The Alternative for Germany party’s group in Berlin’s city parliament Landtag has announced that they have cut ties with their lawmaker Jessica Biessmann following the uproar surrounding her photos with wine bottles labelled with portraits of Adolf Hitler. With this step, the party has lost one vote in the city assembly, as it now has only 22 lawmakers there.
The compromising photos started circulating online in October. They showed the lawmaker lying on a bar counter with several bottles, which had Adolf Hitler’s portrait on them, in the background. The AfD regional branch set the process in motion to expel the woman from the party shortly after the images emerged. Party leader Georg Pazderski described the questionable images as unacceptable.
Warum liegt man auf dem Küchentisch, lässt sich fotografieren und hat im Hintergrund noch Hitler-Wein stehen? Ich verstehe es nicht 🤷♂️ @politikundliebe hat die #AfD-Politikerin Jessica Bießmann aus #Berlin so auf alten Fotos auf MySpace entdeckt. pic.twitter.com/00TgTyyExz
— Jan-Henrik Wiebe (@jan_wiebe) 13 октября 2018 г.
Biessmann is said to have posted the portrait, which triggered the uproar, on her social media about 10 years ago, but this year a Twitter user flagged them. The lawmaker voiced her regret that such pictures exist. The politician argued that she'd stopped there with one of her friends and failed to notice the Nazi-themed wine bottles.
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The German media suggest that wine bottles with Hitler’s portraits and Nazi chants used to be sold in Italy without any restrictions. In Germany, which is quite sensitive about its past, the distribution of such goods is outlawed, as well as any kind of Nazi propaganda and the spreading of symbols associated with the Third Reich.
