AfD is said to have been more involved in Potsdam meetings than is known

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Poster against right-wing extremism at a demonstration in Hamburg: event co-financed

Photo: Morris Mac Matzen / AFP

Several AfD politicians and an official associated with the party were present at the meeting of right-wing networkers in Potsdam last November - that's what was known so far after the revelations about the group. Now new research by the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” as well as by WDR and NDR suggests that the commitment from the ranks of the AfD at the Potsdam meeting may have been greater than previously known.

According to the “Süddeutscher Zeitung”, one participant was Arne Friedrich Mörig, son of the organizer Gernot Mörig. The son gave a lecture in Potsdam about the idea of ​​a right-wing influencer agency. The 31-year-old Mörig is said to have been in an employment relationship with the party executive since the end of 2022 and was paid directly from party leader Alice Weidel's budget - like Weidel's speaker Roland Hartwig, he is said to have been fired after the Potsdam meeting became known .

Mörig junior also presented ideas for right-wing influencers to the AfD's federal executive board - probably in the hope of receiving funding from the party.

Donations via the AfD politician

According to the report, donations for the “Düsseldorf Forum”, which invited people to the Potsdam meeting, apparently went directly through the private account of the AfD politician Thomas Grebien. Grebien is Gernot Mörig's brother-in-law. Grebien is active in the AfD district association in Plön, Schleswig-Holstein.

At the confidential meeting in a Potsdam country hotel, officials from the AfD and CDU, together with entrepreneurs and right-wing extremists, discussed, among other things, the so-called “remigration”. In right-wing extremist circles, this refers to plans to expel people with a migration history or take them out of the country, even if they have a German passport. At the Potsdam meeting, a “master plan” was said to have been discussed in the event that the AfD would one day have more power in the country. One of the speakers was Martin Sellner, the best-known head of the right-wing extremist “Identitarian Movement” (IB).

It was previously known that the parliamentary group leader from Saxony-Anhalt, Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD member of the Bundestag Gerrit Huy and the Potsdam AfD deputy Tim Krause took part for the AfD. Also Ulrich Vosgerau, who likes to represent the AfD in court and works at the AfD-affiliated Desiderius Erasmus Foundation.

Another well-known official is Roland Hartwig. He was head of the AfD's Office for the Protection of the Constitution for a long time, sat for the party in the Bundestag and was most recently personal advisor to AfD leader Alice Weidel. After his participation in the Potsdam meeting became known, he had to resign from his post at Weidel. At the same time, the AfD leader tried to downplay the party's ties to the meeting and described Hartwig's participation as "private."

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