Comment by vrganj
9 hours ago
I'm from the country Sellner is from - the same country Hitler was from! - and he is indeed comic book villain levels of evil. For example, he was in contact with the Christchurch shooter before he committed his terrorist acts.
Just read his Wikipedia article [0] and you'll find out more about his character, like this gem:
> Sellner said that Jews were a problem in the 1920s and made references to the "Jewish question"
> Are there any credible sources for this independent of the correctiv article?
Correctiv is a non-profit investigative journalism outlet that managed to infiltrate this secretive far-right meeting. They are known to be gold-standard levels of credible and have won a ton of journalism prizes. It's not exactly yellow press.
Due to the very nature of it being a secretive meeting, their reporting is exclusive. Obviously the neonazis want to put on a nice face, so they didn't exactly invite Reuters to their lets-plot-deportations-of-foreign-born-citizens meeting.
To quote his ideological companion from across the pond, Nick Fuentes :
> This is why I tell people, hide your power level. OK? You're not hiding your power level if you're in a group chat with hundreds of people saying we're going to put people in gas chambers. OK, guys? [1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Sellner [1] https://www.mediamatters.org/white-nationalism/nick-fuentes-...
My intent wasn't to ask about that specific meeting but rather about the reported positions of the individuals involved. No matter how reputable I wouldn't want to take a single source as fact when the claim is that someone secretly holds reprehensible views in private that contradict what he says in public.
Setting aside the other attendees wikipedia more than covers sellner in that regard.
"Hiding your power levels" is a key strategy of the neofascist right. Make yourself look reasonable until you have enough power to do the despicable.
This explains why they are publicly denying what they are plotting in private.
Here's some choice quotes, translated to English.
"We must proceed completely peacefully and deliberately, adapt if necessary and butter up the opponent [literally: smear honey on their mouths], but when we are finally ready, we will put them all against the wall. (...) Dig a pit, all in and quicklime on top."
-- Holger Arppe, former AfD Vice Chair [0]
"The worse Germany is doing, the better it is for the AfD. [...] Therefore we have to consider a tactic between: How bad can things get for Germany? And: How much can we provoke? [...] Because then the AfD does better. We can always just shoot them all later. That's not an issue at all. Or gas them, or however you want. I don't care!"
-- Christian Lüth, AfD Press spokesman [1]
"It doesn't matter, nothing will change, even if we were to eat chalk [act harmless]. Even if we said: yes, we are separating from X, Y and Z now and acting moderate here."
-- Hans-Christoph Berndt, AfD Brandenburg senate leader [2]
[0] https://taz.de/Frueherer-AfD-Fraktionsvize-verurteilt/!56167... [1] https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/afd-sprecher-wollte-fluc... [2] https://mik.brandenburg.de/sixcms/media.php/9/Einstufungsver...
Based on the political extremes in the US I had figured AfD would have its share of somewhat unsavory characters but this is almost comical. Are you sure the germans haven't confused meeting minutes and disney scripts? (I say, but then look at who we managed to elect.)
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