The leader of the AfD party, Weidel, separates from her spokesperson, who participated in the meeting with the neo-Nazis. Thousands of people attend a demonstration in Leipzig.

A glare against the far right: protests against the AfD on Monday night in Leipzig

SEDAN dpa/taz | The AfD is parting ways with an employee of party leader Alice Weidel after he participated in the well-known meeting of radical rightists in Potsdam. Roland Hartwig's employment contract as Weidel adviser “will be terminated by mutual agreement”, a party spokesman said after a meeting of the Federal Executive Committee on Monday afternoon in Berlin. This applies immediately. He didn't give any more reasons.

As a result of the investigation, member of the board of directors of the German Language Association (VDS), Silke Schröder, who, according to the investigation, also participated in November in the networking meeting of businessmen, neo-Nazis and members of the AfD.

Hartwig, a 69-year-old former member of the Bundestag, participated in the meeting in a villa in Potsdam, as confirmed by a party spokesperson after the corresponding investigation by the media company Correctiv became known. At the meeting, the former leader of the far-right Identitarian Movement in Austria, Martin Sellner, spoke about the deportation of millions of Germans of immigrant origin.

The leader of the AfD ethnic movement, Björn Höcke, had already announced violent deportations in his book in 2019 under the trivializing keyword “remigration.” In it he called for “a large-scale remigration project” with “well-tempered cruelty.”

Thousands of people attend protests in Leipzig

According to these previous AfD statements, Hartwig did not know before the meeting that Sellner would be present, despite announcing this in the invitation. The Identitarian Movement is on the AfD's list of incompatibilities, which excludes its membership.

Reports of the meeting sparked widespread outrage. On Monday night, several thousand people took to the streets of Leipzig to demonstrate against the AfD, the Union of Values ​​and right-wing extremism. Previously, thousands of people across the country demonstrated against the AfD at the weekend and also called for a ban on the far-right party.