Andre Poggenburg quits the AfD
January 11, 2019
Andre Poggenburg, a member of Saxony-Anhalt's parliament and formerly the party's top politician in the eastern state, has announced he will leave the far-right Alternative for Germany party.
Senior AfD politician Kay Gottschalk told German news agency dpa on Thursday night that Poggenburg had declared his resignation.
Last March, Poggenburg resigned from his leadership role in Saxony-Anhalt after a series of controversies regarding speeches, online comments and leaked WhatsApp messages.
The former party leader for the state told German daily Die Welt on Friday that he and other disenchanted AfD members had founded a new party called "Aufbruch deutscher Patrioten — Mitteldeutschland" (Uprising of German Patriots — Central Germany).
Poggenburg's differences with the AfD party leadership in Berlin had "ultimately taken on an insurmountable scale, leading me to decide that I had to continue my political struggle for this country outside the AfD," Poggenburg told Die Welt.
law/msh (AFP, dpa)