BERLIN, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- The publication of "Inside AfD", a memoir written by former Alternative for Germany (AfD) member Franziska Schreiber, was met with legal challenges from several leading figures of the far-right on Friday.
Erika Steinbach, a former Christian Democratic Union (CDU) politician now associated with the AfD, and the publicist Goetz Kubitschek announced they would seek to prevent further copies of the book from being sold. Both complained that "Inside AfD" contained false claims about their personal conduct and said they would file law suits against the author and her publisher for libel.
"Inside AfD" has already recently made headlines in Germany due to passages of the book which describe a meeting between the former AfD leader Frauke Petry and the president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) Hans-Georg Maasen. According to Schreiber, Maasen urged Petry to banish the right-wing extremist AfD politician Bjoern Hoecke from the group in order to prevent it from being monitored by the BfV. Petry subsequently admitted that the meeting took place but described the exchange between her and the BfV president in the book as "pure fiction."
On Friday, Steinbach and Kubitschek similarly accused Schreiber of having fabricated stories. For example, the author claims that Steinbach made donations to the AfD when she was still a member of the CDU in 2013. Speaking to Spiegel magazine on Friday, Steinbach insisted "the statement is a lie."
In turn, Kubitschek denies an assertion made in the book that he assisted Hoecke in drafting political speeches which drew heavily on the work of the leading National Socialist propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Schreiber wrote that the two hoped to find the "formula which led to success (for the German Nazi party) during the 1930s."
Schreiber joined the AfD in 2013 where she quickly rose through the ranks to become a leading figure in the party's youth organization before turning her back on the group. Christian Strasser, the director of Europa publishing house, told press on Friday that he would continue to offer "Inside AfD" for sale to the public in spite of the latest legal challenges.
