Sunday 20th December 2020
"Maintain contact with lateral thinkers"
Protection of the Constitution for Gauland no yardstick
The AfD politician Gauland calls on his party to pay less attention to the protection of the constitution and not to shut down movements like Pegida or the lateral thinkers. In doing so, he opposes AfD chairman Meuthen, who has "damaged half of the party".
If the AfD wants to be a real alternative to the established parties, it should, from the point of view of its honorary chairman Alexander Gauland, not conform to the protection of the constitution. "We shouldn't make what the President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang, the yardstick of our actions," said Gauland. "Unfortunately there are some people here who think too strongly in the direction of the protection of the constitution; but you can't be a real opposition like that," said Gauland, who heads the AfD parliamentary group together with Alice Weidel.
According to participants, Haldenwang announced a few days ago at the conference of interior ministers that his authority will probably make a decision in January on the question of a possible suspected observation of the entire AfD party. So far, only the "wing" founded in 2015 by the Thuringian AfD regional chief Björn Höcke and formally dissolved in the meantime has been observed nationwide as a right-wing extremist movement. The youth organization, the Junge Alternative, is considered a suspected case. The use of informational means is also permitted in a suspected case.
He personally has no reservations about the Institute for State Policy founded by Götz Kubitschek in Schnellroda, which is also classified as a suspected case by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, said Gauland. The institute is considered to be the hinge between various groups of the so-called New Right. "Wing" fans in particular have come and gone there in recent years. "Götz Kubitschek is an intellectual who has nothing to do with the party," said Gauland. Kubitschek assured the parliamentary group leader that there was no danger to the AfD or to society. "He is a friend of Mr. Höcke and calls me from time to time."
When asked about the "lateral thinkers" movement founded by critics of the government's anti-corona measures, Gauland said: "We are a movement that should also maintain contact with certain protest groups. This applies to" lateral thinking ", but also to Pegida in Dresden or for the association Zukunft Heimat from Cottbus. "
"Can't escape observation by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution"
The AfD must always be careful that "some crazy people" do not register events on behalf of the party, he added. "It's always a dance on the rope, where you can't fall down." In September 2018, AfD functionaries marched through Chemnitz on a "funeral march" with neo-Nazis after a German was killed in an argument with refugees in the city.
The comparisons with the final phase of the Weimar Republic, which are occasionally used in the public debate about the AfD and the protection of the constitution, are "historically foolish," said Gauland. All parties in Germany, "even most parts of the Left Party", are firmly committed to the Basic Law. The AfD will nevertheless "not escape observation by the protection of the constitution anyway". Because this authority "has an order to fulfill", speculated the group leader. "We will defend ourselves against this legally and then have success."
Gauland criticized the style of AfD chairman Jörg Meuthen harshly. At the opening of the federal party congress in Kalkar at the end of November, he sharply attacked those party friends "who are only too happy to scamper and roll around" or who, like Gauland, had used terms like "Corona dictatorship". Gauland said that Meuthen "gave a speech with which he damaged half of the party. I still haven't understood why". Since then, however, he has not sought a conversation with the party chairman.
Gauland said that he would have liked to respond to Meuthen's speech in Kalkar, but then had to spend the second day of the party congress in the hospital. His health is gradually getting better. The 79-year-old, who was AfD chairman together with Meuthen from December 2017 to December 2019, accused Meuthen of trying to "push" the new co-chairman Tino Chrupalla aside. He added: "He should actually know from his own painful experience with Frauke Petry that you shouldn't do that."
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