Revelations about the neo-Nazi tattoo and far-right links of a politician from Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats have thrown the future of the governing coalition in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt into doubt as a junior partner asked how much “space for swastikas” there is in the party.

Robert Möritz, a member of the CDU’s executive committee in the district of Anhalt-Bitterfeld, confirmed last Thursday that he was a member of Uniter, a private support network for active and former soldiers and security personnel, whose links to far-right “prepper” circles have become the subject of intense media scrutiny in recent months.

German group with far-right 'prepper' links trains civilians for combat Read more

On 6 December, Möritz, 29, brandished a flag with Uniter’s logo – consisting of a sword, a Christian cross and a wreath – while handing out donations to the homeless in Leipzig. However, on Sunday he announced that he had cancelled his membership of the network.

Möritz’s social media presence also showed that in 2011 he worked as a steward at a neo-Nazi march in Halle, the eastern city where a white supremacist gunman tried to attack a synagogue earlier this year, and a photo showed him brandishing a swastika-like “black sun” tattoo on his right elbow. The symbol has been adopted by neo-Nazis and occultists.

Robert Möritz showing a ‘black sun’ tattoo on his elbow. Photograph: Internet

The centre-left Social Democrats and the Green party, junior partners to the conservatives in the state government of Saxony-Anhalt since 2016, have openly expressed their concern over Möritz. SPD politician Burkhard Lischka told Der Spiegel the CDU had to make up its mind whether it wanted to continue a “coalition of reason” or make a hard turn to the right. “How much space for swastikas is there in the CDU?”, asked the Greens in a statement circulated over the weekend.

Sven Schulze, the CDU’s general secretary in the state, reacted with indignation, questioning the future of the coalition unless the Greens apologised. The party has so far declined to do so.

Robert Möritz Photograph: Twitter

The CDU has declined to expel Möritz. The chair of the district committee Möritz sits on said he had got his tattoo “because of his interest in Celtic mythology” and that he regretted his earlier dalliances with neo-Nazi circles.

A collapse of the governing coalition in Saxony-Anhalt would test the CDU’s cordon sanitaire towards the far right. The rightwing populist Alternative für Deutschland is the second-strongest force in the eastern state’s parliament, having gained 24.3% of the vote in the 2016 elections.

At last week’s party conference, Saxony-Anhalt’s CDU ruled out a formal coalition with the AfD until the next elections in 2021, but kept the door open to the possibility that the far-right could tolerate a conservative minority government.