Key facts
- Four former members of the banned neo-Nazi youth group Heimattreue Deutsche Jugend (HDJ) are influential figures around Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD's candidate for premier in Saxony-Anhalt.
- The HDJ was banned in 2009 for cultivating a 'neo-Nazi elite' and was upheld by Germany's Federal Administrative Court.
- Patrick Harr, an AfD spokesman and former HDJ member, is being considered for a chief of staff role in an AfD government.
- Laurens Nothdurft, an AfD general counsel and former HDJ deputy national leader, has risen within the party despite the ban.
- Siegmund has defended his associates, stating their pasts are irrelevant and they have spotless records.
Four former members of the banned neo-Nazi youth organization Heimattreue Deutsche Jugend (HDJ) now hold influential positions around Ulrich Siegmund, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party’s candidate for premier in Saxony-Anhalt. The HDJ, which was modeled in part on the Hitler Youth, was banned by the German government in 2009 for seeking to cultivate a 'neo-Nazi elite' steeped in National Socialist ideology. The ban was upheld by Germany's Federal Administrative Court in 2010, which noted the group's 'affinity with National Socialism' and 'militantly aggressive stance' towards the democratic order.
Two of these former HDJ members are close advisers to Siegmund, and two helped draft the AfD's election manifesto for Saxony-Anhalt. The manifesto includes controversial proposals, such as confining children of asylum-seekers and refugees to 'special classes' and stating that children with disabilities 'paralyze the progress of instruction.' It also describes Germany's reckoning with its Nazi past as the 'perpetuation of a neurosis.'
Patrick Harr, one of the former HDJ members, serves as the AfD’s spokesman in Saxony-Anhalt and is being considered for the head of the State Chancellery. He was elected to lead the HDJ’s 'procurement department' in 2002. Harr stated he left the group around 2003 and that his role involved rounding up tents and crockery for youth camps, adding, 'I am at peace with it.'
Another former HDJ member, Laurens Nothdurft, is the general counsel to the AfD caucus and a member of the state party’s arbitration court. He was elected the HDJ’s deputy national leader in 1999 and served until at least 2008. Nothdurft presented an honorific badge to a former Nazi-era League of German Girls officer, writing that the group's youth work remained 'committed to the same ideals' and that young people must 'occupy decisive positions in school, training, university and career.' Despite the AfD's rules barring former HDJ members, Nothdurft joined the party and has since been elected mayor of a district in Saxony-Anhalt.
Siegmund has defended his associates, telling WELT that they are 'outstanding people' with 'spotless records' and that he is not interested in their pasts from 20 or 25 years ago. He stated he would focus on 'entirely different problems in this country.'