Berlin, Düsseldorf. On July 10, 2017, Alice Weidel asked the treasurer of her Bodenseekreis district association to keep an eye on the account “twice a week”. “So we know how much we can spend.” The treasurer should confirm the receipts and their amount by email. “I have been notified of donations that I have to use to support my social media election campaign.”
Four days later, the AfD Bodenseekreis district association received the first payment from Switzerland. By September, the transfers totaled 132,005.52 euros. The money was transferred to a second party account for which Weidel had power of attorney.
When the donation became public in November 2018, Weidel explained that the money had come “uninvited.” The spokesman for their district association said: “We never used it.” Now internal emails and protocols reveal how Weidel managed the campaign funds and how the AfD dealt with the affair.
The documents come from the AfD leak, which contains more than 420,000 AfD emails. The party confirms a hacker attack on a service provider. It cannot be conclusively proven whether all documents are genuine. Some of the email traffic and account movements have already been documented in a court ruling. The AfD does not want to answer any questions about the documents.
The Bodenseekreis district association opened a second account on July 4, 2017 for the election campaign of the then AfD top candidate. Weidel and the district treasurer were authorized.
On July 6th, Weidel described the procedure in an email. Your communications consultant will “use the donations addressed to me on our KV account exclusively for Facebook” and will “write invoices” to the district association in the amount of the donations we receive. A member of the district executive committee ensured that the credit card and PIN number for the campaign account went to Weidel's Überlingen address.
On July 15, Weidel had an account details posted on the district association's website under the heading “Donations for Alice Weidel”. A week later, she applied by circular resolution, “in coordination with the Federal Treasurer”: “Ms Weidel receives free discretion over the earmarked federal election campaign donations received for her.”
By September 13th, 16 further payments followed from Switzerland, transferred by two companies based there. Purpose: “Election campaign donation Alice Weidel Social Media”. From August 23, the district treasurer transferred the funds to the second account.
On August 10, 2017, the district treasurer asked the state treasurer. "A benefactor from Switzerland supports Alice with several thousand CHF every week. What should I take into account? Do I have to report or disclose these amounts somewhere?"
The AfD state treasurer responded three days later. If the money goes through the district association's account, “they are completely normal donations”. If earmarked, it is important that it is “also used for Dr. Weidel’s election campaign”. He recommended a table, income versus expenses.
The bills came in the fall. A detective agency charged 595 euros for escort, Weidel's communications consultant charged 4,291.12 euros for Facebook advertising. A specialist in “communicative defense measures” demanded 6,439.09 euros. A law firm issued seven invoices for the Weidel mandate for a total of 10,614.79 euros, addressed to the federal association.
A year later, the research network made up of WDR, NDR and “Süddeutsche Zeitung” reported on the payments. On November 11, 2018, the article ran in the “Tagesschau”: an account for Weidel, transfers from Zurich, legal bills that were paid from it. Most of the repayment was seven months ago.
Weidel explained that she was informed by the district treasurer “on the sidelines of an election campaign event in September 2017” and that she “initially saw no need to take action in this matter.”
On November 12, 2018, the state executive board got together. The state treasurer said he had known about the payments since August 2017. “I was assured that a German was behind the donations.” He found out about the repayment in April: “From the Tagesschau yesterday!”
Three days after this meeting, the district treasurer forwarded the remaining 8,110.25 euros to the President of the Bundestag. She later explained that when she made the repayment in April, she overlooked the individual donation. This is what the court ruling states.
On November 16th, the Federal Executive Board in Magdeburg dealt with the affair. According to the minutes, the committee unanimously called on the regional association to clarify the matter - and "also to determine who made the matter public".
On November 22nd, the party's auditor wrote to the district association. He complained about violations of the offsetting ban, cash transactions that were "not properly recorded" and "a credit card account issued to 'Alice Weidel' that was not recorded separately." Weidel forwarded the letter to the federal association two days later.
Her application: The audit of her district association should be carried out “directly with the federal association,” not with the state association, “as long as the press leak in the state office has not been cleared up.” On November 26th, the Federal Executive Board agreed, with four abstentions. At the same meeting he appointed a commission to find the leak.
In December 2018, the party presented its presentation to the Bundestag administration. The district treasurer first had doubts about the admissibility of the payments on January 21, 2018, when Weidel asked whether she had to declare the donations as a member of parliament.
In May 2019, an affidavit from the state office incriminated the state treasurer. He spoke of an “infamous intrigue”. On June 3, the Federal Executive Board called for disciplinary action against him because of the “party-damaging press releases of internal documents.” The state treasurer resigned in fall 2019.
On November 19, 2020, the Bundestag administration imposed a penalty of around 396,000 euros due to the inadmissible acceptance of donations. The AfD sued and lost, most recently in March 2023 before the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court.
In May 2019, a report from a criminal law professor at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich dealt with the assumption of legal fees. His information, according to the AfD leak: The party could cover legal fees in criminal proceedings against board members “if the party has a significant interest” and “the accused are not guilty” “without making themselves liable to prosecution for breach of trust”.
On October 28, 2019, the Federal Executive Board in Berlin discussed such a cost assumption. Weidel requested that her party pay her lawyer Gerhard Strate's bill, 13,852.56 euros, which arose "as part of an investigation by the Konstanz public prosecutor's office against the member of the Federal Executive Board, Dr. Alice Weidel." The Konstanz public prosecutor's office discontinued the proceedings in September 2021 due to a lack of sufficient suspicion.
In Weidel's application and the decision, the costs were also described as “general advisory services for the party”. The board agreed to pay them from the party treasury. The invoice was dated March 18, 2019 and was not addressed to the party. It is to be paid “after the necessary change of the billing address to the AfD Federal Association”.
