The deputy speaker of Baden-Württemberg’s parliament announced his resignation from that office after drawing a swastika on a ballot during an anonymous vote.
Social Democrat Daniel Born admitted July 25 it had been he who drew the Nazi party symbol on a ballot during a vote the previous day.
“I made a serious mistake in a moment of rashness and wrote a swastika next to the name of an AfD member of parliament”, Born wrote in a statement on his website.
Born wrote he had been “deeply disturbed by the contempt with which the AfD speaker spoke about transsexual children.”
The SDP politician, who self-identifies as queer, added “This is the only way I can explain my subsequent rash reaction and the mistake I made as a result.”
He announced he was stepping down as deputy speaker, though not as a member of the state parliament.
“I love our democracy,” Born wrote. However, he was admitting his mistake and accepting the consequences. “The dignity of the house as the heart of democracy must not be compromised at any time. And the bitter truth for me is that I caused great damage to the house yesterday”, Born wrote.
However, Born will retain his seat in the state parliament. State MPs in Baden-Wurttemberg currently receive a salary of €9,322 per month, plus another blanket payment of €2,738 for office costs, for a monthly total of €12,100.
The incident happened during a vote on deputy members to the Upper Rhine Council, a consultative body made up of parliamentarians and members of the public from Germany, Switzerland, and France.
After ballots were collected, it was found one ballot had a swastika drawn beside the name of Bernhard Eisenhut, a candidate for the Council proposed by the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
The discovery sparked considerable outrage, as use of the swastika can constitute a criminal offence under Germany’s strict laws regarding National Socialist imagery.
State parliament speaker Muhterem Aras (from the Green party) called the incident a “disgrace” following the discovery.
“It just disgusts me”, Aras told local public broadcaster Südwestrundfunk, adding Stuttgart police had begun an investigation.
SPD secretary-general Sascha Binder echoed the sentiment, saying “anyone who does something like this is not worthy of this Parliament and should immediately resign their seat. It is absolutely repugnant.”
At first it was speculated an AfD MP may have drawn the swastika.
However, this was quickly disproven by the way votes were cast, as there had been two separate ballot boxes.
The box where the slip was found had been used only by SPD and Green party politicians.
AfD whip Anton Baron said in a reaction to Born’s confession that the Social Democrats “apparently have right-wing extremism in their own ranks” and demanded Born also step down as a State MP.
