Secret plan against Germany
Nobody should know about this meeting: high-ranking AfD politicians, neo-Nazis and financially strong entrepreneurs met in a hotel near Potsdam in November. They planned nothing less than the expulsion of millions of people from Germany. January 10, 2024
Two dozen people gradually enter the brightly lit dining room of a country hotel near Potsdam. Some are members of the AfD, and a leading figure in the Identitarian Movement is there. Some are fraternity members, middle class and middle class people, lawyers, politicians, entrepreneurs, doctors. Two CDU members are also there, members of the Union of Values.
A detailed portrait of the co-operator of the hotel has just been published in Die Zeit, which describes her proximity to right-wing circles.
Two men invited to the appointment. One is in his late 60s and has been in the right-wing extremist scene almost his entire life: Gernot Mörig, a former dentist from Düsseldorf. The other is called Hans-Christian Limmer, a well-known investor in the catering sector. Limmer made the back discount chain Backwerk big, and today he is a partner in the burger chain “Hans im Glück” and in the food supplier “Pottsalat”. Unlike Mörig, Limmer is not present; he remains the rich man in the background. When CORRECTIV asked him about this before this text was published, he replied: He distanced himself from the content of the meeting and “didn’t play any role” in the planning.
It is the morning of November 25th, just before nine o'clock, a cloudy Saturday. Snow collects on the parked cars in the yard. What happens that day in the Adlon country house seems like a chamber play - but it is reality. This shows what can happen when right-wing extremist idea providers, representatives of the AfD and financially strong supporters of the right-wing scene mix. Their most important goal: People should be able to be expelled from Germany based on racist criteria - regardless of whether they have a German passport or not.
The meeting should remain secret. Communication between organizers and guests should only take place via letters. However, copies of it were leaked CORRECTIVELY. And we took pictures. In front and behind the house. We were also able to film covertly in the house. A reporter was on site undercover with a camera and checked into the hotel under a different name. He followed the meeting closely and was able to observe who arrived and attended the meeting. In addition, Greenpeace researched the meeting and provided CORRECTIV with photos and copies of documents. Our reporters spoke to several AfD members; Sources confirmed the participants' statements to CORRECTIV.
So we were able to reconstruct the meeting exactly.
It is much more than just a meeting of right-wing ideologues, some of whom have a lot of money. Among the participants are people with influence within the AfD. One of them will play a key role in this story. He boasts that he will be speaking for the AfD's federal party executive committee that day. He is Alice Weidel's personal advisor.
About ten months before the state elections in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg, this meeting shows that racist attitudes extend to the federal level of the party. And it shouldn't just stop at attitude; Some of the politicians also want to act accordingly - although the AfD claims that it is not a right-wing extremist party.
This is legally sensitive for the AfD with regard to the debate about a possible ban procedure. At the same time, it is a foretaste of what could happen if the AfD comes to power in Germany.
What is being drafted there this weekend is nothing less than an attack on the Constitution of the Federal Republic.
The Conspirators
AfD
Roland Hartwig, right-hand man of party leader Alice Weidel
Gerrit Huy, member of the Bundestag
Ulrich Siegmund, parliamentary group leader for Saxony-Anhalt
Tim Krause, deputy chairman of the Potsdam district
THE MÖRIG CLAN
Gernot Mörig, a retired dentist from Düsseldorf
Arne Friedrich Mörig, son of Gernot Mörig
Astrid Mörig, wife of Gernot Mörig
NEON-NAZIS
Martin Sellner, a right-wing extremist activist from Austria
Mario Müller, a convicted violent criminal
A young “identitarian”
HOST
Wilhelm Wilderink
Mathilda Martina Huss
ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS
Simone Baum, Union of Values NRW, Board of Directors
Michaela Schneider, Values Union of North Rhine-Westphalia, deputy board member
Silke Schröder, German Language Association, board member
Ulrich Vosgerau, former board member of Desiderius
has. It was he who wrote about the “master plan” in his letter and asked for donations from those invited. He says that guests can “discreetly” hand over cash donations and conference contributions to his wife on site. He later says: The money he collects will be used to support smaller organizations, such as Martin Sellner.
This means: Everyone in the room who paid money as agreed is financing the Identitarian Movement and also Sellner himself. That's what Mörig says. But he wants more.
It shows a list of supporters who supposedly want to pay money or have already paid; also those who are not there: Christian Goldschagg, founder of the fitness chain Fit-Plus and former partner of Süddeutscher Verlag. He later wrote to CORRECTIV that he had “not transferred any amount for this event or the project you described” and had nothing to do with the AfD. Also: Klaus Nordmann, a medium-sized businessman from North Rhine-Westphalia and major AfD donor. In response to questions from the editorial team, he then wrote that he had not donated 5,000 euros and did not feel compelled to do so.
Mörig names more names. Alexander von Bismarck, descendant of the former Reich Chancellor, is sitting in the room.
Mörig, the former “federal leader”, is very open about names. He brags about who has already transferred a “high four-digit sum as a donation” or is still going to do so. So far the donations have been made through the private account of his brother-in-law, a banker. He now asked him to think of something else.
He says that some people in this area would be more comfortable handing an envelope over to his wife. Apparently he wants to organize the donations even more professionally and announces that “next time they will probably have an unregistered association” through which transfers can be made. Act 3, Scene 2: An AfD politician advertises for a direct donation of millions
The AfD politician Ulrich Siegmund, parliamentary group leader from Saxony-Anhalt, also apparently needs money. Siegmund openly solicits donations at the meeting: He is already thinking about the elections and the election advertising that he would like to send out, preferably directly into the mailboxes.
Siegmund says he would like everyone to be written to at least once. Classic radio and television advertising is needed. But he also wants more: he needs 1.37 million euros – “in addition to what is provided by the party”. This could also represent an attempt to funnel money directly to him bypassing the party coffers - as a direct donation this would not necessarily be illegal.
Party donations are “of course by far the cleanest thing,” says Siegmund. “Nevertheless,” there are “absolutely legal ways to make donations.” He makes a suggestion to go through “agencies” and “personnel stories.” His request: to discuss something like this in a one-on-one conversation “in order to find the best path individually.” Act 3, Scene 3: Alice Weidel's right hand
The fact that parts of the AfD are closely networked with neo-Nazis and the New Right is nothing new. So far, however, the party has blamed the problem on individual local or state associations.
A representative of the highest level of the party is also present at the secret meeting in the hotel: Roland Hartwig, former AfD MP and personal assistant to AfD leader Alice Weidel - and, according to several AfD insiders in the Bundestag, a kind of "unofficial general secretary of the party Political party". Someone who has influence in the background on the highest decision-making levels of the party.
In front of the guests, Hartwig confessed to being a fan of the new-right activist Sellner, whose book he was reading “with great pleasure.” He also refers to the “master plan” previously discussed and referred to by Mörig. Hartwig then goes on to say that the AfD is currently planning a model lawsuit against public broadcasting and a campaign that will show how luxuriously equipped the stations are.
The project that Mörig's son presented at the meeting should also be seen in the context of Sellner's lecture: Arne Friedrich Mörig wants to set up an agency for right-wing influencers. Hartwig holds out the prospect that the AfD could co-finance the agency. According to Hartwig, the goal is to influence the elections, especially among young people: “The generation that has to turn the tide is there.” This plan aims to have young people on platforms like TikTok or YouTube with the content are played that are intended to be perceived as normal political theses.
The next step in this project, says Hartwig, will now be to present the project to the federal executive board and convince the party that it will also benefit from it.
Hartwig says a crucial sentence: “The new federal executive board, which has now been in office for a year and a half, is open to this question. So we are ready to put our money where our mouth is and Them
to carry out activities that do not directly benefit only the party.”
One gets the impression that Hartwig, Alice Weidel's right-hand man, is acting as an intermediary to the AfD's federal executive committee - in order to convey the plans of this meeting to the party. Hartwig did not respond to our questions later asked about the meeting by press time. epilogue
The evening after, everything is quiet. The hotel looks deserted. Only a slight flickering of the television comes from the junior suite.
What remains are:
A right-wing extremist dentist who exposed his conspiratorial network; a meeting of radical right-wing extremists with representatives of the federal AfD; a “master plan” to expel German citizens based on their “ethnicity”; i.e. a plan to undermine Articles 3, 6 and 21 of the Basic Law. The disclosure of several potential right-wing extremist donors from the upper middle class; a constitutional lawyer who describes legal methods to systematically cast doubt on democratic elections; a state parliamentary group leader of the AfD who wants to organize election donations bypassing the party; and a hotel owner who was able to make some money to cover his costs.