In Pegida\u2019s first ever press conference in Dresden on Monday, Lutz Bachmann insisted that the group was not racist, and distanced themselves from footage during a lively television debate showing Pegida demonstrators delivering racist remarks.<\/p>\n
Bachmann has been most keen to stress his Muslim credentials, showing photographs on his Facebook site of his Turkish best man.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile a Catholic priest who took part in a demonstration organised by the Pegida-offshoot group D\u00fcgida in the western city of Duisburg in Germany on Monday has been banned from preaching by his religious elders, after he compared the movement to the Crusades.<\/p>\n
The head of the German anti-Islamisation has stepped down after a picture of him jokingly posing as Adolf Hitler was unearthed. Bachmann, 41, is a butcher\u2019s son from Dresden.<\/p>\n
Bachmann\u2019s Facebook page, was accompanied by the line: \u201cHe\u2019s Back,\u201d after Timur Vermes\u2019 best-selling 2012 satirical novel of the same name about Hitler. <\/p>\n
The Dresden Morgenpost somehow got hold of a private Facebook conversation between Bachmann and one of his Facebook contacts, in which he described immigrants as \u201ccattle\u201d, \u201cscumbags\u201d and \u201ctrash\u201d. The comments were posted on 19 September.<\/p>\n
Pegida spokeswoman Kathrin Oertel, told Spiegel Online Bachmann\u2019s resignation was the \u201conly possibilty for the movement\u201d.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Bernd Lucke, the head of the political party Alternative f\u00fcr Deutschland, an anti-euro party which has publicly expressed an allegiance with the aims of Pegida, said that with his \u201csad utterings and disgusting jokes\u201d, Bachmann had \u201cembarrassed the people of Pegida who have been compelled by honest concerns to take to the streets\u201d.<\/p>\n
Responding to the picture, Bachmann told Wednesday\u2019s Bild: \u201cI took the photo at the hairdresser\u2019s, for the publication of the audiobook of the satire He\u2019s Back \u2026 you need to be able to joke about yourself now and then\u201d. Asked about the derogatory comments he allegedly made about immigrants, Bachmann replied: \u201cWe don\u2019t comment about private matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bachmann, who has multiple convictions for burglary, assault and drug possession, was said by German intelligence services to be a target for Islamist terrorists who said on social media sites they intended to kill him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In Pegida\u2019s first ever press conference in Dresden on Monday, Lutz Bachmann insisted that the group was not racist, and distanced themselves from footage during a lively television debate showing Pegida demonstrators delivering racist remarks. Bachmann has been most keen to stress his Muslim credentials, showing photographs on his Facebook site of his Turkish best … Continue reading “Hitler photo delivers blow to Pegida”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,3],"tags":[10686,258,51,904,2363,914,3623,10685],"class_list":["post-17527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-news","tag-dresden","tag-facebook","tag-germany","tag-hitler","tag-immigrants","tag-islam","tag-muslim","tag-pegida"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17527"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17528,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17527\/revisions\/17528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}