Markus Frohnmaier

Markus Frohnmaier (born 1991, Romania), is a German politician of Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland, AfD). He is member of Deutscher Bundestag and was chairperson of the party's youth organisation "Young Alternative for Germany". He shares the right-wing extremist positions of the Flügel and is part of the nationalistic and pro-Russian movement of AfD.[1]

Markus Frohnmaier
Markus Frohnmaier, 2016
Member of the Bundestag
Assumed office
24 October 2017
Personal details
Born(1991-02-25)25 February 1991
NationalityGerman
Political partyAfD

Life

Frohnmaier was born 1991 in Craiova, Romania. He got adopted by a couple from Weil der Stadt-Schafhausen. He is studying law at Universität Tübingen. He is married to the Russian Journalist Daria Frohnmaier. She worked for Izvestia.[2]

Politics

Frohnmaier was member of Junge Union,the youth organisation of conservative CDU. Later he was chairman of Young Alternative for Germany, the youth organisation of AfD. Markus Frohnmaier was spokesman of former AfD chief Frauke Petry and since 2017 for German federal election front runner Alice Weidel.[3]

He got elected as a member of Bundestag for AfD Baden-Württemberg in 2017.

Russian connections

In his central capacity as the leader of Young Alternative, AfD-youth organizsation, Frohnmaier started to be in contact with Russian youth groups at the latest in 2016. He had met Robert Shlegel, Duma deputy as well as high-up functionary of United Russia, in order to "explore what form of cooperation could be possible" with United Russia’s youth organisation, the Young Guard (Molodaia Gvardiia). These discussions were continued in December 2016, when Frohnmaier met with the international secretary of the Young Guard, Daria Sharova, in Moscow.[4]

A document from the Russian mission in Germany indicated that Frohnmaier was supported by the Russian authorities and that they are quite positive about, if Frohnmaier got elected.[5] According to German media recherches, the decision to help Frohnmeier and in return receive favours from him came directly from the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.[6][7] Frohnmeier has denied the allegations, after the reports.[8] Politicians from the Christian Democratic party have called Frohnmaier to step down after reports indicated, that he was working under the influence of the Kremlin.

In March 2019, Frohnmaier became a member of the FSB Organizing Committee of the Yalta International Economic Forum (YIEF), an economic forum in the Crimea sponsored by the Russian Government.[9] Frohnmaier said in 2016 in an interview with public broadcaster NDR, that crimea belongs to Russia. As the reporter aksed again, he added "from an historic view."

Political positions

Tom Thieme analysed at bpb in 2019 if AfD is a far-right party and concluded that their "fundamental criticism of Germany's democratic system goes hand in hand with a decidedly ethnocentric anti-pluralism." He referred also to Marcus Frohnmaier, who said before he became a member of the Bundestag: "I say to this left terrorists ...: If we come, then it will be cleared up, then it will be mucked out, then politics will be done again for the people and only for the people - because we are the people, dear friends."[10][11]

In its 2019 report on the AfD, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution made the conclusion, that Frohnmaier legitimizes "attacks on the state monopoly on violence", that he has "connections to right-wing extremist publishers / publicists" and to the "Islamophobic German Defense League". Frohnmaier flatly defames refugees, for example as a "rag proletariat", and advocates massive unequal treatment and categorical suspicion of refugees, for example with the demand for a blanket "curfew" for all refugees under 50 and for religious discrimination against Muslims. Frohnmaier also calls for the Federal Constitutional Court to be replaced by partisan judges should the AfD take power. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution certifies that Frohnmaier's claims “violate the guarantee of human dignity of Art. 1 GG” and are therefore unconstitutional. The expert opinion led to the classification of the entire AfD as a test case and the classification of the "Young Alternative", whose chairman Frohmaier was for a long time, as a suspected case.[12]

References
  1. SPIEGEL, Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt, Martin Knobbe, Maik Baumgärtner, DER. "Markus Frohnmaier: Russland setzt auf jungen AfD-Politiker - DER SPIEGEL - Politik". www.spiegel.de (in German). Retrieved 2020-03-01.
  2. Anton Shekhovtsov (2018): Russian connections to the far right in europe. Neues Österreich.
  3. "Weidel macht Chef der AfD-Jugend zu ihrem Sprecher". www.tagesspiegel.de (in German). Retrieved 2020-03-01.
  4. “Russia Seeks to Influence European Politics Through Youth Wings of Far-Right and Far-Left Parties,” Bellingcat, April 27, 2017, https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2017/04/27/russia-seeks-influence-european-politics-working- youth-wings-far-right-far-left-parties/
  5. "Russisches Geheimpapier setzte auf AfD-Politiker". www.t-online.de (in German). Retrieved 2020-03-01.
  6. "German police raid 30 premises linked to far-right extremists". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 December 2019.
  7. "Dokument: Ryssland kan "kontrollera" AfD-politiker". Omni.se Omnipunktse AB. Retrieved 10 December 2019.
  8. "BBC confronts Frohnmeier with document". BBC News. Retrieved 2020-03-01.
  9. "AfD-Politiker in einem Gremium mit russischem Geheimdienst". www.t-online.de (in German). Retrieved 2020-03-01.
  10. Thieme, Tom. "Dialog oder Ausgrenzung – Ist die AfD eine rechtsextreme Partei? | bpb". bpb.de (in German). Retrieved 2020-03-01.
  11. "Markus Frohnmaier: Porträt eines Scharfmachers". Süddeutsche Zeitung. Retrieved 12 December 2019.
  12. netzpolitik.org: Verfassungsschutz-Gutachten zur AfD. 28. Januar 2019, abgerufen am 6. November 2019.
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