New Bundestag faction: The AfD argues about Matthias Helferich

He once described himself as the "friendly face of the NS", which is too extreme even for many in the AfD. Nevertheless, Matthias Helferich has now been accepted into the new parliamentary group in the Bundestag.

The leadership of the AfD parliamentary group and that of the North Rhine-Westphalia regional association are arguing about who is responsible for the fact that the extreme right-wing politician Matthias Helferich was admitted to the parliamentary group. The spokesperson for the party and parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel told the FAZ that the regional association had to do "its homework". "It cannot be that the parliamentary group leadership is now being blamed, even though it behaved completely correctly." He is referring to allegations from North Rhine-Westphalia that the parliamentary group leadership was warned about Helferich. Expulsion proceedings are underway against him.

The new parliamentary group met for the first time on Tuesday. Helferich was there, and since no motion calling for his exclusion was put on the agenda, he was accepted. The day before, he had also been accepted into the NRW regional group. The parliamentary group leadership said that with this - and with his good placement on the regional list - the regional party had in a sense pushed Helferich into the parliamentary group. It was an automatic process to then accept him.

The AfD in North Rhine-Westphalia argues that Weidel was against Helferich getting a promising place on the list, but then did nothing to prevent him from getting it. The fact that he was accepted into the regional group does not mean that everyone wanted him there, but only that they did not want to get ahead of the parliamentary group leadership. Because every member of the parliamentary group is automatically part of a regional group. There is no point in excluding someone from the regional group who then has to be accepted the next day.

“NRW does its homework”

The state chairman of the AfD in North Rhine-Westphalia , Martin Vincentz, rejects the accusation that sending Helferich to the Bundestag means that he does not have his state association under control. "NRW is doing its homework, as the ongoing party exclusion proceedings show," his spokesman told the FAZ. The admission of MPs into the parliamentary group is a matter for the parliamentary group. "The regional group is not decisive in this."

Vincentz is considered to be a bitter opponent of Helferich; however, he is not a member of the AfD parliamentary group, but rather the parliamentary group leader in the Düsseldorf state parliament. Helferich's supporters in the right-wing extremist front of the party disparagingly refer to him as "Meuthen 2.0", i.e. a newer version of the former party leader Jörg Meuthen , for whom the party had become too extremist. Vincentz is gathering a "LibKon" troop around him, i.e. liberal conservatives, said the new right-wing thinker Benedikt Kaiser last spring, when Helferich's possible expulsion from the AfD was already being discussed.

Helferich is controversial because many in the AfD find his statements on National Socialism, among other things, to be too far-reaching. Helferich once described himself as the "friendly face of the NS". The party exclusion proceedings are said to concern serious violations of the Basic Law and the party's basic program as well as statements on National Socialism.