Pegida leader steps down

BERLIN: The head of the German anti-Islamisation movement Pegida has stepped down after a picture of him posing as Adolf Hitler went viral.
Lutz Bachmann, 41, a butcher’s son from Dresden and co-founder of the organisation, was seen as Pegida’s figurehead and his resignation throws the future of the group into doubt.
The picture of Bachmann posing as Hitler after a session at his hairdresser, complete with a Hitler hairstyle dyed black and parted on the right and a toothbrush moustache, went viral on Wednesday after it was published by a local newspaper, the Dresden Morgenpost.
Pegida’s popularity has led to widespread fears that Germany is in the grip of a new breed of far-right ideologues, and the picture raised questions about the group’s allegiance to the far-right scene.
The image, which had appeared on Bachmann’s Facebook page, was accompanied by the line: “He’s Back,” after Timur Vermes’ bestselling 2012 satirical novel of the same name about Hitler.
Bachmann, a publicity agent, deleted his profile shortly after being contacted by the Morgenpost. A Morgenpost reader discovered the photograph, along with what appeared to be a closed Facebook conversation between Bachmann and one of his Facebook contacts, in which he described immigrants as “cattle”, “scumbags” and “trash”. The comments were posted on September 19, some two months before the first Pegida march in Dresden.