AfD politicians fail to distinguish their own leader’s comments from Hitler’s

MPs were asked which far-right leader the statements were from

A sticker reading 'No Nazis' on a campaign banner of the Alternative for Germany (EPA)

Politicians in Germany's far-right AfD have struggled to differentiate between statements made by one of their leaders and those of Adolf Hitler.

A series of AfD members of parliament were shown statements from a book written by Bjorn Hocke, boss of the party in the eastern state of Thuringia.

They were then asked whether the statements came from Mr Hocke's writings, or Adolf Hitler's notorious 1925 autobiography Mein Kampf.

None of the MPs filmed were keen to answer the question, which was put during interviews by broadcaster ZDF.

During the excruciating exchange, AfD MP Martin Reichardt said: “Well, I won't be able to answer the question because I didn't read Mein Kampf. And I don't know if that is from Mr Hocke either.”

Jens Maier, another MP, said: “If [I had to guess] then more from Mein Kampf, I would say, but not from Mr Hocke.”

When shown the video of his colleagues stumbling over the question, Mr Hocke terminated his own interview after an intervention by a press office.

The leader told broadcasters “that says above all that most people have not read my book at all”, adding that such comparisons were “absurd”.

Mr Hocke's writing makes liberal use of terms like “degenerate”, a concept that has a central role in Nazi race ideology. He has previously stoked controversy by questioning the place for Berlin's Holocaust memorial, describing it as a “monument of shame in the heart of the capital” in 2017.