Tino Chrupalla

Tino Chrupalla MdB
Chrupalla in 2023
Leader of the Alternative for Germany in the Bundestag
Incumbent
Assumed office 30 September 2021 Serving with Alice Weidel
Deputy	Peter Felser Leif-Erik Holm Sebastian Münzenmaier Beatrix von Storch
Chief Whip	Bernd Baumann
Preceded by	Alexander Gauland
Leader of the Alternative for Germany
Incumbent
Assumed office 30 November 2019 Serving with Alice Weidel
Deputy	Stephan Brandner Peter Boehringer Mariana Harder-Kühnel
Preceded by	Alexander Gauland
Member of the Bundestag for Görlitz
Incumbent
Assumed office 24 October 2017
Preceded by	Michael Kretschmer
Personal details
Born	(1975-04-14) 14 April 1975 (age 49) Weißwasser, East Germany
Political party	AfD
Children	3

Tino Chrupalla (German: [ˈtiːno kʁʊˈpala]; born 14 April 1975) is a German politician from the right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD). A member of the German Parliament (Bundestag) since 2017, he has served as co-chairman of the AfD since 2019 along with Alice Weidel.^[1] In November 2019, Chrupalla was nominated by Alexander Gauland to replace the latter as co-chairman of the AfD; he later won election as co-chair. ^[2]

Biography

Chrupalla was born on 14 April 1975 in Weißwasser,^[1] then part of East Germany. In 2003 he completed state professional exams to become a licensed house painter and master varnisher.^[1][3] He later became owner of a construction company.^[4] Chrupalla is married with two children.^[5]

In March 2020, Chrupalla's car caught fire on his property in Gablenz, a town in northeastern Saxony. The local police suspected arson, but it was never confirmed. Chrupalla condemned the act as a direct attack on his family, one that went beyond all conceivable boundaries of political debate.^[6]

In October 2023, Chrupalla was hospitalised following a suspected attack with a syringe that occurred shortly before he was due to speak at an election rally.^{[citation needed]} The incident came just days after AfD's other co-leader, Alice Weidel, cancelled a public rally due to concerns that her family would also be attacked.^[7] A witness told the local daily Donaukurier that Chrupalla had taken a few selfies before he collapsed and was transported to hospital. Andreas Aichele, a spokesman for the Upper Bavaria Police Department, said it remained unclear whether the politician had been attacked, had fallen, or was simply not feeling well. Aichele said authorities ruled nothing out and that the investigation was ongoing.^[8]

Political career

Chrupalla in 2019

Chrupalla in 2020

During the 1990s, Tino Chrupalla joined the Christian Democratic Youth, which was linked to the CDU. He entered the AfD in 2015, and was elected to its district committee for Görlitz in 2016.^[1] In the German federal election the following year, he defeated Michael Kretschmer (later Minister-President of Saxony) in the electoral district of Görlitz.^[9]

Chrupalla is one of five deputy chief whips of the AfD's federal parliamentary group.^[10]

Ahead of the 2021 German federal election, Chrupalla was the AfD's leading candidate for the Bundestag alongside Alice Weidel. Together with Weidel, he was elected group leader of the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag on 30 September 2021, replacing Alexander Gauland. Gauland would remain as honorary chairman as part of a redefinition of the office.^[11]

Political views

General stance

The German newspaper Die Zeit has characterised Chrupalla as one of the relatively more moderate members of the AfD's faction in the Bundestag.^[12] Just before the 2021 German federal election, Chrupalla cited border security as his main concern, calling for Germany to reinstate border controls to "curb border crime".^[13] As federal spokesman for his party, Chrupalla repeatedly called on the AfD to unite and "stop thinking in camps".^[14]

In a Bundestag debate on 8 November 2019 about the 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Chrupalla caused a stir when he accused Germany's then chancellor, Angela Merkel, of having learned through her membership in East Germany's Free German Youth how to keep other citizens in check using propaganda and agitation. Chrupalla added that this could be achieved with "strategies of domination and disintegration."^[15] WIth his views on foreign policy, Chrupalla belongs to the AfD pro-Russia movement.

Russia, World War II, USA and Ukraine

In 2017 Chrupalla called for an end to the sanctions imposed on Russia following Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, because the economy of his district was suffering as a result.^[16]

In February 2020, in the run-up to the 75th anniversary of the Bombing of Dresden in World War II, Chrupalla cast doubt on the figure of around 25,000 fatalities determined by a commission of historians headed by Rolf-Dieter Müller between 2004 and 2010. Referring to reports from relatives who were eyewitnesses in Dresden in 1945, he assumes around 100,000 fatalities, Chrupalla told Der Spiegel. Rolf-Dieter Müller and historian Sven Felix Kellerhoff criticized these statements, which contradict the scientifically based findings of the commission; Chrupalla is thus basing his calculations on figures that come from Joseph Goebbels' propaganda and are only postulated by history falsifiers such as David Irving, the NPD and other right-wing extremists.^[17][18]

In June 2021, Chrupalla traveled to Moscow with several other AfD MPs to mark the 80th anniversary of the Wehrmacht's attack on the Soviet Union and laid a wreath there. Chrupalla told the German Press Agency in Moscow about his visit: "It was important to me personally to send a sign of reconciliation. [...] Unfortunately, I was the only representative from Germany who laid a wreath here."^[19] During another visit to Moscow a few weeks later Chrupalla – at the invitation of the Russian Defense Ministry – gave a speech at a conference in which he spoke of the Western Allies' "psychological warfare" right after World War II. He alleged that the Allied victors' reeducation (de) of ordinary Germans after the war had had a lasting impact on the country's national identity. Chrupalla also compared the policies of the Allies after 1945 with Nazi propaganda.^[20][21]

After Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Chrupalla noted that "[t]his war also has several fathers. ... Of course, the role of NATO and the role of the federal government of Germany must also be discussed here."^[22] With regard to the war in Ukraine, Chrupalla told at the political talk show Markus Lanz at the end of November 2022 that Russian President Putin was "not a war criminal"; "labeling" him as such would not help anyone. The competent courts would have to answer the question of war crimes "after the war". Chrupalla also said that there are "American presidents who are just as much war criminals" and mentioned George W. Bush and his Iraq war. Chrupalla also spoke out against arms deliveries to Ukraine, because they would not "pacify or end the conflict, but rather prolong it" and weapons systems delivered to Ukraine would "also be fired on Russian territory". Therefore, a ceasefire and peace talks must be held "as soon as possible".^[23] In the same talk show, Chrupalla suggested that the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines was benefiting the USA in a way that he found suspicious, as they had an interest in selling expensive gas to Germany. Hunter Biden had a "key role" in the conflict, but he [Chrupalla] could only guess which one and therefore did not elaborate. Germany does not only have friends in the West, according to Chrupalla, but the German government is not interested in clarifying what happened. Chrupalla had previously explained Russia's aggressive warfare in Ukraine by saying that "every reaction results in a counter-reaction" and that Putin reacts to Ukrainian strikes like the destruction of the Crimean bridge.^[24] After the German government announced at the end of January 2023 that it would supply Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine, Chrupalla said that this would mean "walking blindly straight into open fire, I have to say it openly, straight into World War III".^[25]

In March 2023, he claimed in the Bundestag that Russia and Ukraine were losing the war together, and that "there is only one winner again, and that winner is the USA."^[26]

In May 2023, he attended a reception at the Embassy of Russia, Berlin on the occasion of Russian Victory Day together with former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Klaus Ernst, Egon Krenz and Alexander Gauland, wearing a tie in the colors of the Russian tricolor.^[27] In response to criticism from the AfD in a chat with high-ranking AfD politicians, he objected that, contrary to what had been reported, he had not thanked the Russian ambassador for the liberation from National Socialism. In response to the german magazine secession, he made his position clear by saying that the Russian concept of victory over Germany seemed unproblematic to him: "It was not so much about dissolving the patriotism of the Germans or burdening us with an indelible guilt." The Russians withdrew in 1994 and good "economic relations on an equal footing" had been established. But the “Americans have stayed and are keeping our country economically dependent – to the detriment of the citizens.”^[28][29][30]

At a speech by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj in the Bundestag in 2024, Chrupalla and Weidel declared that they refused to "listen to a speaker in camouflage". Selenskyj's term of office had "expired" and he was "only in office as a war and begging president". The parliamentary group executive committee of the AfD had therefore decided not to attend the speech.^[31]

See also: AfD pro-Russia movement

China

Chrupalla has voiced opposition to restrictions on Chinese technology, and in 2023 backed Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang in his efforts to broker a peace in Ukraine after Russia's invasion.^[32]

Serbia

In November of that year, Chrupalla and his fellow Bundestag AfD member Petr Bystron met with Milica Đurđević Stamenkovski, leader of the Serbian far-right party Oathkeepers. At the invitation of AfD, Stamenkovski visited the Bundestag in Berlin and affirmed the AfD as "leading a sovereignist and state-building option in Germany".^[33][34][35]

COVID-19

In December 2021, Chrupalla expressed opposition to mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations during a debate on the TV discussion programme ZDF-Morgenmagazin; he argued that vaccination would make sense for the elderly and for those who had been previously ill. When the moderator, Andreas Wunn [de], stated that ICU doctors had confirmed that some 80 to 90 percent of COVID-19 patients in intensive care units were unvaccinated, Chrupalla claimed that such figures were unconfirmed. He instead blamed budget cuts and the downsizing of medical departments for recently overwhelmed ICUs in Germany.^[36][37]

References

1. "Biography on the website of the Bundestag". Deutscher Bundestag. Archived from the original on 11 September 2024. Retrieved 15 November 2020.
2. "AfD wählt Tino Chrupalla zum Nachfolger von Gauland". Süddeutsche Zeitung (in German). 30 November 2019. Archived from the original on 1 December 2019. Retrieved 30 November 2019.
3. Fromm, Anne (2 January 2018). ""Sächsische Zeitung" und die AfD: "Da gehört er hin"". Die Tageszeitung: Taz. Archived from the original on 2 January 2018. Retrieved 2 September 2019.
4. "Allemagne. Tino Chrupalla, le nouveau visage lisse d'une extrême-droite encore plus radicale". Ouest-France.fr (in French). 3 December 2019. Archived from the original on 4 December 2019.
5. Bender, Justus (3 August 2021). "Ein Malermeister fällt aus der Rolle". FAZ. Archived from the original on 3 August 2021. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
6. "Auto von AfD-Chef Chrupalla abgebrannt". FAZ. 2 March 2020. Archived from the original on 3 March 2020. Retrieved 3 August 2021.
7. "Germany: AfD co-leader cancels rally for 'security reasons'". Deutsche Welle. 4 October 2023. Archived from the original on 4 October 2023.
8. "AfD leader Chrupalla hospitalized after 'violent incident'". Deutsche Welle. 4 October 2023. Archived from the original on 4 October 2023.
9. "AfD gewinnt an der Neiße". Sächsische Zeitung (in German). 24 September 2017. Archived from the original on 25 September 2017.
10. Biermann, Kai; Geisler, Astrid; Holzinger, Christina; Middelhoff, Paul; Polke-Majewski, Karsten; Steffen, Tilman (24 October 2017). "AfD-Abgeordnete: Rechts bis extrem im Bundestag". Die Zeit. Archived from the original on 21 September 2017. Retrieved 2 September 2019.
11. "AfD-Fraktion wählt Weidel und Chrupalla als Vorsitzende" (in German). 30 September 2021. Archived from the original on 30 September 2021. Retrieved 30 September 2021.
12. Kai Biermann, Astrid Geisler, Christina Holzinger, Paul Middelhoff, Karsten Polke-Majewski (26 September 2017), "AfD-Fraktion: Rechts bis extrem im Bundestag", Die Zeit (in German), Hamburg, ISSN 0044-2070, archived from the original on 21 September 2017, retrieved 5 October 2017
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19. "80. Jahrestag des deutschen Angriffs auf die Sowjetunion". www.merkur.de (in German). 23 June 2021. Retrieved 22 December 2024.
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22. tagesschau.de. "AfD bei Landtagswahlen: Chrupallas verheerende Bilanz". tagesschau.de (in German). Archived from the original on 17 May 2022. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
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24. ""Kein Kriegsverbrecher": AfD-Mann Chrupalla empört Gäste bei Lanz mit Putin-Aussage". www.merkur.de (in German). 30 November 2022. Retrieved 22 December 2024.
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28. Hoffer, Rewert (12 May 2023). "AfD: Chrupalla nach Besuch in russischer Botschaft unter Druck". Neue Zürcher Zeitung (in Swiss High German). ISSN 0376-6829. Retrieved 22 December 2024.
29. Maier, Michael (11 May 2023). "AfD: Erbitterter Streit über Empfang in russischer Botschaft". Berliner Zeitung (in German). Retrieved 22 December 2024.
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32. Kastner, Jens (20 April 2023). "China finds unlikely allies in Germany's far right and far left". Nikkei Asia. Archived from the original on 20 April 2023. Retrieved 12 May 2023.
33. "Đurđević Stamenkovski: Mi želimo Evropu u kojoj će Srbija imati svoje mesto" [Đurđević Stamenkovski: We want a Europe in which Serbia will have its place]. Tanjug (in Serbian). 17 November 2023. Archived from the original on 17 November 2023. Retrieved 17 November 2023.
34. "Милица Ђурђевић Стаменковски on Twitter". X (formerly Twitter). Archived from the original on 21 November 2023. Retrieved 20 November 2023.
35. "Милица Ђурђевић Стаменковски on Twitter". X (formerly Twitter). Archived from the original on 18 November 2023. Retrieved 20 November 2023.
36. "Chrupalla mit kruden Behauptungen und Impfstoff-Kritik". KSTA (in German). Archived from the original on 15 December 2021. Retrieved 15 December 2021.
37. ""Moma"-Moderator streitet mit AfD-Fraktionschef Chrupalla: "Von wem lassen Sie sich denn wissenschaftlich beraten?". www.rnd.de (in German). Archived from the original on 15 December 2021. Retrieved 15 December 2021.

External links

• Official website (in German)
• Tino Chrupalla at abgeordnetenwatch.de (in German)
• Biography at the Bundestag (in German)