Germany's emboldened far right takes expanded role in new parliament
According to REUTERS, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) took up its largest-ever share of the seats as Germany's new parliament met for its first session on Tuesday, demanding commensurate influence in a Bundestag facing the biggest diplomatic and economic crisis in decades.
The AfD came second in the February 23 election, the best performance by a far-right party since World War Two, helped by years of economic underperformance and uncertainty caused by Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
Within minutes, the AfD group demanded that its former leader Alexander Gauland, the oldest member, should open the session as Father of the House, rather than Left party's Gregor Gysi, the longest-serving member. The rules were changed in 2017 specifically to stop an AfD member opening parliament.
"Your tricks won't prevent our rise," said AfD parliamentary leader Bernd Baumann.
Gysi, a criminal defence lawyer in East Germany who later headed the successor to the Communist Party, rebuked AfD politician Stephan Brandner for branding other parties' rejection of its motions "repulsive and contemptible".
The AfD group is not just twice as large as before, with 152 seats, but contains lawmakers who have expressed more extreme views.
Maximilian Krah, who joins from the European Parliament, caused French far-right leader Marine Le Pen to abandon the AfD after his failure to repudiate Adolf Hitler's murderous paramilitary SS in a newspaper interview.
Krah's rehabilitation - he was excluded from the party's benches in Brussels - underlines the party's growing self-confidence as it narrows the gap between it and the election-winning conservatives.
Mathias Helferich, an ally of Bjoern Hoecke, leader of the party's most radical wing, entered parliament in 2021 but was excluded from the party's benches after messages were leaked in which he described himself as "the friendly face of the Nazis" - though he later said this was meant as a joke. He has now been readmitted in full standing.
The one-time libertarian party of anti-euro economists has shifted far to the nativist right since its 2013 founding, opposing Muslim immigration, leaning towards Russia in the war against Ukraine and demanding the European Union's abolition.
Several new members have military backgrounds, many are close to Hoecke and one was previously in the banned far-right NPD party. Another is a secondary school history teacher.
