AfD in the Bundestag: Hitler, hate and hooligans

In a leaked Facebook chat in 2021, Helferich described himself as "the friendly face of NS." NS stands for National Socialism — Nazism — in Germany, the far-right ideology of dictator Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, responsible for the murder of millions of people. The 36-year-old is one of the AfD's most radical members.

After Krah told an Italian newspaper that the murderous Nazi paramilitary organization SS during World War II was not all bad, even other far-right parties in Europe began to treat the EU parliamentarian as a pariah. The AfD then took him off campaign posters in 2024 — but then Alice Weidel welcomed him to the Bundestag with a hug.

Jan Wenzel Schmidt posed confidently for the AfD party youth making the white power salute of white supremacists. As a member of the Bundestag, he has employed a neo-Nazi and an avowed fascist as his office worker. AfD members in his home state of Saxony accused him of lying and blackmail. He sidestepped a motion to vote him out of office by moving to the national level in the Bundestag.

Stefan Protschka was a member of the officially disbanded far-right extremist AfD branch "Der Flügel" and part of a Facebook group called "The Patriots" which shared comments and images ridiculing victims of the Holocaust. One was that of a picture of a pizza box printed with a photo of Anne Frank, who was murdered in a concentration camp. It was captioned: "Die Ofenfrische" (fresh from the oven).

The 31-year-old was previously a member of the neo-Nazi group "Junge Nationaldemokraten" ("Young National Democrats"). The organization is so far to the right that it was blacklisted by the AfD itself. Seifert has now won the former constituency of former Chancellor Angela Merkel and entered the Bundestag.

Münzenmaier is considered to be one of the AfD masterminds in parliament, believed to be responsible for securing the power base of Alice Weidel. He was sentenced to a €10,000 ($10,500) fine in 2018 and a six-month suspended sentence for aiding and abetting serious bodily harm in connection with a brutal assault carried out by soccer hooligans.