Andreas Kalbitz (born 17 November 1972) is a German politician and was from 2013 to 2020 member of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and since 2017 chairman of the faction of his former party in the

Landtag of Brandenburg The Landtag of Brandenburg is the unicameral legislature of the state of Brandenburg in Germany. Its 88 members of parliament are usually elected every 5 years. It is responsible for deciding on state laws, controlling the state government an ...

, a state parliament.

Life and politics

Kalbitz was born 1972 in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

and became a paratrooper in the

Bundeswehr The ''Bundeswehr'' (, meaning literally: ''Federal Defence'') is the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany. The ''Bundeswehr'' is divided into a military part (armed forces or ''Streitkräfte'') and a civil part, the military part con ...

, the German federal army from 1994 until 2005. His claims that in 2008 he had studied ''informatics'' (computer science) proved false in 2017. Kalbitz was member of various

extremist Extremism is "the quality or state of being extreme" or "the advocacy of extreme measures or views". The term is primarily used in a political or religious sense to refer to an ideology that is considered (by the speaker or by some implied share ...

right-wing organisations before he entered the newly founded AfD in 2013. In May 2020 Kalbitz was removed as Brandenburg Landtag chairman by the party leadership after he was accused of concealing ties to far-right extremist groups. He was succeeded by provisional leader Dennis Hohloch. Also in May, the AfD annulled the membership of Kalbitz, who in response vowed to "exhaust all legal options" to overrule the decision. In an interview the same month, co-spokesman of the AfD

Jörg Meuthen Jörg Hubert Meuthen (; born 29 June 1961) is a German economist serving as a member of the European Parliament for the Centre Party. He was the leading candidate of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) for the 2019 European Parliament election. H ...

emphasized that the decision had been made on legal rather than political grounds. In August 2020, Kalbitz punched Hohloch while inside the Brandenburg parliament building, causing Hohloch to be admitted to hospital with internal injuries.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kalbitz, Andreas 1972 births Living people Alternative for Germany politicians 21st-century German politicians Politicians affected by a party expulsion process