[7][8][9] This and comments Krah made about the Nazi era in a subsequent media interview were seen by observers as having triggered the decision by the European parliamentarian group Identity and Democracy (ID) to exclude the AfD from membership on 23 May 2024.

His mother was a teacher and his father Peter Krah was an engineer, an executive for the local chapter of the Christian Democratic Union and later an advisor to the Ministry for Interior and Sports of Lower Saxony.

[12] As a young lawyer, Krah worked for the Traditionalist-Catholic SSPX, setting up a network including a foundation in Austria as well as companies in Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

In 2008, he set up the non-profit Jaidhofer Foundation in Vienna, to preserve the castle and manage the assets bequeathed by Rosa Gutmann to the SSPX.

[17] In that same year, Krah joined Alternative for Germany and was elected deputy chairman of the AfD Saxony in February 2018.

He received 14.2 percent of the votes and came in 4th place behind Mayor Dirk Hilbert, Eva Jähnigen and Albrecht Pallas.

In the second round of voting, Krah lost again with 12.2 percent, coming in third place behind Dirk Hilbert and Eva Jähnigen.

[27] Krah has given several lectures at Götz Kubitschek's "Institute for State Policy (IfS)", which the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has classified as "certainly right-wing extremist".

"[30][31] The interview was said to have caused a further decline in already strained relations between the AfD and the French National Rally who both sit within the Identity and Democracy group.

[36] In November 2022, the Global Times, the Chinese Communist Party's newspaper, published a long interview with Krah.

He later campaigned for Chinese economic interests in Germany, going against the line of his right-wing radical nationalist party AfD.

[38] There is a Chinese network of relationships: Krah confidante Torsten Voss sits on the board of the association "Neue Seidenstraße e. V." ("New Silk Road e.

[citation needed] In December 2023, Krah traveled to the USA and attended a Young Republicans event in New York City.

[citation needed] There, the pro-Russian activist Oleg Voloshyn wrote to him in chat messages that the problem with "compensation" for "technical expenses" had been solved, and that from May onwards "it will be as it was before February".

[43][44][45] In February 2023, Krah was suspended from the "Identity and Democracy" (ID) parliamentary group, to which the AfD belongs in the EU Parliament, due to allegations of fraud.

[51] On 7 May 2024, authorities searched the European parliament office of Krah in Brussels on behalf of Germany's Public Prosecutor General.

As ARD found out, Jian Guo had previously offered himself as a source to the German Federal Intelligence Service BND.

[51] Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (FDP) said the fact that the employee of the AfD-EU top candidate presumably works for the Chinese secret service should not surprise his boss.

In addition, number two on the AfD European list, Bundestag member Petr Bystron, is suspected of being paid by Russia.

[54] The NGO Lobbycontrol accused Maximilian Krah of failing to investigate allegations of espionage against his employee Jian Guo.

"The suspicion of espionage against his employee has been known since 2023, and Krah did not draw any conclusions at the time," explained Aurel Eschmann from Lobbycontrol.