Tatjana Festerling

Tatjana Festerling ( Schimanski, 6 March 1964) is a German activist who was a member of the organisation team of the far-right political movement Pegida. She was expelled from the Pegida leadership for advocating that asylum-seekers should be shot if they attempt to cross the German border.

Political activities

Festerling was a founding member of the Hamburg section of the Alternative for Germany (AfD). On 7 June 2015, she contested for the mayoral election in the city of Dresden and gained 9.6% of the votes in the election. Der Spiegel described Pegida's decision in 2015 to invite Festerling, a woman, to work with the party founder Lutz Bachmann as an adroit move.

In June 2016, Festerling was dismissed from the Pegida leadership. Bachmann stated that her behaviour 'was injurious to the organisation' as the reason for her dismissal. Since then, her activities have included patrolling the Bulgarian-Turkish border area together with a Dutch Pegida leader and local paramilitary forces. She asked her supporters to make payments to the State Justice Treasury to spare her from imprisonment.

Personal life Festerling trained in coaching and yoga and has two grown up children.