A lawmaker for the German anti-immigration party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has had his bank account closed for unknown reasons. Sascha Schlösser, a recently elected member of the Thuringia state parliament, made the public aware of his plight in a post on X on Thursday, September 5th.
“The DKB [Deutsche Kreditbank Aktiengesellschaft] did not miss the opportunity to congratulate me on my election as a member of the state parliament for the AfD and has terminated all my accounts,” he wrote, attaching a photo of the letter sent to him by his bank. The bank did not give a reason for the closure, but all signs point to yet another ‘debanking’ scandal—where financial institutions get rid of clients for political reasons.
The DKB did not explain its decision but cited the general terms and conditions, according to which the contract may be terminated by both parties at any time. When asked by conservative media outlet Apollo News, the institution chose not to disclose the reason for termination due to banking secrecy.
However, the publication writes, the decision was taken shortly after Sascha Schlösser, who has until now been a member of the Erfurt city council, was elected to the state parliament of Thuringia.
The AfD became the strongest party in the state following the elections on September 1st, winning a third of all seats. The anti-globalist, anti-immigration party’s triumph and its rise across Germany has angered the liberal political establishment which has been using all sorts of political and legal methods in recent years to undermine the credibility of the party.
The Berliner Volksbank recently closed the AfD’s donation account, bowing to pressure from a liberal group who said AfD is “outside the constitutional order.” Last year Tino Chrupalla, the co-leader of the party, stated that Postbank had terminated his account because he’s an AfD member.
De-banking has become a phenomenon all over the Western world, famously brought to the media’s attention by British politician Nigel Farage whose account at the British private bank Coutts was closed due to his political views.
Sascha Schlösser received his own letter only two days after the elections on Sunday, with the bank requesting him to balance his account and to destroy his credit cards.
Though reasons for the decision were not given, the DKB participates in anti-right-wing initiatives, writes Apollo News. The bank says it has “committed itself to democracy, the rule of law, diversity and tolerance,” and after the European elections in June—where the AfD were runners-up—it stated that the election had made it clear “that democracy will not be maintained by itself and must be constantly defended.”
As an institution owned by the publicly regulated Bayerische Landesbank, the DKB should be committed instead to being politically neutral, which it clearly is not.