Real estate purchases supported
Ex-CDU politician Kurth probably helped Identitarians with 240,000 euros
February 9, 2024, 4:39 p.m
According to research, the former Berlin Finance Senator Kurth comprehensively supports the right-wing extremist “Identitarian Movement”. He is providing the group with almost a quarter of a million euros. Among other things, it uses it to buy real estate in East Germany, but downplays its importance.
According to research by “Spiegel” and MDR, the former Berlin CDU finance senator Peter Kurth supported the right-wing extremist “Identitarian Movement” (IB) with significantly more money than previously known. Accordingly, he is said to have invested around 240,000 euros in an IB company network from 2019 to 2022. In security circles, the long-time CDU politician is seen as the group’s major financier. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies the IB as “certainly extremist”.
The funds are apparently related to real estate projects of the “Identitarian Movement” in Austria, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. According to research by “Spiegel” and MDR, Kurth is said to have transferred around 70,000 euros to a real estate company owned by IB Germany boss Philip Thaler on October 27, 2022, in addition to an already known transfer to the IB of 120,000 euros in 2019. The money is said to have been used to create a new meeting point for the “Identitarian Movement” in Chemnitz, which opened at the end of 2023.
On August 5, 2020, Kurth is also said to have transferred around 50,000 euros to an IB company that is dedicated to bringing right-wing extremist activists with supporters and has now rented a villa in Schkopau, Saxony-Anhalt. The IB boss is registered as living there, and another company run by Identitarians is also based there.
Housing project for management cadres
This right-wing extremist headquarters near Halle an der Saale was not publicly known until the research by “Spiegel” and MDR. The federal government classifies the property as a “communal housing project run by IB leadership cadres,” according to a recent statement to left-wing MP Martina Renner.
IB boss Thaler, however, said that the property in Schkopau was used by different people and companies. “Individual residents of the property were or are active in the identity movement, but this is in no way the case for others.” The property is “decidedly not an IB project” and has “no publicity claim whatsoever”. Kurth left inquiries about the financial transactions unanswered.