War in Ukraine: The AfD argues about their Russia

The consequences of the corona pandemic have already divided the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag into several camps - this was most recently evident from the fact that the vaccinated MPs could sit in the plenary hall, while those who had only been tested had to sit up in the spectator stands and those who did not provide any information about their status, and were ultimately no longer admitted to the meeting.

Johannes Leithauser

Political correspondent in Berlin.

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Now the Russian war in Ukraine is again leading to a deep division: MPs accuse each other of supporting Russian President Putin or condemning him, calls for order are being made and disapprovals are being expressed.

But now the parliamentary group leadership is determined to turn the crisis into an opportunity.

At the most recent parliamentary group meeting, the two parliamentary group leaders, Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, told MPs that they should rein in emotions and stop fighting each other as Putin understanders and Ukraine supporters.

The split will harm the entire party, the warning read.

It was followed by the suggestion to introduce a catalog of sanctions in the parliamentary group in order to increase the opinion discipline of the parliamentary group members.

Russian propaganda picked up

Attempts of this kind to achieve a programmatically more or less uniform appearance by the AfD parliamentarians had failed miserably in the previous legislative period.

After the start of the Russian attack on Ukraine, however, well-known AfD members exposed and attacked each other so much that Weidel had new hopes that the need for disciplining mechanisms would now be recognized.

The dispute between MPs Steffen Kotré and Norbert Kleinwaechter was particularly heated.

Kleinwächter is deputy leader of the parliamentary group and a member of the parliamentary delegation of the Council of Europe.

There, in mid-March, he had advocated and voted for the exclusion of Russia.

Kotré then demanded disciplinary measures against small guards with a dozen and a half other group members because his demand did not correspond to the group's position.

Kleinwächter, in turn, criticized a Bundestag speech by Kotré a week later, in which he took up Russian propaganda allegations that there were secret bioweapons laboratories in Ukraine, and also accused the West of being “complimentary” in the Russian attack.

That was "disgusting Putin propaganda," Kleinwächter wrote on the Twitter news service, and in turn demanded measures from the parliamentary group leadership against Kotré.

Last Monday, the parliamentary group leader of the AfD dealt with the camp dispute, on Tuesday it became the dominant topic of the parliamentary group meeting.

Chrupalla said in a conversation with Deutschlandfunk on Wednesday that both Kotré and Kleinwächter had been reprimanded for their behavior by the parliamentary group leadership.

The events will be discussed again at the next parliamentary group meeting.

While Kotré was reprimanded for the content of his speech, Kleinwächter's disapproval was for his public criticism.

Chrupalla and Weidel took the opportunity to promote their idea of ​​a "catalog of measures" through which sanctions could be imposed in the future if speakers do not follow the group line in their statements or if they publicly criticize one another without having first attempted internal clarifications .

There was also said to be no vehement opposition to the suggestion that future speeches on certain topics should be submitted and voted on in advance.

A first result of these disciplining efforts was already evident on Wednesday.

The human rights policy spokesman for the AfD, Jürgen Braun, was appointed as the speaker for the current hour on the war atrocities in the Ukrainian Bucha, and it was said that his speech should be checked beforehand.

Meanwhile, faction leader Chrupalla himself has been criticized for some statements about the war in Ukraine.

Chrupalla, who is also chairman of the AfD, is running for a new term as party leader in June.

At a party executive meeting almost two weeks ago, he was accused of making statements in a Bundestag speech in which he said that with regard to the Ukraine war, the AfD's goal should not be "to identify a culprit".

Chrupalla said on Deutschlandfunk on Wednesday that he had always described "Russia's war of aggression" as violating international law and had strongly condemned it.

But there are "several fathers" in this conflict, as in many wars.