

Martin Sellner has sparked controversy in Germany with a plan, presented to the leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, for the "remigration" of foreigners and Germans of foreign origin to a "model state" in North Africa.
Sellner, who wears large glasses and has an athletic look, was at the heart of a far-right meeting held in Potsdam, a city near Berlin, in November 2023 that caused a scandal throughout Germany.
On Wednesday, January 10, the investigative website Correctiv revealed that executives from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party had discreetly gathered in a hotel in Potsdam to listen to the Austrian ultra-right ideologue advocate for "the remigration" of "millions" of foreigners and Germans of foreign origin deemed undesirable to a "model state" in North Africa.
Sellner was able to explain to them in detail the "voluntary departure incentive system" that he dreams of establishing in order to rid Germany and Austria of "those who are an economic, criminal and cultural burden."
At the age of 35, Sellner enjoys a firmly established reputation. After helping to found the Identitarian Movement of Austria in 2012, modeled on France's Génération Identitaire (a far-right identitarian political movement that disbanded in 2021), his name appeared in the global media after the Islamophobic massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019. Before murdering 51 people in two different mosques, the killer, Brenton Tarrant, had maintained a correspondence with Sellner and donated €1,500 to his movement.
These links earned Sellner an investigation for "participation in a terrorist organization," a charge that was eventually dismissed by the Austrian judiciary in 2021. Previously, in 2018, Sellner had already escaped charges for belonging to a "criminal organization."
Sellner first came to the attention of the police in 2006, when, at the age of 17, he stuck swastikas on the wall of a synagogue in his home town of Baden, near Vienna. He has since insisted that it was an adolescent "provocation" and "racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic," but he still plays with ambiguous symbols. For example, he has organized torch-lit retreats during celebrations marking Victory Day on May 8, 1945.
The hotel where the November 2023 meeting was held is also only 10 kilometers from the infamous villa on the shores of Lake Wannsee, where the Nazis decided to exterminate the Jews in 1942. "A connection that defies understanding" was Sellner's defense. He claims to have left the identitarian movement in 2023.
You have 25% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.