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Roland Hartwig has lost his job. For two years, the lawyer has headed an internal AfD working group that deals with the handling of possible surveillance by constitutional protection. Hartwig had long been controversial in the camp of party leader Jörg Meuthen. The federal executive board has now formally separated as well: shortly before Christmas, the 66-year-old was deprived of task force leadership.
Hartwig, who was once the senior adviser to the Bayer Group, joined the AfD in 2013. For a long time he was considered a moderate representative in the party. In the power struggles of recent months, however, he sided with those who considered the cancellation of the party membership of former Brandenburg AfD parliamentary and state leader Andreas Kalbitz a mistake.
In May, the right-wing Kalbitz had lost his membership at Meuthen’s urging by a brief decision by the federal executive committee. Hartwig was supposed to argue against immediate enforcement of the decision from a legal point of view at the request of co-parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel. But that did not happen in the end.
Kalbitz was accused, among other things, of having concealed a previous membership in the neo-Nazi HDJ when he joined the AfD; he himself denies such membership. He wants to get his party membership back in court. He is currently an unaffiliated member of the Brandenburg AfD parliamentary group.
In the legal dispute on the side of Kalbitz
In June, Hartwig also took a public position on the internal dispute. In an interview with ZDF, he claimed that Kalbitz “was not a right-wing extremist”, and that the accusation made by the majority in the federal board that he was a member of the HDJ “was in no way proven.”
Already in late June there was speculation about a federal board meeting in Suhl about Hartwig’s replacement as head of the internal constitution protection working group. At that time he was heard by the committee due to his earlier statements about ZDF.
At this point, Hartwig had already switched from North Rhine-Westphalia to the Brandenburg state association, as he confirmed to SPIEGEL at the end of June: for “private reasons”, he had meanwhile moved his main residence from North Rhine-Westphalia to Potsdam and was a member of the AfD in Brandenburg. Internally, there is speculation in the party that Hartwig wants to enter the Bundestag in 2021 through the state list there. He has not yet publicly committed to this.
On Monday, after his replacement as head of the Constitutional Protection working group, Hartwig tweeted: “After my criticism of his course, I was expelled from the party working group ‘Constitutional Protection’ after two years of intense activity at the behest of Meuthen by a majority decision of the federal executive “.
Meuthen-Lager is confirmed
In the match, Hartwig received support after his replacement, including from Roman Reusch. The lawyer and AfD member of the Bundestag, himself a member of the AfD internal working group on the protection of the constitution, called the decision “incomprehensible, why the existence of irrational and irrelevant reasons should be assumed.” The working group was also not given the opportunity to comment in advance. For this reason, it is no longer possible “to continue to rely on cooperation with the majority of the federal executive board that is responsible for this decision,” according to a letter from Reusch, which SPIEGEL has received. Therefore, he leaves the working group.
AfD MP and Bundestag Member Stephan Brandner made a similar statement. It is incomprehensible that “an impeccable, excellently qualified and very successful personality” like Hartwig “is shot by the majority of Meuthen.”
“Needlessly, the working group for the protection of the constitution was smashed today, and Roland Hartwig, a prudent and intelligent leader, was thrown ice cream,” criticized party vice president Alice Weidel, who had not participated in the conference call. . Weidel, who is also co-chair of the parliamentary group, said: “Roman Reusch will also be absent.”
The Meuthen camp, however, is confirmed by Hartwig’s expulsion in his course since the party congress in Kalkar. North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament member Christian Loose tweeted that Hartwig had worked for the protection of the constitution through his “indirect acts” and not for the AfD. Through your “constant defense of the extremist people of the AfD, you brought the AfD into the hands” of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
