Alexander
Gauland
Immigration,
Chemnitz
German
Bundestag, Sept. 12, 2018, Plenarprotokoll 19/48, pp. 5035-5038
[Alexander
Gauland is national co-chairman of the Alternative für Deutschland as well as
co-leader of the AfD in the German Bundestag. Gauland here refers to a recent
alleged murder of a German citizen by a Syrian immigrant in the eastern German
city of Chemnitz, a city where he grew up during the years following the Second World War. Street protests immediately following the killing were
characterized by German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a “Hetzjagd”, a term akin
to purge or pogrom. Lutz Bachmann is a leader of the Pegida (Patriotic
Europeans against the Islamization of the West) organization located in the
eastern German city of Dresden. Bjorn Höcke is AfD chairman in the eastern
state of Thuringia as well AfD leader in the state legislature. Armin-Paul
Hampel is an AfD Bundestag member from the western state of Lower Saxony.]
Herr
President. Ladies and gentlemen.
The
interior minister has named migration the mother of all problems. For months it
has been part of the government’s foreign policy mantra that the flight from
Africa and Asia should be resisted. In this context, it is utterly amazing that
Union politicians are considering a Bundeswehr mission in Syria. That would
mean two things: German participation would create new origins of refugees and
the Bundeswehr could be involved in combat with Russian forces. War,
confrontation with Russia? Frau Merkel, I hope that you do not want to risk
that.
But
what policy is the government actually pursuing? In Afghanistan, where the
Bundeswehr likewise ostensibly defends the security of Germany, the Taliban
have again brought under their control extensive parts of the country. For 17
years are German soldiers stationed there, and the longer is their mission, the
more Afghans as asylum applicants come to Germany. Do we thereby actually
struggle against causes of the flight? I fear not.
Ladies
and gentlemen, a quote:
We clearly
reject an expansion of migration from third states, since it would exceed our
society’s ability to integrate. Increased migration would endanger the domestic
peace and aid radical powers.
So
it is written in the CDU/CSU election program of 2002. But you have not
applauded. That was a correct prognosis. The only question is, honorable
colleagues of the Union, why have not taken it to heart?
The
domestic peace of our country is in fact endangered. A fissure goes through our
society. I believe that there is no dissent to that. I fear however that there
is considerable dissent as to the question of who is the origin of this danger.
Let
us look closer: Sunday in Köthen, two Afghans gang up against a German. The man
dies. Saturday in Dortmund, men there, according to the subsequent police
report apparently North Africans, cut down a German. Saturday in Mainz, two
Arabs with knives attack a Somali and rob him. Saturday in Wiesbaden, many
males, described as being dark-skinned, harass young women. Saturday in Fulda,
three perpetrators subsequently described as being from southern countries,
pursue a 52 year old after a disco visit and beat him senseless. Thursday in
Friedberg, a 16 year old Syrian cuts an 18 year old native in the train
station. Ladies and gentlemen, I break off here.
Dietmar Bartsch (Linke): Well, that’s good.
Do
you think, dear colleagues of the Linke, that it is again time for a concert
against the right? How ideologically obstinate, how confined by political tactics,
must one be when the first reaction to the murder of a countryman is concern
that the death could be used by a political opponent?
Johannes Kahrs (SPD): That is just so cheap and painful.
I
repeat my question: Who threatens the domestic peace of this country?
Johannes Kahrs (SPD): The AfD!
Concerning
the consequences of the chancellor’s immigration policy –
Johannes Kahrs (SPD): That is
right-wing radicalism.
–
on the far-left website Indymedia under the title “Arm Yourself” is to be read,
I quote:
An aimed round
from a gas-pistol at the head or heart of a Nazi is sufficiently lethal since
it requires no legal formalities…
Who
endangers the public peace? When one listens to our political competitors and
their protest, then of course the threat comes from the right. Let us look at
Chemnitz. On the outskirts of a folk festival, so-called refugees with knives
attacked three residents of Chemnitz. One of the three bled to death at the
scene. The other two, severely wounded, must be brought to the hospital. The
folk festival was cancelled. Due to a manslaughter in Köthen, one of the
perpetrators had no residence authorization. Hundreds of Chemnitzers
spontaneously made use of their democratic right of assembly to give notice of
the outrage concerning the consequences of the chancellor’s immigration policy.
Frau Chancellor, you called that an “unlawful assembly”.
Beatrix von Storch (AfD):
Inconceivable!
That
was besides a punishable offense in the penal code of the DDR. The press in the
DDR designated the protests that led to the collapse of the SED regime as
unlawful assembly. When citizens make use of the their constitutional rights
and the head of the government brands this in the style of a totalitarian
state, then the alarm bells should sound for all of us in this house.
Britta Hasselmann (B90/Grünen): Have
you really not seen the many Nazis?
The
former Bundestag member of the Green party, Antje Hermenau from Leipzig, wrote
concerning this situation, quote:
After
unification, you preached the strongest sort of Manchester capitalism to us:
just work and save…Then came the financial crisis, and suddenly there was heaps
of money for the Greeks who had defrauded the euro. And today, the refugees who
receive the money without working. The people feel that that is an injustice.
Right!
End
quote. That is from Frau Hermenau, your former chairman in Saxony. And, dear
colleagues, when many of these refugees then also commit crimes, patience
simply comes to an end.
During
the spontaneous demonstrations, the motto of the peaceful revolution of 1989
was recited, “We are the people!” [Wir sind das Volk!]. Among the demonstrators
there was also a pair of aggressive airheads, but it was the matter of a
minority which was neither representative of the demonstration as a whole nor
was able to delegitimize the concerns of the majority.
Those
who shout “Foreigners out!” and flaunt the Hitler salute –
Johannes Kahrs (SPD): They are all
from the AfD!
–
are the great hope for you, ladies and gentlemen of the political-media
establishment. Without these idiots and morons, and should only the normal
citizens demonstrate, it would be a catastrophe for you. Always select such
figures and produce the desired pictures.
Britta
Hasselmann (B90/Grünen): Lutz Bachmann, Bernd Höcke, Hampel – all in the front
rank!
While
you, ladies and gentlemen of the left, spin the origins and consequences, many
citizens no longer feel secure. As offensive as Hitler salutes are, may I be
permitted to call to mind that the really evil event in Chemnitz was the bloody
act of two asylum applicants.
Yet
instead of reassuring the citizens and listening to them, the government with
calculation casts oil on the fire. Thus the chancellor as well as her spokesman
spread the fake news that there was an agit-hunt [Hetzjagd] of foreigners in
Chemnitz. And the media ran with it. The news channels, N-TV, to name just one
example, reported, “Neo-Nazis, lusting for civil war”, had left behind “a
wasteland” of horror and blood. “Guiltless men were rousted and hunted like
wild animals”. N-TV reported that without proof. Hamburg is a good argument.
I
repeat my question. Who endangers the domestic peace? The truth is, there was
no manhunt in Chemnitz.
Ulli Nissen (SPD): And the earth is
flat.
The
Saxony state attorney confirmed that, the Ministerpräsident [governor]
confirmed it, the police report confirmed it, the local press, the managing
editor of the Chemnitz Freien Presse.
And, yes, in the end, even Herr Seibert, in the name of his boss, has
half-withdrawn the insinuation.
Actually,
the police contingent in Chemnitz was not unlike that for an average soccer
game. The attack of left-wing extremists with rocks and Molotov cocktails on
the police in the Hambacher Forest on the same Sunday was very much more harsh.
An officer had to be taken to the hospital.
Matthias W. Birkland (Linke): That
is an unadulterated lie.
Neither
Frau Merkel nor Herr Seibert considered even that worthy of a mention. Instead,
demonstrating citizens without distinction were criminalized. The
Nordrhein-Westfalen Ministerpräsident Armin Laschet wants to “stop these
sympathetic statements, that all are concerned citizens”. He has to some extent
expressed the middle-class warning.
Johannes Kahrs (SPD): Right-wing
radicals are nowhere in the middle.
Neither are you.
Neither are you.
Even
the president of the constitution defense office is to be attacked because he
declared no substantial information was presented of a Hetzjagd in Chemnitz.
What has been up to now been dished out to Herr Maassen permits only one
interpretation: The commanding duty of the constitution defense office is to
take part in the struggle against the right. That you have gladly done.
From
this point of view, it is logical that out political competitors want to require
the constitution defense office to place the AfD under observation.
Ulli Nissen (SPD): That is urgently
necessary.
Do
you know what? We have no problem with that. We have nothing to hide. The more
the constitution office is occupied with us, the more clear it will be that it
is not the AfD that endangers the constitution.
Dear
colleagues, you are attempting to criminalize the opposition while you construct
a kind of popular front against the AfD. Might I remind you that never in
history has a popular front policy been a success. You act as if we had only a
choice between multiculturalism and fascism. That one can live also like the
Swiss or the Danes or the Swedes apparently does not occur to you.
Frau
Merkel, you had said, after you had to retract the Hetzjagd insinuation, that
there has been hatred…Why has there been, to stay with your remarkable lexicon,
hatred? Because the Chemnitzers are crummy people or because they see
themselves as the victim of a failed politics? Do these people hate out of a
groundless wickedness?
Britta Hasselmann (B90/Grünen): You stir up this hatred, Herr
Gauland.
You and your troops.
I
repeat my question. Who endangers the domestic peace of this country? Not us! I
am grateful.
