A Berlin café owner has sparked a row in Germany over political discrimination after boasting on social media that she refused to serve a customer because she believed he supported the Alternative for Germany (AfD), saying she would continue denying service to anyone she identified as a “Nazi” or AfD voter.
Kristiana Elig, 53, has run Eule im Park, a café housed in a converted shipping container in Berlin’s Gleisdreieck Park, for nine years. She recounted the encounter in a video posted to the café’s public Instagram account, which has about 8,000 followers, under the title “No Latte for AfD”.
According to her own account, a man entered the café wearing what she described as an AfD-branded tie and ordered a latte macchiato.
“Today was one of those days,” she said in the video. “A guy came in, an AfD supporter, you could even tell from his tie, and he ordered a latte macchiato.”
She said she refused to serve him: “I told him: ‘I’m not giving you a latte macchiato.'” The man responded that a café owner should be “unpolitical”, she said, to which she replied: “No.”
The café owner later alleged that the man had also directed a racist remark at another customer, a Black woman, asking: “Does the Black woman get coffee here too?” The woman left without a drink, Elig told.
After posting the original video online, she published several follow-up videos in which she doubled down on her decision, insisting she would continue refusing service to people she identified as AfD supporters or “Nazis”.
Complaining about a wave of negative online reviews, she said they would not affect her business. “We will always exist,” she said. “And whenever I recognise one, I will never serve coffee to Nazis.” She said she had also received insults and threats, with some people telling her they hoped the café would close or burn down, but insisted she would not be silenced.
In a third video, she referred to the customer in derogatory terms, calling him an “AfD idiot”, and announced plans to place a sign outside the café stating that no coffee would be served to “Nazis, those who want to become Nazis or those who simply decide to vote for the AfD”.
The remarks prompted divided reactions on social media. Supporters praised the café owner’s “stance” and described her refusal as an act of moral courage. Others accused her of discriminating against customers because of their political beliefs, arguing that businesses open to the public should serve customers regardless of their voting preferences, provided they behave lawfully. Elig said some regulars and other customers had come to the café specifically to show their support.
The controversy comes amid wider debates over the treatment of AfD supporters in Germany. The AfD has long argued that its members and supporters are increasingly excluded from public life because of their political views. The party came second in Germany’s February 2025 federal election and is the largest opposition force in the Bundestag.
The café dispute comes amid renewed efforts to marginalise the party politically. In Germany, debate over banning the AfD has resurfaced, while at the European level the European Parliament recently asked the independent Authority for European Political Parties and European Political Foundations (APPF) to assess whether the Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) alliance, which includes the AfD, still complies with the EU’s core values required for registration and EU funding.
