America News Agency

Maximilian Krah resigned from AfD’s federal executive board last June after telling an Italian newspaper that "not all members of Adolf Hitler’s SS were automatically criminals".

Matthias Helferich was elected to the German parliament in 2021 but resigned after leaked online messages revealed him calling himself "the friendly face of the Nazis". He later claimed he was merely mocking left-wing activists.

Krah’s resignation followed pressure from other far-right parties such as Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France, Italy’s Lega party, and the Danish People’s Party.

At the first meeting on Tuesday, it was decided that the two lawmakers would no longer be excluded from AfD’s parliamentary group.

After AfD, which is anti-Islam and anti-immigration, more than doubled its voter support to over 20%, securing 152 seats and becoming the second-largest group in the German parliament, Krah and Helferich were jubilant.

The reinstatement of Krah and Helferich reignited calls for banning AfD, a topic last debated in parliament at the end of January.

Carmen Wegge, from the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), said that despite the slim chances of success, she would continue her cross-party campaign, which had gained the support of more than 100 MPs.

Speaking to "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung", she stated, "AfD poses the greatest threat to our democracy".

"This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that AfD’s parliamentary group, after having previously classified itself as far-right, has now reinstated Helferich and accepted Krah. They are deliberately putting their most extreme faces front and center," she added.

Helferich welcomed his inclusion in the parliamentary group and stated that he would now carry out "patriotic-parliamentary work" for AfD in the Bundestag. As a member of the parliamentary cultural committee, he hopes to "counter the left-wing cultural struggle with right-wing cultural policies".