Defense: Colonel Lucassen (AfD) retires early

The disputes over the AfD’s appropriate foreign policy course—which had recently come to the fore following the U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran—have claimed a prominent casualty within the party’s parliamentary group: Rüdiger Lucassen, the long-time defense policy spokesperson, resigned in mid-April. The former Bundeswehr colonel and the AfD’s most prominent defense policy expert thus preempted a motion to remove him from office from within his own ranks. Other members of the defense working group had accused him of leadership shortcomings.

In recent years, Lucassen had repeatedly made it clear that he supports Germany’s integration into the West and NATO. He criticized the pro-Russia stance of many of his AfD colleagues as well as the widespread rejection of conscription within the party’s eastern regional chapters. This had recently made him unpopular with both co-leader Tino Chrupalla and the Höcke faction. His successor is Jan Nolte, also a former Bundeswehr soldier.

‘Bullying squads’ at the state’s expense?

In the midst of the public mudslinging among AfD party members, Lucassen had pointed out in a tweet to his critic Torben Braga—one of Höcke’s closest allies in the Bundestag caucus—that anonymous accounts had also been “sent into battle” against him, “but we both know (in some cases very precisely) who is on the party payroll.” This prompted Justus Bender (FAZ) to inquire within the parliamentary group whether such targeted defamation—essentially “bullying at the state’s expense”—was taking place. Conclusion: it appears that what Lucassen says is true. “A list of anonymous accounts that have particularly strongly attacked defense policy expert Rüdiger Lucassen is circulating within the AfD parliamentary group,” Bender writes in his article.

Among others, Bender quotes former AfD influencer Erik Ahrens, who refers to a so-called “bullying squad.” “They bully AfD members they consider not radical enough,” he says; these are often young up-and-coming politicians, some of whom are staff members of lawmakers, for whom the trolling behavior and attacks on older officials also serve as a career strategy. “Once these up-and-coming politicians themselves reach positions of power, they can create new, untainted profiles under their real names.” An anonymous Member of the European Parliament: “They’re total desperados. They have nothing to lose. They’ll do any dirty work for a handful of dollars.”