The leader of an anti-Islamization group has resigned after a newspaper published a picture taken of him pretending to be Adolf Hitler, CNN has learned.
On Wednesday, the German tabloid BILD ran a months-old picture purporting to be Lutz Bachmann, head of Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, with his hair slicked down an a tiny mustache like the infamous Nazi leader had.
Bachmann also allegedly appears in a 2012 picture posing as a Ku Klux Klan member, according to CNN.
"Three K's a day deeps the minorities away," the caption reads.
The conservative leader announced his resignation from PEGIDA, which holds rallies attended by thousands, after facing backlash over the photos.
"I apologize to everybody who has felt attacked by my online postings," Bachmann said, CNN reported.
"They were comments made without serious reflection, which I would no longer express to today. I am sorry that I thereby damaged the interests of our movement, and draw the appropriate conclusion."
Some 18,000 people attended an anti-Islamization rally held Jan. 5 in Dresden. Another 25,000 showed up to another rally Jan. 12, five days after suspected al-Qaeda gunmen stormed the Paris offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and killed 12 people.
Bachmann reportedly took the Hitler photo in September 2014.
"I took the photo at the hairdressers, for the publication of the audiobook of the satire 'He's Back,'...You need to be able to joke about things now and then," he told BILD.
But the audiobook for the satire, about Hitler being alive in modern-day Germany, was released sometime before January 2013, as newspaper stories from the time refer to the number of copies already sold, CNN noted.
A PEGIDA rally was scheduled for Monday before the group canceled it after police warned of possible retaliation from Islamist extremists. German officials, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, have also urged the group to stop the demonstrations.
Meanwhile, counter-protests against the rallies have taken place in other parts in Germany, including Hamburg, Hanover and the capital Berlin.
