Gerold
Otten
Healthcare
and Nuclear Weapons
German
Bundestag, May 7, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/158, pp. 19667-19668
[Gerold Otten is an Alternative für
Deutschland Bundestag member from Bavaria. He is an aerospace industries sales
manager and has a number of years’ experience as a Bundeswehr pilot, experience
which includes flying the Tornado fighter-bomber. He here responds to motions
by the Linke party calling for a shift of government spending from nuclear
weapons to healthcare.]
The
Federal government for some time has not questioned the nuclear participation. It
is a concept within NATO’s deterrence policy. It is basically defensive and
includes four essential elements. First, it makes clear that the will and
wealth of the USA, with its nuclear weapons, is to stand up for those NATO
members which are not nuclear powers. Second, it entitles participants to
consultation on the commitment of nuclear weapons and the participating states
declare themselves – third – ready to deploy [vorzuhalten] the corresponding delivery system [Trägersystem]. Fourth, the states oblige
themselves to the stationing of atomic weapons on their state territory.
In
a peace-loving society like ours, there is not much political profit in this
theme. However, that a political question is not popular has for long not meant
that it need not be answered. And it is most closely bound up with the delivery
system, which in Germany is the Tornado fighter aircraft. The question of a
successor has been an open question for years. Now, the Defense Minister quietly
and lightly lets fall a procurement decision for 93 Eurofighters and 45
American F-18s. How nice for her defense zone project in northern Syria that
this also occurs without consultation with coalition partners and without
previously informing the Bundestag. That might be taken for daring, but for me
that is dilettantism.
The
decision was also the occasion for the present motions of the Linke. It
basically means the end of Germany’s nuclear participation.
Tobias Pflüger
(Linke): Well discerned!
Those bringing the motions base this demand upon
allegedly striking deficits in the healthcare infrastructure of Germany, Europe
and the world. And since the Linke do not wish to incur the suspicion of acting
nationally, the freely resourced tax money shall not only benefit the German
healthcare system but that of the entire world.
Sevim
Dağdelen (Linke): No, the WHO!
The Linke plead that, as we have just heard from
Herr Gysi, with a motion from the year 2010 of the Union, FDP and SDP. They
assert that at that time the Bundestag decided on a withdrawal of atomic
weapons – only, that is fake news, Herr Gysi.
Impressed by Obama’s declaration of wanting to
commit himself to a world free of atomic weapons, the Bundestag then demanded
that the Federal government undertake all efforts for the withdrawal of atomic
weapons from Germany and that the world be made free of nuclear weapons.
Gregor
Gysi (Linke): Yes, just so!
On this question, the AfD has a clear position: We
are in favor of nuclear disarmament and – I say this here quite clearly – that includes
the withdrawal of U.S. atomic weapons from Germany.
Can one thus vote for the transparent motions of
the Linke? Quite clearly not. For the AfD wishes that the states of the world
resolve their conflicts peacefully. The condition of a peaceful world will
occur when all states abandon a violent enforcement of their demands and
instead go the way of exchange of interests and mutual advantage. Yet the world
is far away from this desirable condition and I fear will never attain it. Politics
must again re-orient itself to what is politically sensible and feasible, thus
to how the world is and not to however one may happily desire it to be. We
therefore represent the way of Realpolitik
and not that of alien utopias.
A one-sided renunciation of the nuclear
participation would not in the least improve the present security situation of
Germany and the world; the opposite would be the case. NATO would then not only
be brain-dead, as per President Macron’s opinion, it would actually stand at
death’s door. In our view, an atomic disarmament is only possible if all
nuclear powers agree to a gradual reduction of their nuclear weapons arsenals.
To persuade the nuclear powers of this goal was the intent of the Bundestag’s resolutions,
and nothing other. This goal today is of even greater priority, and certainly
before the background of the giving of notice of the INF treaty. The AfD will
pursue this goal at all times and with all power. The utopias of the Linke we decisively
reject.
I thank you for your attention.
[Translated
by Todd Martin]
