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André Poggenburg (born 1975 in Weißenfels, Bezirk Halle, East Germany) is a German politician and former member of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. He was state chairman of the party in the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt and was leading candidate for the 2016 Saxony-Anhalt state elections. The AfD gained 24.2 percent of the votes and is now the second largest political force in Saxony-Anhalt.[1] After a 2017 leak of his WhatsApp chat, Poggenburg was found to be using the neo-Nazi slogan, "Germany for the Germans".[2] In 2018 he was forced to resign after referring to Germans of Turkish origin as "fatherless vermin" and "camel drivers", who should go back to their "mud huts" and "multiple wives".[2] In spite of this, he remained a member of the AfD federal board until January 2019.
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Biography
editPoggenburg described himself as a "national conservative".[3] He worked as a merchant and equipment manufacturer.[4] He led a company together with his stepfather and founded his own business organization for manufacturing machines in Stößen in 1996. He managed a repair company for car radiators, which moved to Gut Nöbeditz in 2008 and ceased operations on New Year's Eve 2015.[5] Poggenburg is unmarried.[4]
There were reports about financial problems of Poggenburg before the elections.[3][5] According to Poggenburg, these reports were "strongly exaggerated".[3]
He was highly criticised in the social and broadcast media for prematurely blaming Merkel's open refugee policy for the 2016 Munich shooting. The shooter's motive was ultimately ascertained as enacting revenge on his classmates for bullying.[citation needed]
Poggenburg resigned as regional party leader for AfD in 2018 after labeling Turks as "camel drivers" and immigrants with dual nationality a "homeless mob we no longer want to have."[6] He left the party in January 2019 to form his own far-right party, Aufbruch der deutschen Patrioten ("Awakening of German Patriots", AdP), but the party immediately came under criticism when it announced that it would use a logo which included a blue cornflower, a symbol associated with the anti-Semitic Schoenerer Movement which was also used by banned Austrian Nazis in the 1930s before the Anschluss in 1938 united Austria with Nazi Germany. Poggenburg has been criticized in the past for his use of vocabulary redolent of Nazi-era Germany.[7]
In August 2019 Poggenburg left his party creation AdP after he lost an infighting about the question of supporting the AfD in the upcoming state elections of fall 2019 in Saxony and Brandenburg.[8]
Poggenburg later endorsed the Freie Sachsen (Free Saxons) for the 2024 Saxony state election.[9]
References
edit- ^ Hochrechnungen: CDU in Sachsen-Anhalt vorne - AfD kommt auf 24 Prozent, Der Spiegel, in German
- ^ a b Bochum, Penny (2020). 'We are the people' : the rise of the AfD in Germany. London. ISBN 978-1-912208-93-7. OCLC 1148877384.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ a b c AfD-Wahlsieg als Weg aus dem privaten Finanzdesaster, Die Welt, in German
- ^ a b "Kandidatenvorstellung André Poggenburg" [André Poggenburg candidate profile] (PDF). Alternative for Germany (in German). Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 February 2016. Retrieved 18 March 2016.
- ^ a b Ein Rechtsausleger, Frankfurter Allgemeine, in German
- ^ Associated Press (January 10, 2019) "Once-prominent member leaves German far-right party" News1130
- ^ Le Blond, Josie (11 January 2019) "New far-right German party adopts former secret Nazi symbol "New far-right German party adopts former secret Nazi symbol" The Guardian
- ^ "Sensation: Poggenburg verlässt seine eigene Partei und ruft zur Wahl der AfD auf". 12 August 2019. Archived from the original on 12 August 2019. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
- ^ "André Poggenburg: "Mit Zweitstimme FREIE SACHSEN wählen!"". Freie Sachsen. 12 August 2024. Retrieved 2 September 2024.