1ST LEAD German lawmaker to let party membership lapse over anti-Semitic works By Ulf Mauder, dpa

Stuttgart, Germany (dpa) - A lawmaker with the nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party whose membership was under dispute said Tuesday that he will no longer be active in the group.Wolfgang Gedeon, a physician-turned-AfD-lawmaker in the wealthy south-western state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, made the announcement after a party meeting that was originally supposed to decide on his expulsion.The lawmaker, who had repeatedly come under fire for his anti-Semitic writings, said he wanted to avoid a split in the party and in the future would not sit with the AfD faction in the state parliament.The Central Council of Jews in Germany Tuesday criticized the AfD for not immediately banning the politician, saying the party was "not willing to distance itself from anti-Semitism."The council‘s president, Josef Schuster, demanded that the AfD "send a clear signal against anti-Semitism without further delay."The party had said Tuesday that it would file a motion with a regional court to expel Gedeon for playing down the Holocaust in works published several years ago.A commission will now review whether the accusations of anti-Semitism against him are actionable. The issue will be revisited in September.Party chief Joerg Meuthen had threatened to step down if Gedeon had not been kicked out. The current development is seen as a compromise.In the works in question, Gedeon defines Judaism as the "domestic enemy" and Islam as the "external enemy" of the "Christian West." He takes issue with a Holocaust memorial in Berlin, arguing that drawing attention to "certain crimes" in such a prominent way is wrong.In Germany, it is illegal to endorse, deny or play down the genocide of the Jews at the hands of the Nazi regime. A law passed in 1985 makes such acts punishable by a fine or up to five years in prison.