A regional lawmaker for Germany's right-wing populist AfD party was forced out Wednesday over anti-Semitic comments that have deepened a leadership rift and sent support for the party sliding.
Wolfgang Gedeon sparked an uproar after he labelled Holocaust deniers "dissidents" in his pamphlet "Green Communism and the Dictatorship of Minorities".
In the text, Gedeon also criticised the fact that one of Germany's biggest memorials, in Berlin, is dedicated not to the nation's heroes, but to victims of the Holocaust, which he referred to as "certain misdeeds".
The comments had prompted the AfD's co-chief and head of the party in western Baden-Wuerttemberg state, Joerg Meuthen, to demand Gedeon's resignation.
When the author of the incendiary text refused, Meuthen tried but failed to win a two-thirds majority among his chapter's 23 lawmakers to force him out.
In protest, Meuthen and a dozen of his backers last week declared they would step down from the AfD state assembly group, saying they did not want to be in the same party as an anti-Semite.
Gedeon finally offered to resign after Frauke Petry, the AfD's co-chief, held a closed-door meeting with him.
On Wednesday, Meuthen took the lead in launching expulsion proceedings against Gedeon.
For Meuthen, it was key for the AfD to clearly disassociate itself from the far-right given Germany's Nazi past.
But the case had sharply eroded support for the party.
According to a survey published Wednesday by Stern magazine and RTL, support for AfD had fallen to eight percent, one point down from a week ago and the lowest score so far this year.
Other surveys also point to a drop in backing to below the 10-percent mark, off the peak of 15 percent recorded in March, when the party scored close to 25 percent in a regional election in eastern Germany.
A regional lawmaker for Germany’s right-wing populist AfD party was forced out Wednesday over anti-Semitic comments that have deepened a leadership rift and sent support for the party sliding.
Wolfgang Gedeon sparked an uproar after he labelled Holocaust deniers “dissidents” in his pamphlet “Green Communism and the Dictatorship of Minorities”.
In the text, Gedeon also criticised the fact that one of Germany’s biggest memorials, in Berlin, is dedicated not to the nation’s heroes, but to victims of the Holocaust, which he referred to as “certain misdeeds”.
The comments had prompted the AfD’s co-chief and head of the party in western Baden-Wuerttemberg state, Joerg Meuthen, to demand Gedeon’s resignation.
When the author of the incendiary text refused, Meuthen tried but failed to win a two-thirds majority among his chapter’s 23 lawmakers to force him out.
In protest, Meuthen and a dozen of his backers last week declared they would step down from the AfD state assembly group, saying they did not want to be in the same party as an anti-Semite.
Gedeon finally offered to resign after Frauke Petry, the AfD’s co-chief, held a closed-door meeting with him.
On Wednesday, Meuthen took the lead in launching expulsion proceedings against Gedeon.
For Meuthen, it was key for the AfD to clearly disassociate itself from the far-right given Germany’s Nazi past.
But the case had sharply eroded support for the party.
According to a survey published Wednesday by Stern magazine and RTL, support for AfD had fallen to eight percent, one point down from a week ago and the lowest score so far this year.
Other surveys also point to a drop in backing to below the 10-percent mark, off the peak of 15 percent recorded in March, when the party scored close to 25 percent in a regional election in eastern Germany.
