PressSplit
The two AfD politicians Uwe Schulz and Mariana Harder-Kühnel are currently facing each other in court in Gelnhausen. SYMBOL © Imago Sportfotodienst GmbH
Did AfD Bundestag member Uwe Schulz from Pohlheim physically attack and insult former AfD deputy leader Mariana Harder-Kühnel at the end of a party conference in Giessen? The two politicians are currently facing each other in court proceedings.
The day of the trial is drawing to a close, and things are getting heated for a moment in room 11 of the Gelnhausen district court. “Unbelievable,” shouts AfD spokesman for the Giessen district and member of the Bundestag Uwe Schulz. The opposing side’s lawyer has just asked a witness whether Schulz sometimes calls her “Verenchen” in order to find out how close she and Schulz are. Judge Carlo Conze calls for reason. “Please don’t let things escalate,” he urges those involved in the trial.
The dispute between the two opponents, who are facing each other in a civil case, has been escalating for years – so much so that the former deputy head of the federal AfD and member of the Bundestag for the Main-Kinzig-Wetterau II-Schotten constituency, Mariana Harder-Kühnel from Gelnhausen, and Schulz, who lives in Pohlheim, are now arguing in the courtroom about whether she can claim that Schulz, the plaintiff in the case, physically attacked and insulted her.
The trial is a clash between two rival Bundestag politicians who insult each other and suddenly argue during the trial about who is doing more within the AfD.
Both Schulz and Harder-Kühnel admit that there was an argument and a war of words between the two AfD members of the Bundestag during a state party conference in the Gießen Congress Hall in October 2022. According to Harder-Kühnel, Schulz also gave her a shoulder shove as he passed by. He denies this.
Harder-Kühnel said in court that she was on her way to the stage for a group photo and passed a gap between two rows of tables, “when I got a push on my left shoulder.” She didn’t look up at the time, she was engrossed in her cell phone. “What kind of a… was that?” she mumbled. Witnesses later told her that Schulz had pushed her.
After the group photo, Schulz harassed her. “You can’t do anything except take photos,” he told her. He called her a “fucking narcissist” and said, “You’re the lowest of the low.”
She replied that Schulz may be a good district spokesman, but does little in the Bundestag and is “not a good politician” but rather a “chocolate kiss distributor”.
Harder-Kühnel also accuses Schulz of systematically bullying her for years, of calling her a “slut who has never achieved anything” and of discrediting her as inactive in major forums on social networks.
Schulz explains that he neither pushed nor insulted Harder-Kühnel at the party conference. He admitted that he called her a “narcissist” because she had pushed her way into the group photo even though she played no role at the party conference. He also told her that she “didn’t give a damn about what was happening in Hesse.”
Harder-Kühnel “likes to play the victim,” Schulz explains in the courtroom. Then the proceedings drift off course once again when the Pohlheim member of the Bundestag reports on a ranking list within the AfD that lists the most active politicians. “In April 2023 and March 2024, I was in 12th and 14th place,” he says. “Ms. Harder-Kühnel, on the other hand, was in 60th and 63rd place.” He is a top performer, says Schulz – and observers of the proceedings are asking themselves at these moments why such a dispute now has to be played out in court.
Judge Conze, meanwhile, is faced with the thankless task of assessing the credibility of the witnesses – who can clearly be assigned to the respective camps within the party. AfD state parliament member Arno Enners, Schulz’s deputy in the AfD district association, whose wife is employed by Schulz, says he had Harder-Kühnel in his field of vision at the 2022 state party conference and saw that she went on stage “unmolested.” There was no jostling. “You can’t claim what isn’t there,” says Enners. The version is also supported by AfD politician Christine Anderson, who sits in the European Parliament, and a personal advisor to Schulz, who points out that Harder-Kühnel had already accused a former party colleague of a physical attack in 2019.
One of Harder-Kühnel’s research assistants, however, confirms her version of the incident, but also puts the alleged jostling into perspective. It was a situation like getting on and off a train at a train station. Schulz did not show Harder-Kühnel the polite gesture of taking a step back, but instead moved toward her, which is how the slight jostling occurred.
One of Schulz’s lawyers makes it clear at what level the proceedings are sometimes taking place when he asks Harder-Kühnel’s research assistant whether he is having a relationship with a witness who is due to testify at the next hearing in November, possibly in order to refute her testimony in advance. “Nonsense,” replies the witness.
