Stephan Brandner, a lawyer and member of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, had served as head of the legal affairs committee in the Bundestag, Germany's lower house of parliament.

All parliamentary groups within the Bundestag, except his own party's, voted for Brandner's removal from the post. "The dismissal of Brandner is a clear signal against incitement and hatred — we are finally returning dignity to the office," said Jan-Marco Luczak, deputy parliamentary spokesperson for Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democrats (CDU). Johannes Fechner, a parliamentary legal expert for the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), said "Mr. Brandner was simply no longer acceptable."

In addition to numerous condemnations from politicians, professional groups, including the German Bar Association and DJB lawyers' association, had issued a statement that Brandner was "not able to meet the demands of his office" or to "always guarantee respect for people."

No such dismissal has happened in the Bundestag's 70-year history.

Watch video 02:46 Share AfD: A platform for grievances Send Facebook google+ Whatsapp Tumblr linkedin stumble Digg reddit Newsvine Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/3P9P4 AfD – a platform for grievances and fears

AfD's history of controversial statements

In early November, Brandner had been castigated and told to quit by politicians from across the spectrum for having tweeted that popular singer Udo Lindenberg, who had been awarded Germany's prestigious Federal Order of Merit, got a "Judas reward" for his outspoken stand "against us [the AfD]." The German equivalent, "Judaslohn," is used to mean a traitor's reward, like that paid to the figure of Judas for his betrayal of Jesus, as depicted in the Bible.

The far-right populists have often been criticized due to many of its top politicians' use of Nazi-era terms, such as "Volksverräter," or "traitor of the people," or for suggesting some groups of people should be "entsorgt," or "disposed of," a parallel to the Nazi mass murder of Jews, Poles, Roma, and many other groups during the Holocaust. Conservative politician Luczak had previously said that Brandner "toyed quite deliberately with anti-Semitic terminology."

Read more: 'You are a racist,' Germans tell AfD politician

AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks Alexander Gauland Co-chairman Alexander Gauland said the German national soccer team's defender Jerome Boateng might be appreciated for his performance on the pitch - but people would not want "someone like Boateng as a neighbor." He also argued Germany should close its borders and said of an image showing a drowned refugee child: "We can't be blackmailed by children's eyes."

AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks Alice Weidel Alice Weidel generally plays the role of "voice of reason" for the far-right populists, but she, too, is hardly immune to verbal miscues. Welt newspaper, for instance, published a 2013 memo allegedly from Weidel in which she called German politicians "pigs" and "puppets of the victorious powers in World War II. Weidel initially claimed the mail was fake, but now admits its authenticity.

AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks Frauke Petry German border police should shoot at refugees entering the country illegally, the former co-chair of the AfD told a regional newspaper in 2016. Officers must "use firearms if necessary" to "prevent illegal border crossings." Communist East German leader Erich Honecker was the last German politician who condoned shooting at the border.

AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks Björn Höcke The head of the AfD in the state of Thuringia made headlines for referring to Berlin's Holocaust memorial as a "monument of shame" and calling on the country to stop atoning for its Nazi past. The comments came just as Germany enters an important election year - leading AfD members moved to expel Höcke for his remarks.

AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks Beatrix von Storch Initially, the AfD campaigned against the euro and bailouts - but that quickly turned into anti-immigrant rhetoric. "People who won't accept STOP at our borders are attackers," the European lawmaker said. "And we have to defend ourselves against attackers."

AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks Marcus Pretzell Pretzell, former chairman of the AfD in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and husband to Frauke Petry, wrote "These are Merkel's dead," shortly after news broke of the deadly attack on the Berlin Christmas market in December 2016.

AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks Andre Wendt The member of parliament in Germany's eastern state of Saxony made waves in early 2016 with an inquiry into how far the state covers the cost of sterilizing unaccompanied refugee minors. Thousands of unaccompanied minors have sought asylum in Germany, according to the Federal Association for Unaccompanied Minor Refugees (BumF) — the vast majority of them young men.

AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks Andre Poggenburg Poggenburg, head of the AfD in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, has also raised eyebrows with extreme remarks. In February 2017, he urged other lawmakers in the state parliament to join measures against the extreme left-wing in order to "get rid of, once and for all, this rank growth on the German racial corpus" — the latter term clearly derived from Nazi terminology.

AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks Alexander Gauland - again ... During a campaign speech in Eichsfeld in August 2017, AfD election co-candidate Alexander Gauland said that Social Democrat parliamentarian Aydan Özoguz should be "disposed of" back to Anatolia. The German term, "entsorgen," raised obvious parallels to the imprisonment and killings of Jews and prisoners of war under the Nazis.

AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks ... and again Gauland was roundly criticized for a speech he made to the AfD's youth wing in June 2018. Acknowledging Germany's responsibility for the crimes of the Nazi era, he went on to say Germany had a "glorious history and one that lasted a lot longer than those damned 12 years. Hitler and the Nazis are just a speck of bird shit in over 1,000 years of successful German history."

AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks Andreas Kalbitz The Brandenburg state AfD chief admitted in 2019 to attending a 2007 rally in Greece by the ultranationalist Golden Dawn party at which a swastika flag was raised. "Der Spiegel" had published a leaked report by the German embassy in Athens naming him as one of "14 neo-Nazis" who arrived from Germany for the far-right rally. Kalbitz released a statement saying he took part out of "curiosity." Author: Dagmar Breitenbach



In October, following a right-wing extremist's failed attempt to carry out a massacre on a synagogue in eastern Germany, Brandner had also retweeted a post asking why politicians were "hanging around" mosques and synagogues with candles when the two people killed in the attack had been Germans. His "Judas" statement was then widely interpreted as being anti-Semitic, and was apparently the final straw for his fellow lawmakers.

After his ousting, Brandner cast himself as the victim. "Whatever we do, the other parties just want to kick the AfD in the shins." Party co-leader Alexander Gauland condemned the move and had no problem with Brandner's previous comments. "I don't know where the scandal is … This [dismissal] is an affront to democracy." Gauland himself has repeatedly come under fire for his own statements, including referring to Nazi Germany's mass murder of millions as "just a speck of bird shit in 1,000 years of successful German history."

Read more: Nazi 'bird shit' and the limits of free speech in Germany

Far-right gaining ground

The dismissal takes place amid growing concern about radicalism in the ranks of the AfD. Founded in 2013, the party swept into the Bundestag for the first time in 2017 following public anger over Merkel's previously open-door policy on refugees. It has steadily gained seats in several state parliaments across the country.

Their success coincides with rising xenophobia, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism in Germany. In a recent survey, 27% of German respondents agreed with a range of anti-Semitic statements and stereotypes about Jewish people, and over 800 religiously motivated attacks on Muslims were reported across the country last year.

The far-right populists are now the third-largest party in the Bundestag and gained record levels of support in three state elections this autumn. AfD politicians also sit atop the budgetary and tourism committees in the body.