After his controversial reaction to AfD statements about the Nazi era, the outgoing deputy head of the BSW parliamentary group, Christian Dorst, admitted his mistake. “Looking back, I would probably say today that it would have been better if I hadn’t posted that post,” Dorst said. So, from his point of view, there would be no “misuse” of his contribution. But initially he didn’t take anything back in terms of content. Dorst wants to remain in the group – but he has left open the possibility of leaving the party.
BSW state chair Friederike Benda, parliamentary group leader Niels-Olaf Lüders and parliamentary acting director Falk Peschel warned against relativizing the Holocaust, which they did not see in Dorst. “The industrial extermination of Europe’s Jews was an unprecedented crime against humanity. Anyone who today attempts to relativize, reinterpret or trivialize this historical fact will have no room for it here.” Dorst does not question the singularity of the Shoah. The claim that he relativized the Holocaust is false. He is more concerned with interpretation in reporting.
Wagenknecht reacted more sharply to the backlash against the AfD
However, they called the resignation as co-chair of the group logical and criticized Christian Dorst’s “increasingly prominent role as a commentator on social media as being in conflict with the responsibilities of co-chair of the group.”
Party leader Sahra Wagenknecht reacted more sharply: the statement was “completely inconsistent with the BSW position” and Dorst’s resignation was a step too late, she told Welt TV. According to Dorst, this made him think about leaving the party. “I just have to deal with it now.”
Dorst showed his understanding of the contribution of AfD politicians
On Friday, Dorst reacted with understanding to the statements of the AfD’s main candidate from Saxony-Anhalt, Ulrich Siegmund. Siegmund said in a podcast on the “Politico” portal when asked whether the Nazi era was “the worst of humanity”: “I don’t dare to judge that because I can’t accept humanity as a whole and of course I have to learn from all the crimes of humanity.”
Dorst wrote in Portal “However, you can evaluate it in very different ways.” True to the motto: “I know that I know nothing.” He resigned on Sunday night. Lüders currently does not want to refill the position of deputy head of the parliamentary group.
BSW MPs resign and rejoin
The BSW parliamentary group is in crisis after four MPs resigned from the party. One of them is back in: Reinhard Simon has withdrawn his resignation. “It’s like a marriage. You either separate permanently or get back together,” Simon said. The leader of the Benda country confirmed the termination of the exit. So far there has been no sign of rejoining other MPs Jouleen Gruhn, Melanie Matzies and André von Ossowski who have resigned. All four cited “authoritarian tendencies” at BSW as their reason for leaving.
This crisis shook the SPD/BSW coalition led by Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke (SPD), which was the only coalition in the country. However, the SPD in the state parliament does not see any imbalance: “The coalition presented a stable picture here last week,” Parliament Executive Director Ludwig Scheetz said ahead of the plenary session.
CDU parliamentary group leader Jan Redmann said the conflict in BSW was “completely unresolved”. AfD parliamentary group leader Hans-Christoph Berndt went even further: “This government no longer has a majority,” he said and called on Woidke to request a vote of confidence in the state parliament or end the coalition. Woidke previously referred to the coalition’s close cooperation on a range of issues and called for an end to the conflict.
© dpa-infocom, dpa:251125-930-337248/3
