{"id":44257,"date":"2026-06-27T00:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T00:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/44257\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T00:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T00:22:09","slug":"member-of-germanys-far-right-afd-appears-to-make-hitler-salute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/44257\/","title":{"rendered":"Member of Germany’s far-right AfD appears to make ‘Hitler salute’"},"content":{"rendered":"

A photo surfaced of a leader in Germany\u2019s far-right party appearing to display a Nazi<\/a> salute, drawing scrutiny as the party seems poised to grasp unprecedented power in upcoming elections.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Martin Reichardt, a federal lawmaker and member of the Alternative for Germany party, raised his left arm as another man knelt on one knee before him in a photo from 2020. Politico\u2019s Inside AfD<\/a> podcast published the photo on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Two people who were at the gathering said the gesture was intended as a Nazi salute, according to Politico. The attendees also said the kneeling man, Markus Motschmann, was presenting Reichardt with an application to join the AfD and called him \u201cMein F\u00fchrer.\u201d Motschmann has denied using those words.<\/p>\n

Reichardt told Politico that his gesture \u201cwasn\u2019t a Hitler<\/a> salute,\u201d but instead part of \u201ca humorous knighting ceremony.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reichardt did not respond to a request for comment from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn AfD supporter takes part at a May Day AfD family fest on May 1, 2026 in Schonebeck, Germany. (credit: Jens Schlueter\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Along with serving in Germany\u2019s parliament, Reichardt chairs the state branch of the AfD in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. The AfD is forecast to surge in this eastern state, near Berlin<\/a>, in September\u2019s regional elections. Polls say the party could win an outright majority in Saxony-Anhalt, establishing Germany\u2019s first far-right state government since World War II.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The AfD in Saxony-Anhalt has presented an agenda that includes either deporting refugees or moving them into \u201cgroup homes,\u201d defunding public broadcasters who are deemed unpatriotic, banning gay pride flags in schools, and overhauling German life toward large families and social conservatism.<\/p>\n

AfD defended by Trump administration<\/p>\n

The party\u2019s rise to power would puncture the \u201cfirewall\u201d that Germany\u2019s mainstream parties have sought to maintain against the far right. It would also give a boost to US President Donald Trump, whose administration has staunchly defended the AfD.<\/p>\n

Reichardt was among 20 members of the AfD who traveled to New York City in December for the New York Young Republican Club\u2019s annual gala, which also featured antisemitic conspiracy theorists and the editor of a white supremacist website.<\/p>\n

Sven Schulze, the Minister-President of Saxony-Anhalt and a member of the Christian Democratic Union, a conservative party, decried the photo.<\/p>\n

‘Not a slip-up’<\/p>\n

\u201cA Hitler salute is a declaration of belief, not a slip-up,\u201d Schulze said in a statement. \u201cAnyone who displays such a thing has no place in a parliament. And anyone who downplays it, remains silent, or sits it out is clearly complicit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schulze also called on Ulrich Siegmund, the AfD\u2019s candidate to become the next Minister-President of Saxony-Anhalt, to expel Reichardt from the party.<\/p>\n

The AfD\u2019s Saxony-Anhalt branch defended Reichardt in a statement on X\/Twitter, calling the scrutiny a \u201ccheap attempt to spin a scandal out of nothing.\u201d The party echoed Reichardt\u2019s claim that he was making a \u201chumorous knighting gesture\u201d that was \u201canything but a Hitler salute.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another AfD lawmaker, Matthias Moosdorf, currently faces a criminal charge for allegedly greeting another party member with the Nazi salute inside the Reichstag parliament building, which he denies.<\/p>\n

Public displays of Nazi symbols and gestures are illegal under German law. The practice in Nazi Germany was to salute with the right arm, but a Nazi salute with the left arm is equally punishable, according to a regional court ruling in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A photo surfaced of a leader in Germany\u2019s far-right party appearing to display a Nazi salute, drawing scrutiny…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4984,3647,5271,5562,1749,5,8642],"class_list":["post-44257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-germany","tag-adolf-hitler","tag-antisemitism","tag-antizionism","tag-diaspora","tag-far-right","tag-germany","tag-nazis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}