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A controversial arrest in Germany

AfD politician Daniel Halemba stands in front of the courthouse at the Würzburg Regional Court. The public prosecutor's office is investigating Halemba and four other members of a student fraternity on suspicion of inciting the people.

AfD politician Daniel Halemba stands in front of the courthouse at the Würzburg Regional Court. The public prosecutor's office is investigating Halemba and four other members of a student fraternity on suspicion of inciting the people.

Heiko Becker/DPA via Reuters
Willis Sparks
By Willis SparksOctober 31, 2023
Willis Sparks
Willis Sparks is a senior editor for GZERO Daily. He is also a Director in the Global Macro practice at Eurasia Group, where he has worked since 2005. He has made speeches on international politics on every continent except Antarctica. Willis holds degrees from Brown University, the Juilliard School, Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, and the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris. He also holds an honorary degree from the Moscow Art Theatre School. A native of Macon, Georgia, Willis has worked as a stuntman at New York's Metropolitan Opera. As a child, he declined an opportunity to spend an afternoon riding the Great American Scream Machine, a rollercoaster, with Ronald McDonald, for money. He has never regretted that decision.
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The Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party has made news in recent years with the kind of taboo nationalist-xenophobic extreme rhetoric associated with the Nazis — and by performing surprisingly well in German elections. On Monday, police arrested Daniel Halemba, a 22-year-old AfD politician elected to Bavaria’s Parliament earlier this month, on charges of sedition and possessing banned Nazi symbols.

This drama began when police were called last week to a student fraternity house in Würzburg after neighbors heard a crowd inside chanting “Sieg Heil,” a well-known Nazi slogan. Inspection of the house reportedly produced a number of banned items. Halemba was arrested just hours before he would have gained immunity from prosecution by being sworn in to Bavaria’s Parliament.

The leader of the AfD, which finished third in the most recent Bavarian parliamentary elections, called the charges against Halemba politically motivated. We’ll be watching to see if the coming court case will have any impact on the party’s national standing, where it currently polls second only to the opposition CDU, with 21% support.

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