German nationalists pictured with Hitler wine, swastikas

BERLIN – The far-right Alternative for Germany party is trying to expel a regional lawmaker who posed in front of wine bottles featuring pictures of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

German news agency dpa reported Wednesday that an AfD chapter has started proceedings to force out Jessica Biessmann, a party member serving in Berlin’s state parliament.

The bottles appeared in photos from social media posts that Biessmann says are a decade old. They are available for purchase in Italy, but publicly displaying Nazi symbols is illegal in Germany.

There have been calls for Germany’s domestic intelligence agency to monitor the Alternative for Germany over extremism concerns .

Separately, daily newspaper Thueringer Allgemeine reports that a senior AfD member in Thuringia state quit after photos surfaced showing him posing behind a swastika tablecloth while visiting Hitler-related sites in 2015.