German lawmakers removed a member of the far-right opposition Alternative for Germany (AfD) as a parliamentary committee head on Wednesday following comments he made that were lambasted as anti-Semitic.
Stephan Brandner was ousted as the leader of the legal-affairs committee in the lower chamber of the Bundestag after he tweeted that German superstar singer Udo Lindenberg, a critic of AfD, got Judaslohn, or “blood money.” It’s a term that has an anti-Semitic trope, associating Jews with greed and blood.
Following last month’s Yom Kippur attack on a synagogue in Halle, Germany, Brandner tweeted about why politicians were “hanging around” synagogues and mosques with candles when the victims were German, not Jewish or Muslim.
Two people were killed and two injured. The suspect, Stephan Balliet, has confessed to the attacks.
The committee vote was 37-6. It was the first time in the 70-year history of the German Parliament a committee chairman has been voted out.
