Baden-Württemberg Landtag, Plenarprotokoll 16/140, pp. 8043-8046.
Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.
All that we have heard this morning was more or less statements sounding the same on the decisions and present conditions in the Corona crisis. You will not be surprised that here the AfD naturally has a completely different estimate.
Actually, I thought that you – primarily the government delegations – might not dare to speak this morning on the topic of vaccination. Since on the topic of vaccination I had already spoken here 14 days ago and had held up to you your general failures with your surrender of responsibility to the EU for the distribution of the vaccine. We hold that up to you as previously, since here you, on a decisive point – namely, your responsibility for the Daseinsvororge [care for the existence] of the people in Germany –, have failed, ladies and gentlemen.
For vaccination as a whole, we have here heard terms like “greyhound races” or “vaccine Bundesliga”. Here, I must quite honestly say: You perhaps make here a snail’s race and if you keep up the present pace, you will in fact in eight years have managed – this is also again an arithmetic problem – to vaccinate the people of Baden-Württemberg. Yet for eight long years, the people may not participate in your game here, ladies and gentlemen. This you may recognize in many expressions. Even the media at the moment are thereby more or less critically inquiring. What you have neglected in the first two years, I must also hold up to you in this place.
Herr Reinhart, when you reproach Herr Baron that he with a question evidently remains below his potential, then I say to you: In regards the fight against Corona, you have already surrendered any credibility at all in your potential. It will therefore not surprise you that we, the AfD, demand that you immediately end your unspeakable Corona policy.
It may not be allowed that the lockdown, in our view introduced without parliamentary-democratic legitimization, will be maintained and even intensified, ladies and gentlemen. The scientifically gathered numbers demonstrate that the lockdown offers no protection to the vulnerable groups of our society. By means of your preventive measures will coming generations be burdened with debts scarcely capable of being repaid and entire branches of industry will be irreparably damaged. Here also, Herr Reinhart, there can be proposed no distinction between restaurants, hotels, retail trade and industry. You after all may not prioritize: Who stands before the exit, and who may continue to work? Who has a future, and who has none? That assuredly is not right in these areas. You disproportionately and arbitrarily interfere in the basic rights and the rights of freedom of the citizens of our State.
This is your Corona strategy – if one at all wants in this connection to use the term “strategy” – these are your long-term concepts – if one at all wants in this connection to use the words “long-term strategy”; that is to say, we see none. That is absolutely unacceptable.
The future preventive measures in the fight against Corona nevertheless require a parliamentary-democratic legitimization, ladies and gentlemen. Your Corona experimental policy lacks equilibrium and balance between the necessary protection of health, a guarantee of basic rights and rights of freedom, the citizens’ quality of life and economic stability. This is completely lacking in your actions.
You favor specific articles of the Basic Law. In an illegitimate body, you decide over which Basic Law articles will have validity and which not.
Christina Baum (AfD): Capricious!
Ladies and gentlemen, our basic rights are not negotiable. This pertains to all the citizens of our country.
Dep. President Sabine Kurtz: Herr Member Gögel, one moment, please. – Herr Member Dr. Balzer, you know quite exactly that no “demonstrations” may be upheld here –
Rainer Balzer (AfD): I have it down again.
Christina Baum (AfD): Ja, we understand.
– Yes, but immediately. Herr Member Gögel, please proceed.
As there are no citizens of first or second class, so also are there no basic rights of first or second class – and not for the vaccinated or not vaccinated, ladies and gentlemen. For this discussion burns quite slowly. One can almost actually be happy that the vaccination still proceeds at a snail’s pace. Otherwise, the discussion would be much further along. If today a vacation paradise like Greece is for a European vaccination pass, and the Herr Foreign Minister pleads that those vaccinated should receive special rights, I say: I forewarn you of this debate. Therefore: Repeal your lockdown measures. Guarantee to all citizens their basic rights.
Herr President, what do you think, which answers would we have to expect if you today would start a poll on the question, “Freedom or health”? We, the AfD, and with us a great majority of the people, would choose freedom.
Christina Baum (AfD): Jawohl! It is exactly so!
A man who lives in bondage [Unfreiheit] can never enjoy his health, neither bodily nor spiritual.
Ladies and gentlemen, behind bars, honey tastes bitter. On January 17, the “Berliner Zeitung” published a poll on the question, “What do you think: In this crisis, do the Federal government and the Senate do good work?” 94% of the respondents had criticized the government’s crisis management with regards to the fight against the pandemic and the duration of the lockdowns. We are convinced that in Baden-Württemberg a comparable result is to be expected.
On March 22, 2020, thus scarcely two months after the first detected case of the SARS-COV-2 virus on German soil, the Federal government and the States agreed on the first preventive measures for fighting the Corona virus. Since that time, a hand-made crisis has developed in the Federal Republic of Germany, let loose by your serious political miscalculations. The only recognizable strategy of those bearing responsibility consists of a strung-together series of lockdowns, the scientific effectiveness of which
Christina Baum (AfD): Going-out blockades!
is ever more contested.
And in other countries, and in Europe, see and recognize that a stringing together of lockdowns is not to the point. You want to reduce incidence numbers. You reduce these, you open, and then what happens? Then comes the third wave followed by a new lockdown, then comes the fourth wave. The economy, the society and our country will not endure that.
These preventive measures, decreed without scientific evidence, only and alone underline your helplessness, your action for action’s sake, together with the Chancellor’s and your incapacity for serious failure analysis.
Dep. President Sabine Kurtz: Herr Member Gögel, do you allow an interim question from Herr Member Dr. Fiechtner?
I have a difficulty with the time. The time already runs on prior to the suspension. If I later have time, gladly.
There can be no talk here of effective protection of health.
Let us come to your new Corona decisions which today the parliament simply acknowledges and then with your governing majority will then confirm, according loosely to the motto: The family father buys a car and two days later converses with the family on the equipment.
Anton Baron (AfD): It is exactly so!
By chance, one looks in on the parliament –
Nicole Razani (CDU): That’s not true!
Anton Baron (AfD): Show politics!
no democratic relationship, no logic, no sense. The first decision which you have reached is the extension of the lockdown to February 14. In regards to the first lockdown during last year, you had oriented yourselves on the R factor alone, although at the announcement of the first lockdown it already lay below the value of 1.0 desired by you. In regards the present lockdown, it is no more about the the R factor, but about a seven day incidence value of a maximum of 50 tested per 100,000 residents. Where does this number come from? The number resulted from the opportunities of tracking by health officials, and then your argumentation ceased; you are keeping something quiet.
Anton Baron (AfD): Mystery figures!
This number is based on an insufficient technical and personnel investment in the health offices.
In regards technology, the health officials find themselves in this area to be on the level of a third world state, ladies and gentlemen. The officials are not networked with one another, still work with telefax and land line telephones, and most likely with Excel tables which will be filled out by hand. Here, we are miles – miles! – away from a functioning digitalization.
You have had a year to improve the situation. I do not purport that in the last 20 years you have undertaken nothing here. Yet after the first lockdown, after the first catastrophe which you have caused, you have neither in education nor in healthcare – in regards the schools and the health offices – undertaken anything, and must come down to the value of 50 because you otherwise cannot track the events. On this basis, you have agreed to an extension of the lockdown and have decreed this despite declining incidence numbers, despite hospitals which are not over-burdened.
Apropos hospitals: You should perhaps once again mention here in parliament and out there amongst the citizens that you in the last ten years have closed 30 hospitals in Baden-Württemberg,
Christina Baum (AfD): Jawohl!
and indeed predominantly in rural areas.
Christina Baum (AfD): Exactly!
You should on that account for once state the truth as to why we here today perhaps have a discovery in regards the capacities. Here also, a further failure in the Daseinsvororge may be spoken of.
The second decision which you have reached concerns day-care and schools. My preceding speaker, who as a teacher comes from this professional area, has already occupied himself abundantly with this. These establishments also shall until February 14 remain closed.
What we have to chalk up against you is: You totally disregard that the children and youth, the over-charged parents and the teachers are suffering. The latter still do not have at their disposal a unified teaching platform, let alone adequate internet connections so as to be able to smoothly carry out instruction or distance instruction.
Over this neglect we have since – – We have now advocated here in parliament for five years. I ever again have a déjà vu. We ever again speak in circles. Hopefully we do not speak yet again in circles for five years. Here you conceal your failures in the area of digitalization. You neglect your duty to educate and – this is the worst – you approvingly make allowances for the long-term consequences for these children, ladies and gentlemen.
The third decision which you have reached is a home office duty. When presence in the workplace is required, the employer must first make available medical masks. This will still be the smaller problem. The employers must also submit accounts to the government and establish why they cannot send their employees to a home office. We, the AfD, with the best will, cannot conceive of this bureaucracy monster which you thereby want to create.
The trades unions and employers reject your home office duty for Baden-Württemberg. Martin Kunzmann, chief of the Southwest German Trade Unions Association, sees such a regulation as counter-productive for many employees. He said to the dpa on Monday in Stuttgart – I cite:
It ought not be forgotten that not all employees can without problem work at home, because they have either no suitable workplace or
– now it comes again –
internet access…
Here again the question comes to you: Do you recall the years of discussion over your neglect of digitalization? The home office presents for many businesses not only a financial and organizational but also a data security burden. You are obliged to be well acquainted with these problems from your own administrative officials.
Ladies and gentlemen, we now come to the core topic of your disoriented Corona policy, to the nose and mouth protective covering. But first I want to clear up a small error – perhaps also in the dpa report of yesterday morning. Here in the plenary hall there is in place no duty to wear a mouth and nose covering.
Nicole Razani (CDU): Exactly. Say that to Herr Sänze!
At the beginning of the pandemic, you had declared to the citizens that the covering of mouth and nose produced nothing, Frau Razani. You had declared this to the people at the beginning of the pandemic – perhaps not you personally, yet surely your party. The background of your statement was something completely different. You were concerned already at that time about the lack of a stockpile of masks and all other protective equipment items in case of a pandemic. Yet in March, Health Minister Spahn had got underway a hastily knitted together contract in open house proceedings for the procurement of protective equipment. Partners to the contract were any supplier who was in a posititon to deliver at least 25,000 masks by April 30.
It was probably devoid of result. Astonishingly, 700 suppliers were in a position to fulfill these conditions. Nevertheless, a large portion of these suppliers are now sitting on these masks which they must put into storage because the Health Ministry does not take possession. The suppliers after a year still await payment for these makes.
Ladies and gentlemen, does your recent decision on the obligatory wearing of medical masks – in Bavaria, it is even FFP2 masks – perhaps indirectly have to do with your renewed logistical failures? From the medical viewpoint, the OP and FFP2 mouth and nose protective masks offer no defense against a viral infection. According to a statement of the DEKRA [vehicle inspection association], the FFP2 masks are unsuitable. I cite:
The masks are for the purpose, when declared to FFP2 masks or KN95 masks, completely unsuitable
Heinrich Fiechtner: Exactly!
Ladies and gentlemen, the Robert Koch Institute has felt that the use of the FFP2 masks, especially by persons who belong to an at-risk group, should ensue only after individual conference with or individual consultation by a doctor.
In addition, the FFP2 masks basically should not be made use of multiple times, since it is a matter of a one-time product. Therefore we, the AfD, have from the beginning demanded that in the at-risk groups certified FFP2 masks are to be placed at the disposal of the older people, if you want to protect them; and this at no cost.
Heinrich Fiechtner: FFP5, I would say.
Christina Baum (AfD): FFP100!
The State government did not require these masks but still as before favored short shawls and even hobby patches [Kurzem Schals und selbst gebastelte Läppchen]. Now the government has ordered the obligatory wearing of OP or FFP2 masks in the ÖPNV [public transport] and retail business, although they do not protect against viral infection and are only sold at horrendous prices. That is an imposition for families, since for this a family of four shall expend 300 to 400 euros per month.
Ladies and gentlemen, before you lies the resolution motion of the AfD delegation. This motion demands a complete change of strategy in the policy to fight Corona. I request you support this motion so as to really achieve a turnaround in this policy.
Heinrich Fiechtner: Frau President, where is the mask?
I come to a conclusion, ladies and gentlemen. Freedom, basic rights, federalism, self-determination before foreign rule [Fremdbestimmung]
Christina Baum (AfD): Jawohl!
and subsidiarity are the foundation of our thought and action in the AfD. You could take up some of these points.
Many thanks.
[trans: tem]
