Friday 10th December 2021
MAD doubts compliance with the constitution
AfD sends extremists to the defense committee
The AfD MP Hannes Gnauck is said to have contacts with right-wing extremist groups and is classified as a “recognized extremist” by the military intelligence service. Of all people, the AfD sends him to the Defense Committee of the Bundestag. There he has access to sensitive information.
The AfD sends a soldier who has been classified as an extremist by the Military Counter-Intelligence Service (MAD) and is elected to the Bundestag to the Defense Committee. The parliamentary group named Hannes Gnauck as one of four AfD members in the body, as participants in a parliamentary group meeting confirmed. The committee is responsible for the parliamentary control of the defense ministry and the armed forces and is involved in some secret meetings. On request, Gnauck said in July that he would take legal action against the classification by the MAD.
According to media reports, military intelligence had questioned the 30-year-old’s loyalty to the constitution. The background is therefore connections between the former Bundeswehr soldier and organizations that are monitored by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the area of right-wing extremism. According to earlier reports, Gnauck was, among other things, ambassador for the youth organization Junge Alternative in Brandenburg, which is classified as a suspected right-wing extremist case by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
The MAD informed the news portal “Pioneer” on request that it would not be able to comment on the case due to personal rights. Gnauck had moved into the new Bundestag via the AfD state list of Brandenburg. When asked by the medium, he did not comment on the extent to which his MAD recording could be reconciled with the service in parliament or the defense committee.
According to the report, Gnauck had already been noticed internally in 2019, initially as a suspected case. At the beginning of July, MAD classified Gnauck as a “recognized extremist”. He had served as a personnel sergeant in the Bundeswehr. There, however, he was recently banned from duty for months on account of suspicion. Because of his election to the Bundestag, he was subsequently released from the Bundeswehr.