WEIMAR, Germany - Former Thuringia Prime Minister Thomas Kemmerich and his son were refused service at a restaurant in Weimar on Saturday, with staff reportedly telling him, “You won’t be served here.” Kemmerich, 60, shared the incident publicly on Platform X, describing it as an unwelcome experiance and prompting him to leave the establishment.
Kemmerich, who briefly led thuringia in 2020, inquired as to the reason for the refusal and was informed it was simply because he was Thomas Kemmerich. He attributes the incident to the ongoing fallout from his 2020 election as Prime Minister, which relied on votes from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party – a first for Germany and a move widely criticized as breaking political norms.
“This happened to me more often after the prime ministerial election,” Kemmerich told the dpa news agency. He described the experience as reminiscent of a “really dark time in this country, in this society.”
Kemmerich,a resident of Weimar with his family,noted that such criticism isn’t limited to restaurants,recalling a recent similar encounter with a passerby in Berlin. He left the Free Democratic Party (FDP) earlier this year and has as joined “Team freiheit,” a political group founded by former AfD leader Frauke Petry.