Germany: Berlin Bank Cancels AfD Donations Account After Grannies’ Petition
Denes Albert, Remix, July 9, 2024
Berliner Volksbank has terminated the donation account previously held by the Alternative for Germany (AfD) federal party after pressure from a left-wing group.
The move was announced by “Omas gegen Rechts” (“Grannies against the right”), a campaign that had launched an online petition calling for the political party to be debanked, which received more than 33,500 signatures.
Official confirmations from the financial institution and the party are not yet available. However, the Volksbank account has disappeared from the AfD website. Donations are now only collected by direct debit or via Paypal, according to Welt newspaper.
According to German daily, the “Grannies against the Right” met with the CEO of Berliner Volksbank, Carsten Jung, last Wednesday. It is unclear why the bank’s chief executive met with the campaign group.
The official reason for the account termination as provided by the bank is that the AfD is “outside the constitutional order.”
Berliner Volksbank was heavily involved in the anti-right-wing protests at the beginning of the year.
The AfD came second in last month’s EU parliamentary elections and remains top of several statewide polls, particularly in Eastern federal states.
The move comes as other conservatives and right-wing politicians have faced debanking campaigns across the Western world. Remix News previously reported that Nigel Farage, the Reform UK MP and party leader, had his bank account shutdown due to his conservative views in 2023.
Writing for the Telegraph, Farge called the “Stasi-style surveillance report” shocking.
“Monthly press checks were made on me. My social media accounts were monitored. Anything considered ‘problematic’ was recorded. I was being watched,” he wrote.
German banks have also gotten more political, such as what many consider the most German of German banks, Sparkasse. The bank sparked controversy when certain employees proposed blocking donation transfers to the AfD in its campaign against the party.
