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AfD member Doris von Sayn-Wittgenstein (2018 in Kiel): Can continue to stay in the party

Photo: Frank Molter/dpa

The AfD wanted to get rid of the former Schleswig-Holstein state chairwoman Doris von Sayn-Wittgenstein, but nothing came of it: the party's federal executive board had backed down in court in the legal dispute with Sayn-Wittgenstein because of the low chances of success.

The Berlin regional court had found a formal error in the exclusion procedure before the AfD Federal Arbitration Court, the next instance made it clear that there were no objections to this.

Are there efforts to make a new attempt at expelling the party?

Obviously not.

From leading circles in the party, SPIEGEL simply said that personnel “continues to be an issue in the federal executive board, no one is happy with the current status.”

When asked, a party spokesman did not want to provide any information about the chances of a new trial.

"We're not officially saying anything about it."

Five years ago, the AfD accused the now 69-year-old of being a supporting member of the right-wing extremist association “Gedächtnisstätte”.

The organization was founded by Holocaust denier Ursula Haverbeck and is classified as right-wing extremist by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

The AfD Federal Arbitration Court decided to exclude Sayn-Wittgenstein from the party - which the lawyer objected to.

The case ended up in the regular courts.

The Berlin Regional Court finally found in April 2021 that Sayn-Wittgenstein was still a member of the AfD.

The reason given was that Sayn-Wittgenstein was not granted a fair hearing in the Federal Arbitration Court's party exclusion proceedings.

The decision of the party judiciary should therefore not have been made in a written procedure.

The exclusion from the party was “not effective because the procedure prescribed by the statutes was not observed.”

The party appealed against the regional court's decision by appealing to the Chamber Court.

In mid-February, however, the Senate announced in a so-called advisory decision that the Senate intended to reject the appeal because it "obviously had no chance of success."

The decision of the Berlin Regional Court is not based on a violation of the law.

So what remains above all in the AfD: frustration.

The former Schleswig-Holstein AfD state chairman Jörg Nobis initiated the proceedings against Sayn-Wittgenstein in 2019.

He told SPIEGEL that Sayn-Wittgenstein's remaining in the AfD was "annoying and regrettable."

He fears that a new exclusion process "will not take place because of one and the same accusation against them, analogous to the principle in criminal proceedings that a person may not be punished twice for the same act."

Nobis was his party's top candidate in the state elections in Schleswig-Holstein in 2022, in which the AfD did not get back into the state parliament.

From northern to southern Germany

According to the federal party, Sayn-Wittgenstein is now a member of the AfD Rhine-Neckar district association in Baden-Württemberg.

Regarding her political home in the southwest, her party opponent Nobis explained whether she "can be politically successful there, if she even aspires to it, I doubt it - the regional association is considered a hot spot in the AfD."

During her active time, Sayn-Wittgenstein was a leading figure in the far right wing of the AfD.

She first became more widely known to the German public in December 2017, when she was surprisingly chosen by the then nationalist-ethnic "wing" movement around the Thuringian AfD leader Björn Höcke to enter the race against the candidate Georg Pazderski, who was considered to be moderate, at the federal party conference in Hanover was sent.

At that time she was defeated by just one vote.

According to a recent report in “Welt,” she has openly promoted neo-Nazis on her Telegram channel in recent months.