Germany’s Social Democrats are facing an awkward political scandal after footage circulated online showing former SPD official Michael Vetter naked, shouting ‘Heil Hitler’ and performing the Nazi salute. The scandal comes just as the party has intensified its campaign depicting the right-wing anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) as an extremist threat rooted in Germany’s darkest political history.
Vetter previously served as deputy chairman of the SPD organization in Pulheim, North Rhine-Westphalia. He was elected to the position in September 2022 and was still publicly identified as deputy chairman in 2023. The local party now says he has not been active as an official for some time and is no longer an SPD member.
The footage began spreading widely on X on 28 August after the account RealWuppi published it. The video shows Vetter recording himself naked while raising his arm in a Nazi salute and saying ‘Heil Hitler’; it has since received millions of views. How the user obtained the footage and the circumstances of its creation have not yet been established.
SPD Pulheim responded immediately on 29 August; however, instead of addressing the footage itself, the local organization attacked the political background of those circulating the video. In a statement, the party blamed ‘right-wing extremist’ networks and described the scandal as part of ‘digital disinformation’. It also stressed that Vetter was no longer among its officials or members. SPD Pulheim, however, did not condemn what was shown in the video, sparking harsh criticism.
Vetter himself did not explain the footage either. His professional website has been temporarily shut down, with Vetter blaming what he described as a ‘defamation campaign by a right-wing network’ connected to his previous SPD activity and referring to the involvement of security services. He has not publicly stated whether the video is authentic or provided an alternative explanation for what it appears to show.
The AfD’s nationwide leadership has yet to react to the scandal; however, its supporters and local organizations have seized on the footage. Lower Saxony AfD MP Vanessa Behrendt attacked the SPD over separate, considerably more serious sexual allegations involving additional recordings showing Vetter performing masturbating on what it seems to be a baby doll. Behrendt described the party as harbouring a ‘Pädosumpf’, or ‘paedophile swamp’.
The timing could hardly be more uncomfortable for the SPD. Between 28 and 30 August, its Berlin branch was simultaneously running an official campaign titled ‘Krach gegen Nazis’—‘Noise against Nazis’—explicitly targeting the AfD. The campaign describes the AfD as hostile to ‘freedom, diversity and democracy’ and invokes classifications by Germany’s domestic intelligence authorities.
On the same day the Vetter footage began circulating, SPD Defence Minister Boris Pistorius and Green Baden-Württemberg Minister-President Cem Özdemir called for proceedings aimed at banning several AfD state organizations. Their argument explicitly invoked the historical failure to stop Hitler’s NSDAP before it seized power in 1933.
Despite years of similar attempts to isolate the AfD as an extremist force beyond the democratic mainstream, the party has now spent almost a year leading national polling ahead of the governing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and SPD. By late August, all major national surveys placed the AfD in first place, generally on 27–29 per cent, compared with around 20–23 per cent for the CDU/CSU and just 11–13 per cent for the Social Democrats. The party is preparing for an almost certain victory in Saxony-Anhalt this weekend, on 6 September, with its lead so large that the election could produce the first AfD state government in Germany’s history.
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