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Politics

Andre Poggenburg quits the AfD

January 11, 2019

German MP Andre Poggenburg is leaving the far-right Alternative for Germany party. The Saxony-Anhalt lawmaker says he is founding his own new party.

German politician Andre Poggenburg
Image: picture-alliance/dpa

Andre Poggenburg, a member of Saxony-Anhalt's parliament and formerly the party's top politician in the eastern state, has announced he will leave the far-right Alternative for Germany party.

Senior AfD politician Kay Gottschalk told German news agency dpa on Thursday night that Poggenburg had declared his resignation.

Last March, Poggenburg resigned from his leadership role in Saxony-Anhalt after a series of controversies regarding speeches, online comments and leaked WhatsApp messages. 

The former party leader for the state told German daily Die Welt on Friday that he and other disenchanted AfD members had founded a new party called "Aufbruch deutscher Patrioten — Mitteldeutschland" (Uprising of German Patriots — Central Germany).

Poggenburg's differences with the AfD party leadership in Berlin had "ultimately taken on an insurmountable scale, leading me to decide that I had to continue my political struggle for this country outside the AfD," Poggenburg told Die Welt.

law/msh (AFP, dpa)

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