# Rüdiger Lucassen

# Rüdiger Lucassen

Rüdiger Lucassen (born 19 August 1951 in Dollerupholz, Schleswig-Holstein) is a German politician of [the Alternative](/organizations/the-alternative) for Germany and a member of the Bundestag for North Rhine-Westphalia. The Bundestag's biography, drawn from his own disclosure, lists him as a Diplom-Kaufmann who passed the Abitur in Büsum and studied economics at the Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg. It records 34 years in the Bundeswehr, as an army helicopter pilot and as a desk officer at NATO and in the Federal [Ministry of Defence](/organizations/ministry-of-defence), ending at the rank of Oberst im Generalstab.

He joined the AfD in April 2016. On 5 October 2019 an extraordinary state conference in Kalkar elected him chairman of the party in North Rhine-Westphalia with 321 of 540 delegate votes, against 215 for the incumbent Thomas Röckemann. The biography published for the 20th Bundestag dates that state chairmanship from 2019 to 2022. In January 2022 he wrote to members that he would not stand again, describing the decision as a generational change, and said he would concentrate on parliamentary work in Berlin. For eleven years before the mandate he was managing director of pro-ades GmbH in Bonn, and the Bundestag also records consulting work in Bad Münstereifel.

Lucassen has been a member of the Bundestag since 2017. Archived parliamentary biographies place him in the 19th term (2017–2021) and the 20th (2021–2025), and the sitting biography still lists him as a member of the 21st Bundestag, elected on the AfD state list for North Rhine-Westphalia and as the candidate in constituency 091, Euskirchen – Rhein-Erft-Kreis II. In the 2025 federal election in that constituency the AfD received 37,837 first votes (18.4 percent) and 37,881 second votes (18.4 percent); Detlef Seif of the CDU won the direct mandate with 38.4 percent of the first votes. The chamber lists him as an ordinary member of the Defence Committee and of the Joint Committee under Article 53a of the Basic Law, as a deputy member of the Budget Committee, and as deputy chairman of the parliamentary group for Eastern Africa.

He was the AfD Bundestag group's defence-policy spokesperson until 13 April 2026, when he resigned with immediate effect and thereby pre-empted a no-confidence motion in the group's defence working group. Tagesschau described the 74-year-old former officer as an advocate of NATO, Western alignment and the restoration of conscription, a line that had become unpopular in eastern state associations presenting the AfD as a party of peace. Lucassen blamed supporters of the Thuringian AfD leader Björn Höcke, whom he had criticised for concluding that Germany was no longer worth fighting for; the group executive had already expressed a formal disapproval of Lucassen's conduct. In his resignation letter he wrote that he did not want personnel debates to hurt the party's chances in coming state elections.

## Early life and education

Hans Rüdiger Lucassen, known as Rüdiger Lucassen, was born in Dollerupholz in Schleswig-Holstein. In the Federal Returning Officer’s list of members elected to the 21st [German Bundestag](/organizations/german-bundestag) he appears as Hans Rüdiger Lucassen, with 1951 given as the year of birth. The German National Library authority file prefers the heading “Lucassen, Rüdiger” and records the same birth year and Dollerupholz as the place of birth. The Bundestag biography, which the parliament states is based on information supplied by members themselves, gives the date as 19 August 1951.

Dollerupholz is a locality of the municipality of Westerholz, in the north of Amt Langballig in the district of Schleswig-Flensburg. The municipality lies on a steep coast with a beach, directly on the outer Flensburg Fjord. Its portrait places Westerholz about 20 kilometres east of Flensburg, on the fjord above the valley of the Langballigau. In a SAT.1 NRW interview of 13 August 2020, Lucassen said that he had been born, brought up and gone to school on the Baltic coast near Flensburg, where taking a recreational boat licence was a matter of course.

On his website he describes Dollerupholz as standing directly on the fjord in the landscape of Angeln, recalls a household emphasis on sport and years spent in gymnastics, and says that in 1968 he travelled with teammates to the German Gymnastics Festival in Berlin, a city he remembered as still marked by the war and divided by the Berlin Wall, where he watched a demonstration at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church during the student protests; the same text dates his Abitur in Büsum to 1973 and his entry into the Bundeswehr as an officer candidate to that summer, with an economics course beginning a year later. A separate chronology on the site dates the Abitur to 1972, the Bundeswehr entry to 1973 in Bückeburg, and economics studies from 1974 to 1978, as a member of what he calls the university’s second student cohort. The Bundestag biography confirms an Abitur in Büsum, Schleswig-Holstein, but gives no year.

He places that degree at the armed-forces university in Hamburg. Teaching at the Hochschule der Bundeswehr Hamburg began on 1 October 1973 on the site of the Douaumont barracks in the east of the city, with a first intake of 297 students in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, economics and organisational sciences (Wirtschafts- und Organisationswissenschaften) and education, taught as an intensive trimester course. In December 1975 the city of Hamburg authorised the Hochschule to hold examinations and confer academic degrees. It was renamed Universität der Bundeswehr in Hamburg on 1 May 1985 and, on 16 December 2003, Helmut-Schmidt-Universität / Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg, after the former defence minister and chancellor [Helmut Schmidt](/people/helmut-schmidt). The Bundestag lists Lucassen as a Diplom-Kaufmann who studied economics at the university under its later name. Abgeordnetenwatch records the qualification as Wirtschafts- und Organisationswissenschaften (Dipl.-Kfm.) and the birth year 1951. The biography issued by the AfD group in the Bundestag states that he completed a course in economics at the Universität der Bundeswehr in Hamburg.

## Military career

### Officer training and flying commands

Lucassen joined the Bundeswehr in 1973 at Bückeburg as an officer candidate in the German Army's aviation arm, the Heeresfliegertruppe. From 1974 to 1978 he studied economics at the Bundeswehr university in Hamburg—in his account, as a member of its second student cohort; the institution is now Helmut Schmidt University—and in 1979 began helicopter pilot training at Bückeburg. He then flew as an anti-tank helicopter pilot and qualified as a flight instructor. That chronology does not name the aircraft, or the units, of those first flying tours. The Bundestag handbook records the civilian qualification as Diplom-Kaufmann and a 34-year career as a professional officer, ending as Oberst im Generalstab, with duties that included helicopter pilot and desk officer at NATO and in the Federal Ministry of Defence.

The anti-tank helicopter the Army was introducing while he learned to fly was the MBB Bo 105, armed with HOT guided missiles. In 1979 the Bundeswehr formed the first regiments for it: Regiment 16 at Celle, Regiment 26 at Roth and Regiment 36 at Fritzlar. An unarmed Bo 105 served in parallel as a liaison and observation helicopter.

From 1983 to 1985 he attended the general-staff course at the Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr in Hamburg. His website calls the class the 28th general-staff training course (28. Ausbildungslehrgang Generalstabsdienst) and leaves the assignments between the course and 1989 unspecified. Biographical summaries of the same years have instead numbered it the 26th Army general-staff course. The Bundestag biography, which parliament says is based on the member's own information, confirms the general-staff rank and gives no course number; neither that entry nor his website supplies a class list that would settle the difference.

From 1989 to 1993 he commanded an independent army-aviation squadron at Mendig airfield, with 15 helicopters. From 1993 to 1996 he commanded the flying battalion of the combat-helicopter regiment at Fritzlar, which he calls a Kampfhubschrauberregiment. During that command the Fritzlar regiment was still the Bo 105 anti-tank unit raised in 1979. The Bundeswehr traces today's Kampfhubschrauberregiment 36 "Kurhessen", still at Fritzlar and flying the Tiger, to Heeresfliegerregiment 36.

### Staff posts and retirement

From 1997 to 1999 he was section chief for concepts and employment of army aviation at the Heeresamt, the Army Office, in Cologne. From 1999 to 2002 he was desk officer for flight operations at the defence ministry in Bonn, covering flight safety, air-traffic services and flying operations. A 2018 Deutschlandfunk introduction described him as an Oberst im Generalstab with more than 30 years in the Bundeswehr, including the ministry and NATO.

From 2002 to 2005 he returned to Bückeburg as head of the development group at the Heeresfliegerwaffenschule, and states that he chaired NATO Land Group 10, "Battlefield Helicopters", in Brussels, and was German chairman of a four-nation Tiger working group with Germany, France, Spain and Australia. The school is now the International Helicopter Training Centre, which also oversees Tiger training at Le Cannet-des-Maures. The parliamentary biography records a NATO desk-officer role and does not list those chairmanships.

His last posting, in 2005 and 2006, was group leader for the Army's central training institutions at the Heeresamt in Cologne. He says the post covered the Army combat-training centre in the Altmark and the combat-simulation centre at Wildflecken, and that he was German vice-president of the joint committee for the Franco-German Tiger training centre at Le Luc. In 2006 he left active service at his own request, describing the step as early, in the rank of Oberst im Generalstab, and turned to civilian work. The Bundestag handbook gives the same final rank after 34 years as a career officer and, from 2007, lists him as managing director of his own firm.

## Business activities

pro-ades GmbH was entered in the commercial register of the Amtsgericht Bonn on 20 December 2006 as HRB 15055. The articles of association, dated 10 November 2006, established a Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung with share capital of €25,000 and the object of business and organisational consulting (*Wirtschafts- und Organisationsberatung*). The new-registration notice gave the address as Johanniterstraße 9, 53113 Bonn, and named Stefan Rutenberg of Reinbek as sole managing director. A correcting entry of 4 January 2007 recorded the name as Stefan Ruthenberg. Lucassen, registered as Hans Rüdiger Lucassen, is not named in those entries.

The seat then moved to Bad Münstereifel. A shareholders’ resolution of 21 October 2008, entered on 2 December 2008, transferred it there, with the business address Holzemer Straße 63. A resolution of 26 October 2012, entered on 29 November 2012, returned the seat to Bonn, at Bonngasse 10, 53111 Bonn, and recorded a branch under the same name at the Holzemer Straße address.

On 5 June 2014 the register recorded Ruthenberg’s departure and Lucassen’s appointment as managing director, again with sole representation. Bundestag biographies, which the parliament says are based on members’ own statements, describe him as managing director of pro-ades GmbH in Bonn for 11 years, following 34 years in the Bundeswehr. On Abgeordnetenwatch, in a reply dated 10 March 2023, he said he had worked there from 2007 until he accepted his Bundestag mandate in October 2017, latterly as managing director; that the firm prepared concepts for training facilities of armed forces and other security organisations; and that it had taken on no government contract, national or international, while he was there. The company’s own website, archived in October 2017, called him chief operating officer from 2006 and managing director from 2014, and listed training concepts, training facilities, procurement processes, and training and simulation.

An entry of 1 December 2017 stated that the company was dissolved, that Lucassen had ceased to be managing director, and that Dr Ulrike Lucassen, of Bad Münstereifel, had been appointed liquidator. An entry of 4 September 2019 stated that the liquidation had ended and that the company was deleted. The deletion notice still gave Bonngasse 10 as the address.

Disclosures published with his biographies for the 19th electoral term, and again for the 21st, list two pre-mandate occupations: managing director of pro-ades GmbH, Bonn, and “Consultant, Bad Münstereifel”. They name no clients or income for the consultancy. For the 20th term the Bundestag published a separate paid activity alongside the mandate, organisational and process consulting (*Organisations- und Prozessberatung*), until 31 October 2024, for one contractual partner classified under steel processing, materials and logistics. The published gross amounts, which under parliamentary rules are receipts before the member’s own expenses, were €39,870.38 for 2022, €130,059.98 for 2023 and €40,273.13 for 2024.

## AfD in North Rhine-Westphalia

### Joining the party

Rüdiger Lucassen joined the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in April 2016, according to the biography published by the Bundestag, which rests on members' own disclosures. He later told the *Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger* that he had entered the party to oppose what he called the "devastating migration policy" of Chancellor [Angela Merkel](/people/angela-merkel), and that the AfD was his only party-political commitment. His base was the district association in Euskirchen, in North Rhine-Westphalia. By early 2021 the same paper, noting that he then lived in Bad Münstereifel, identified him as deputy chairman of that *Kreisverband*. The Bundestag biography also lists him as a member of the state specialist committee on foreign and security policy.

He entered the Bundestag in 2017 and became the group's defence spokesman. Ahead of the July 2019 congress, the *Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger* reported that members seeking a new state leader had turned to him as a possible sole *Landessprecher* who might mediate between the camps. He called it "a great challenge" but said he was optimistic the branch could be pacified.

### State chairmanship, 2019–2022

On 5 October 2019 an extraordinary state conference in Kalkar, on the Lower Rhine, elected Lucassen sole state chairman and ended the dual leadership. He had made a single chair a condition of standing. According to party figures, he received 321 of 540 delegate votes, more than 59 percent. Thomas Röckemann, the remaining co-chair, received 215, and Andreas Preis of the Wesel district association two. News agencies described the result as a success for the comparatively more moderate camp after months of infighting.

The vote closed a crisis in what was then the AfD's largest state branch, with about 5,300 members, jointly led by Röckemann and Helmut Seifen. The split followed the argument over Der Flügel, the nationalist network around the Thuringian politician Björn Höcke. At a special congress in Warburg on 6 July 2019, Seifen, regarded as the more moderate co-chair, resigned with most of the twelve-member board. Röckemann, described in reporting as a Flügel sympathiser, and two others stayed. Motions to remove them missed the required two-thirds majority, and the two-day congress was broken off after one day, leaving a three-person rump executive. Seifen accused Flügel supporters of infiltrating the branch down to district level and of owing their first loyalty to Höcke's network; Röckemann refused to resign.

At Kalkar, [Alice Weidel](/people/alice-weidel), then chair of the Bundestag group, urged the branch to "make a cut" and come together, arguing that North Rhine-Westphalia would decide the party's federal prospects. Lucassen said he did not mean leadership "by command and obedience alone", and that there would be no personality cult. He called a confrontation with the Flügel "necessary and sensible", offered talks to every current, and said copying the eastern associations would be naive because conditions in the west differed. *[Die Welt](/organizations/die-welt)* reported that prominent Röckemann allies linked to the Flügel were not on the new board, and that Lucassen had promised to represent all currents rather than draw a sharp programmatic line against the network.

On 5 November 2019 he wrote to more than 5,000 members that Alternative Mitte, the intra-party grouping whose comparatively moderate supporters had backed him, had dissolved at once. He called that a signal of unity behind the new board and asked other currents to fold their work into the party as a whole, writing that factional fights helped only opponents. *[Der Spiegel](/organizations/der-spiegel)* later described him as long associated with the more moderate wing and as a supporter of federal co-chair [Jörg Meuthen](/people/jorg-meuthen), while adding that his stance inside the party had grown less distinct.

The state leadership was drawn into the case of [Matthias Helferich](/people/matthias-helferich), by the summer of 2021 one of two deputy state chairmen. After earlier chat messages of his became public, the federal executive found no majority for expulsion proceedings and instead asked the state party court for a two-year ban on party office, which would not have removed him from the Bundestag list.

In January 2022 Lucassen wrote to members that he would not stand again, citing a necessary generational change and a "rejuvenation" of the party, and said he would concentrate on work in Berlin rather than leave politics. He repeated his case for a single leadership, arguing that the federal party no longer needed two chairmen, and warned that a March hearing at the Cologne administrative court might let the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution treat the whole AfD as a suspected extremist case.

At the 19th state conference, held in Siegen on 5–6 February 2022 ahead of the May election to the Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia, the physician Martin Vincentz, then 35, succeeded him. On 5 February Vincentz defeated the Bundestag member [Fabian Jacobi](/people/fabian-jacobi) with 63.03 percent among about 530 delegates. Deputies elected with him included the Bundestag members Jörg Schneider and Kay Gottschalk and the Landtag member Sven Tritschler. Lucassen, in office since October 2019, did not stand. His Bundestag biography gives the term as 2019–2022 in one sentence and 2019–2021 in another; reporting of the Siegen handover fixes the end in February 2022.

## Bundestag membership

Rüdiger Lucassen has been a member of the Bundestag in the 19th electoral term, which first met on 24 October 2017, the 20th, which first met on 26 October 2021, and the 21st, which first met on 25 March 2025. He has not won a constituency seat. At the federal elections of 2017, 2021 and 23 February 2025 he was the direct candidate of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Euskirchen – Rhein-Erft-Kreis II, in North Rhine-Westphalia, and took his mandate from the AfD state list. The constituency was numbered 92 in 2017 and 2021 and 91 in 2025. The Bundestag lists a constituency office at Alter Markt 8 in Euskirchen.

### Elections

For the election of 24 September 2017 the Federal Returning Officer listed Hans-Rüdiger Lucassen, a managing director born in 1951 and living in Bad Münstereifel, as the AfD direct candidate in constituency 92 and as place 7 on the North Rhine-Westphalia list. The state ministerial gazette of members elected from state lists likewise records him as number 7 on the AfD list. [Detlef Seif](/people/detlef-seif) of the [Christian Democratic Union](/organizations/christian-democratic-union-of-germany) (CDU) won the seat with 79,493 first votes (42.8 percent). Because Lucassen was the AfD constituency candidate, the party's 17,650 first votes (9.5 percent) were cast for him. The AfD second-vote total in the constituency was 18,325 (9.8 percent). Turnout was 76.1 percent, and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) was second on first votes with 48,592 (26.2 percent).

On 26 September 2021 he was again the AfD candidate in constituency 92. The state returning officer's final list of candidates places him first on the AfD state list, with Bad Münstereifel as his residence. Seif again won the direct mandate, with 65,981 first votes (34.6 percent). The AfD first-vote total was 14,999 (7.9 percent), 1.6 percentage points below 2017, and its second-vote total was 14,894 (7.8 percent). Turnout was 77.4 percent, and the SPD was again second on first votes, with 50,892 (26.7 percent).

At the election of 23 February 2025 the same constituency was numbered 91. The North Rhine-Westphalia returning officer names Hans Rüdiger Lucassen as the AfD direct candidate and as place 5 on the state list, with Kall as his residence, and again names Seif for the CDU. Seif won with 78,883 first votes (38.4 percent). Lucassen's first-vote total was 37,837 (18.4 percent), 10.5 percentage points above the AfD share in 2021, and the AfD second-vote total was 37,881 (18.4 percent, up 10.6 points). Andrea Kanonenberg of the SPD was the runner-up on 42,466 first votes (20.7 percent), so the AfD candidate finished third. Turnout was 83.5 percent. The Bundestag records Lucassen as elected on the North Rhine-Westphalia list while standing in constituency 091.

### Committees and the defence spokesperson role

On 25 January 2018 the AfD Bundestag group announced that its assembly had confirmed Lucassen as defence-policy spokesperson and that he would also be the group's Obmann, its lead member, on the Defence Committee. For the 20th term the Bundestag's list of offices recorded him as an ordinary member and Obmann of the Defence Committee, a deputy member of the Budget Committee and an ordinary member of the Joint Committee.

In the 19th term the Defence Committee constituted itself on 30 January 2019 as its first committee of inquiry under Article 45a of the Basic Law, after reports by the Federal Court of Auditors on the award of external consulting contracts in the defence ministry. A nine-member subcommittee carried out the inquiry, held 17 public evidence sessions and drew in more than 4,700 files; the Defence Committee adopted the final report on 16 September 2020 as printed paper 19/22400. That report names Lucassen as the AfD's ordinary member and spokesperson on the subcommittee. In a Bundestag account of the inquiry before the 2019 summer recess, he called the failings in the ministry enormous and described more than 2,000 files, some redacted or illegible, as part of what he termed a tactic of concealment.

On the Bundestag biography page for the 21st term he is listed as an ordinary member of the Defence Committee, a deputy member of the Budget Committee, an ordinary member of the Joint Committee under Article 53a of the Basic Law, and deputy chair of the Parliamentary Group on Eastern Africa. The biographical text on that page, which the Bundestag says is supplied by the member, still describes him as the AfD group's defence-policy spokesperson. On 13 April 2026 tagesschau.de reported that he had resigned as spokesperson with immediate effect, ahead of a no-confidence motion due the next day in the group's defence working group. The Berlin newspaper *taz*, citing his letter that Monday to the group executive, reported that the resignation also covered leadership of the working group and the Obmann role in the Defence Committee, while he remained an ordinary member of both the working group and the committee. Tagesschau.de reported that the Hessian AfD member Jan Nolte would lead the working group in the interim and that the full parliamentary group would decide how the defence posts were filled.

## Defence and foreign policy

### Bundeswehr, conscription and NATO

In his first year in the Bundestag, Lucassen ranked territorial and alliance defence above missions abroad. On 7 March 2018 he told Deutschlandfunk that new or extended mandates, including training in Iraq, could not be carried out safely, and that Afghanistan still lacked a strategy with measurable goals. On 4 May he said the Bundeswehr was needed "um ein wehrhafter Staat zu sein, um zur Landesverteidigung befähigt zu sein", and that thirteen missions left it unable to rebuild at home. Mali, Afghanistan and a wider Iraq mission, he said, did not serve a German security interest. He said he saw no enemy, "weder die Russische Föderation, noch woanders".

He invoked the 2014 NATO Wales summit, his "Vertrag von Wales", under which allies were to move toward spending 2 percent of GDP on defence — by 2024 in the March interview and by 2025 in May — and called the figure realistic. He would not support Defence Minister [Ursula von der Leyen](/people/energy-ursula-von-der-leyen)'s bid for more money, because it still missed that mark. The Alternative for Germany's 2016 programme backs NATO only as a defensive alliance and accepts out-of-area missions only with a UN mandate and a German interest. It sets no GDP share. It would restore conscription for men aged 18 to 25; women could volunteer.

On 24 July 2019, the day [Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer](/people/annegret-kramp-karrenbauer) was sworn in and restated 1.5 percent of GDP by 2024 and the 2 percent goal, Lucassen accused the government of "Verfassungsbruch". Citing Article 87a of the Basic Law — "Der Bund stellt Streitkräfte zur Verteidigung auf" — he said the forces could not defend the territory and demanded conscription, full equipment and full staffing.

Weeks earlier he had presented the defence working group's paper *Streitkraft Bundeswehr*. Tagesschau reported its demands: conscription and mustering of all men from 18; a reserve of 50,000 behind 230,000 troops; Basic Law changes for use at home and on the border; a leading role in NATO and no "EU army"; foreign missions beneath territorial defence, with an exit strategy; and motivation "zum unerbittlichen Kampf im Gefecht" so as to strengthen the "Wehrwille des deutschen Volks". Retired lieutenant general Kersten Lahl told Tagesschau that "unerbittlich" meant merciless and contradicted Innere Führung and the law of armed conflict. Lucassen answered that war, in Afghanistan or in the Baltic, had always been unrelenting.

The same subjects later divided the party. In December 2025 Lucassen rebuked Björn Höcke in the Bundestag after Höcke asked what a young man should defend in a Bundeswehr that "keinen Patriotismus und keine Tradition mehr kennt", and said nobody else should be put in uniform until the state was again "ein Staat der Deutschen". His resignation as defence spokesman in April 2026 followed pressure Tagesschau tied to that NATO and conscription line, unpopular in eastern associations that called the AfD a peace party. Jan Nolte, also on the defence committee, said the complaint was about conduct in the working group, not about Höcke, NATO or conscription.

### Ukraine, nuclear weapons and factional labels

After Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Lucassen held a legal judgement and a political refusal at once. In April 2022 he wrote that arming a state under attack was lawful under the [Kellogg–Briand Pact](/facts/kellogg-briand-pact), the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions, and did not make Germany a belligerent. He cited the General Assembly vote of 1 March 2022, treated Crimea and the so-called people's republics as still Ukrainian, and said Russia had sent regular troops into the Donbas, unlike German deliveries. On phoenix on 1 February 2023 he still demanded an end to deliveries from Bundeswehr stocks because, he said, they plunder the Bundeswehr and minimise its readiness. Western weapons, he said, would not bring a "Sieg-Frieden" but a "ruinösen Abnutzungskrieg"; further money for Ukraine should depend on talks, and sanctions relief on Russia negotiating. Suspending conscription in 2011 had been a "Kardinalfehler", and €100 billion would not restore the Bundeswehr. The AfD, phoenix noted, had opposed any weapons since the invasion widened.

On nuclear weapons he went beyond the party's texts. The 2016 programme wants allied troops withdrawn, "insbesondere ihrer Atomwaffen"; the 2019 paper still relied on allies' nuclear forces until "eine gleichwertige Alternative" existed, not a German bomb. After the Young [Alternative for Germany](/organizations/alternative-for-germany) in October 2022 demanded "Atomwaffen für Deutschland", Lucassen said credible deterrence required nuclear capability and that independence meant considering a German arsenal, a sentence his office confirmed to *taz*. [Hannes Gnauck](/people/hannes-gnauck), the new JA chairman and a member of the same defence group, said only nuclear-armed states were sovereign, not "Verhandlungsmasse fremder Hegemonialmächte". Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel rejected the demand; Chrupalla read the 2021 programme's call to remove all nuclear weapons from Germany and closed the debate. *taz* noted that a German bomb would breach the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Two Plus Four Treaty.

The Russia dispute was already factional. On Markus Lanz's ZDF programme in April 2023, Lucassen called appearances by Eugen Schmidt and [Steffen Kotré](/people/steffen-kotre) on Russian television "Volksverrat". Schmidt had said Germany had neither democracy nor the rule of law, and Lucassen said he no longer spoke to him. He apologised in the group and on Facebook for the word — calling members "Volksverräter" was "überzogen und falsch" — but not for the criticism; the federal executive was to discuss discipline. In July the *Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung* described the party's positions on Russia as "Putin-Jünger" against "NATO-Boys"; before the broadcast, Stefan Keuter's Telegram group had jeered at what their "NATO-Boy" would say. The foreign-policy working group, the paper reported, had nine Russia-friendly members under Petr Bystron, among them Kotré, Schmidt, [Alexander Gauland](/people/alexander-gauland) and Chrupalla, and one Atlanticist, Wundrak. Lucassen, Jürgen Braun and Norbert Kleinwächter objected when those papers reached the full group. One estimate put those favouring a NATO exit at about a third of the group, a view former officers did not treat as discussable.

## Public controversies

### Campaign rhetoric and parliamentary rebukes

At an Alternative for Germany rally in Euskirchen on 28 August 2017, the *Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger* reported, Lucassen called SPD chancellor candidate [Martin Schulz](/people/martin-schulz) a "Schande für Deutschland" because Schulz spoke of social justice after earning a large salary in Brussels, including as president of the [European Parliament](/organizations/european-parliament). He called Chancellor Angela Merkel a "Gefahr für Deutschland" for allowing "the influx of thousands" without asking the Bundestag. At a rally in Kall on 12 September, with about 70 supporters and as many counter-demonstrators, the paper reported that he praised the British for being the first, through Brexit, to draw the consequence of a "gleichgeschaltetes Europa" that did not work.

On 10 July 2018 he opened a constituency office in Euskirchen. *Blick nach Rechts* reported that the local association welcomed a "flämische Delegation" and a note, with chocolates, in which [Tom Van Grieken](/people/tom-van-grieken), chairman of [Vlaams Belang](/organizations/vlaams-belang), wished for "gute Zusammenarbeit," and that the border district would seek more such contacts. The article called Vlaams Belang "extrem rechten" and "fremdenfeindlich," citing contacts with Pegida and pro NRW, and described the note as desired cooperation.

On 19 May 2021, ending a debate on Germany's role in the [United Nations](/organizations/united-nations) mission MINUSMA in Mali, Lucassen wished the Israel Defense Forces "viel Soldatenglück" and the Israeli air force, searching for "den Terrorführern der Hamas," "eine gute Jagd und fette Beute." [Steffi Lemke](/people/steffi-lemke) of Alliance 90/[The Greens](/organizations/the-greens) called the wording "menschenverachtend." Vice-President Dagmar Ziegler later issued an *Ordnungsruf* "für diese Ausdrucksweise." Lucassen objected. The Bundestag's account of the written objection says he argued that soldierly language was "in besonderer Weise" covered by freedom of expression. On 20 May the plenary rejected the objection without debate; the printed result was 73 votes in favour, 534 against and 8 abstentions.

### The Helferich affair

In summer 2021 Westdeutscher Rundfunk published 2017 Facebook messages in which Matthias Helferich, deputy AfD state chairman in North Rhine-Westphalia, captioned a photograph of himself "das freundliche Gesicht des NS," called himself a "demokratischen Freisler" — an allusion to the Nazi judge Roland Freisler — quoted [Adolf Hitler](/people/adolf-hitler) and spoke of contacts in the far-right scene in Dortmund. The messages were with Markus Mohr, an AfD councillor in Aachen, who passed them to the federal executive and said they were convictions, not jokes. Helferich did not deny them; *Der Spiegel* reported that he later described them as persiflage.

Lucassen, then state chairman, told the *taz* that the federal executive, "namentlich Jörg Meuthen," was considering sanctions up to expulsion over a five-year-old private chat, which would invite denunciation, and that members needed protection from media pressure rather than more sanctions. Meuthen said on ZDF that such remarks were unacceptable in the party. A board vote of six for expulsion proceedings, six abstentions and none against was then disputed over the two-thirds rule. WDR reported that the board also resolved to ask the party court for a two-year ban on office; on 9 August *Der Spiegel* reported that a further vote rejected opening expulsion proceedings.

Mohr told WDR that on 16 May 2021, beside an AfD meeting in Siegen and before a witness, he had shown Lucassen the excerpts on a tablet, including the "freundliche Gesicht des NS" line. Lucassen denied that to *Die Welt* and again to WDR. Mohr said he assumed the denial was "zu seinem Schutz," because Lucassen had then apparently told neither executive.

### Posts on the Battle of Crete

On 20 May 2025 Lucassen wrote on X and Facebook that 84 years earlier his father, Hans Lucassen, had jumped over Crete with the Wehrmacht's Fallschirmjägerregiment 1 in Operation Mercury, the Battle of Crete. He called it the war's largest airborne operation, wrote that the paratroopers' personal fates "rühren zu Tränen," and said the conquest had made the modern parachute arm's reputation "auch, wenn es die politische Führung zu unterbinden versucht." He attributed to [Winston Churchill](/people/winston-churchill) the line that these paratroopers were "die Blüte deutschen Mannestums."

*WELT*, n-tv, the *Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger* and *DerWesten* called the posts glorification and noted the absence of any reference to crimes against civilians. n-tv reported that the regiment he named shot hostages at Kondomari on 3 June 1941 and that more than 2,000 Cretans were killed in the first months of the occupation. *WELT* wrote that the Churchill sentence followed the German Wikipedia, whose English rendering omitted "Nazi" from "Nazi parachute troops" and left out a preceding line on the Hitler Youth and a "Teutonic spirit of revenge." Replies under the post included Carl Gruner of the FDP, who wrote of a "barbarischen Angriffskrieg," and journalist Georgine Kellermann, who referred to the "mörderische Regime" for which the father had fought. Asked whether his father had taken part in shootings, Lucassen replied that there was no duty to phrase a remembrance so as to receive a critic's "geschichtspolitischen Sanctus," and called that critic a "Rotzlöffel."

## Intra-party conflict and resignation

### Criticism of the party leadership

In March 2020, as state chairman of the Alternative for Germany in North Rhine-Westphalia, Lucassen wrote to federal co-chairs Jörg Meuthen and Tino Chrupalla demanding that the informal “Flügel” be dissolved, that events under its name be banned, and that its leaders subordinate their language to the party programme. He called the network in his state a “constant source of dispute and of personal and organisational conflict,” while saying a classification by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution was meant to damage the party as a whole. *Junge Freiheit* wrote that the letter helped set off a self-dissolution due by 30 April 2020. Lucassen told the paper that parallel structures had held the party back, that a “right-national” current could remain, and that the limit was *völkisch* ideas and clearly revisionist statements; he called his relations with Björn Höcke collegial and said Meuthen’s idea of splitting the AfD in two belonged outside the chair.

By December the two men shared a platform. Before a district meeting in Höxter on 5 December 2020, on “30 years of reunification — opposition in east and west,” the *Westfalen-Blatt* reported that Höcke would appear with Lucassen, with about 140 people allowed in. Höcke answered Meuthen from the hall, saying that disciplining internal opponents in public supplied “the raw material from which ammunition against us is made.” Police told dpa that about 750 people protested outside under “Höxter zeigt sich! Nie wieder Faschismus,” and that the demonstration stayed peaceful.

In May 2024, as the Bundestag group’s defence spokesman, Lucassen told *Focus* that “not a few, above all in the parliamentary group, have long expected greater professionalism from the leadership,” over European lead candidate Maximilian Krah. *Welt* reported that co-chairs Alice Weidel and Chrupalla had not stopped Krah’s nomination despite warnings, that Krah had relativised the SS, and that he had been Höcke’s preferred candidate; a Halle court had just fined Höcke for using a Sturmabteilung slogan. Lucassen said Höcke had “done great damage with his form of revisionism and his playing with terms,” urged “more self-discipline instead of selfishness,” and said he could no longer watch insults aimed at [Ricarda Lang](/people/ricarda-lang) or [Annalena Baerbock](/people/annalena-baerbock), because “base instincts are being served.”

### The 2025–2026 dispute and resignation

On 5 December 2025, debating a military-service bill, Lucassen said Höcke had concluded “that Germany was no longer worth fighting for,” and that the men and women of the wars of liberation “would never have followed that finding.” In the Thuringia parliament Höcke had asked what a young man should defend — drag-queen appearances in kindergartens, mass immigration, “pride in guilt” — and had said the state must again be “a state for the Germans” before anyone was forced into uniform.

In mid-December the group executive opened an *Ordnungsverfahren*. Its lawyers wrote that he had turned “an internal debate currently being conducted intensively” into public criticism and had foreseeably caused serious negative press. [Torben Braga](/people/torben-braga), a Thuringian MP and Höcke confidant, wanted the speech discussed; a motion from his colleagues failed by a large majority after Weidel, participants told Tagesschau, warned against feeding the press before Christmas, and Lucassen was given until 19 December to reply. He wrote that he had not exported a conscription argument — the group had already shelved a motion to restore it, a breach of the basic programme he had “accepted with gritted teeth” — but the impression of “an AfD that has given up on Germany.” That tone, he said, would cost the party soldiers and voters who expected responsibility for the state.

On the afternoon of 26 January 2026 the executive, after hearing him, voted only a *Missbilligung*. A spokesman said he had used the rostrum for an internal dispute. *Welt* noted that the rules provide for reprimands, fines, speaking bans, bans on office and expulsion, but not a *Missbilligung*, so the step stopped short of a formal sanction. Honorary chairman Alexander Gauland backed Lucassen’s case that governing meant standing by a defensible state; the board still held that the plenary was the wrong place.

On 13 April 2026 he resigned at once as defence spokesman, head of the defence working group and the group’s *Obmann* on the defence committee, before a no-confidence vote in the working group the following Tuesday. His office confirmed the resignation. To Weidel, Chrupalla and the executive he wrote that argument over him and the party’s foreign and security line was stuck in a “friend-enemy spiral,” and that personnel fights should not hurt coming state elections. Tagesschau also quoted him: his concern was “the rescue of our country, which is in a serious imbalance.” He blamed allies of Höcke. Over the previous weekend he answered Braga, who had called the conscription line “a solo run. Once again,” by accusing that camp of an “anti-FRG sound” and of reviving a GDR combat term that cast people like him as the “FRG establishment.”

Jan Nolte, a Hessian member of the defence committee, answered that “neither the defence working group nor the AfD is remote-controlled from Thuringia.” The complaint, he said, was not Höcke, NATO or conscription but colleagues passed over, including by a Bundeswehr paper Lucassen issued for the Munich Security Conference without the working group’s agreement. Heinrich Koch, who called himself a transatlanticist, cited the same leadership style; the *Neue Zürcher Zeitung* reported charges of lost trust, solo initiatives and a “leadership deficit,” and judged that censuring Lucassen rather than Höcke showed Thuringia’s weight in the group. Nolte led the working group in the interim. On 21 April 2026 the group elected the 37-year-old former soldier defence spokesman; he wrote that Germany should remain a reliable NATO partner, with the United States among its closest partners, while Europe became more capable of acting. Lucassen stayed in the Bundestag and on the defence committee.

## Personal life

The biography published by the Bundestag, which rests on members' own statements, records that Lucassen is married and has two children. It does not name his wife. A profile in the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger of 18 February 2025, compiled from information he supplied before that year's federal election, specified two daughters. In the same questionnaire he wrote that he and his wife had for many years supported an animal-rescue station, and he listed animal protection among his interests.

The final list of state-list candidates published by the returning officer of North Rhine-Westphalia for the Bundestag election of 26 September 2021 gave his place of residence as Bad Münstereifel. On 11 May 2023 he told the *Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger* that he no longer lived there. He said the flood catastrophe had made uninhabitable the house in Bad Münstereifel in which he and his wife had lived, and that his primary residence, together with his wife, was then in Krefeld. Bad Münstereifel was among the towns struck by the 2021 European floods. A *Tagesschau* report dated 14 July 2024, introduced as three years after that catastrophe, described the damage in the town's old centre. He told the newspaper that he would keep his constituency office on the Alter Markt in Euskirchen and remain active in the constituency of Euskirchen – Rhein-Erft-Kreis II; the paper noted that a candidate need not live in the constituency. The Bundestag lists that office at Alter Markt 8, 53879 Euskirchen. For the election of 23 February 2025 the state returning officer's corresponding list gave his residence as Kall, in the Euskirchen district.

On 20 May 2025 he wrote on X that his father, Hans Lucassen, had jumped 84 years earlier over Crete with comrades of Fallschirmjäger Regiment 1. n-tv reported the post the next day and treated the sentence as his account of his father's part in the German airborne landing that opened the Battle of Crete on 20 May 1941.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/rudiger-lucassen