Thursday December 30th 2021
Posting investigation
AfD MP Huber also leaves the party
By Alexander Schultze
The Bavarian AfD member of the Bundestag Huber wants to leave his party and the parliamentary group at the end of the year. His reasoning is cryptic, but apparently an investigation against Huber based on a Telegram posting is the cause. It gives tips on how to fake a corona test.
Shortly after the Schleswig-Holstein AfD member of the Bundestag Uwe Witt announced his resignation from the party and the parliamentary group at the end of the year, another Bundestag member followed in Johannes Huber. However, the motive for the latter seems to be completely different from that of Witt, report the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” and other media unanimously.
Huber announced his withdrawal first in a member group of the Bavarian AfD. When asked by the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, he confirmed this decision. His explanation seems ominous, even many party colleagues find it difficult to interpret. Huber speaks of a “clear cut” that he wants to make. He is referring to his own posting on the messenger channel Telegram, in which he apparently gives instructions on how to get a positive corona test without actually being infected with the virus.
According to “Bayerischer Rundfunk” (BR), the background to this was the 3G rule at the workplace, which was introduced at the time. Huber admitted the authenticity of the posting to the BR, but argued that it was not meant seriously. No one in the group took this entry seriously, said Huber.
However, the responsible public prosecutor’s office is examining the allegations against him. Deceiving authorities in connection with corona tests is a criminal offense. A fine or a prison sentence of up to one year are possible in this case. The Ministry of Health therefore condemned Huber’s posting and spoke of the “irresponsibility” of an MP who incites people to commit crimes and induces them to obtain false test results.
Huber wanted to protect anti-measure protests
In addition, Huber writes in his statement that he is concerned with “protecting the free-democratic opposition movement and the peaceful strollers in Germany”. Numerous protesters who repeatedly take to the streets in German cities against the state Corona measures and a possible vaccination requirement call themselves “walkers”. In many cases, these protests were not registered and there were physical confrontations with police officers – counter-demonstrators and media representatives were also attacked. To what extent Huber wants to protect these demonstrators with his exit remains unclear.
The fact is that Huber is one of the assets of a Telegram group that has been voicing upheaval fantasies for a long time and talking about a civil war. In connection with the group, to which many party members, functionaries and sympathizers of the AfD belong, there were already house searches in the Bavarian town of Kulmbach shortly before Christmas. Numerous data carriers were confiscated and are now being analyzed.
According to the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, Huber himself repeatedly referred to himself as “Södolf” in his postings in the group, probably a mixture of the names of the Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder and Adolf Hitler. In addition, the ARD political magazine Kontraste found out that Huber expressed himself anti-Semitic in many postings. To this end, the team examined 4,000 Huber postings alone. He repeatedly used right-wing extremist code words like “NWO” (New World Order) or “Globalists” (synonym for an alleged Jewish world conspiracy) and etched against the Jewish billionaire Georg Soros and the Rothschild banking family, but also against national football players with a migration background.
Huber received massive criticism from his own party for wanting to keep his mandate. For example, party co-leader Tino Chrupalla wrote – addressed to Witt and Huber – he regretted the decision of the two members of the Bundestag, but urged them to return their mandates, which they “acquired through the party”. In this way, successors could fill them and the strength of the party’s faction in the Bundestag would be preserved. After the withdrawals, the AfD would only have 80 instead of 82 seats in the Bundestag.