dpa/taz | The head of the Identitarian Movement Germany, which is classified as right-wing extremist, Maximilian Märkl, has resigned from the AfD, according to the Bavarian AfD state chairman Stephan Protschka. “Mr. Märkl anticipated the expulsion from the party and has just sent me the termination of his AfD membership,” wrote Protschka in a message to media representatives on Thursday evening. “Membership in the Identitarian Movement and AfD do not mix,” emphasized Protschka. He will accept the resignation.
According to research by the Welt and the Augsburg General The head of the Identitarian Movement Germany was a member of the AfD. However, a so-called incompatibility list of the party actually excludes membership in the IB for AfD members.
“People who are members of an extremist organization cannot be a member of the party. Organizations that are listed in an incompatibility list approved by the federal executive board and sent to the branches are considered extremist,” says the AfD statutes. The IB is on this list.
According to reports, Märkl was previously a member of the Bavarian AfD. State chief Protschka had announced the day before that he had no proof that he was also active in a prominent position at the IB. Märkl did not declare the IB when he joined the AfD in December 2022. It is also not listed on the IB’s official website. However, a video can be seen there in which Märkl presents the goals of the movement. “Now we’re back again,” says the right-wing extremist in the official IB video.
Sellner on Märkl: Man who made the IB great again
Märkl himself announced his departure from the AfD on Platform X on Thursday evening. “My membership has never harmed the party, on the contrary,” he explained, but then added that he would “terminate his membership as of today.” “My focus is anyway on building the strongest right-wing youth movement,” Märkl continued.
Märkl recently took part in a highly regarded panel discussion in Vetschau (Spreewald). AfD member of the state parliament Lena Kotré also took partappeared alongside IB leading figure Martin Sellner. The Austrian introduced Märkl as “the man who made the IB great again” and Märkl described himself there in a speech as “federal spokesman for the Identitarian Movement”.
A response from Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) to a query is also published on the website of the Green parliamentary group in Bavaria. The Greens had asked for information about Märkl’s contacts with AfD politicians. In Herrmann’s answer, Märkl is described as “one of the federal spokesmen for the right-wing extremist Identitarian Movement (IB)”.
For the AfD, the connection to the IB represents a risk: it could risk being classified as definitely extremist at the federal level or it could still face scrutiny a party ban procedure get going. Also because the Federal Administrative Court recently made clear in a judgmentthat IB boss Sellner’s concept of “remigration” (i.e. the racist expulsion of supposedly “unassimilated” citizens with a migration background) is unconstitutional. Externally, the AfD is therefore trying to draw clear dividing lines from the IB.