Germany’s AfD bans top candidate from EU poll events over Nazi comments
Al Jazeera
Maximilian Krah recently said Nazi SS members ‘not all criminals’, prompting French far-right allies to shun party.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has banned Maximilian Krah, its leading candidate in European elections, from further campaign activities after his comments that members of the SS (Schutzstaffel), the paramilitary wing of the Nazi party, were “not all criminals”.
A party spokesman confirmed on Wednesday that the AfD’s federal steering committee had banned the politician from making public appearances before elections for the European Parliament, scheduled for June 6-9.
Krah had told Italian newspaper La Repubblica last weekend: “I will never say that everyone who wore an SS uniform was automatically a criminal.”
Posting on X on Wednesday, Krah said his statements were being “misused as a pretext to harm our party”, declaring that he would refrain from further election campaign appearances and would resign as a member of the party’s steering committee.
Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-right National Rally, said her party needed to make a “clean break” with the AfD, suggesting it had become too toxic an ally ahead of the elections.
