In connection with a highly controversial trip to Russia by some AfD officials last September, further oddities have now been revealed.

The state association of North Rhine-Westphalia is currently examining party order measures against two female members. A corresponding report by the news magazine "Spiegel" was confirmed today by a spokesman for the AfD parliamentary group of the German Press Agency in Düsseldorf.

No official translators

The two women are said to have accompanied the NRW member of the state parliament Christian Blex and the state parliament members Hans-Thomas Tillschneider and Daniel Wald from Saxony-Anhalt as "translators". According to the AfD, they are not. Instead, one runs a tantra massage studio with sexual services, the other is an office clerk at a car repair shop.

On request, however, the massage expert said that she "simply masters Russian" and likes to get involved politically, the "Spiegel" reported. On her YouTube channel, she called for the "MerKILLRegime" to be overthrown. According to her, the travel and hotel costs for the Russia trip were taken over by the parliamentary group in Saxony-Anhalt.

The spokesman for the Düsseldorf parliamentary group assured the dpa that the two women were party members, but had never worked for the North Rhine-Westphalia parliamentary group - not even as interpreters. After the trip to Russia, the NRW parliamentary group had excluded Blex from their ranks. The 47-year-old senior teacher has been a non-attached member of parliament ever since.