Jens Maier, June 19, 2020, Antifa Ban

Jens Maier

Antifa Ban

German Bundestag, June 19, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/167, pp. 20897-20898

[Jens Maier is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the eastern German state of Saxony. He is a lawyer and here introduces an AfD motion (Drucksache 20074) to ban the Antifa organization. Siegbert Droese is also an AfD Bundestag member from Saxony.]

Right honorable Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen.

            What that is for the times, where

            Talk of trees is near to crime

            Because one silence much sin enfolds!

            [Was sind das für Zeiten, wo

            Ein Gespräch über Bäume fast ein Verbrechen ist

            Weil es ein Schweigen über so viele Untaten einschliesst!]

            Harald Weinberg (Linke): Brecht is turning over in the grave!

Bertolt Brecht, yes.

Yes, much is said here. Yet over actual sins, like the Antifa terror, there is still much that is silenced here in the Bundestag and in society. And when it cannot be silenced, when it must be spoken because there is nothing else to do, because of what again is happening, then these buildings attacked by the Antifa as an example will be trivialized, downplayed, denied and re-interpreted, all with the object in view of doing one thing; namely, to do nothing. In regards to you, Frau Renner, that does not surprise me. You are there. You actually belong to the Anitfa.

            Martina Renner (Linke): Ja!

Yet in regards to you in the Union, that still amazes me. That is cowardice, cowardice in the face of the enemy.

            Michael Grosse-Böhmer (CDU/CSU): Just wait for my colleagues’ speeches!

One can be thankful that President Trump in the USA has taken the initiative and set a good example. He has declared war on the Antifa. He is determined to act effectively and restore order, for example in Seattle, where it is threatened.

            Ute Vogt (SPD): Follow after America!

I would hope for such determination from a German government.

Antifa – what is that? There yields a diffuse picture of differing, formerly loosely associated groups, with propensities to violence of various intensity. Besides harmlessly operating, ideologically contaminated spin doctors or youth plagued by the woes of the world, there exists in the Antifa family milieu tightly organized gangs of brawlers who conduct minutely planned attacks and manage to be abundantly financed indirectly by public money; that is especially scandalous.

They do not do that in secret, but quite openly. A glance at the internet suffices. I refer here for example to the site antifa-berlin.info. Here were gathered the specific acts employed in ways glorifying violence. Who reported what, who took care of that? – Yes, Frau Lazar, you laugh yourself half to death – Where is the police, why did nothing happen? The answer is quite simple: Because in this society leftist violence has been made acceptable, because the political-media class has created a climate of acceptance concerning leftist violence and because leftist violence does not occur in the picture constructed by the media, where only right-wing extremism can be dangerous.

            Mechthild Rawert (SPD): It is dangerous!

I will not now speak of all the attacks on AfD offices or the insidious attack on Frank Magnitz.

            Marion Wendt (CDU/CSU): My office was attacked by rightists!

On Monday of this week, the Antifa was known to have been underway in Leipzig and attacked the café of Siegbert Droese’s sister who certainly has nothing to do in any way with political things. What that is, is family liability [Sippenhaft], and das ist nicht in Ordnung. It is however to be noted that the spirit which is called up can also touch one’s own people. So, in a curious way, Helge Lindh, SPD – you here – was the target of harm in April of this year, as was his office in Wuppertal.   

Besides self-empowerment by acts of violence small or – as at the G-20 summit in Hamburg – large, the Antifa is steadily concerned with creating lawless areas for itself – areas like Connewitz in Leipzig, Rote Flora in Hamburg, Rigauer Strasse in Berlin, areas in which they have control and from which the state of law is practically blocked off. There, one does what one wants. Especially in such no-go areas, one evades all obligations and places oneself – like Reichsburger – outside of society.

For these people, it is not about political aims. For these people, if is about riot, amusement in destruction and submergence in a lawless space. It will be somehow justified with crazy, extreme leftist twaddle. That must stop. Before all things, the legal order of this country must finally be enforced against these types. The Antifa must be banned.

Many thanks.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

Albrecht Glaser, June 19, 2020, Corona Cyclical Package

Albrecht Glaser

Corona Cyclical Package

German Bundestag, June 19, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/167, pp. 20876-20877

[Albrecht Glaser is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the western German state of Hessen. He is a member of the Bundestag finance committee and here responds to a government tax proposal concerning the Corona crisis.]

Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

Following an initial tax law on May 28, by which the food tax in the restaurant trade was fixed for one year at a moderated assessment, we today have here a second law which, as we have heard, shall give a large tax incentive for “Cyclical and Crisis Management”, as it is called.

Although that notice makes clear that tax reduction is the silver bullet for securing liquidity and regenerating profitability, there are few measures for that in the law, and almost all have not a relief but only a delay of payments effect. No abolition of the solidarity surtax, no reduction of tax on profits and, be it only for a time limited to the recovery of the economy, a merely minimal correction in the business tax. The loss carry-back, which was already called for in an AfD motion in April, to be revised to two years; a diminishing depreciation allowance [AfA] during this and next year for non-fixed assets; and a temporary extension of the term of re-investment in the area of §6b EStG [income tax law] – these are the narrow concessions to business. These measures diminish not at all the income of the state; they merely defer it to later years.

The Big Wumms will be a sales tax reduction of 2 or 3 percent, based on a moderated rate of assessment, which is guaranteed only for the second half of 2020. It shall ostensibly relieve the consumers by around 20 billion euros, and almost surely burden business with billions in adaptation costs. Whether these short-term moderations of the sales tax are to be passed on to the consumers, which is questionable, they help not at all the businessmen, since in the short-term we have not a demand by a supply problem. And the “Kindergeld”, allotted already to those of middle income on account of the child allowance, is more a populist measure.

The tax alterations altogether lead to a loss of income of 37 billion euros for the Federal government. On account of foreseeable transfers from the Federal government to the states, communities, social security recipients and investments, which are to be regulated by a supplementary law, the Federal budget for 2020 will be financed by a net indebtedness of 286 billion euros. Together with the new indebtedness of the states and communities of a sum of 120 billion euros and the 200 billion euros borrowed by the Federal government for the capital measures of the KfW, the national debt will increase to 2.66 trillion euros and thereby again grow to a share of over 80 percent of the gross domestic product. That is the situation which we had during the 2009 financial crisis. Return to Go!

Against this background, the Federal government conducts a continental rescue with a touch of world rescue. For that, 750 billion euros in loans will be taken up, although this is forbidden by Article 311 of the AEUV. 500 billion euros of these loans will be bestowed on European countries which are particularly deep in debt and 250 billion euros will be similarly given away. It may be pondered whether the EZB, which also finances other international organizations, in any case receives these first-time issues of the EU into its own portfolio. It thereby finances itself. The consequent burden for Germany, combined with the increased assessment for financing this operation, is not yet foreseeable; just as little as the liability risks. That, right honorable ladies and gentlemen, must indeed be the “Great Transformation” which is constantly being spoken of.

Hearty thanks.

[Translated by Todd Martin]  

Martin Hess, June 18, 2020, Federal Police Commissioner

Martin Hess

Federal Police Commissioner

German Bundestag, June 18, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/166, pp. 20692-20693

[Martin Hess is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from Baden-Württemberg. He is a police officer and here responds to a motion by the Green party to establish a Federal Police Commissioner.]

Right honorable Herr President. Honored colleagues.

Allow me to begin with a clear statement in regards the present and on-going racism campaign against our police: There is no structural racism in the police.

Despite adverse conditions, our police officers perform outstanding work. The basis of their proceedings is not the skin color or ethnicity of a man but his conduct. That is also shown in the statistics. Of the 1.9 million police actions in Baden-Württemberg in the year 2019, there were only four – I reiterate: four – charges on account of ethnic-based discrimination. Where there has been misconduct by officers, the police and the courts are very much disposed to consequently and effectively punish this. For that, neither a Federal police commissioner nor an ostensibly independent proceedings office are required. So finally stop asserting the opposite! What you are pursuing is not the justified criticism of state institutions, but an act of  contempt for our police and judiciary! Therefore, in no case can your motion be supported. Those who believe that the police and judiciary can be defamed, must be consequently ordered with all vigor to stop.

Yet, right honorable ladies and gentlemen of the Greens, with you, it is quite certainly not about the fight against what is in fact wrong, or the elimination of the same. Wherever you go, it is to spread the general suspicion of racism against the men and women who undertake to guarantee the security of our citizens. The acceptance of your motion would lead to the result of providing cover to a greater degree than hitherto for clan criminals, perpetrators with migrant backgrounds and violent, left-wing extremists so as to hinder proceedings  and prosecutions. We will resolutely oppose this sabotage of our state’s ability to function.

The left-wing parties wish to pursue at the Federal level what their friends in the parties have begun in the Berlin Senate. In Berlin, police officers themselves must now prove not to have initiated the discrimination for which they have been reproached. The destructive consequences of this reversal of the burden of proof are already evident: Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg want to suspend the support response [Unterstützungseinsätze] in Berlin.  

            Vice President Hans-Peter Friedrich: Herr colleague, will you allow an 

            interim question?

Not now. The police union in Nordrhein-Westphalen, closely connected with the Berlin government parties, demands no more police be sent to Berlin. Even Interior Minister Seehofer has announced a halt to the Federal police Unterstützungseinsätze in Berlin so as to avoid a wave of complaints. This reversal of the burden of proof, let it be clearly and distinctly said, is an unreasonable and unbearable imposition upon our state of law and the police and must be done away with as quickly as possible.

The SPD, Greens and Linke wish to impede effective police work so that their clientele can develop, as unhindered as possible, their destructive, anti-state activities.

            André Hahn (Linke): What nonsense!

This security policy madness must be resolutely opposed by every convinced democrat because we have no racism problem in the police but we do have a left-wing extremism problem in the German Bundestag! SPD chief Saskia Esken recently and openly declared her sympathy for the Antifa, thus for that left-wing extremist group which is responsible for massive attacks upon our police officers. Frau Esken also believes she can identify latent racism in the ranks of the security forces in Germany.

For quick, political profit, you do not shrink from injuring the outstanding reputation of our police. Yet that – it is absolutely clear to me – will hasten the continuing collapse of the SPD, since the citizens in Germany will no longer tolerate these persistent, unsubstantiated imputations of racism.

The truth is, the police are not the perpetrators but the victims of violence. In Germany, the state prosecutors offices investigate each year 2,000 cases of illegal infractions by police officers and less than one percent result in a conviction. That is not because our judiciary might be prejudiced, that is because the accusations in almost all cases turn out to be unfounded. Yet – colleague Middelberg has already mentioned this – each year, 38,000 police officers will be victims of acts of violence, and the trend is increasing. Finally effectively fight the yearly increasing violence against the police and response forces, instead of making common cause with the Antifa enemies of the police.

And the CDU  and CSU – I unfortunately cannot now spare you – are allowing the public service and thereby our police to be placed under a general suspicion. Under the overall control of the Interior Minister, the Federal Office for the Defense of the Constitution has installed a so-called “Center for the Clarification of Right-wing Extremist Agitation in the Public Service” [Zentralstelle zur Aufklärung rechtsextremistischer Umtriebe im öffentlichen Dienst]. The concept of “agitation” alone is a matter fit for debate. Yet he who installs such an office introduces the possibility of going beyond reference to a single instance of racism and right-wing extremism to that there could in fact be a structural problem in the German public service. You thereby damage the reputation of the German police and all the public service. That once again shows how Green in the meantime even the CSU has become. Therefore: Put an end to this cloud of suspicion against the public service! This center is to be immediately done away with!

…Yet so long as enemies of the state in the Berlin Senate

            André Hahn (Linke): Who are here in the Bundestag!

decide over the working conditions of the police, and so long as left-wing extremists, with the support of the Union, nominate constitutional judges in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, so the fish stinks from the head. I can therefore only appeal to the colleagues of the Union: Stop this appeasement! The fact is and remains: The Linke, Greens and Reds are and remain the political enemies of our police.

As a police officer and a politician, I appeal to the SPD, Green and Linke delegations: Stop igniting and further heating up an anti-police state of mind. You thereby endanger the state monopoly of force. Show that you will not tolerate agitation against our police. Condemn with complete clarity the language of hate with which the leftist journalists instigate violence against police officers.

In the “taz”, an author could,

            Konstantin Kuhle (FDP): Naturally she could.

on June 15, ascribe to our police an “authoritarian personality” and a “fascist mind-set” and in de-humanizing terms defame the colleagues as “trash”.

            Marianne Schieder (SPD): That you could generally read.

This language we recognize as coming almost exclusively from the followers of the extremist left Antifa. All honest and convinced democrats must clearly and effectively condemn such unacceptable agitation against our police. Who even only tolerates the charge has disqualified himself from being taken seriously as a political factor in our country.

            Vice President Hans-Peter Friedrich: Herr colleague, please come to an end.

I come to a conclusion. The AfD clearly and distinctly stands behind our police. Certainly in times when are seen to be presented unjustifiable insinuations of racism and right-wing extremism, it is important to send a signal of backing and support to our police. Our police are neither racists nor right-wing extremists and therefore all the motions are to be consequently rejected.

[Translated by Todd Martin]