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 20 June 2022 Gröning founded the Citizens for Thuringia parliamentary group together with former Free Democrat MP Ute Bergner [de] and the two former AfD MPs Lars Schütze and Tosca Kniese [de]. 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.
