German far-right MP charged over Hitler salute in parliament

German national flags wave on top of the Reichstag Building, the house of the German parliament Bundestag, during a debate about the budget 2025, in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, July 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

BERLIN, Germany -- Berlin prosecutors said Monday they have charged a member of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party with making a Nazi salute in parliament.

The suspect allegedly “greeted a party colleague... at the east entrance to the Reichstag building with a heel click and a Hitler salute” in June 2023, the prosecutors said in a statement.

Making such a salute is illegal in Germany and is punishable by up to three years in prison.

The Bild daily named the lawmaker as Matthias Moosdorf, 60, a member of parliament for the city of Zwickau in the former East German state of Saxony.

“The accused is said to have been aware that the greeting... was visible to others in the entrance area,” the prosecutors said.

Moosdorf was stripped of his parliamentary immunity over the accusation in October.

On Monday he posted on the X platform denying having made the gesture.

Moosdorf has been a member of the AfD since 2016 and was until recently a foreign policy spokesman for the party’s parliamentary group.

But he was relieved of this duty in May after his friendliness towards Russia caused friction within the party.

In October 2024, it emerged that Moosdorf, a trained cellist, was an honorary professor at a Moscow music academy.

In 2023 and 2024, he gave several concerts in Russia that are said to have been paid for by the Kremlin, according to Bild.