BERLIN: The leader of a German organization against the perceived “Islamization” of Europe stepped down on Wednesday after online posts surfaced in which he used derogatory language to refer to refugees and posed looking like Adolf Hitler.
Lutz Bachmann, co-founder of the Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West, or PEGIDA, announced his departure on Facebook after German media published the comments where he called refugees “cattle” and “filthy,” and a photo showing him with a Hitler mustache and hair combed over like the Nazi Fuehrer.
Bachmann didn’t comment directly on the picture, but apologized for the anti-refugee comments, which he made online in September, a month before the group staged its first protest.
“I earnestly apologize to all citizens, who felt attacked by my postings,” Bachmann said in a statement on the group’s Facebook page.
“They were ill-considered comments that I wouldn’t make in this way today,” he said, expressing regret for harming the movement, which has taken pains to distance itself from neo-Nazi groups.
The group has staged weekly demonstrations in the eastern city of Dresden that reached their peak last week, drawing 25,000 people. This week’s planned rally was canceled after police said authorities had monitored a Tweet calling for one of the organizers to be killed.
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