Members of Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) are trying to ban an exposé book written by a former member.
Franziska Schreiber joined the AfD in 2013 and rose to work as assistant to a former leader before leaving last year as it entered the Bundestag as largest opposition party.
"The AfD is regressive . . . reactionary, and a considerable part of the membership is extremely nationalistic," writes Ms Schreiber in Inside AfD, warning that the more moderate liberal wing in the party is weakening by the day.
She joined the AfD when it was an anti-bailout party and stayed on even after it began to morph into an anti-immigrant force headed by leaders with a talent for provocative, racist remarks.
In the book, the author claims former leader Frauke Petry, for whom she worked, held several meetings with Hans-Georg Maassen, head of the domestic intelligence agency, the BfV. At the meetings the two reportedly discussed how AfD politicians could avoid BfV investigation and surveillance.
The two allegedly discussed ousting AfD politician Björn Höcke, who mocked the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin as a “monument of shame”.
Ms Petry, an independent Bundestag MP after she was toppled as AfD leader, described the remarks as “made up” while the BfV said its chief never spoke to politicians about internal party issues.
Joseph Goebbels
In another section, Ms Schreiber suggested Mr Höcke and allies studied speeches of the Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels to find the formula “that lead to success in the 1930s”.
Mr Höcke is considering an injunction against the book over the passage, while a close ally already filed a claim to ban sales of the book. Right-wing publicist Götz Kubitschek accused the author of “being one of those people who thinks one can throw dirt at Höcke and me easily”.
"Perhaps she should have checked the dirt first," he tells Der Spiegel's Saturday edition.
A spokesperson for the book’s publisher said it backed its author and had another witness for the Goebbels claim.
In her book, Ms Schreiber describes the AfD rank-and-file as a “bubble of negative feelings . . . such as fears of an economic collapse or civil war . . . or fear of foreigners who happily live off others or take one’s job”.
“The binding elements in the AfD are defiance and fury, even hate for those who think differently, which can escalate to violence and murder fantasies,” she warns. “Quite a lot of people in the AfD can hardly wait for a terror attack, saying ‘Things have to go bang, then people will see we are right.’”
‘Traitors and enemies’
Other long-time AfD watchers agree the party, hoping to enter two final state parliaments in the autumn, is becoming radicalised. One of the party’s rising stars, Lars Steinke, is the latest to attract controversy for describing those who plotted to kill Hitler in 1944 as “traitors and enemies of the German people”.
Mr Steinke, head of the AfD youth wing, made the remarks in a closed Facebook group.
Dresden-based political scientist Werner Patzelt said the party was undergoing a “radicalisation from below”, where provocative statements by leaders attract even more radical members and squeeze out more moderate voices.
Ms Schreiber says the most dangerous figure in the AfD is its Bundestag co-leader, Alexander Gauland. The 77 year old is a regular source of provocative remarks, describing the Nazi era in June as a “a speck of bird shit in over 1,000 years of successful German history”.
“Gauland is the most dangerous,” writes Ms Schreiber, “because he has this talent, due to his age, of saying what he wants and making it sound pleasant.”
