Wolfgang Wiehle

Wolfgang Wiehle (born 20 October 1964 in Munich) is a German politician and qualified computer scientist (Diplom-Informatiker) of the Alternative for Germany (AfD). He has been a member of the Bundestag since 2017, each time via the party's state list in Bavaria, and stands as the AfD candidate in the Munich-South constituency. The Bundestag biography, drawn from his own disclosures, lists him as Roman Catholic, divorced and the father of two children. In the 21st Bundestag he is a full member of the Budget Committee and of the Transport Committee, where he is the AfD group's spokesperson (Obmann), and deputy chair of the German-Nordic Parliamentary Group.

He attended primary school in Riemerling and Gröbenzell from 1970 to 1973 and a Gymnasium in Olching and Ottobrunn from 1973 to 1982. From 1982 to 1990 he studied informatics at the Technical University of Munich and graduated as a Diplom-Informatiker. He then worked as a software engineer and consultant at sd&m AG in Munich from 1990 to 2003, as an IT consultant at Projective Software GmbH in 2004 and 2005 and at iteratec GmbH in Unterhaching from 2005 to 2010, and from 2010 at msg systems AG in Ismaning. The Bundestag records that last post as employment before the mandate, with a right of return and protection against dismissal.

Wiehle belonged to the Christian Social Union in Bavaria from 1982 to 2013 and sat on the Munich city council from 1994 to 2002. He joined the AfD in 2013, chaired its Munich-South district association from 2014 to 2019, and has chaired the AfD association for Upper Bavaria since 2019. At the Munich mayoral election on 15 March 2020, among 14 candidates, he received 14,988 votes (2.8 percent), behind Dieter Reiter of the SPD (47.9 percent) and Kristina Frank of the CSU (21.3 percent); because no candidate won a majority, Reiter and Frank went to a runoff.

In the Munich-South Bundestag constituency the AfD share of first votes was 7.6 percent in 2017, 4.4 percent in 2021 and 8.8 percent in 2025, with second-vote shares of 8.6, 4.6 and 9.3 percent. The constituency was numbered 219 in 2017 and 2021 and 218 in 2025. On 4 July 2024 the Bundestag rejected an AfD proposal to elect Wiehle a deputy to the President of the Bundestag: in a secret ballot he received 92 votes in favour, 565 against and 17 abstentions, short of the required majority of 367.

Early life and education

Family background

Wolfgang Wiehle was born on 20 October 1964 in Munich. The biography published by the Bundestag, which is based on members' own disclosures, lists him as Roman Catholic, divorced, and the father of two children.

Death notice from the University of the Bundeswehr Munich for Hans-Rüdiger Wiehle, naming him a professor in its Faculty of Informatics from 1973 to 2000 and the faculty's founding dean.

Hans-Rüdiger Wiehle (30 May 1933 – 25 January 2018) was his father. Hartmut Wiehle, Wolfgang's younger brother, describes Wolfgang as the elder son; the birth and death dates are those given on the Süddeutsche Zeitung memorial page. A notice from the University of the Bundeswehr Munich, printed in that paper on 30 January 2018, mourned Hans-Rüdiger Wiehle as a retired professor (Universitätsprofessor i. R.) holding a doctorate in the natural sciences (Dr. rer. nat.). The notice stated that he had been a professor in the Faculty of Informatics from 1973 to 2000 and the faculty's founding dean, and it was signed by the university's president, Merith Niehuss, and by the dean, Klaus Buchenrieder. The university's Institute for Technical Informatics, part of that faculty and based in Neubiberg, still lists him among former professors and records the same date of death.

The Mathematics Genealogy Project records that Hans-Rüdiger Wiehle received his Dr. rer. nat. from the University of Münster in 1958, with a dissertation titled Über die wettheoretische Begründbarkeit von Wahrscheinlichkeitsaxiomen (on whether axioms of probability can be justified in terms of betting). The project also lists a doctorate he supervised in 1996 at the Bundeswehr university. His professorship began in 1973, the year Wolfgang Wiehle left primary school for the Gymnasium.

Schooling

From 1970 to 1973 Wiehle attended primary school in Riemerling and in Gröbenzell, and from 1973 to 1982 a Gymnasium in Olching and in Ottobrunn. Riemerling is where the municipality of Hohenbrunn runs one site of its primary school, at Georginenstraße 4. The Bundestag biography does not name the individual schools or record examination results. The Gymnasium years end in 1982, the year he enrolled at university.

University studies and student politics

From 1982 to 1990 Wiehle studied informatics at the Technical University of Munich and graduated as a Diplom-Informatiker. In 1982 he also joined the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU). The Bundestag biography dates that membership from 1982 until 2013. He has written that he joined in order to support the political turn, away from what he called the left-wing politics of the 1970s, which Helmut Kohl had promised.

During the degree he held office in the Ring Christlich-Demokratischer Studenten (RCDS). A historical list of chairs kept by the CSU records him as Landesvorsitzender of the RCDS in Bavaria from 1986 to 1988, after Bernhard Loos and before Rüdiger Gerst. The federal association had been founded at its first delegates' assembly, held in Bonn from 25 to 27 August 1951, bringing together Christian-democratic student groups formed after the Second World War. The RCDS describes itself as organizationally independent while standing close to organizations with similar aims. Its local groups contest university elections and take part in student and academic self-government; members belong both to a campus group and to the relevant state association and the federal body. The state chairmanship fell in the middle of his informatics course and ended two years before the 1990 diploma.

Information-technology career

Software engineering and consulting

Wolfgang Wiehle, a Diplom-Informatiker from the Technical University of Munich, worked from 1990 in software engineering and IT consulting in and around Munich. The Bundestag biography lists the employers and notes that the text rests on the member's own statements.

From 1990 to 2003 he was a software engineer and consultant at sd&m AG in Munich. Founded there in 1982 as Software Design & Management, the firm concentrated on custom business software and related consulting. In 1992 Schitag Ernst & Young and Bayerische Landesbank together acquired a one-third holding. After Ernst & Young was taken over in 2000, sd&m belonged wholly to Capgemini from 2001, while still trading largely under its own name. Wiehle's reported departure in 2003 preceded 1 October 2008, when sd&m, then about 1,700 employees, was combined with Capgemini's SAP unit as Capgemini sd&m and extended beyond custom software.

The same biography lists 2004–2005 as an IT consultant at Projective Software GmbH in Munich, and 2005–2010 as an IT consultant at iteratec GmbH in Unterhaching. iteratec had been founded in 1996 by Klaus Eberhardt and Mark Goerke, the former after more than ten years at sd&m. By November 2010 it employed more than 120 people and worked mainly for large companies.

Employers and parliamentary leave

Since 2010 the biography lists him as an IT consultant at msg systems AG in Ismaning. Hans Zehetmaier and two colleagues founded msg in Munich in 1980 as a developer of insurance software. When Zehetmaier left day-to-day management at the turn of 2019/20, his successor described revenue of about one billion euros. Wiehle's own site does not name the employer. It says that before he entered the Bundestag in October 2017 he had advised large customers at a large mid-sized company.

Section 45(1) of the Members of the Bundestag Act requires notice of the last occupation before membership and of whether a right of return after the mandate, or dismissal protection under section 2(3), exists. Dismissal because the mandate was acquired or exercised is inadmissible, and any other dismissal is allowed only for an important reason. Protection runs from nomination, or from filing of the election proposal, until one year after the mandate ends. Section 44a states that the mandate is the center of a member's activity, while other professional work remains generally allowed. A 2025 Bundestag research briefing adds that a private-sector contract does not end automatically, that a member who cannot combine the old full-time job with the mandate can claim release from it, and that any later return depends on the case rather than on a general statutory right of reinstatement.

Wiehle's notices record both a return right and dismissal protection at msg, but not continuous consulting pay. For the 19th electoral period (2017–2021) the pre-membership occupation is IT consulting at msg systems ag in Ismaning, and a separate paid activity is listed: IT consulting for the same firm in 2018, in band 3 (Stufe 3). Under the publication notes then in force, regular monthly income was marked "monthly," while a year plus a band meant one-off income or the sum of irregular receipts from one client that year. Band 3 was gross income up to 15,000 euros, above the band capped at 7,000 euros. The biographies for the 20th electoral period and the current term list no paid side activity at msg. They enter the company only as the occupation before membership: IT consulting at msg systems ag, Ismaning, with a right of return and protection against dismissal. Abgeordnetenwatch repeats that wording. The notices publish neither a salary for the post while it is held open nor the terms of the return right.

Municipal politics in Munich

CSU membership and the city council

Wiehle joined the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) in 1982 and, according to the Bundestag biography, remained a member until 2013. A profile he gave Abgeordnetenwatch links that step to the turn away from 1970s politics promised by Helmut Kohl; in a 2021 tz interview he instead named a speech by Franz Josef Strauss on Königsplatz on 5 June 1982, during the NATO dual-track debate.

He says that from 1992 to 1994 he sat on the Bezirksausschuss of what is now Munich's 7th borough, Sendling-Westpark; the tz interview also records that district-committee service. The Bundestag biography lists him as a CSU city councillor from 1994 to 2002. He described his emphases as transport and information technology, and a 2020 Münchner Merkur report called him the CSU group's transport spokesman during those eight years. Council files mirrored by München Transparent show late business of the 1996–2002 term: on 11 October 2001 he initiated a CSU motion on the Verkehrsentwicklungsplan, and with councillor Dr. Menges he signed motion 3243, which asked that car-free days be voluntary and opposed what it called arbitrary road closures.

Transport campaigns

Reporting has tied his council years above all to partial tunnelling of the Mittlerer Ring, the arterial carrying through-traffic around central Munich. The tz interview says transport had always been his subject and that he pressed for putting stretches of the ring underground.

Congested traffic on Munich's Petuelring before the Petuel Tunnel opened in 2002.

Wiehle states that in 1992 he co-founded the citizens' association Mobil in München. A December 2012 notice from the renamed club, Mobil in Deutschland, says 17 people founded Mobil in München e.V. in the Löwenbräukeller at the end of November 1992 to speak for motorists when "car-free" cities were widely discussed, and that it used citizen votes among its methods. The notice, signed by chairman Michael Haberland, does not name Wiehle as an officer. In February 2009 the association became Mobil in Deutschland e.V. and added breakdown and travel services.

On 23 June 1996 Munich held its first Bürgerentscheid. "3 Tunnels braucht der Mittlere Ring" sought immediate steps toward tunnels at the Petuelring, Luise-Kiesselbach-Platz and Richard-Strauss-Straße, including a plan-approval decision of 12 April 1990 for the Petuel Tunnel. "Das bessere Bürgerbegehren" proposed nurseries, schools, social facilities, parks, tram and U-Bahn lines and cycle routes instead, and ruled the tunnels out. The Wochenanzeiger gives 55.01 percent Yes for the tunnels and 59.7 percent Yes for the alternative; a tie-break, required because voters would not fund both, preferred the tunnels by 50.56 percent, on a turnout of 32.03 percent. Next-day reports in the taz and Die Welt rounded that tie-break to 50.7 percent against 49.3 percent, with 32 percent of about 900,000 eligible voters taking part. Die Welt described the pro-tunnel campaign as led by the CSU, the Free Democratic Party, the chamber of industry and commerce and the ADAC. The taz wrote that lord mayor Christian Ude (Social Democratic Party of Germany) put the cost at two billion Deutsche Mark and said it required sharp cuts elsewhere, while CSU group leader Hans Podiuk spoke of looking for savings; the tubes were expected one after another.

The September 2004 air-quality plan for Munich, prepared by the government of Upper Bavaria, records the first result: the Petuel Tunnel, 1,472 metres in its main section, was opened to traffic in July 2002, surface traffic between Belgradstraße, Knorrstraße and Leopoldstraße was moved underground, and the Petuelpark was built above. The plan listed Mittlerer Ring Ost, under Richard-Strauss-Straße, as approved on 22 July 2002, with work due in July 2003 at about 320 million euros, and the southwest tunnel under Garmischer Straße and Luise-Kiesselbach-Platz as approved on 7 February 2003.

Withdrawal from active politics

Wiehle did not stand when the council was renewed in March 2002. On 11 June 2001 Die Welt, listing CSU councillors then leaving, called the 37-year-old the only one not of retirement age and reported that he wanted more time for software work and his young family. He has since called 2002 a temporary withdrawal, both for family reasons and because of what he termed political misdevelopments. In the 2021 tz interview he added that he thought the CSU had taken a wrong direction—he said he had opposed the euro early and voted against the Maastricht Treaty at a party congress in the early 1990s—and that a Munich CSU scandal over manipulated votes, already visible in his account by 2002, later led to Monika Hohlmeier's resignation. He also cited the birth of a son in 2000 and a daughter in 2002. The council exit did not end the membership, which the Bundestag biography runs from 1982 to 2013.

Alternative for Germany offices

Switch from the CSU

In 2013, the year the Alternative for Germany (AfD) was founded, Wiehle left the Christian Social Union in Bavaria after 31 years and joined the new party. He later told Hallo München that during the 2013 federal campaign he had felt he could no longer represent the CSU's programme, and that the CSU of Franz Josef Strauß, which he had entered in 1982, was "a completely different" party from the CSU of the present. The Münchner Merkur reported that he explained the change by saying the CSU was caught "in the tow" of Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union and that the CDU had drifted in a "left-green direction." A 2020 Süddeutsche Zeitung portrait described him as having moved as an opponent of the euro and of Germany's nuclear phase-out. In 2021 he told tz that the AfD had filled a gap "against the euro, against the exit from nuclear energy," and that this had been his reason for leaving the CSU.

Local and regional party posts

Wiehle's Bundestag biography, which the parliament says rests on members' own information, lists him as chairman of the AfD Kreisverband Munich-South from 2014 to 2019 and, from 2019, as chairman of the AfD Bezirksverband for Upper Bavaria. In April 2019 the Süddeutsche Zeitung quoted him as acting regional chairman on a call, backed by about ten district associations, for a special Bavarian party congress. A July 2019 report, drawing on an AfD statement, recorded his election as chairman, with Johannes Huber and Oliver Multusch as deputies, after what the party called recent turbulence. That November the Süddeutsche Zeitung still described him as Munich-South district chairman, a post it dated from 2014.

A congress in Rosenheim on 6 November 2021 confirmed him. An AfD press release carried by rosenheim24 said he had no opponent and received 151 votes in favour, 58 against and seven abstentions; Oliver Multusch, Franz Bergmüller and Markus Walbrunn became deputies. The Süddeutsche Zeitung reported the same result, called the executive comparatively moderate beside a state board that included figures from the völkisch "Flügel," and said he had stressed the 2023 Bavarian election. The Oberbayerisches Volksblatt reported another re-election, at Eichenried in the Erding district, in early February 2024. In October 2025 the Süddeutsche Zeitung still described him as the association's leader. Before a congress in Taufkirchen on 11 July 2026, deputy Andreas Winhart told the paper that Wiehle was stepping back for the Bavarian state executive and that Oskar Lipp would succeed him. The Bundestag biography still listed Wiehle as chairman and gave no end date.

2020 mayoral candidacy

The AfD nominating meeting chose Wiehle, by then a member of the Bundestag, as its candidate for lord mayor of Munich on 15 March 2020. The Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on 18 November 2019 that he had announced, in a press statement the previous Sunday, 94 percent support and no opponent. He named transport, public safety, migration and transparent administration as his themes, and said the party would resist obstruction, citing disrupted meetings and pressure on innkeepers not to rent rooms to the AfD. The Merkur, citing the AfD-aligned Deutschland-Kurier, gave the tally as 52 of 55 votes.

In January 2020 he told Hallo München that Munich had "growing pains," that growth should be slowed by strengthening the surrounding region and by sharply reducing immigration "from other cultural circles," and that road and rail—including U-Bahn lines, Mittlerer Ring tunnels, the southern motorway ring and the second S-Bahn trunk route—should be expanded together. In a Merkur questionnaire he said he would steer growth, preserve what he called the city's cultural roots, limit in-migration from outside the European Union, and allocate subsidised housing without disadvantaging locals relative to immigrants.

Of 1,110,571 eligible voters, 544,730 cast ballots, a turnout of 49.0 percent, and 14 candidates stood. The statistical office recorded 14,988 votes for Wiehle, 2.8 percent, in fourth place. Incumbent Dieter Reiter of the Social Democratic Party received 259,928 votes (47.9 percent), Kristina Frank of the CSU 115,795 (21.3 percent) and Katrin Habenschaden of Alliance 90/The Greens 112,121 (20.7 percent). No one won a majority of valid votes, so a runoff was set for 29 March between Reiter and Frank. The office put the AfD share at 2.8 percent, against 1.2 percent in the 2014 mayoral election. Wiehle was not on the runoff ballot. Reiter was re-elected with 401,856 votes (71.7 percent) to Frank's 158,773 (28.3 percent), on a turnout of 50.7 percent (562,245 of 1,109,032); every recorded vote was cast by postal ballot.

Bundestag candidacies and results

Wolfgang Wiehle was the Alternative for Germany (AfD) candidate for the Bundestag in Munich-South at three federal elections. He did not win the direct mandate in any of them. He entered the 19th, 20th and 21st Bundestag from the AfD list in Bavaria, on places 14, 7 and 5.

2017 election

At the 2017 German federal election on 24 September 2017, Wiehle stood in constituency 219, München-Süd, and was 14th on the AfD state list. The state returning officer recorded him as an IT consultant and graduate computer scientist, born in 1964 in Munich and then living in the city.

Turnout was 78.7 percent of 216,725 eligible voters. Michael Kuffer of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) won with 55,894 first votes (33.0 percent), ahead of Sebastian Roloff of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (39,873; 23.5 percent). Wiehle received 12,921 first votes (7.6 percent), fifth after Kuffer, Roloff, the Greens (23,343; 13.8 percent) and the FDP (15,332; 9.1 percent), and 310 ahead of Nicole Gohlke of Die Linke (12,611; 7.4 percent). On second votes the AfD polled 14,578 (8.6 percent), against 12.4 percent for the AfD in Bavaria as a whole.

Across Bavaria the AfD received 916,300 second votes (12.4 percent) and 14 of the state's 108 seats, all from the list, because all 46 constituencies returned a CSU member. Places 1 to 14 on the AfD list were therefore filled, and the first unused place was 15. The roll of Bavarian members dated 6 December 2017 lists Wiehle as elected from the state list, with his residence in Munich, and not as the constituency member.

2021 election

Wiehle ran again in constituency 219 on 26 September 2021, at the 2021 German federal election, and was seventh on the AfD list. The federal register of nominations described him as a sitting member of the Bundestag. The result directory gives his residence as Ottobrunn.

Turnout was 80.6 percent of 214,606 eligible voters. Jamila Schäfer (Greens) won the only Bavarian constituency the CSU lost, with 47,256 first votes (27.5 percent). Kuffer, again the CSU candidate and 11th on its list, was 1,197 votes behind on 46,059 (26.8 percent). Roloff (SPD) received 33,924 (19.7 percent) and Thomas Sattelberger (FDP) 16,437 (9.5 percent). Wiehle's 7,641 first votes (4.4 percent) placed him fifth. AfD second votes in the constituency fell to 7,910 (4.6 percent), against 26.4 percent for the Greens and 23.5 percent for the CSU.

Statewide the AfD took 679,915 second votes (9.0 percent). Twelve AfD candidates were returned, all from the list and in order through place 12, Wiehle among them at place 7. Kuffer was the first CSU list successor and was not re-elected. The directory of those elected records Schäfer as the member for constituency 219, and Wiehle, of Ottobrunn, as holding list place 7 while also having stood in München-Süd.

2025 election

For the 2025 German federal election on 23 February 2025, Munich-South was constituency 218. Wiehle, of Ottobrunn, was the AfD candidate and fifth on the state list, after Stephan Protschka, Peter Boehringer, Rainer Rothfuß and Rose Gerrit Huy.

Turnout was 84.3 percent of 214,947 eligible voters. Claudia Küng (CSU), 18th on the CSU list, led with 54,859 first votes (30.4 percent). Schäfer, first on the Bavarian Green list, was 1,084 votes behind on 53,775 (29.8 percent). Wiehle was fourth with 15,876 (8.8 percent), behind the SPD's 26,461 (14.6 percent). AfD second votes were 16,782 (9.3 percent), against 19.0 percent for the party in Bavaria.

Under the 2025 law a party candidate gained a constituency seat only with a plurality of first votes and with that seat covered by the party's second-vote entitlement (Zweitstimmendeckung). The final calculation records constituency 218 as a CSU plurality of 30.4 percent that was not covered, and the constituency result states that the seat stayed unfilled. Küng is not on the roll of those elected. Schäfer was returned from Green list place 1, and Wiehle from AfD list place 5, the roll also noting that he had stood in constituency 218.

The AfD's 1,515,731 second votes in Bavaria (19.0 percent) were allocated 22 seats. The party won no constituency plurality in the state, so all 22 were list seats, and place 5 was inside that number.

Election	Constituency	Wiehle, first votes	AfD second votes there	Bavarian AfD list place	AfD seats in Bavaria	First-vote leader
24 September 2017	219 München-Süd	12,921 (7.6%)	14,578 (8.6%)	14	14, all from the list	Michael Kuffer (CSU), 55,894 (33.0%); seated
26 September 2021	219 München-Süd	7,641 (4.4%)	7,910 (4.6%)	7	12, all from the list	Jamila Schäfer (Greens), 47,256 (27.5%); seated
23 February 2025	218 München-Süd	15,876 (8.8%)	16,782 (9.3%)	5	22, all from the list	Claudia Küng (CSU), 54,859 (30.4%); seat not filled

Work in the Bundestag

Transport committee

Since 2017 Wolfgang Wiehle's main committee work in the Bundestag has been transport. In the 19th term he was a full member of the Committee on Transport and Digital Infrastructure and deputy spokesperson there for the Alternative for Germany (AfD). The official biography, which the Bundestag says rests on the member's own information, records that from 2021 to 2025 he sat on the Transport Committee, as the AfD group's deputy spokesperson until 2024 and as its spokesperson from 2024. The archived biography for the 20th term also lists him as the group's Obmann, the member leading its contingent. He kept the seat in the 21st Bundestag. At the committee's constitutive sitting, under Vice President Omid Nouripour, the 30-member body elected Tarek Al-Wazir of Alliance 90/The Greens as chair by 23 votes to one, with six abstentions. The AfD held seven seats, Wiehle among them. The current biography again lists him as Obmann.

Budget committee and other bodies

Wiehle was a full member of the Petitions Committee from 2017 to 2019 and of the Budget Committee from 2021 to 2025. On 4 July 2024 the Bundestag also listed him as a substitute member of the Petitions Committee and of the Committee on Digital Affairs, and as deputy chairman of the German-Nordic Parliamentary Group. When that committee was constituted in May 2025, Wiehle was again a full member, one of ten AfD seats on a body of 42.

Wiehle has remained a deputy chairman of the cross-party German-Nordic Parliamentary Group into the 21st term. From 27 May to 4 June 2026 he travelled with a delegation of the group to Denmark, Greenland and Iceland. The delegation, chaired by Sahra Mirow of Die Linke, met Kristina Háfoss, secretary-general of the Nordic Council, in Copenhagen.

Car-toll inquiry

On 28 November 2019 the Bundestag set up the second committee of inquiry of the 19th term, on the Infrastrukturabgabe, or passenger-car toll. The AfD, the Free Democratic Party, Die Linke and the Greens voted for it; the CDU/CSU and the Social Democratic Party of Germany abstained. Nine full members and nine substitutes sat under Udo Schiefner (SPD). The remit was the government's conduct, above all that of the transport ministry, since the coalition agreement of the 18th term: preparation and introduction of the toll, procurement, the ending of the operator contracts, responsibility, and what the government told the Bundestag. Wiehle was the AfD member and its spokesperson in 2020–2021; reports of the inquiry call him the group's Obmann. Schiefner gave the final report to Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble on 10 June 2021.

On 18 June 2019 the Court of Justice of the European Union had already held, in Austria v Germany (C-591/17), that the vignette broke EU law, because tax relief for German-registered cars left the charge, in practice, on vehicles registered elsewhere. At an interim review reported on 27 July 2020, Wiehle asked why a 2018 budget authorisation had not been carried into 2019, and whether the ministry had promised the bidding consortium more than the budget covered.

Printed paper 19/30500, with minority opinions and annexes, comes to nearly 700 pages. The majority found no obvious breach of procurement law. It called Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer's signature on the operator contract before the judgment defensible, and said no lie, deliberate concealment or manipulation by the ministry or by Scheuer had been credibly shown. It did say the budgetary check in December 2018 was rushed, and that the risk of the toll failing entirely before the Court should have counted for more. A joint minority opinion of the FDP, Die Linke and the Greens spoke of a "political abyss of ignorance, irresponsibility, unscrupulousness and breach of law," and said the early signature had accepted the greatest possible damage. The AfD's own opinion called the project a "political fiasco" and an "embodiment of reprehensible machinations, waste and extravagance," and objected to memory lapses, blacked-out files and evasive answers.

In the debate of 23 June 2021 Wiehle said Scheuer's name would stay tied to the failure, called him a master of large promises and a failure at carrying them out, and urged him to resign. He traced the project to the 2013 coalition deal of Angela Merkel, Horst Seehofer of the Christian Social Union and Sigmar Gabriel, and said the lesson was to take powers back from Brussels. Deputy chair Nina Warken, for the coalition, called that a campaign line and said the report cleared Scheuer of law-breaking while criticising the handling of cancellation costs.

Bid for a vice-presidency

The rules of procedure used in the 19th term said each group should have at least one vice president, but the office is filled by election under Article 40 of the Basic Law. The first two ballots needed a majority of members; only a third could be won by a majority of the votes cast. On 22 March 2022 the Second Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court rejected an Organstreit by the AfD group after six of its nominees had failed in that term. Equal treatment, it held, gives a right to propose a candidate and to a proper election, not a right to the seat if the majority is missed. Article 40 requires a free vote, not an appointment separated from one.

The sequence began on 24 October 2017, when Albrecht Glaser failed three secret ballots: 115 yes, 550 no and 26 abstentions; then 123 yes, 549 no and 24 abstentions; then 114 yes, 545 no and 26 abstentions. The majority of members was 355, and on the third ballot a majority of votes cast would have been enough. The other five candidates were elected at the first attempt. Tagesschau reported that the group stuck with Glaser although he was unlikely to win, and that the defeats let the AfD cast itself as a victim of the other parties. On 29 November 2018 Mariana Harder-Kühnel received 223 yes votes, 387 no and 44 abstentions, short of 355, and the AfD place stayed empty.

On 4 July 2024 the Bundestag rejected Drucksache 20/11706, the motion to elect Wiehle a deputy to the President of the Bundestag. The secret ballot gave him 92 yes votes, 565 no and 17 abstentions, below the required majority of 367. He had sat since 2017 on the state list of Bavaria, for Munich-South. n-tv carried the same figures and wrote that, since 2017, the AfD was the only group never to have sat in the Presidium, every candidate having missed the majority.

Political positions

Transport and infrastructure

Wiehle has been the Alternative for Germany group's spokesperson on the Bundestag Transport Committee since 2024, after serving as deputy spokesperson from 2017. A June 2026 profile in the Bundestag newspaper Das Parlament summarized it as roads before rail. On 8 July 2025 he called roads, "from the federal Autobahns down to the smallest municipal lanes," the lifelines of transport "now and in the future," and said every forecast agreed, while most of the money went elsewhere. On 26 June 2026 he said the government's own data showed road traffic keeping the main role for decades, so spending had to follow, including on bridges, while Germany still needed the railway "but not at the expense of the road." He rejected the bill's "overriding public interest," and the AfD amendment he defended would delete it and hear rail and federal-road cases in one instance at the Federal Administrative Court.

On Deutsche Bahn he argued that new equity has to be remunerated by a charge per train-kilometre, so fares would rise, and that the company had been willing to forgo €8 billion of equity in 2025. Citing a Bundesrechnungshof description of the railway as a "state within a state," he demanded that the group and DB InfraGO become limited-liability companies. He wanted the Deutschlandticket given an "honest price" plus a social tariff at once, not in 2029 as the coalition agreement provided. The same speech criticized silence on keeping the internal combustion engine and on rejecting a general speed limit, called for biofuels and synthetic fuels, and said engineers and buyers, not politicians, should choose the drivetrain. Motions he has signed, which remain faction texts, track those arguments. A motion of 24 September 2024, with Wiehle second, called the European Union bar on new combustion-engine cars from 2035 a "fatal error," cited ifo Institute figures of 215,000 to 290,000 German auto jobs at risk by 2030, and asked that such cars stay approvable and that synthetic fuels bear only value-added tax. A further group motion of 20 May 2025, which he also signed, asked the government to reverse that ban.

Energy, climate and public finance

On 8 July 2025 he said the climate policy of the government and its predecessors was leading Germany into a crisis "of historic scale" and that the AfD wanted it ended at once. He described the Climate and Transformation Fund as the till for that policy, filled by carbon dioxide levies on fuel, heating and industry and by new special debt, then spent on "things that do not pay for themselves." He pointed to green hydrogen and to ArcelorMittal, which he said had turned down more than €1 billion in fund aid for hydrogen steel. The Energiewende, he said, did not work, and "climate neutrality" was "a huge impoverishment program." For the group he promised to end the transition, wind the fund down, drop subsidies for "climate ideology," abolish carbon prices, and move anything still judged useful—"for coping with natural climate change"—to ordinary lines.

He told the economy minister, whom he addressed as a successor of Ludwig Erhard, that about €40 billion of some €62 billion, side budgets included, either promoted the transition or hid its cost—planning, he said, not the social market economy. National and sector goals derived from European targets were "CO2 plan targets pushed from the top down," and "comparatively small Germany cannot save the world climate." The abolition list is the faction's. His own 2017 answer was narrower: "rather yes" to the claim that Germany already did enough on climate protection, because "the data bases for the climate theories are not sufficiently hardened" to justify billions on measures such as house insulation. He answered "yes" to keeping nuclear power while plants were safe and needed for baseload, and "no" to further renewable subsidies, which he called a "giant subsidy machine" on electricity bills. Cuts to the transition and to migration were, he later said, how bridges could be built without borrowing "from the first euro."

Migration, identity and democracy

Migration is not his committee subject. He raises it as a budget choice: in July 2025 he said "almost nothing" was happening, and in June 2026 he named "mass migration," with the Energiewende, among the "political catastrophes" an AfD government would cut in order to pay for infrastructure. In his own 2017 answers, goals included "stop mass immigration" and "lived democracy," with "limit immigration" ranked first. He said "yes" to federal referendums, a form of direct democracy he called "a corrective" when politics "lifts off from the people," citing Switzerland, and "yes" to a points-based immigration system that would keep labor immigration apart from asylum, which he wanted "massively limited." Those entitled to stay should integrate and contribute more; those without a right, he wrote, should return.

He did not simply accept the printed thesis that "Islam is not part of Germany and therefore as many believing Muslims as possible should leave." He marked "rather yes," and wrote that a strictly interpreted Islam was incompatible with the democratic constitutional state, that living it out was a personal decision for an Islamic country, and that politicians' task was "to prevent an Islamization of Germany." As a Munich mayoral candidate in January 2020 he told a local paper he would "clearly slow immigration from other cultural circles," and that people socialized differently brought other problems, with foreign suspects over-represented in some offenses. On a party proposal to bar public Friday prayers and fast-breaking, he cited repeated obstruction of traffic and a "mindset" of a claim to rule, which he contrasted with Christianity's separation of religious and worldly authority; pressed further, he said the example was "perhaps not ideal" and that the party might have to discuss it.

A motion of 9 September 2024, "Turn migration policy around now," lists him as a signatory but was introduced by the group's interior speakers, so the wording is the faction's, not a personal speech. It speaks of "uncontrolled mass immigration" and of poorly integrated young men who could "pose the question of power," and it demands turnbacks from a safe transit state even if the person says "asylum," under Article 16a of the Basic Law, plus benefits in kind, an end to family reunification for subsidiary protection, and naturalization only by discretion.

Public profile and criticism

Media portrayal

Parliamentary and Munich coverage has generally presented Wolfgang Wiehle as a transport specialist and former local politician of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria, rather than as a national figure in disputes inside Alternative for Germany. In June 2026 the Bundestag newspaper Das Parlament ran Jan Rübel's profile "Vom Nerd zum Verkehrspolitiker" ("From nerd to transport politician"), casting the Munich member as a restrained committee politician whose line is roads before rail.

Local pieces are shorter. Before the 2020 mayoral election the Abendzeitung reported that an AfD assembly nominated him with 94 percent and no opposing candidate, and quoted him as born in Munich, a graduate of the Technical University of Munich, and politically active in the city for more than 30 years; he said the campaign would concentrate on transport, security, migration, and transparent administration. On 24 February 2025 the Münchner Merkur described him as a divorced father and graduate computer scientist who had spent more than 30 years in the CSU, joined the AfD in 2013, had sat in the Bundestag since 2017, and was returning on the Bavarian state list.

Side activities

The Bundestag's published disclosures under the members' code of conduct list two outside connections and no current pay brackets. Under professional activity before membership, Wiehle records IT consulting at msg systems ag in Ismaning, with a right to return and protection against dismissal. Abgeordnetenwatch.de shows the same suspended pre-mandate post, last changed on 20 August 2025, without an income figure.

They also list membership, until 31 July 2025, of the advisory board of Schlichtungsstelle Reise & Verkehr e.V. in Berlin. The body's 2024 report, dated 13 March 2025, names "Wiehle, Wolfgang, MdB, AfD-Bundestagsfraktion" beside CDU and SPD Bundestag members, in a group the statutes limit to three parliamentary seats plus academics, ministries, the states, consumer bodies, and transport firms. Section 18 makes executive-board and advisory-board service honorary and unpaid, matching the lack of a published fee.

Controversies and responses

Criticism of Wiehle has concerned his AfD membership and joint appearances, not a personal intelligence finding. On 13 May 2024 the Higher Administrative Court in Münster, in case 5 A 1218/22, held that observation of the AfD by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a "suspected case" of efforts against the free democratic basic order was lawful. On 20 May 2025 the Federal Administrative Court rejected a further appeal in decision 6 B 23.24, so that judgment became final; decision 6 B 22.24 the same day concerned the party's youth organization, not Wiehle. The reasons address the party as a whole and say that isolated "lapses" by individual members do not establish such a tendency.

Asked on abgeordnetenwatch.de why the AfD is sometimes called right-wing extremist, Wiehle answered on 5 February 2025 that the label was, in his view, usually applied for propagandistic purposes by competitors or organizations under their influence, and that the term had no clear definition. He added that suspicion of extremism fitted forces for whom the end justifies the means, not the AfD, which he said wanted to cut back the "party state," for example with federal referendums on the Swiss model. Moderators published the reply only after a revision, citing unsubstantiated claims or quotations. On the same site he calls dismantling what he terms the "firewall" against the AfD his main task, so a counter-position is not shut out of debate.

After a vehicle attack in Munich's Seidlstraße, the Münchner Merkur reported on 17 February 2025 that the attacker had on the previous Thursday driven into a 37-year-old mother and her two-year-old daughter, pronounced dead on Saturday, and that on Sunday Wiehle, with Bundestag member Stephan Protschka and Landtag members Markus Walbrunn and Rene Dierkes, tried to lay white roses at the memorial. A human chain of ver.di members and activists the paper called Antifa stopped them; after about two and a half hours the group left the flowers about ten meters away, and Wiehle took a selfie and left. Police spokesman Thomas Schelshorn criticized both sides, and the family, through ver.di, said the deaths should not be used to stir hatred or for politics. Bayerischer Rundfunk reported that a video in which Protschka said "Unsere Show haben wir gehabt" ("We've had our show") and Dierkes "Das können wir gut verwerten" ("We can make good use of that") was condemned in the Bavarian Landtag; Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said the ten-meter gap did not matter, and the AfD's Landtag group said police had stopped an AfD member from mourning there. Those reports do not quote a separate reply by Wiehle.