After it became known that right-wing extremists were meeting with AfD members, the Bundestag met at the current hour. Representatives of government parties and the CDU/CSU urgently warn against the AfD. But there is no coming together: speakers from the CDU and CSU blame the traffic lights for the AfD’s high.
How to deal with the AfD’s obvious proximity to right-wing extremists and ethnic-nationalist organizations? After an event became known at which AfD representatives reflected on the mass deportation of people with a migrant background, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets across Germany in the past few days. The democratic parties in the Bundestag also wanted to set an example and came together at a current hour at the request of the government factions from the SPD, Alliance90/The Greens and the FDP. “Clear stance against enemies of democracy and expulsion plans,” was the headline for the debate. But the hoped-for signal of democratic parties coming together to defend the rule of law and democracy turned out to be a fiasco. The Union sees the traffic light as too much responsible for the AfD’s high polls.
“The AfD wants to drive millions of people from the middle of our country out of Germany,” warned SPD leader Lars Klingbeil. “Because these AfD people aren’t white enough, because they don’t correspond to their ethnic worldview, because they have the wrong last name.” But the democratic parties wouldn’t allow that, Klingbeil promised: “We’ll look after you, you’re part of this country and we’ll stand by your side.” The leader of the Green Party, Britta Haßelmann, spoke of “barbaric plans for a mass deportation of German citizens” and said of the AfD: “They despise our democratic, diverse face. They are fascists.”
“Reminiscent of the darkest chapter in German history”
Two cabinet members also spoke to Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser and Federal Family Minister Lisa Paus, which underlined the importance of the debate that the traffic light attaches to the topic. The AfD is pursuing the “dream of a homogeneous society that excludes everything that does not fit into its racist and misanthropic ideology,” said SPD politician Faeser and promised a robust fight by the rule of law against right-wing extremist networks. The government will dry up financial flows, disarm extremists and remove them from public service.
“This is our country, we are not giving up,” said Green Party Minister Paus. She referred to a statement by the AfD parliamentary group leaders in the East German parliaments demanding that Germany must become more German again. “This ethnic understanding is reminiscent of the darkest chapter in German history,” said Paus. The SPD domestic politician Gülistan Yüksel warned: “We have to take this danger seriously.” She is also affected by the deportation fantasies of the right-wing extremists; millions of people in Germany with a migration history are very worried.
When Thorsten Frei, Parliamentary Managing Director of the Union faction, appeared as the second speaker, he was similarly alarmed. With AfD poll numbers well over 30 percent, there is a danger that “we will reach the limits of our parliamentarism in the elections in the East this year.” Saxony and Thuringia will elect a new parliament on September 1st, followed by Brandenburg three weeks later. It is becoming extremely difficult to form a government, blocking minorities for the AfD for constitutional changes; As the strongest party, it could have parliamentary chairs and supervision of parliamentary administration, as well as greater influence on judicial elections.
Union blames traffic lights for AfD success
However, Frei also said, “if a party like the AfD gets such results in elections and surveys, there are certainly reasons for it.” However, he only gave a single reason: “Of course, this has a lot to do with the fact that 80 percent of people in our country believe that the government is not making policies that are good for our country,” said Frei. Indignation immediately set in within the ranks of the government factions, and indignant hecklers such as “That can’t be true” could be heard. But Frei continued: He accused the traffic light of “governing bypassing the people and that leads to the loss of reputation of politics leading to a loss of reputation of the institutions.”
CDU domestic politician Philipp Amthor and CSU man Alexander Hoffmann, also on the Interior Committee, shared the same opinion. The traffic light reinterprets any criticism of her as “anti-democratic, right-wing, racist,” said Amthor. “In doing so, you are doing the business of the enemies of democracy.” Once again there was outrage in the government factions, but Amthor continued: “Make better politics: That’s our way and that’s how we’ll get this force down again.”
Hoffmann said that the fight against the AfD had to unite the Democrats, but also saw the federal government as being primarily to blame for the situation: “In some places they are making policies that are driving people into the arms of the AfD,” said Hoffmann and recalled the heating law. The traffic light must take away the “identity-forming issues” from the AfD, for example through a different migration policy, instead of discussing a ban on the AfD.
FDP domestic politician Konstantin Kuhle had already referred to the law for easier deportations, which was also passed on Thursday, and admitted: “It is our responsibility that many people have so far had the impression that we do not have enough order and control in migration policy have.” But: “No tightening of asylum laws and no deportation law will ever be enough for the racists and ethnic nationalists who have gathered in Potsdam.” Kuhle contradicted Frei that the AfD was not concerned with the performance of the traffic light government. Kuhle reminded the Union of the AfD’s top candidate Maximilian Krah, who wanted to destroy the EU. “You should write that behind your ears,” he shouted to the heartily pro-European CDU and CSU factions.
AfD sees itself as a victim, but Amthor has a question
The AfD followed the accusations against its party in a demonstratively relaxed manner. Alice Weidel, head of the party and parliamentary group, mock yawned during Klingbeil’s speech. The parliamentary managing director Bernd Baumann appeared confident of victory: In Saxony, the “AfD is already at 35 percent, we are currently five times as strong as this chancellor’s party.” The reporting on the meeting in Potsdam was a “sneaky campaign by politicians and journalists of the left-wing class,” said Baumann.
“The higher the AfD’s poll numbers, the more maliciously you defame our party,” said Baumann. The AfD only wants to deport those who no longer have the right to reside in Germany – from the AfD’s perspective including 600,000 Syrians because there is no longer a war in their country of origin. A “small, private debating club” met in Potsdam and the statements made by a guest speaker could not be attributed to the AfD or other listeners. According to the research portal “Correctiv”, the deportation plan was presented by an activist from the right-wing extremist Identitarian movement. AfD representatives are said to have expressed their approval.
Amthor criticized the fact that the AfD was “ridiculing” the reports and taking on the role of victim. Ultimately, she could also condemn the deportation fantasies that were obviously discussed in Potsdam. “Why can’t you bring yourself to call extremism what it is,” he asked the AfD faction. “The fact that they can’t get it out of their mouths exposes them as the end of what can somehow be bourgeois,” he answered the question himself. If not in the search for causes and answers to the AfD’s success, they were sure Ampel and Union at least agree to some extent in their assessment of the party. The governing parties had clearly hoped for more from this current moment.