German
Bundestag, September 7, 2021, Plenarprotokoll 19/239, pp. 31136-31137.
Right
honorable Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.
In the last,
regular plenary debate of the 19th German Bundestag, it becomes time
to draw up a balance. I begin the review with a peculiarity in contemporary
German history. Just four years after its founding, the first party formed in
the new Federal Republic of Germany entered the German Bundestag in the year
2017. For four years, we of the Alternative für Deutschland attend the fortunes
and misfortunes of the Federal government under Chancellor Angela Merkel. Ladies
and gentlemen, it was high time.
How does Germany
now appear after 16 years of the CDU/CSU or 12 years of grand coalition with the
SPD? What were the cornerstones and anchor points of your policy, worthy
colleagues on the government bench? When I look at our country and our
citizens, I ascertain that we may thank you for a crippling, unimaginative
policy – in any case, for the division and the loss of trust in the population.
To you was presented a country with relatively good possibilities of formation. You decided to sell the core
elements of our social prosperity in the yearly market of politics.
Your
politics, right honorable Frau Chancellor, was shaped by angst and maneuvering –
or should I say tipping points? – ; for example, by means of the abrupt detour
from the secure energy supply following the nuclear power accident at Fukushima
in March 2011. Since then, the clean form of energy generation by means of
nuclear reactors is presented as a frightening specter. That all culminates in
a form of energy transition which will soon drive additional regions of Germany
into poverty; for example, my home of Lausitz.
Frau Chancellor, you here speak of the social consensus of this region. And
Herr Laschet has ever again stressed that. Here, you have spoken to lobby
associations, green associations, environmental organizations. Yet it is
typical of your policy whom you have thereby forgotten. Those are the local
people who did not take part in this consensus. The local people, the small Mittelstand operations, the tradesmen,
do not want this withdrawal. They can now still scarcely pay the price of
electricity, and you, Herr Laschet, will receive their receipt for that come
September 26. For precisely these reasons, they will not change sides.
Frau
Baerbock, who demands a withdrawal from coal by 2030, acts asozial. It is an asozial
policy which you are demanding. Completely succumbing to a mis-estimate, you believe
that the shutdown of German brown coal power plants of the most modern stage of
development would reduce the portion of CO2 in the atmosphere. Precisely
this wrong decision will make it difficult for future generations to create.
Ladies and
gentlemen, I personally adhere to that we in our policy create offers for the
younger generations. With an intact Nature, they should ultimately continue to
successfully lead this country themselves. We should also in that regard let
the older generation’s knowledge of experience have a say. It does not suffice to
let oneself be photocopied with protesting youth in the social media. A perspective
for the future needs be negotiated and one may not let himself be driven by
stormy ideas into a political and social dead end.
Frau
Chancellor, it is your reward that in only 16 years with your guarantees for
the future of our country, you have hypothetically ever further alienated the
young generations from Germany. Instead of identifying with the Heimat, new ideologies like climate
change shall do for the founding of our society. And instead of for once asking
whether the citizens understand the enduring change and, before all, whether
they at all want this, for more than a decade you extort from us agreement to
new moral ideologies, meddle in the domestic policy or even the autonomy of sovereign
countries, and sell this as the securing of world peace and the expansion of
democracy. The whole you present to our citizens under the slogan of humanity.
Yet how human is it when you, with an absurd immigration policy, put into play
the security and peace in Germany as well as the security and cooperation in
Europe? And how human is it vis-à-vis those really in need of asylum, the
persecuted or those already migrated to Germany, when your policy in part opens
the door to known offenders? What in
general do you have on offer for these people besides social benefits at the
cost of the German payer? We will thus neither eliminate our skilled labor
shortage nor will we be able to offer these people a home far from their
cultural sphere. The whole house of cards of a positive migration policy is
scarcely longer to be maintained.
You and your
allies in the changing government have thereby rendered to Germany and we
Germans, at the minimum, a disservice. And your black-white thinking has paved
the way for the splitting of our society during the lockdown crisis. Who does
not show obedience, asks too many questions and makes use of his basic rights, is
automatically radical, opposed to the community and is at least right-wing. This
unbecoming pot of ideologies is seasoned with a pinch of Wanderwitz. Dear
colleagues, rarely has a commissioner – your commissioner for the new Federal
States, Frau Chancellor – at anytime expressed himself with such contempt for those
entrusted to him. It is an unworthy and profoundly shameful attitude. I
therefore call upon all voters in Saxony: Who in Saxony votes CDU, votes
Wanderwitz.
The result is
that the de-coupling of the people from politics, from democratic parliamentary
government, proceeds ever further. That plainly lies, Herr Laschet, in the
responsibility of those in government. They have contributed to the division in
this country, ladies and gentlemen. That is you and the Federal government.
You, worthy
coalition parties, now routinely speak of the electorate’s desire for change.
Change – wherein actually? What do you actually have presently on offer, Herr Laschet?
That just now was nothing promising for the future, what you have proposed
here. You have no more answers to the questions of our time. It is only a
further so. In a reasonable way of proceeding, impending questions of conviction
will be advanced; for example, concerning the vaccination status. Yet the right
to privacy in that regard is still only a secondary matter. That is the most
profoundly undemocratic feature a state can exhibit [Das sind zutiefst undemokratsiche Züge, die ein Staat aufweisen kann].
We of the AfD refuse that.
Dear colleagues
and countrymen, I can very well understand anyone of those in Germany who is
resigned to this situation. Nevertheless, I also know that it is worth fighting
for our Heimat, for Germany, for our
basic rights and for our citizens. Personally, that motivates me every day. I
am happy that, after years of political stagnation, there is the Alternative für
Deutschland
Ulli Nissen (SPD): Not us!
which week
after week in plenary session in the Reichstag in Berlin precisely lays the
finger in the wound. The people are fed up with the unity brew.
Carsten Schneider (SPD-Erfurt): I find it quite lively today!
Our plan for
a Europe of the future is called Deutschland. Our future has national roots;
whereas you speak of progress and change, yet nevertheless scarcely put the
question: It is of use to whom, actually? We have the great fortune to live in
a land which offers the reliable prerequisites for a fortunate future. That is
namely the people who day by day contribute, have contributed and will
contribute to the creation of value in Germany. So as to also secure this prosperity
in the future, an audit is finally needed in our country. We need to divert the
continual gaze – this I have constantly heard here today – from the income side
– whenever there are a little pair of set screws to turn, taxes and duties need
be raised – and concentrate ourselves on the expenditure side. The indebtedness
climbs into the immeasurable. CDU/CSU and SPD here make promises of relief –
besides the FDP also – which will never be kept. It is always in the end the
citizens who must pay, and who will no longer have themselves deceived.
Christian Dürr (FDP): How embarrassing need it be? Inconceivable!
Ladies and
gentlemen, we of the Alternative für Deutschland want to form a politics for
our future. Our demand for an Afghanistan investigating committee thereby
stands at the center, just as does an audit so as to make possible an honest
reform of the pension and tax systems. So that the citizens again more
vigorously share in the decisions of the state, there is needed in Germany many
more elements of direct democracy. And further: The principle of incentives and
demands [Föderns und Forderns] just
so needs again to become a part of our consciousness, like – dear CDU/CSU
delegation, now do not cringe – the German virtues: Diligence, discipline, perseverance. These we need to impart to our children in school and in training
so that the Germany of the future remains the land of Dichter und Denker. The 16 crippling years are now past.
Carsten Schneider (SPD-Erfurt): It was not so bad!
Worthy government
coalition, I can imagine how your future speaking contributions will be
fashioned – we certainly have already heard it – : Little reflection, yet for
that the usual portion of self-flattery. What you have really done is make
yourselves superfluous; see the latest polls for the impending Bundestag
election. You leave behind insecurity, discontent, angst. The only hope that
many citizens may yet gather from that is that the Merkel system will have an
end. Herr Laschet, that is the single positive point I see in regards Frau
Merkel. I am happy that Frau Merkel finally retires.
I come to
conclusion. – I want at the end to call upon the colleagues of all delegations
in the 19th German Bundestag: The Alternative für Deutschland is the
only party in parliament which constructively represents the German and
national interests.We stand for an open, transparent and goal-oriented politics
for Germany and for our citizens.
Many thanks.
[trans: tem]
