criminal," Krah told the newspaper.

When asked whether the SS were war criminals, he replied: "There was certainly a high percentage of criminals, but not all of them were criminals." The National Socialist SS guarded and administered the concentration camps, among other things, and was largely responsible for war crimes. At the Nuremberg trials after the end of the Second World War, it was declared a criminal organization.