Frank Magnitz

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Frank Magnitz (2019)

Frank Rüdiger Heinrich Magnitz (born June 29, 1952 in Neuenkirchen , Grafschaft Diepholz district ) is a German politician of the Alternative for Germany party (AfD). From 2015 to September 2019 he was the spokesman for the state association of the AfD Bremen and has been a member of the Bremen citizenship since 2019 . He was the top candidate of the AfD Bremen for the state election on May 26, 2019 . He has been a member of the Bundestag since September 2017 . Magnitz is attributed to the völkisch - nationalist AfD current Der Flügel .

Life

Magnitz completed his school education in 1968 with the secondary school leaving certificate and then completed an apprenticeship as a banker . He then went on to study pedagogy on the second path . During his pedagogy studies, Magnitz was a member of the DKP for a few months in the early 1970s . From 1976 he worked in the public service at the social authority of the state of Bremen . He then studied law , but dropped out. At the end of the 1970s, Magnitz founded a company for construction elements in Bremen , which he relocated to Bremerhaven in 1988 and sold in 1999. He later worked as a consultant in the building materials industry and in the real estate sector.

Magnitz lives in Bremen-Nord . He is the father of six children; his wife has a Turkish family biography. Daughter Ann-Katrin Magnitz was co-opted into the state board of AfD Bremen in August 2018 . Before that, she was active in the Junge Alternative (JA) college groups. The AfD Bremen announced at the beginning of 2019 that Ann-Kathrin Magnitz was in 5th place on the list of candidates for the Bremen citizenship election 2019.

politics

Magnitz joined the newly founded AfD in May 2013. In the Bremen municipal elections in 2015 he was elected to the advisory board in Burglesum . At the state party conference of the AfD Bremen in June 2015, Magnitz was elected spokesman for the Bremen state association. After the election to the 19th Bundestag , he moved into the Bundestag in September 2017 with a compensation mandate for the AfD.

On October 25, 2018, an event organized by Magnitz took place in the House of Citizenship in Bremen, at which, among others, the cultural-political spokesman for the AfD parliamentary group Marc Jongen and the political scientist Benedikt Kaiser (from the new-right Institute for State Policy , which publishes the magazine Sezession , among others ) and Werner J. Patzelt performed. The event, which was accompanied by protests, aroused considerable criticism in regional politics and the public; thereafter the conditions of use for the House of Citizenship were tightened.

Magnitz is considered a supporter of Björn Höcke , with whom he appeared several times (including in 2016). He is attributed to the völkisch - nationalist AfD current Der Flügel um Höcke, which was classified as a suspected case of right-wing extremist activities by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution in January 2019 . In addition, Magnitz is said to have links to the Identitarian Movement , as he organized a demonstration against Angela Merkel together with activists of the Identitarian in 2017 . Magnitz described the actions of the identities, who have been under surveillance by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution since 2016, in an interview as "funny, intelligent and harmless". In his parliamentary office, which opened in Bremen- Walle in June 2018 , Magnitz employs two part-time employees, one of whom is a member of the Identitarian Movement, the other the state chairman of the Bremen Young Alternative, which is monitored by the Bremen Office for the Protection of the Constitution .

At the general meeting of the AfD Bremen on January 20, 2019, Magnitz prevailed against the journalist Hinrich Lührssen , who had only announced his candidacy shortly before, in the vote on the first place on the state list for the citizenship election in Bremen 2019 . Magnitz's opposing candidacy came as a surprise; just a few weeks earlier he had denied to the Bremen Weser courier that he was aiming for the top candidate for the state election. Lührssen, who has since left the AfD board in Bremen, commented on the election meeting, which was disguised as a “citizens' meeting” and took place without the press, with the words: “A democratic new beginning for AfD Bremen failed today.” Jürgen Theiner, journalist at Weser-Kurier , wrote about the events at the election party convention: "The former communist and today's right-wing populist Frank Magnitz has transformed the regional association of the alternative for Germany into a mixture of cadre party and family business."

At the beginning of September 2019, Magnitz left the AfD parliamentary group in the Bremen citizenship with two party colleagues . The background was a dispute with the previous AfD parliamentary group leader Thomas Jürgewitz . With the resignation of Magnitz and his two colleagues, the AfD MPs lost their parliamentary group status in the Bremen citizenship .

In mid-September he resigned the chairmanship of the AfD Bremen and declared that he did not want to run for office again at the upcoming state party conference. The event “came about in a deeply undemocratic way” and “the blanket rejection of new members just because one believes that it could change the majority situation” is “a first-class scandal”.

Investigation into suspected misappropriation of party funds

On January 11, 2019, it became known that Magnitz was being investigated on suspicion of misappropriating party funds. Magnitz is said to have used party funds for private purposes. In December 2018, his immunity was therefore lifted. Magnitz has denied the allegations and suspected that internal party opponents were the complainants .

Assault on Magnitz

Investigations

After Frank Magnitz an event the newspaper on January 7, 2019 Weser-Kurier in the Kunsthalle Bremen had visited, he went in the late afternoon to his car, which he in the on Osterdeich nearby parking garage Ostertor / Kulturmeile had parked. In the vicinity of the theater on Goetheplatz , Magnitz paused briefly at a memorial event for the asylum seeker Laya-Alama Condé , who died in police custody as a result of the forced use of emetics . He then chose a shortened route across the (publicly accessible) theater courtyard, where around 5:20 p.m. three dark-clad people with hoods or caps approached him from behind. He later referred to both as "mistakes".

From this group of three, one person Magnitz jumped at full speed from behind with the elbow first in the neck or to the back of the head, causing the latter to fall to the ground and suffer “a heavily bleeding head injury”. The alleged perpetrators fled. Two craftsmen who were loading their car nearby found Magnitz and alerted the ambulance service, who took Magnitz to a hospital and informed the police. The police launched an investigation into dangerous bodily harm and formed a special commission to investigate the crime. Because of Magnitz's role, the authorities suspected political motivation, which is why the police state security took over the investigation.

On January 11, 2019, the Bremen police released a video wanted for publication. Numerous media spread it on their websites. The public prosecutor offered a reward of 3,000 euros for information that led to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators. Over 200 reports were received within a month.

In August 2019, the Bremen public prosecutor closed the investigation because no suspect had been found. The Federal Criminal Police Office assigned the attack in a publication as a case study to the violent left scene; the authorities responsible reported the attack as a “left-wing politically motivated crime”. The Bremen police, however, emphasized that they had investigated in all directions.

Controversy over the representation of the Bremen AfD

The AfD Bremen wrote in a press release that Magnitz had been attacked by three masked perpetrators who had knocked him unconscious with a " square wood ". Then Magnitz was still lying on the ground with kicks in the head, until construction workers intervened. The press release was created by his daughter Ann-Katrin Magnitz, a member of the Bremen AfD state executive since August 2018, according to his information. Magnitz himself had decided on the evening of the crime to distribute it with a photo taken at his request by a nurse in the hospital, which showed him covered in blood, with a gaping head injury and a swollen eye. In an internal AfD letter, Magnitz later admitted that he wanted to create “media concern” in this way. Magnitz wrote that the reporting had "traveled around the globe within 24 hours", while otherwise AfD press releases would be "almost 100 percent not published". Here was once "something good" for the AfD; the topic is likely to have "generated sympathy". The Bremen public prosecutor's office initially investigated an attempted homicide .

Magnitz said one of the craftsmen had drawn his attention to the timber and the steps. According to the police, however, the two craftsmen testified that they had not seen the crime. They were about 10 to 15 seconds after the fact with Magnitz lying on the ground. One of the craftsmen, the German-Lebanese Mohammed Houri, testified that he took a photo of the injury at Magnitz's request. The craftsman denied that he had pointed out the square timber to Magnitz. When he arrived, he had seen no weapon, had not observed the attack and only became aware of him through Magnitz 'screams after the perpetrators had already fled. He assumes "that we saved the victim's life". Magnitz later thanked him with two bottles of wine.

The surveillance videos that have been seen neither show the use of a striking tool nor kicks in the head of the victim, which is why this version is ruled out by the investigators. The craftsmen only found Magnitz after the fact and did not interrupt the act, as shown by the AfD. "The act happened in a flash," said the prosecutor. That is why it is being investigated for dangerous bodily harm. After the results of the investigation became known, Thomas Jürgewitz , deputy state chairman of the Bremen AfD, said: “The fact that no square timber was to be seen does not automatically mean that it was not there. We continue to assume that Mr. Magnitz was knocked down with an object. "

Consequences and reactions

Magnitz himself described his memories of the crime one day after the events from his hospital bed, received camera teams and individual reporters. He had no memories of the crime itself and could not describe the perpetrators. Magnitz said it was unlikely, but that the act could also have been a robbery . In addition to a concussion, Magnitz also suffered wounds and bruises. According to the treating doctors, there is no risk of permanent damage. Magnitz left the hospital two days after the fact.

Immediately after the attack, before the crime was investigated, numerous representatives of political parties spoke out. The federal government and politicians from all relevant parties condemned the act. Federal President Steinmeier described it as "an attack on the rule of law". Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) called for consistent punishment of the perpetrators: "Violence must never be a means of political conflict - it doesn't matter against whom or what the motives are." Cem Özdemir (Alliance 90 / The Greens) tweeted : "Also there is no justification for violence against the AfD. Whoever fights hate with hate always lets hatred win in the end. #nazisraus but with the methods of our constitutional state! "

The AfD chairman Alexander Gauland accused the other parties of joint responsibility because they would exclude the AfD and thus declare it to be “outlawed” . In particular, he described Özdemir's reaction as “insolence”, saying that he was preparing an occasion for the next attack. On the other hand, he acknowledged Dietmar Bartsch ( Die Linke ), who had called the act an unjustifiable crime.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Sasan Abdi-Herrle: "The mood had heated up". In: zeit.de . January 8, 2019, accessed January 26, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Folkert Lenz: Portrait: Who is Frank Magnitz? In: buten un inside . January 8, 2019, accessed January 26, 2019 .
  3. ^ Ambush in the Theaterhof: Attack on AfD politicians. In: rtl.de . January 9, 2019, archived from the original on January 16, 2019 ; accessed on January 26, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b Jean-Philipp Baeck: Generating “Medial Affliction”. In: The daily newspaper . January 15, 2019, accessed January 26, 2019 .
  5. ↑ a b c d e Frank Magnitz. Spokesman for the state executive. Vita. In: alternativefuer-bremen.de. Archived from the original on October 29, 2015 ; accessed on October 4, 2015 (CV on the website of the AfD Bremen at the time).
  6. ↑ a b Frank Hethey: Magnitz benefits from compensation mandate. Bremer AfD man makes it into the Bundestag. In: weser-kurier.de . September 25, 2017. Retrieved January 9, 2019 .
  7. ↑ a b c Jürgen Theiner: Portrait of the AfD candidate Frank Magnitz. Against Merkel and Mohammed. In: weser-kurier.de . September 8, 2017, accessed January 9, 2019 .
  8. ↑ FOCUS Online: He used to be with the left party: You know that about the attacked AfD man. Retrieved January 12, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Weser Kurier.de: TV reporter in AFD Board ; accessed on January 22, 2019
  10. ↑ taz.de>: Renitente young alternative in Bremen. The ranks almost closed ; accessed on January 22, 2019
  11. ^ AfD Bremen: press release ; accessed on January 22, 2019
  12. ^ Jürgen Theiner: Results of the local elections in Bremen-Nord are available. Advisory boards without clear majorities. In: weser-kurier.de . May 15, 2015, accessed October 4, 2015 .
  13. ↑ Press release 8/15. (PDF; 34 kB) In: afd-bremerhaven.de. June 7, 2015, accessed January 9, 2019 .
  14. ↑ a b Jürgen Theiner: Discussion about populism. AfD event in the citizenry. In: weser-kurier.de . October 22, 2018, accessed January 9, 2019 .
  15. ^ A b Lisa-Maria Röhling: Panel discussion of the parliamentary group. Protests accompany AfD event in the citizenry. In: weser-kurier.de . October 25, 2018, accessed January 9, 2019 .
  16. ^ Gareth Joswig: AfD podium in the Bremen citizenship. Right door policy. In: taz.de . October 26, 2018, accessed January 9, 2019 .
  17. ↑ Alice Echtermann: Massive criticism of admission control. Because of anger about AfD event: Citizenship changes guidelines. In: weser-kurier.de . October 30, 2018, accessed January 9, 2019 .
  18. ↑ Frank Jansen: The Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies AfD as a “test case”. In: tagesspiegel.de . January 16, 2019, accessed January 27, 2019 .
  19. ↑ Jan Oppel: AfD demonstrates with activists of the Identitarian Movement. In: weser-kurier.de . August 17, 2017. Retrieved January 9, 2019 .
  20. ↑ Jean-Philipp Baeck: Under a blanket. The love affair of identities and AfD . In: Andreas Speit (ed.): The network of identities: Ideology and actions of the new right . Christian Links Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-96289-008-7 , p. 112 ff .
  21. ↑ Jean-Philipp Baeck: Under a blanket. The love affair of identities and AfD . In: Andreas Speit (ed.): The network of identities: Ideology and actions of the new right . Christian Links Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-96289-008-7 , p. 113 .
  22. ↑ Andreas Speit: The right-wing extremist regional office . In: the daily newspaper . April 26, 2018.
    Jan Oppel: Bremer AfD boss should employ identities . In: buten un inside . April 25, 2018.
    Anne Gerling: Resistance to AfD office in Walle is growing . In: Weser courier . June 24, 2018.
  23. ↑ Lisa Boekhoff: Journalist Hinrich Lührssen wants to be AfD top candidate. In: weser-kurier.de . January 17, 2019, accessed January 28, 2019 .
  24. ↑ a b Lisa-Maria Röhling: Bremer AfD selects Magnitz as the top candidate. In: weser-kurier.de . January 20, 2019, accessed January 28, 2019 .
  25. ↑ Jörg Esser: AfD boss Magnitz is the top candidate. In: nwzonline.de . January 21, 2019, accessed January 28, 2019 .
  26. ↑ a b Jürgen Theiner: Frank Magnitz: unsuitable for any office. In: weser-kurier.de . January 23, 2019, accessed January 27, 2019 .
  27. ↑ Weser-Kurier.de: TV journalist leaves the AfD board ; accessed on January 22, 2019
  28. ↑ Lisa-Maria Röhling: Bremer AfD selects Magnitz as the top candidate , www.weser-kurier.de January 20, 2019
  29. ^ AfD parliamentary group in Bremen dissolves. Retrieved September 2, 2019 .
  30. ^ Zeit.de: Frank Magnitz. Bremen AfD parliamentary group has broken down ; viewed on September 3, 2019
  31. ↑ FAZ.net September 15, 2019 / dpa: Frank Magnitz resigns party leadership .
  32. ↑ Magnitz confirms investigations into suspected misappropriation of party funds on nzz.ch
  33. ↑ Bremer AfD boss: Investigations against Frank Magnitz on suspicion of infidelity. Retrieved January 12, 2019 .
  34. ↑ Investigations against Bremer AfD boss Magnitz. Die Welt from January 12, 2019
  35. ↑ a b c First results of the investigation after the attack on Frank Magnitz. Weser-Kurier, January 7, 2019, accessed on January 8, 2019 .
  36. ↑ a b attack on members of the Bundestag and state chairmen of the AfD Bremen. Police Bremen, January 7, 2019, accessed on January 8, 2019 .
  37. ↑ a b c Joint PM of the public prosecutor's office and the Bremen police: First results of the investigation. Police Bremen, January 8, 2019, accessed on January 8, 2019 .
  38. ↑ "Camera 7 shows the course of events". taz, January 8, 2019, accessed January 8, 2019 .
  39. ↑ No square timber, no kicks - one blow and one fall. Welt Online, January 9, 2019, accessed January 9, 2019 .
  40. ↑ a b c Police form special commission. Police Bremen, January 7, 2019, accessed on January 8, 2019 .
  41. ↑ Police are looking for witnesses: Video shows attack on AfD politician Magnitz. t-online.de , January 11, 2019, accessed on January 11, 2019 .
  42. ↑ Investigators have numerous clues in the Frank Magnitz case , Zeit online, February 11, 2019.
  43. ↑ Attack on AfD politician Magnitz: investigation stopped , Focus online, August 12, 2019.
  44. ^ Assassination attempt on Frank Magnitz, Member of the Bundestag press release from January 7th, 2019. AfD Bremen, January 7, 2019, accessed on January 8, 2019 .
  45. ↑ Frank Magnitz wanted to create “media concern” with a photo . In: ZEIT ONLINE . January 15, 2019.
    "We Shook the Entire Nation" . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . 15th January 2019.
  46. ↑ a b c d attacked from behind , on spiegel.de
  47. ↑ Unrestrained fall . In: Spiegel Online . January 9, 2019
  48. ↑ Attack on AfD politicians: Now the craftsman from Papenburg speaks on noz.de.
  49. ↑ Bremer AfD chairman witness contradicts Magnitz , Der Tagesspiegel , January 21, 2018
  50. ↑ AfD politician Magnitz thanks helpers with wine , rtl.de, January 24, 2019
  51. ^ Police contradict AfD version of the attack in Bremen. T-Online, accessed January 8, 2019 (2019-01-09).
  52. ↑ Video recordings contradict AfD description - Magnitz comments on weser-kurier.de
  53. ↑ Frank Magnitz: "Such violence against people is absolutely absurd" , on rtl.de.
  54. ↑ "It could also have been a robbery". The world of January 9, 2019
  55. ^ Cross-party outrage after the attack on Bremen's AfD country chief Magnitz , on welt.de
  56. ^ After the "murder attack": AfD man Magnitz leaves the hospital at his own risk , on merkur.de
  57. ↑ Steinmeier writes to AfD politicians - "Attack on the rule of law" , on welt.de.
  58. ↑ Cem Özdemir: I hope the perpetrator or perpetrators will soon be investigated and convicted. Twitter, January 7, 2019 .;
  59. ↑ Gauland sharply criticizes Özdemir. ZDF, January 8, 2019, accessed on January 9, 2019 .
  60. ↑ Extremism researcher warns of “violence from the left” , WeltN24, January 9, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Magnitz, Frank
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Magnitz, Frank Rüdiger Heinrich (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneurs and politicians (AfD)
DATE OF BIRTH June 29, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Neuenkirchen , district of Diepholz