'I was in Germany's AfD party - it's now home to racists belittling Nazi crimes'

The Right-wing Alternative for party is home to conspiracy theorists and racists who "belittle" the crimes of the Nazis, a former MEP who was briefly a member has claimed.

Hans-Olaf Henkel has also voiced his deep concern at US vice-president 's apparent suggestion that it was time to let the AfD into the fold - a move that would end the historic "firewall" that's been in place in Germany to keep the far-Right out of government.

He also spoke about the far-Right protests that .

Mr Henkel joined the AfD in 2014, the same year he was elected as a German MEP, serving one five-year term.

He claimed to the Express: "At that time it was a party solely concerned with maintaining a strict Euro policy. When killed the Maastricht Agreement to bail out Greece, a number of economists started the AfD, as an alternative to the laissez-faire Euro policy of Merkel, Sarkozy, Juncker and co.

"The party was first undermined by Right-wingers, supporters of conspiracy theories and racists and then taken over by them.

"When I left the party in summer of 2015 it fell below the 5% threshold in the polls and was about to disintegrate. When Merkel opened the border to virtually millions of refugees in September 2015, it was 'saved'. The rest is history."

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference last week, Mr Vance criticised European leaders for suppressing free speech and subsequently met with AfD leader Alice Weidel.

Mr Henkel said: "As far as Vice-President Vance's remarks in Munich are concerned, nothing demonstrates the current collapse of morale in the US better than the fact that key representatives of the US government today officially support Germany's Right-wing AfD, a party which belittles the crimes of Nazi Germany."

The AfD has long insisted that it is not a neo-Nazi organisation, despite accusations from political opponents and Germany's domestic intelligence service monitoring parts of the party for extremism.

Co-leader Ms Weidel has repeatedly tried to distance the AfD from the far-Right, arguing that it is a mainstream conservative movement focused on immigration, sovereignty and national identity.

On Saturday, Dresden, in the east of the country, witnessed significant upheaval as thousands gathered to protest a march by Neo-Nazi extremists - although there is no suggestion that the AfD was involved in organising the rally.

Far-Right group activists staged the event, attended by roughly 1,200 people, to coincide with the commemoration of Dresden's bombing during the World War 2, a date they have historically exploited to propagate their ideology.

The use of the air raids, which claimed the lives of an estimated 25,000 people between February 13 and 15, as a propaganda tool was nothing new, Mr Henkel stressed.

He explained: "Before the Right-wingers in Dresden occupied this crazy idea after the wall came down in Berlin, it was the communist regime in East Germany which started directing the anger about the destruction of Dresden away from the Nazis towards the Allied Forces in the 50s.

"While the bombing of German cities - even where only civilian targets were hit - was welcomed by the Soviets in World War Two, the East German communist dictators blamed the Anglo-American air forces.

"It was one of the more disgusting propaganda tricks by the East German Government during the Cold War. In a way, this historical lie still impacts the ideology of a minority of right-wingers who use the annual commemorations of Dresden's destruction to attack Americans and British."

The most visible symbol of the destruction in Dresden in February 1945 was the collapse of a church called the Frauenkirche, Mr Henkel continued.

He said: "After the wall came down, a number of German cultural, political and business leaders (I was one of them) got together aiming at the complete reconstruction of this wonderful church. It was reopened in 2005.

"Highly appreciated by the majority of the Dresden population was the support of British and American sponsors, especially representatives of the British Royal Family and - most remarkable - of Coventry, a British city which the German Air Force severely destroyed, well before American and British planes attacked German cities.

"As a child, I witnessed our family home going up in flames in Hamburg in July 1943, when American and British bombers attacked my city, causing as many civilian deaths as the atomic bomb caused in Nagasaki in August 1945.

"The vast majority in Germany today blames Hitler and Goering for these bombings and not the Allied Forces. The current protesters constitute an ill-informed, misled and ideologically extreme minority in Germany."

Nevertheless, Mr Henkel did admit to concerns about the so-called Bomber Harris strategy, intended to hasten the end of the war by devastating German cities through strategic bombing to weaken civilian morale and disrupt the enemy's war effort.

He said: "Yes, the Germans started all that. Yes, the Germans did not oppose Hitler as they should have. Yes, it was mostly not possible to distinguish between civilian and industrial or military targets.

"However, often knowingly, civilian targets were hit, like in Hamburg, where an entire workers' residential district was wiped out (as done by the Germans elsewhere before).

"In the case of Dresden, an old medieval town, overcrowded with refugees from the east and with little military relevance, was wiped out just a few weeks before the end of the war.

"No doubt, Hitler would have done that too, but Germany was not a democracy at that time, Britain was."

Recent polls position the AfD as the second most popular party ahead of the federal elections on February 23, 2025.

This surge has ignited widespread concern about the normalisation of extremist politics and rhetoric in Germany. Notably, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) faced backlash for collaborating with the AfD on a parliamentary resolution to tighten immigration policies, a move critics argue undermines democratic principles.

The Express has contacted the AfD for comment.