The right-wing populist and Eurosceptic (meaning they doubt the whole European Union thing) political party Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland, or AfD), on Monday expelled one of its ranking members from the state of Thuringia, Hёke Bjorn, who called the Berlin Holocaust Memorial “monument of shame,” expelled from the party.
The leader of the AfD, Frauke Petry, told TASS the decision was made on February 13 at a conference call of the party presidium members.
“The Bureau decided to expel Bjorn Hёke,” Petry said, adding that “his statement of January 17 was beyond what’s acceptable for a parliamentary party.” She stressed that “the majority of the party supports this decision.”
This was the second attempt to get rid of Hёke, after an earlier vote on January 23 resulted in a decision to limit his punishment to disciplinary action. But Petry, who originally wanted his expulsion, pushed for and got her decisive vote.
On January 17, speaking at a meeting with supporters of the party in Dresden, Hёke said that the Germans were “the only nation in the world who planted a monument of shame in the heart of its own capital,” and complained that the monument harms the national morale, infusing Germans with “the spirit of defeated people.”
Hёke also accused German Chancellor Angela Merkel of damaging the education of the younger generation, who, in his opinion, are not brought up as patriots. Predictably, his remarks provoked rage and protests in Germany, to the point where he became a liability for his own party.
According to recent surveys, AfD could receive as much as 12% of the German national vote, which is not bad at all for a party that was founded in 2013. AfD is truly a product of the refugee crisis in Germany. It does not yet have any seats in the Bundestag, but it has already captured seats in ten of the sixteen German states, and seven seats in the European Parliament.
National parliamentary elections in Germany are scheduled for September 2017.