Imgart case in the AfD leak: Constitutional judge despite accusations of racism

Exclusive Imgart case in the AfD leak First racism allegations, then constitutional judge As of: November 2nd, 2026 • 5:00 a.m

His AfD district association wanted to expel Rüdiger Imgart from the party in 2016 because of his supposedly radical views. But the procedure fails - then Imgart becomes a constitutional judge in Bavaria.

The so-called AfD leak provides a deep insight into legal proceedings within the AfD. Also in the Rüdiger Imgart case. “VERY URGENT,” wrote the chairwoman of the Upper Bavaria-Southwest district association to the party’s regional arbitration court in January 2016.

In the attachment to the email, the district association calls for “member Rüdiger Imgart to be excluded from the party”. If Imgart stays in the party, there is a risk that the AfD will “open up to the far right to the right-wing radical scene,” it says in the email. It is part of around 400,000 internal AfD documents that hackers have published on the Internet.

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It was not previously known that parts of the party had sought expulsion proceedings against the current honorary constitutional judge in Bavaria in 2016. The case is an example of an attempt to keep supposedly radical and racist positions out of the AfD. But the plan fails.

BR Research has examined emails and documents from the Imgart case from the AfD leak in detail. They are authentic. The AfD itself does not want to comment on the leak.

The Bavarian State Arbitration Court (LSG) will decide on the case in April 2016. The central allegations emerge from the decision. Accordingly, Imgart is said to have made “racist statements”. On his Facebook page he is said to have called black people the N-word and made certain population groups contemptuous. Imgart is also said to have set up “parallel structures” in the form of so-called “comradeship evenings” and “considered collaboration with the NPD”.

The available documents also show: At the beginning of 2016, the then AfD state executive committee under Petr Bystron and Katrin Ebner-Steiner was involved early on in the Rüdiger Imgart case. The state executive does not want to expel him from the party, but instead withdraws Imgart's membership rights for one and a half years. He may not vote in internal party votes and may not be elected himself. The AfD's regional arbitration tribunal, which hears internal party disputes and is led by lawyers, confirmed this sanction in April 2016.

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At the BR's request, Rüdiger Imgart rejected the allegations from the arbitration proceedings. They were the subject of “significant internal party disputes”. According to his recollection, the Facebook posts “mostly did not” come from him. He did not pursue an “extremist orientation” or the creation of parallel structures. Even back then, he had already rejected any attempt to “open up the party to the right-wing extremist scene”. Not even to the NPD.

Emails from the AfD leak show that Imgart appealed against the cancellation of his membership rights in 2016. The case then goes before the party’s Federal Arbitration Court (BSG). Almost a year later, the BSG announced its decision: the party's internal court completely lifted the sanctions imposed in Bavaria. Imgart gets his membership rights back and the party has to cover his legal costs.

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The Federal Arbitration Court states in its decision that the party's internal punishments were ineffective for formal reasons. The decisive application from Bavaria was missing a second signature, which would have been mandatory according to the statutes. A “closer examination” of the case is also not necessary. The “specific allegations” did not justify the sanctions imposed.

Kathrin Groh, professor of public law at the University of the Bundeswehr in Munich, has analyzed the documents from the proceedings and criticized the AfD's Federal Arbitration Court. The fact that a formal error leads to the inadmissibility of the procedure is “not appropriate to the importance of such regulatory measures in parties”. Without further examination, it is “implicitly said: It wasn’t all that bad.”

With the decision of the Federal Arbitration Court, Rüdiger Imgart has been rehabilitated - he becomes a candidate for state parliament and enters the city and district council of Weilheim. The next leap in Imgart's political career will follow in 2018. At the suggestion of the AfD parliamentary group, he becomes a non-professional member of the Bavarian Constitutional Court, the highest court in Bavaria. The man who his district association wanted to exclude from the party because of suspected radical tendencies is now involved in deciding whether to comply with the Bavarian constitution.

For the lawyer Kathrin Groh, it is a scandal that also fits into a pattern. From their point of view, Imgart will be “rewarded by being elevated to office.”

A photo was taken in August 2020: It shows Rüdiger Imgart at a rally in Berlin. He speaks to representatives of the Munich-based “Pegida”, which was under surveillance by the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution at the time. Imgart is wearing lederhosen and black, white and red imperial flags can be seen in the background. During the rally, demonstrators try to storm the Bundestag.

When asked by BR, Imgart said that he was present at the demonstration, but did not take part in the "subsequent events at the Reichstag building."

Rüdiger Imgart distances himself from anti-constitutional tendencies in the BR: "I am fully committed to the free democratic basic order, to human dignity and to the ban on discrimination in the Basic Law."

Kathrin Groh from the University of the Bundeswehr in Munich sees this statement as “lip service”. Constitutional judges must be “particularly faithful to the constitution in order to protect the constitution to which they are sworn.” In her opinion, Rüdiger Imgart “has made it clear that he is not a fan of the free-democratic basic order.”

The Imgart case is “paradigmatic”. This is the conclusion drawn by Michael Koß, Professor of Political Science at the Leuphana University of Lüneburg, in an interview with BR. You can see the development of the AfD here and “continuous radicalization to this day”.

At the beginning of 2024, the Bavarian state parliament will once again elect Imgart as an honorary constitutional judge at the suggestion of the AfD. Imgart still holds this position today.

This topic in the program: tagesschau.de | AfD leaks: From problem case to constitutional judge November 2nd, 2026 | 05:00 am