AfD parliamentary group deputy Haseloff criticizes Hape Kerkeling after a hearing on party ban proceedings

Thuringia's AfD parliamentary group deputy Daniel Haseloff criticized a statement by the entertainer Hape Kerkeling at a hearing on a possible party ban process. “Of course I feel a little sorry for Mr. Kerkeling’s story and I also understand his emotions,” said Haseloff in Erfurt. “But to associate this with us is of course a harsh accusation, a harsh attack.”

The 38-year-old described a sentence in Kerkeling's hearing as a "scandalous statement" with an allusion to a campaign slogan by AfD politician Ulrich Siegmund.

Kerkeling spoke on Wednesday in the Thuringian state parliament at a hearing on a possible AfD ban procedure. In the question part of his hearing, the comedian said: "People who come with the election slogan: 'Everything is possible' - with a car manufacturer I understand that. It's about increasing speed, more seats in the car. But a political party where everything is possible and which makes that their election slogan, for them Buchenwald is also possible under certain circumstances."

Kerkeling's grandfather Hermann was a carpenter from Recklinghausen and a Catholic communist. As a political prisoner in the Buchenwald concentration camp, he experienced forced labor and torture because he and a comrade in Herten distributed leaflets against Adolf Hitler just a few weeks after the Nazis came to power in March 1933. “He was a person who was simply unwilling to look away when darkness fell over Germany,” his grandson Hape said in April 2026 at a celebration to mark the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp.

The AfD became the strongest force in Saxony-Anhalt in the election and wants to form a government in Magdeburg. The AfD state association there and the Thuringian AfD with its state party and parliamentary group leader Björn Höcke are each classified and monitored by the state Office for the Protection of the Constitution as definitely right-wing extremist.