Birger Gröning (born 1975 in Schwerin) is a German politician from Thuringia. Previously representing the Alternative for Germany and Citizens for Thuringia, he has been an independent politician since 2022.
Gröning completed an apprenticeship as a hotel specialist with the additional qualification of a training qualification in 1995. From 1995 to 2005 he was in the German Army as a sergeant in the air force security force and staff service. He then became a physiotherapist and worked in a rehabilitation clinic.[1]
On 27 October 2019, he was elected to the Thuringian state parliament for the AfD as a direct candidate in the Gotha I constituency. On 23 March 2022, he announced his resignation from the AfD parliamentary group in the Thuringian state parliament and the party.[2]
On June 20, 2022, Gröning founded the Citizens for Thuringia parliamentary group together with former Free Democrat MP and the two former AfD MPs Lars Schütze and . Two days later, the application for parliamentary recognition was submitted to the president of the Thuringian State Parliament,[3] which was accepted by the Parliament in the July plenary session.[4] In December 2022, Gröning resigned from the Citizens for Thuringia party and state parliamentary group, thus pre-empting a party expulsion procedure.[5] Since then he has sat in the Landtag as an independent member.
In the 2024 Brandenburg state election, Gröning will run as an independent in the constituency of Gotha II.[6]
Gröning is married and lives in Gotha.