Germany's newest parliamentary bloc comes under the banner of the far-right AfD, which has smashed taboos by staking a claim to national identity and challenging the culture of atonement over World War II and the Holocaust.
The AfD (Alternative for Germany) party is the first hard-right nationalist party to enter the Bundestag in large numbers in the post-World War II era, an epochal event that stunned most Germans.
Since the party's breakthrough in the September general election, the biographies of the often little-known newcomers have been closely scrutinised.
Among them are police officers, prosecutors and judges, academics and business leaders, soldiers and scientists, a one-time radio host, an undertaker and a former fighter-pilot.
A disproportionate number are from Germany's ex-communist and poorer east, where the AfD was the number one party for male voters and won outright in the state of Saxony.
The AfD rails against "traitor" Merkel as public enemy number one, for opening German borders to an "invasion" of more than one million migrants since 2015.
Some MPs have links to PEGIDA, short for Patriots Against the Islamisation of the Occident, a street movement that emerged in the Saxony state capital of Dresden.
Other lawmakers have reported links to shadowy fraternities, football hooligans, Russian ultra-nationalists and the nativist Identitarian Movement, which is being watched by the BfV domestic security service.
- 'Breivik acted out of desperation' -
The MPs include at least 13 with ultra-right views, 30 "nationalist-conservatives", and 18 comparative "moderates", according to a count by Die Zeit weekly, which said the allegiances of others were unclear.
Among them is Leif-Erik Holm, 47, a former radio host who has claimed Germany is being turned "into a caliphate".
Some members are veterans of the AfD's founding days in 2013, when it railed mainly against eurozone bailouts to crisis-hit Greece.
On the far right, certain party leaders have shocked by challenging Germany's unsparing reckoning with its past.
One is Alexander Gauland, 76, a defector from Merkel's conservative bloc, who has urged Germans to be proud of their veterans from two world wars.
And Jens Maier, a judge in Dresden, has drawn fire for voicing a degree of understanding for Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik, reportedly saying that he had acted "out of desperation" over multiculturalism when he killed 77 people in 2011.
Another has reportedly driven a car with "AH1818" on its number plates -- neo-Nazi code for Adolf Hitler's initials, followed by the number of those letters in the alphabet, listed twice -- the Tagesspiegel daily wrote.
Germany’s newest parliamentary bloc comes under the banner of the far-right AfD, which has smashed taboos by staking a claim to national identity and challenging the culture of atonement over World War II and the Holocaust.
The AfD (Alternative for Germany) party is the first hard-right nationalist party to enter the Bundestag in large numbers in the post-World War II era, an epochal event that stunned most Germans.
Since the party’s breakthrough in the September general election, the biographies of the often little-known newcomers have been closely scrutinised.
Among them are police officers, prosecutors and judges, academics and business leaders, soldiers and scientists, a one-time radio host, an undertaker and a former fighter-pilot.
A disproportionate number are from Germany’s ex-communist and poorer east, where the AfD was the number one party for male voters and won outright in the state of Saxony.
The AfD rails against “traitor” Merkel as public enemy number one, for opening German borders to an “invasion” of more than one million migrants since 2015.
Some MPs have links to PEGIDA, short for Patriots Against the Islamisation of the Occident, a street movement that emerged in the Saxony state capital of Dresden.
Other lawmakers have reported links to shadowy fraternities, football hooligans, Russian ultra-nationalists and the nativist Identitarian Movement, which is being watched by the BfV domestic security service.
– ‘Breivik acted out of desperation’ –
The MPs include at least 13 with ultra-right views, 30 “nationalist-conservatives”, and 18 comparative “moderates”, according to a count by Die Zeit weekly, which said the allegiances of others were unclear.
Among them is Leif-Erik Holm, 47, a former radio host who has claimed Germany is being turned “into a caliphate”.
Some members are veterans of the AfD’s founding days in 2013, when it railed mainly against eurozone bailouts to crisis-hit Greece.
On the far right, certain party leaders have shocked by challenging Germany’s unsparing reckoning with its past.
One is Alexander Gauland, 76, a defector from Merkel’s conservative bloc, who has urged Germans to be proud of their veterans from two world wars.
And Jens Maier, a judge in Dresden, has drawn fire for voicing a degree of understanding for Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik, reportedly saying that he had acted “out of desperation” over multiculturalism when he killed 77 people in 2011.
Another has reportedly driven a car with “AH1818” on its number plates — neo-Nazi code for Adolf Hitler’s initials, followed by the number of those letters in the alphabet, listed twice — the Tagesspiegel daily wrote.
