German state broadcaster ARD has come under fire for allowing a Greens party politician, misrepresented as an “ordinary citizen”, to attack Alice Weidel, leader of the right-wing AfD party, on air with baseless claims about her party wanting to throw gay people into concentration camps.
In the Wahlarena on February 17, the 150-person studio audience could pose questions directly to the candidates of the four main parties – the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Social Democratic Party (SPD), AfD and the Greens – who will stand in the German general election on February 23.
The goal of the show was supposedly to “put the worries, problems and requests of citizens into the centre”. The questioners were selected seemingly at random by the show’s hosts.
After CDU Friedrich Merz and Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), Alice Weidel, leader of the right-wing AfD, entered the studio to face the questions of the gathered “citizens”.
First, a hospital priest from Kiel complained about the party’s demands for “remigration”, claiming it scared away nurses from India and Afghanistan who “were willing to integrate themselves in Germany”.
Weidel answered that it was important to distinguish between asylum seekers and skilled workers whom the German economy needed.
Then the microphone was passed to a young man who presented himself as merely as Samuel Everding from Hamelin, a mid-sized town near Hanover.
“My question concerns the future of this country,” he said. “If I look at your party’s programme I am scared. I am homosexual and I am scared. You should also be scared!,” he continued.
“Why so,” asked Weidel.
“Because members of your party want to throw homosexuals in prison or into a concentration camp. How can you as a homosexual be a member of this party?,” Everding continued.
Weidel is homosexual and has been in a relationship with her female partner since 2009.
“That is a real credibility issue. You represent everything AfD does not stand for. Why do you then want to implement these policies? How do you want to win over us young people?,” Everding asked.
Weidel ,who seemed taken aback by the accusations, answered that the AfD’s main goal was to give young people a perspective and a future.
“We want young people to be able to grow up in freedom and build their own fortune without being encroached by the state,” she concluded before moving on to the next question.
The accusation that the AfD would want to put homosexual people into concentration camps was left unchallenged by the show’s hosts.
Observers have since pointed out that Everding was in fact not an “ordinary apolitical citizen” but a Greens party politician.
He is a member of the Greens’ leadership panel in the Hamelin area. On the local party’s homepage he was quoted as saying: “We want to start innovative actions to get in touch with citizens directly.”
Der in der #Wahlarena interviewte Studiogast, der behauptet die AFD wolle Homosexuelle ins KZ stecken, ist Samuel Everding, er sitzt im Vorstand der Grünen Hameln. #ReformOerr #OerrBlog https://t.co/oJMuNj8DFY pic.twitter.com/Fw4ReQNXLR
— ÖRR Blog. (@OERRBlog) February 17, 2025
Other guests included a doctor worried about ever-more patients suffering from climate-related health issues and a young farmer who was also concerned about climate change – he was an activist for the leftist Fridays for Future movement, which was not disclosed on air.
The revelations have caused a storm of criticism. Hugo Müller-Vogg, former co-publisher of German newspaper FAZ, wrote on X on February 18: “The brutality with which the political activists in public broadcasting act in favour of Red-Green is remarkable”.
The Everding incident fitted with a long list of similar apparent misrepresentations. German state broadcasters have a long history of passing off leftist politicians and their own employees or paid actors as seemingly “ordinary citizens” who spout Socialist or Greens party talking points.
The show’s hosts, journalists Louis Klamroth and Jessy Wellmer, have also both been accused of partisanship in the past.
Wellmer is married to Sven Siebert, former press secretary of Ramona Pop, a Greens politician in Berlin.
Klamroth is married to climate activist Luisa Neubauer, another prominent Greens party member.
Klamroth recently caused outrage when, during another ARD show, he said refugees should not be blamed for the rise in gang rapes committed by foreigners in Germany as the culprits might also be “Australian exchange students”.
