Members of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) disrupted a tour of the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin, German media reported Friday.
The group was from the Lake Constance region in the south of Germany, the constituency of AfD leader and Bundestag member Alice Weidel, although Weidel was not on the trip, which was part of federally funded scheme to enable voters to observe parliamentarians in Berlin.
According to Tagesspiegel, they “constantly interrupted” the guide during the tour on July 10, challenged the existence of gas chambers and made “manifestly far-right and historically revisionist” statements. The incident was confirmed to local media by the Brandenburg Memorial Foundation, which administers the site.
Tagesspiegel said a government spokesperson confirmed that “anti-Semitic and historically untenable remarks” were made by one visitor, prompting the guide to stop the tour.
Police in the state of Brandenburg learned about the incident on Thursday and have launched an investigation, the force said on Twitter.
“They want to establish extreme-right positions in the political debate. More than that, they relativize the pain and deaths of millions of victims of the Holocaust with such slurs,” said Martina Münch, Brandenburg’s culture minister.