The Alternative for Germany donation scandal (german: AfD-Spendenaffäre) was a

political scandal In politics, a political scandal is an action or event regarded as morally or legally wrong and causing general public outrage. Politicians, government officials, party officials and lobbyists can be accused of various illegal, corrupt, uneth ...

that broke in 2018 in which the Alternative for Germany party (AfD) was found to have accepted financial contributions in contravention of conditions within German laws regulating donations to political parties. In the three months leading up to the 2017 general election the AfD regional office for the Lake Constance area received 18 weekly payments totalling 132,000 Euro documented as "campaign donations for

Alice Weidel Alice Elisabeth Weidel (born 6 February 1979) is a German politician and has been the leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the Bundestag since October 2017. She has been a member of the Bundestag (MdB) since the 2017 federal election d ...

". Alice Weidel is deputy chairman of the regional party organisation and co-chair of the AfD parliamentary group in the

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Common ...

. At the beginning of 2018 they received a further 150,000 Euros. These were not declared as required by law and apparently disguised as to their true source and aggregate amount. Further irregular contributions to AfD party politicians were identified, including to Jörg Meuthen, Guido Reil and Marcus Petzell. According to media reports, the payments came from billionaire property tycoon Henning Conle though several intermediaries and split into smaller amounts. The AfD has been ordered to pay over 500,000 Euro to the federal government, including the illegal sums and penalties.

References

{{reflist 2018 in Germany Political scandals in Germany Donation scandal