Michael Espendiller, March 18, 2025, Debt and Defense Spending

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/214, pp. 27767-27768. 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable colleagues. Dear viewers in the hall, on YouTube, and on X. 

The election fraudster Friedrich Merz, today in common with SPD and Greens, is having determined in six days as much new debt as the entire Federal Republic of Germany in total took up from 1950 until 2009, thus in 59 years. It will be, in ten years time, between 1.6 and 1.8 trillion euros. Most already surmise that with this money everything possible will happen, yet in the end it will not arrive at the citizens. 

On this there prevails a widespread consensus that the so-called infrastructure special debts are to be refused because infrastructure belongs to the regular state orders which the state has to finance from its current income. Yet there persists the erroneous belief that in the case of the Bundeswehr it would be different. I want for my delegation to here again clarify: Defense expenditures also need be defrayed from the regular budget if we want to economize efficiently and responsibly. 

All economists agree that Germany needs fundamental structural reform, that we need to rein in the bureaucracy and initiate a growth impulse. And all are agreed that in that regard it does not help to simply pour more money over the problem, as has been done without success in the past years. Why should it be different in regards the Bundeswehr? 

I have attended in the last three years as reporter for section 14 the regular expenditures in the defense area as well as the “Special Funds Bundeswehr”, and I can say to you: Our problem here is not primarily the money. Of that, the Defense Ministry now has so much that it routinely affords itself money squandering. Did you know, for example, that we spend each year 654 million euros for the so-called property security [Liegenschaften]? What is that? That is the cost for the private security services which guard [bewachen] our barracks, because that is evidently no longer to be expected of our soldiers. And we yearly pay from the Federal budget around 180,000 soldiers, the fewest of whom are on active duty. It is not known what they do all day long, yet the guarding of our barracks is apparently not a part of it. 

Or let us go the the procurement theme. In regards procurement projects also we routinely pay too much, for one thing because our government simply negotiates poorly, for another because the Federal Ministry of Defense’s requirements are set completely wrong. An example is the infantry’s heavy weapons carrier. Here, we procure the Boxer from Rheinmetall which shall replace the weapons carrier system Wiesel 2 which has been in service for around 30 years. So far, so good. Actually, the Boxer could quite easily be purchased in Germany, because it is also produced by us. Only, Rheinmetall was unfortunately at the time of the order fully booked in its  German production. One would thus need to wait somewhat longer. That besides would have been fully justifiable. But no, the Russians who lose the last two years in the Ukraine, are, ja, next week in Berlin. Thus Pistorius decided to purchase the Boxer at Rheinmetall Australia and from there have it flown in. The result: The originally planned 2 billion euros for the project does not suffice. The finance requirement climbs around 700 million euros to 2.7 billion euros. 

            Alice Weidel (AfD): Madness! Anyone can figure that!

And the flight from Australia is besides not climate neutral. 

I have only four minutes speaking time, yet I could recount for hours additional examples. 

An evaluation in the Federal Ministry of Defense does not routinely occur, neither for the use of funds and for the procurement, nor for our military doctrine. 

            Henning Otte (CDU/CSU): Who then wrote your speech for you?

The Bundeswehr needs to correspond in structure and character to the altered demands of our time. Yet at the Bendlerblock is ever still a mindset of 50 years ago. And we do not change that when we now write into the Basic Law in the defense area an indebtedness possibility completely without upper limit. 

Also in the military area it remains as in the sentence: Germany has an expenditure problem and not an income problem. We will at some time look back on this day and ascertain that it did not bring us much other than debts and inflation. 

Thanks for the attention. 

 

[trans: tem]

Marc Jongen, March 31, 2025, Academic Freedom

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2025)03-31(1-0158-0000). 

Madam President, so the Trump administration in the United States is threatening academic freedom? This claim by the European Commission and some MEPs here is pure hypocrisy. Where was the outcry from the EU and the academia in Europe when more and more non-leftist scientists in the US were dismissed or forced to resign by their radical colleagues and the left-wing student mob simply because they didn't bow to the woke ideology? Bret Weinstein, Joseph Manson and Mike Adams even committed suicide. The wokeness virus has taken over US academia and in Europe it's also widespread, including its cancel culture. 

If President Trump now takes action against the intolerant and unscientific gender ideology, if he stops DEI programmes that discriminate white people and also restricts the dogmatic, almost religious climate research, then he's taking measures that help restore scientific freedom, not suppress it. We need such measures in Europe too.

 

Alexander Gauland, March 18, 2025, Merz, CDU and Germany

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/214, pp. 27761-24462. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

In the course of this debate, on the previous Thursday as well as today, much which is correct and also false has been said. A new assessment by me is therefore not needed. Allow me then to make a couple of personal remarks. 

Herr Merz and I were for many years in the same party. I went, because I could no longer bear the destruction by Angela Merkel of the CDU as a conservative-liberal, bürgerliche alternative to the left-green mainstream. Herr Merz was a victim of her will to power. 

I grant, ladies and gentlemen, that I therefore expected much of his return to politics: A different economic and social policy, a reversal of false developments, like the illegal mass immigration to the exit from atomic power and the combustion engine. 

            Andreas Mattfeldt (CDU/CSU): That is coming! All comes!

My idea – you call it a vision – was that Germany receives a Politik of reason and judgment, thus a middle-right Politik, like many people in this country wish it as evidenced by the election results. 

            Andreas Mattfeldt (CDU/CSU): Yet you have only a hostile goal!

Instead, Herr Merz, you’ve erected a firewall, which today and in the future makes you prisoners of left-green social alterations. So as to get into the Chancellor’s Office, you have sacrificed everything that was still conservative or bürgerlich in the CDU, and your voters to whom you gave your word on the debt brake, you have betrayed with billions of euros at the pump. Seldom, ladies and gentlemen, has bügerlicher decency been so quickly replaced by political cynicism. 

Herr Merz, that you do not listen to me is fully clear. Yet you would have been able to listen to Andreas Rödder, the earlier chairman of your basic values commission, who in the Welt am Sonntag wrote precisely the same in the album of the CDU. 

You will, Herr Merz, apparently become Chancellor with a Politik like we have experienced in recent years. And this Politik will exactly so fail as that of the subsiding Ampel. Not even your transatlantic allies in Washington support your dubious efforts to solve today’s problems with yesterday’s answers. Such a change of times [Zeitenwende], dear Herr Merz, will only be with us, not with the failures of yesterday. 

And if in recent years I ever again had doubt in my own party, today I am proud and glad to have stood with others as godparent to it in the year 2013. For since this week is it clear: The Merz CDU is the continuation of the Merkel CDU – a further so, Herr Merz, in Germany’s downfall, for which you in the future need to answer. 

I am grateful. 

 

[trans: tem]

Alexander Sell, March 12, 2025, Automobile Industry

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2025)03-12(3-0110-0000). 

Frau President. 

Five years ago, Frau von der Leyen presented here the Green Deal; Europe should become the first climate-neutral continent. Greta Thunberg would now say: We are on a good way. For years declines the CO₂ output in Germany. Yet that is primarily due to the regressing industrial production. The steel, chemical and automobile industries are no longer competitive on account of higher duties and much too expensive energy. 

The result is massive profit breakdowns and job cuts. Thirty percent less profit at Mercedes and Volkswagen, 35,000 positions eliminated at Volkswagen, up to 300,000 workplaces in the entire automobile industry. Especially wrong is: As a result of the EU’s arbitrarily set climate goals, European automakers will be forced to buy CO₂ certificates from Chinese competitors so as to avoid penalties from Brussels. We thus finance the rise of China and the sell-out of our industry. 

The Commission is responsible for this industrial policy harakiri of Europe. Frau von der Leyen and her CDU are a danger for the competitiveness and prosperity of Germany and Europe. Here helps no course corrections, here helps only voting out of office.

 

[trans: tem]

Tino Chrupalla, March 18, 2025, Democracy and Debt

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/214, pp. 27752-27754. 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Dear countrymen. 

It is now three months since Chancellor Scholz put the confidence question. The starting point was the debts policy in which the Ampel coalition fell apart. The citizens were on one side assured that there can be no further so, on the other side were political processes paralyzed. To the 20^th German Bundestag, this one here, was denied that it still can reach decisions of significance; since there should be new elections and first of all the new parliament and the new Federal government should bear the responsibility for Germany’s future. All who wish to recall, know how many motions were referred back to the committees by the Praesidium. Nothing should be possible. 

The vote on the migration crisis offered an intermezzo. Here, the CDU/CSU, somewhat disconnected, sought to draw to its side the leading theme of the Bundestag election. In the result, Friedrich Merz anxiously retreated and vowed an improvement; since “Firewall Merz” assured: With the Alternative für Deutschland can no one cooperate. 

And then came the great quake of the February 23 Bundestag election. Now was clear: The majorities were quite clearly shifted, and suddenly everything was different. The outgoing Bundestag was to be made use of so as to reinforce the future Federal government, and indeed because only you have the majorities here – even though today the majority of the newly elected members is here, and today an organizing sitting would have been able to take place. The fearful Chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz stands now at mid-point. Where is actually – and the question needs be allowed – Olaf Scholz? 

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): He sits there!

This one of course still conducts as per the Basic Law the official business. Ladies and gentlemen, what a drama you require of the citizens and our voters! 

The highest good of politicians, valued colleagues, if credibility. With these embarrassing actions, valued Herr Merz, you have completely lost yours. The voters feel themselves defrauded by you, and that rightly. Are you actually sure that you will ever become Chancellor? Since that is your sole objective. You therefore bargain with the holders of the old majorities. For you, it is certainly not about the future of Germany. For you, it’s about your Chancellorship. And for you every means is proper so as to not become the next failed Chancellor candidate of your party. 

That you have no backbone, Herr Merz, we felt in the election campaign, and we all know that. But that you in the meantime are completely invertebrate, you will here prove with this vote. 

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): Like a North Sea crab!

You play politics and promise everyone almost anything, and that seemingly appears to be simple: When 50 billion does not suffice, it is simply 100 billion euros which you place at the disposal of the failed governing party, the Greens. The problem nevertheless is: You finance your power option to be Chancellor by means of debts at the cost of future generations, at the cost of our children and grandchildren, and then in the end perhaps send them to war. “Special funds” you name this new kind of state indebtedness. It is amusing that during the election campaign Chancellor Scholz named this exactly so in a political talk show. Now he moreover does what he can do best: 

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): Simply nothing!

He is silent, and simply lets everything thus happen. 

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): Has forgotten who is Chancellor!

The instrument of an inflationary special fund is abused so as to force through targeted investments. It would thus be important to ascertain the precise need so that this money does not simply come to nothing, or is lost through expensive consultant contracts. 

The positions in the Federal ministries continually grow for years. Yet no Federal minister appears to have found in the past decades the right people who understand their subject. On the one side to speak of de-bureaucratization, on the other to massively build up exactly that: Whom does that serve other than officials and the parties who are behind it? Why is the Federal Chancellor’s Office enlarged, and why after the Bundestag elections will be quickly created attractive posts for former political co-workers and fellow travelers? That, Frau Paus here could briefly explain. 

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): Where is Frau Paus?

The theme of credibility I already mentioned. 

You make of the state a by-word for plunder. And that is the real emergency situation in this country. And do you really think to thereby still have the backing of the citizens? In your parallel world, scarcely anyone still errs. No longer does one understand for whom you actually do politics – that really harms the democracy, Frau Haßelmann. All in fact may count yourselves fortunate that we of the Alternative für Deutschland as political competitors have taken trouble for a fabulously high election participation. 

Let us look for once at the problem child of national defense. Can this by the present Bundeswehr actually still be secured? Of course it cannot. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Yet you don’t want that!

The principal cause is the Bundeswehr’s current build-up itself. For example, the surplus bureaucratization in procurement procedures. Encampments were closed, the venues sold, depots closed, material sold or donated to foreign countries. In which places do you then want to begin to invest? 

To secure the votes of proponents, you conduct the immediate re-introduction of the defense duty [Wehrpflicht] in the field. The CSU even wants to implement this by year’s end. In which district recruiting offices, which no longer exist, do you actually want to muster the soldiers? 

You see valued colleagues, this important theme for Germany will be made for a still not Chancellor Merz a sticking point for his majorities. 

With Donald Trump, you all now suddenly think the sole foreign partner has been lost. Tja, plainly one should not be so one-sidedly oriented, Herr Merz. Now of course will be painfully led before your eyes that the Americans now place in the foreground their own interests – what a surprise! And I ask you: What then actually are our interests? How shall the German and European security be guaranteed? Where then remains the European security architecture? Why do you never speak of your perspective of a peaceful Europe from a German viewpoint? You think now you can call upon the Ukraine war as a legitimization for a new partition of the European continent. Yet we need no new friend-foe imagery, as you today have briefly sketched it, Herr Merz. And a so-called war capability [Kriegstüchtigkeit] we also do not need. It belongs to another epoch. We need long-lasting peace on the entire continent of Europe. This signal must go into the world. The old continent must find and negotiate its interests, and stand united behind them. And thereby may Germany play a decisive role.   

The world looks on perplexed for quite a while at the German drift [Treiben]. This helpless stumbling must finally have an end. No one trusts a country which does not trust itself, and develops no plan for the future; this applies to the citizens even so as to foreign partners and our own economy. 

The core brands of German industry were incorporated in the automobile industry – as were the skilled trades and the Mittelstand. For that, we were known and esteemed throughout the world. The latest news of elimination of positions at Audi and VW, of the emigrations and insolvencies, are presently of little encouragement. To get underway, you now want massive infrastructure projects. Again the question: Which then and where? What are your priorities, and which firms will actually counter-finance [gegenfinanzieren] this by means of taxes and duties, by the creation of workplaces and training places? 

Ladies and gentlemen, here, without a plan, the state debt shall be driven to heaven. I can again only imagine the subvention package with which you want to attract business with expensive tax money. That, we all already know – Herr Habeck – from the past: 600 million euros for Northvolt in Schleswig-Holstein, 10 billion euros for Intel. It is, ja, also easier to always print more money than to examine the finances in a business-like way. Since one thing for years has simply not been touched: We really need an honest audit. And had the CDU still a profile, a DNA, as Herr Merz always nicely says, it would pursue that. Your former Finance Minster Worlfgang Schäuble stood for investing only that money which was covered by the state budget. And for what do you stand, Herr Merz? You have meanwhile let yourself be implanted with the SPD’s mRNA. 

We have a tax income at record heights. And with that do not come out right. Why actually not? You want to sell to the German taxpayer your un-economy as an “investment plan”. Yet special funds are and remain special debts, to which we even so little agree as every businessman who with such a behavior would give himself over directly into insolvency. 

I give you a short accounting example: One trillion euros of debts which you today want to issue,  special debts with a present interest rate of 2.9 percent, means in ten years 100 billion euros of interest. 100 billion euros of interest! 

And it’s interesting how important for you this time the science is. Are the economists and business experts less qualified than the vaccination doctors of the Corona time? 

What’s with the climate neutrality? This strategic goal I might and must not evaluate. Yet you want to write it into the Basic Law, and have it implemented until 2045. So presumptuous is not even the EU. And that is saying something. Herr Söder besides thinks it is no state goal, even if it is anchored in the Basic Law. And that is an interesting reading of the Basic Law. 

Valued colleagues, you’ve now finally overstrained the bow. You make yourselves and this parliament ultimately unworthy of belief, and that, we will not let stand. The CDU’s few voters in my constituency of Görlitz now well ask me: Herr Chrupalla, when actually are the new elections? 

I appeal to all colleagues, especially of the CSU/CSU delegation – many of you are directly elected, have contacts with the citizens, businessmen, associations: Follow your experiences and the freedom of your mandate. Vote against this draft law and thereby for our Basic Law and for Germany! 

Many thanks.

[trans: tem]

René Aust, March 12, 2025, The Will of the People

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2025)03-12(3-0020-0000). 

Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

The European Semester should be concerned with producing stability in Europe. In fact, it would be necessary for us in Europe to again find stability, though what we are planning in the European Union, in the European Commission, is the further disempowerment of the parliament, is a further setting aside of the will of the people. 

We want that austerity does not continue to occur in Europe. We do not want that the European Parliament be further disempowered. We want that the people’s will is really, fully respected. What we presently see in Europe is: The people’s disempowerment itself destabilizes. Look at what just occurs in Roumania: A candidate wanted by the people, who is ahead in all surveys, will be excluded from being a candidate. Look at what has happened in Bulgaria: A referendum for an introduction of the euro is rejected. Look at what has happened in Germany, where is discussed whether a party should be banned, or where a re-count of the results of the German Bundestag election is rejected, even though the entry into the Bundestag of a party will thus possibly be prevented.   

We need to again find in all Europe that the people’s will is brought to bear. We thereby provide for stability, not by additional centralization through the European Commission. 

 

[trans: tem]

Peter Boehringer, March 13, 2025, Debt Brake and War Budget

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/213, pp. 27710-27711. 

Frau President. 

“I would find it…most highly problematic if the 20^th German Bundestag, which has an almost completely lost democratic legitimacy,…reached in its last days such fundamental decisions.” 

These are not my words, but of colleague Frei of the CDU, not of today – today, he said something different – but of a good ten days ago. That is approximately the shelf-life of CDU promises. 

We thus today as the 20^th German Bundestag are then still allowed to act only if, fully surprising, an existential and unavoidable decision for our nation is pending. Which however is not so. This morning here already could the 21^st Bundestag sit. It is simply anti-democratic that Herrn Merz and Klingbeil, disregarding the 21^st Bundestag, want to have the Basic Law changed with majorities of the old, outgoing Bundestag.   

We speak today of hundreds of billions of euros of special debts. We speak even of the long-term undermining of the regular order of a unified Federal budget with a clear debts upper limit. Over one trillion euros as additional state debt shall be taken up. Upon every net taxpayer shall be inflicted debts calculated at more than 60,000 euros if these amounts are issued, which will only last a few years – perhaps pretty much like this coalition’s time in office. 

Debts are, despite the propaganda, never investments in a good future and also never, Frau Dröge, in the state interest. On the contrary: The interest and thus tax burden take design options from future generations. Naturally the debts intoxication leads to high inflation under which primarily the little man suffers. You devour in advance one trillion euros for which others need later starve. In this regard, the recognition of the debt brake is even in the Union’s election program: 

            “We adhere to the debt brake…Today’s debts are tomorrow’s tax increases.” 

And Herr Merz said in the election campaign: 

“The debt brake defends…the tax payments of the young generation. Shall we today expend their money? We take in 1,000 billion euros in taxes…and with that we should make do.” 

Herr Merz, you commit, even before entry into office, the quickest and greatest election fraud in German history. Nothing, simply nothing in today’s situation is surprising. The problems exist for decades. Supposedly, the money will now be expended exclusively and rapidly for infrastructure and the Bundeswehr. Investments in these areas under black-red chancellors in the last 35 years – the fat years – were never sufficiently undertaken; otherwise, there would not generally be giant, structural deficits: Who should believe that this time, for the first time, it will be different? 

In addition, the 2022 100 billion euros of special debts were in part mis-appropriated [zweckfremdet] for the Ukraine. Mis-appropriation now also threatens with the new regulation whereby such defense expenditures may be under taken without regard to the debt limits of the Basic Law. Note well: Open at the top and without time limitation. That is unbelievable. 

Besides, today in Article 87a of the Basic Law, of which all of you here formulate lies, is that debt-financed military support would be one time only. That is in the Basic Law. The truth is: You conceal, with the debt mountains created today, the giant budget problems which you in any case would have had. The truth is: This coalition could not draw up its first of all budgets in the summer of 2025 in conformity with the constitution, if you did not today approve a giant gulp from the bottle of future tax payments. You want to create an enormous ancillary budget which nearly doubles the money available for your dubious purposes. You obtain the means to govern authoritatively for four years, cost what it will. So too could Laurel and Hardy govern [Sie erschleichen sich die Mittel, um vier Jahre durchzuregieren, koste es, was es wolle. So könnten auch Dick und Doof regieren]. 

In a real Cold War, the GDR, for 40 years until 1991, could bring in Federal defense spending of a sum of two percent and more of GDP, quite without special debts. The Bundeswehr has no budget problem, but a management and strategy deficit. Yet who with negligent frankness talks up enmities and war, can naturally no longer pocket a peace dividend. 

The future indebtedness relations, ladies and gentlemen, were earlier only in times of war and pre-war. The war capacity demanded by Pistorious, Merz and von der Leyen shall be completed by a war financing without a war. That is irresponsible – not only fiscally. 

“Who is against debt is for Russian panzers in Germany.” That is the perfidious argument – from Frau Haßelmann – which brands every critical budget member as a traitor. That is a quite wicked level. Do not make an enemy of both East and West! Invest in diplomacy! We will then need billions less for the military. And it is not initially clear what then shall be the defense policy ideas behind the new, unlimited armaments spending: An EU army, or perhaps a NATO with the U.S.A. or without the U.S.A.? It’s all open. Yet there is not unlimited money in a machine which does not even have a basic plan. We will give you here no 13-figure blank check. The way to the war economy goes without us. 

Your chancellorship, Herr Merz, leads, before its beginning, without any emergency, to a crisis of democracy. In case this delegitimizing coup against the 21^st German Bundestag and against the people’s will ascertained by the Bundestag election is in fact forced through, then is actually just the question: Where is the Constitution Defense when it is needed? 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Alice Weidel, March 13, 2025, Finances and Values

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/213, pp. 27703-27704. 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable Herr Chancellor. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

We live in historic times. Yet no applicant for the Chancellor’s office in so brief a time has broken so many election promises as you, Herr Merz. Border controls, you no longer want, refusals certainly not. Deportation of those obliged to leave? Nonsense! Debt brake? Away with it, even though it is in your election program. You will enter history as the gravedigger of the debt brake which you in the election campaign just as vehemently as mendaciously defended. 

Without consideration, you sacrifice the well-being of the citizens so by hook or crook to become Chancellor. You have therein agreed with the SPD, the great election loser, to approve beforehand the largest debts package since the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany. Around one trillion euros – 1,000 billion – which is just so unclear as your entire profile. You want to force that through with an unscrupulous attack on our constitution and on democratic legitimacy, which you, with the dubious special sessions and rush jobs, make contemptible. 

Because the election results do not suit you, you again bring in the old Bundestag – thus, forces which the voters voted out and punished – with whose help you want to tie the hands of the newly elected Bundestag by means of a trillion in additional debt. These procedures show your contempt for the will of the voters. These procedures derive from your contempt for the democratic legitimization process, and these procedures derive from your character, Herr Merz. 

500 billion euros of special debts which you re-classify as “special funds” [Sondervermögen] for barely defined infrastructure measures and for the nullification of the debt brake, and for additional, in any case not more precise, defense expenditures in a similar sum, yet without an upper limit, and debts for climate protection so as to purchase the assent of the Greens. That is a gigantic mortgage with which you have indebted the coming generations who need to answer for this spending frenzy. 

With your blank check rises the debt burden per taxpayer – this value is more significant than the usually given per capita indebtedness – from today’s 58,500 euros to over 77,700 euros, that is an increase of 33 percent. Measured by GDP, Gross Domestic Product, Germany’s debt burden with your coup will rise from the present 64 percent to over 85 percent, and that is nothing other than a financial policy coup d’état which you here manage. 

The German government bond is valued as a risk-free benchmark for the costs of borrowing in the euro area. Germany’s financial policy change of course thus has negative effects on the risk premiums of German state bonds; that is to say: We will need to pay higher interest rates. 

At the announcement of your plans, the return for ten-year German government bonds rose in one day around 16 basis points, and in one week until today over 50 basis points – and that, even though the ECB had previously again reduced the interest rates 25 basis points. You thereby not only shrink the scope of action of future governments and drive the German state finances into derangement. By your actions you put at risk the creditworthiness of Germany in the international financial market. 

You thereby similarly endanger the house of cards of the weak euro currency, the existence of which is still primarily based on the present triple-A top credit. Germany will lose this triple-A rating as a result of your irresponsibility, Herr Merz. The interest rates will go through the roof and the euro will be devalued with massive consequences for the people. People in this country will be paying for that by higher interest rates on mortgages, through higher rents and rising prices for import goods for production and consumption. 

Your reasonings are just as pretentious as mendacious, as we’ve heard here today. You conjure up an ostensible “suddenly altered world situation” and stir up a war panic so as to intimidate and make pliant the citizens. It is the same cheap manipulation with which earlier governments have supported themselves in the Corona hysteria and the climate mania so as to justify the massive expansion of state spending and the limitations of freedom. And you commit this grotesque enormity just at this moment when the U.S.A. and Russia are about to end the mass death in the Ukraine, while you, the black-red-green coalition, want to there unconcernedly sink financial aid and armaments. 

Yes, it is right: Germany needs to do more for its defense capability so as to create an army which does not just devour money but is also fully mission-ready for the defense of the country. Yet required for that is no debts watering can, which will be exactly so thrown away as the first so-called special funds. Required for that is first a strategy, and then targeted expenditures. To recruit motivated soldiers, required is not only money, but a positive, patriotic Selfbild of one’s own nation and one’s own army. For a woke, leftist ideology will no one give his life. 

And right: Germany urgently needs to invest in its neglected and rotting infrastructure. I ask myself: What in the last decades have you actually done as you were in the government? Yet also for that, a previously manipulated in the budget law, 500 billion euro shunting station is not the solution. Infrastructure and defense are core duties of state action. To appropriately finance them, the priorities of state expenditures need to be correctly set. 

A total state income in taxes and duties of over two trillion euros does not signify the solution of still more debt, but to rigorously slash superfluous spending. Thus eliminate all incentives for immigration into the social system. End the illegal immigration by closing the borders. Concern yourselves for a turning back without exception and a consistent sending back. End the horrendous subventions for climate protection and the failed energy change. Eliminate all payments to so-called NGOs, which in truth are not when they are dependent on state money. In this way, you can liberate a three-figure billion contribution in the budget to invest in infrastructure, defense and domestic security, and nevertheless still reduce taxes. 

Your exploratory paper negotiated with the Social Democrats is a declaration of capitulation before the green-socialist desires for which you have thrown overboard nearly all of your election promises. One may well ask, what you still want to offer the Greens after you submissively threw yourself on your knees. What you have charged to social and economic policy bears throughout the handwriting of the SPD and the Greens: Redistribution, subventions, state interference, Verbote. For this lamentable result, you betrayed your voters, ripped wide open the debts sluices and damaged the constitution. 

This voter fraud and this attack on democracy you’ve publicly planned with care. The unworthy presentation which you delivered here, Herr Merz, sounds now like an end-stage, black Ampel. It happens, just as each time it has happened: Those who vote for the CDU get presented with a left-green Politik. 

Because you cling to the firewall, you deliver yourself over to green-left-red majorities. You arrogantly show contempt for the votes of over ten million voters, who voted for the AfD, and thus for a political new beginning right of center. The duties, to which you have not awoken, continue to lie at hand: To correct the failed leftist policy which has led the country to loss of prosperity, de-industrialization, collapse of domestic security, collapse of infrastructure and public order. The wrong way of mass migration, squandering of tax money, and a planned economy, is to be left behind. We need to again bring Germany to the right way. 

We of the AfD are unalterably ready to take up these duties and assume responsibility, yet not with you, Herr Merz, and also not with the Union which maintains you as Chancellor candidate and a left-green policy. Render to this country, Herr Merz, a service, a quite great service: Give up wanting to become Chancellor. Since you cannot do it. On this point, Angela Merkel was right. Your time has run out, before you’ve at all begun. The Union should separate itself from you – for the good of our country and the good of their party; since you cannot do it. Why, Herr Merz? Because you have no principles and no values.

 

I am grateful.

 

 

 

[trans: tem]

Michael Kaufmann, January 30, 2025, Nuclear Power

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/210. p. 27311. 

Frau President. Honored colleagues. 

Due to the advanced election, the investigating committee did not have the planned time for its work. The result is nevertheless clear: The leadership levels of the participating green ministries set all levers in motion so as to adhere to the disconnection of the nuclear power plants on December 31, 2022. Supply risks were accepted. One did not shrink from confusions and lies and examinations guided by interests. 

            Konstantin von Notz (Green): Such rubbish!

The example of the two stress tests makes this clear. The second stress test should have performed a realistic estimate of the energy supply security. Yet what happened? Minister Habeck personally 

            Jacob Blankenburg (SPD): …made the requirements still stronger!

made the guidelines for this analysis. A section leader of the Federal Network Agency informed his co-worker, cite: 

“Please do not attempt to alter anything of Habeck’s guidelines. The study                             serves a political purpose.” 

            Rainer Kraft (AfD): Hear, hear!

Thus it appears. That means nothing other than these opinions are no scientific report, but was a political order job. A green result was needed, thus a scenario in which nuclear power plants are apparently superfluous. 

            Bernhard Herrmann (Greens): That is false!

Facts were distorted, alternative scenarios understated, while risks were intentionally ignored. 

And then came the next act of the drama: As the illusion was no longer to be maintained, because even in the most prettified scenarios load shortfalls of up to twelve hours threatened, the green dogma needed somehow to be saved. Thus was discovered the operating reserve which from the beginning was a fata morgana. Nuclear power plants should be disconnected and then – as required – be again powered up. Nuclear power plants are nevertheless not light switches; they cannot be turned on and off at whim. Every professional knew that. Yet the continued operation somehow needed to be prevented or at least relabeled so that it did not appear to be a crashing defeat for the Greens. 

            Stephan Schmidt (Greens): Who then wrote this speech? Putin himself?

Internal warnings and reconsiderations from the professional level of the ministries were suppressed. Operators of nuclear power plants were put off, while it was publicly so done as if they were guilty of delays. Just as it was clear that Germany without nuclear power plants in winter would suffer supply shortages, Chancellor Scholz needed to intervene in a most personal way. The authoritative decision [Machtwort] – note well, one day after the Green party day – for the continued operation served only the Green face-saving. 

Ladies and gentlemen, this government has played with the energy supply of our country, and we all pay the price for that. 

Thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Mary Khan, January 22, 2025, Migrant Trafficking

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2025)01-22(3-0290-0000). 

Frau President. 

Over 90 percent of the illegal migrants are assisted by traffickers. The latest Europol report speaks volumes: 48 criminal networks which have specialized exclusively in the trafficking of migrants. And a report from UN Women shows that 90 percent of the women and girls on the Mediterranean route become victims of rape – 90 percent! 

And that ultimately is the result of your left-green policy. Your open borders, your migration pact with family reunifications, and the right to an asylum procedure, make trafficking a lucrative business model. And from countries – naturally also from my homeland, from Germany – comes the signal: Any can come, any will be provided for. 

Yet what we finally require are refugee camps outside the EU, a motion also of my delegation, for which was found a majority here in this plenary session, yet which nevertheless, as a result of the leftists having no understanding of democracy, would bust the budget. Since such an idea would also generally prevent that people make their way to us in Europe along this life-threatening way. And it would also only be that people receive an asylum application or an asylum procedure who really have an asylum reason, and that would primarily reduce the suffering on both sides. 

Since what today has again happened in Germany: A mother, a father, have lost their small child because an Afghan with a knife went after a kindergarten group. And this Afghan has again been a perpetrator who was previously conspicuous. I can only say one thing to you: With my party, the AfD, there will first of all be after the election a political change. Remigration will then be order of the hour. 

 

[trans: tem]

Matthais Moosdorf, January 29, 2025, Ukraine and Corruption

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/209, pp. 27149-27150. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

With the election of Donald Trump, the Western leading powers began to set policy aright. The Trump Administration’s most recent Ukraine peace plan is – with the exception of EU membership – identical with the peace motion of the AfD. For that very reason, the new U.S. government supports our party’s position of reason and rejects your war delusion. It was of course recognized by the AfD since 2022 that weapons deliveries without negotiations prolong the war, exact countless human lives on both sides, and can produce only an ancillary peace diplomacy. 

Since 2022, according to available numbers, the Ukraine has received from around 40 countries a total of 424 billion euros in promised weapons and financial assistance. In the year 2017, Ukrainian economic experts estimated that the Ukraine’s corruption level was comparable with that of Uganda. 

            Marcus Faber (FDP): Worse even than Russia!

In 2019, Transparency International believed that, in regards armaments expenditures, some 30 percent of the budget disappeared into unknown channels. And today the country stands there in this ranking somewhat like Algeria, 

            Marcus Faber (FDP): Radio Moscow!

yet clearly behind states like Ethiopia or Burkina Faso. A counselor of the Ukrainian president explained in 2023 that money would be pilfered without penalty, and the officials – cite – “steal as if there were no tomorrow”. 

According to one study of the Ukrainian agency for corruption in the year 2023, 88 percent of the population and 81 percent of business held the corruption to be the most considerable problem in the Ukraine. The three most corrupt areas are the customs service, the military, and public procurement. 

Agnieszka Brugger (Greens): The Ukraine in regards the anti-corruption campaign has gone up according to Transparency International, despite the war. Did you realize that, or do you just recite the talking points from Moscow? 

In March 2024, 70 percent of the Ukrainians were of the opinion that their government profits from the war and increasingly sinks into corruption. From January 2023 to June 2024, the perception of increasing corruption rose from 15 to 49 percent nationwide. 

            Sebastian Schäfer (Greens): Then how much do you make from Moscow                                each month? 

Jörg Nünnberger (SPD): How would it be if you consider the Ukrainian war victims? The civilians who each day were killed?

Interpol warned already in June 2022 that delivered weapons arrive in the hands of organized crime. And the New York Times reported that the whereabouts of around 60 percent of the goods deficiently delivered to the Ukraine is so far unexplained. All of this is no Putin lie; 

            Marcus Faber (FDP): No, that’s simply Radio Moscow!

since the U.S.A. is now investigating the whereabouts of 100 billion euros of Ukraine aid. Under the guidance of Robert Gates, over 200 researchers are thereby engaged. Storch explained it’s about theft, fraud and corruption. 

            Marcus Faber (FDP): Of which you know! 

The Pentagon reported 63 percent of the military aid has disappeared without a trace. 63 percent! 

            Carolin Bachmann (AfD): Listen! Shame on you!

Germany is the second largest bilateral aid donor to the Ukraine after the U.S.A. Our support is more than double so high as that from France and Italy together. In 2024, it was again double in comparison to 2023. Yet the EU control council set up in June 2024 has so far named merely three members as independent experts for an audit. A great interest in transparency thus obviously does not exist. 

The AfD demands of the Federal government, following the U.S. model, to finally set up a staff of at least 50 members which examines the entire German Ukraine assistance of almost 40 billion euros, and finally uncovers and prosecutes corruption. Your motion for an additional three billion euros we of course reject. 

And besides: The change of times begins now! 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Alexander Jungbluth, February 12, 2025, EU and Trump

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2025)02-12(3-0432-0000). 

Frau President. 

If we listen to the debate which we have conducted today, then we may state: There are actually two things to which we can confine ourselves: One is actually just the insulting of Donald Trump. He was designated as an autocrat, a capitalist monster, the U.S.A. finds itself on the way of a Neanderthal. And it goes further. We have one member here, for example, who said that he did not have all the plates in the cupboard. That is Frau Strack-Zimmermann who is after all chairman of the Defense Committee. Point one. 

Point two is the endless blathering because he has just withdrawn from the senseless Paris Accord, because he has withdrawn from the WHO. And I in fact ask myself: If all of that is in fact criticized and he is continually insulted, why would one actually believe that Donald Trump in any way listens to this house? 

Donald Trump finds the EU so unimportant that not even an Ursula von der Leyen was invited to his inauguration. And if that is not the case, what interest to a Donald Trump is it when some big mouth here in house insults him? That simply does not interest a Donald Trump. You really interest Donald Trump not at all. 

 

[trans: tem]

Alice Weidel, February 11, 2025, A Future Government

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/212, pp. 27657-27660. 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable Herr Chancellor. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Dear colleagues. 

Green-red has failed. The citizens have enough of the ideological transformation of left-green sectarians as they sat here in the government. 

Katharina Dröge (Greens): This entangled, ideological undertone with which the speech begins!

Yet you also, Herr Merz, have already failed; since what you are pushing is deception of the voters. You will be able to implement nothing of your promises with red-green. That belongs to the truth. 

            Katharina Dröge (Greens): This self-hypnosis!

You will thereby merely attain that the work of destruction driven to the extreme by your Angela Merkel and green-red will be continued in our country. 

            Katharina Dröge (Greens): That is just weird!

And the reforms required to again bring Germany in order you will thereby only be able to needlessly delay but, Gott sei Dank, no longer prevent. The migration change, the economic, energy and taxation change, and the change of course in social policy will come. And it will only be possible with the Alternative für Deutschland. 

How would appear a Germany in which the Alternative für Deutschland as a governing party were involved in its program? 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): It would be Hell! 

            Manfred Todtenhausen (FDP): Gott bewahre uns!

It would be a Germany with secured borders and a border defense which effectively barred illegal migration and cross-border criminality, and let into the country only those who have a legal claim to residency in our country. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Otherwise, is everything in order with you?

It would be a Germany with a modernized asylum law which no longer opens the floodgates to abuse by illegal immigration, but is directed to the reception capacity of our country. 

            Katharina Dröge (Greens): Even if you speak slowly, it is no less wicked,                                                what you’re saying!

This Germany would have a from the ground up reformed – 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Your delegation here is snoozing. Make it more exciting! 

            Katharina Dröge (Greens): That is really malignant!

I do not know what you here are actually doing in the Bundestag. You, the Greens, what are you doing here actually? 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): What do you want?

You are at best only hecklers. 

Manuel Höferlin (FDP): Thus says the righteous!

You are at best only howlers. 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): Look in the mirror!

This slobbering kindergarten here! What are you doing actually? You make politics against the people. 

Our Germany – as per our vision of the future – would have a from the ground up reformed residency and naturalization law which is open to all those who work here, pay taxes and identify themselves with the German national state, its culture and legal order, and want to make a positive contribution; which, however, consistently shows to the door notorious criminals, religious extremists, and all who wish to exploit its reception readiness. In this Germany, respect for the law and equality of all before the law would again have unconditional validity. 

Filiz Polat (Greens): Yet you are working with concealed symbols. What then are they for symbols?

It would be a country in which the citizens’ freedom is not just a lip service, but stands at the center of the order of laws and values. 

            Filiz Polat (Greens): Say what that is for symbols!

Frau President, this heckling! 

President Bärbel Bas: You can also say that of your own delegation which                        continually calls out. 

Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU, to Alice Weidel): You are very sensitive here! Take a peek at how quickly you become sensitive!

Your job, Frau President, is a neutral guidance of the presidency, and this slobbering in fact goes to the broadcasters. This is really painful, and these people have no business here in the Bundestag. They all have never worked in their life. You’ve never worked in your life. What are you doing here? 

We want a country in which the basic right of individuals of the right of defense against – 

It again continues exactly so. Get to work! From the week after next, you then have the opportunity for that, when you are further decimated. Go to work, find yourself a job! 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): A bit weak today! 

            Katrin Göring-Eckardt (Greens): Even your own people find that painful!

We want a country in which is the basic right of the individuals’ right of defense against state encroachment, and which is not misunderstood as an allotted act of grace which could be incumbent or be withdrawn at pleasure after it has been put over with tax-financed campaigns. 

Katharina Dröge (Greens): That makes no sense, what you put forward here. That is simply absurd!

The courts in this country have the foremost duty to pronounce uncorrupted, independent law, without regard to person or opinion. The filling of the highest judicial offices would be withdrawn from the influence of the parties, and the state prosecutors’ offices would be independent of the Justice Minister’s directions. Since the judiciary as the third power has to control and not confirm the executive. 

            Joe Weingarten (SPD): You can tell that to to your friend Donald.

The Constitution Defense and the domestic secret service would be fundamentally reformed. The citizenry, the entirety of the state’s citizens, is the sovereign, and should be able to give its vote not only in parliamentary elections but also be able to vote in peoples petitions and referendums on the central questions. 

We want direct democracy in Germany. 

President Bärbel Bas: Frau Dr. Weidel, do you allow an interim question                                    or interim remark?

No, the others have not.

In this country, there would be a multifarious media landscape which would vie to control the powerful, to keep in check precisely these, instead of serving as a megaphone. The competition would no longer be distorted by a plentiful public media sector, financed by compulsory fees, which has long since surrendered its journalistic independence. The broadcasting fees would be abolished. 

Tax money in this country would be levied frugally. A good government pays attention to what the citizen has earned by hard, grinding work, and claims no more of that than is unconditionally necessary for the fulfillment of its few core duties. A good government respects its citizens’ property, and does not appropriate it with asset, inheritance and invasive income, business and consumption taxes. 

A well governed state does not interdict and manipulate its citizens. It does not distribute its money to all the world, and not to ideological lobby groups 

            Lamya Kaddor (Greens): You discriminate against only the minorities!

and favorites so as to purchase their servitude. It leaves in the taxpayer’s pocket as much net from gross as possible so that he can provide for himself, his family and his future. It does not meddle in his private lifestyle, and also not in the raising of his children. And it does not presume to ideologically indoctrinate the people from childhood to old age. 

Stefan Schmidt (Greens): What are you actually talking about here? A manometer!

A good government knows that the bürgerliche middle class and the business Mittelstand are the backbone of welfare, prosperity and Bürgerlichkeit in the country. A good government knows of business freedom, and it only attends to and is concerned that are guaranteed domestic and foreign security, the order of the state of law and a functioning infrastructure, a performance-oriented, ideologically neutral education system as well as social provision for those who are unable to help themselves.   

A functioning Germany would have its own, strong currency 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): The reichsmark!

which ensures that the national wealth created by the people remains in the country and retains its value. 

            Saskia Esken (SPD): Then good night! 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): The D-mark, or what?

It would have its own independent central bank, a Bundesbank which does not permit the Politik to cold expropriate the citizens by way of inflation, the most unsozial of asset taxes. 

Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Every reasonable person knows that that leads us economically to the abyss, the D-mark!

Without a functioning – now we are again with you – secure and advantageous energy supply, no flourishing economy! Germany has the highest energy prices worldwide because all of you here in this sovereign house have destroyed our energy infrastructure. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): You would be the downfall of the economy!

Instead of further destroying our landscape with much too expensive, highly subsidized wind mills and solar mirrors, which deliver no electricity during darkness and doldrum, a reasonable government would therefore the subventions monster – 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Here, you yourself need to laugh!

No, I laugh over you, because you are not able to behave yourself. You cannot behave yourself. You are guilty of that to your voters. Simply make serious policy. You’ve driven this country kaputt. For that, you will be punished by the voters. You will in the next sitting no longer sit here. 

A reasonable government would therefore stop the energy transition subventions monster, and indeed immediately, fortify the re-entry into nuclear power, and indeed immediately, and advantageous oil and natural gas 

            Katharina Dröge (Greens):…buy from Russia!

and buy it where is most advantageous. 

            Katharina Dröge (Greens): Putin now rejoices! Did he order that in your speech? 

            Irene Mihalic (Greens): You yourself do not take it seriously!

And a reasonable government would end a ruinous energy policy which only harms our own country. We will put an end to it. 

A good government would have a functioning army which would be taken seriously by allies and opponents, and a foreign policy which has considered balance and good economic and political relations with all neighbors and major powers. It would be a diplomacy which would not let itself be drawn into military conflicts, but enter as an honest broker for peace. It would have a foreign policy which continually has in view the interests of our own country, and with reason and skill represents, and does not make itself the laughing stock of the world with unworldly pedantry and moral-political megalomania. 

The conviction guides us that the sovereign national state is the foundation for democracy, freedom, welfare and self-determination. We know that politicians conscious of responsibility are the servants of the people in this country, and that the self-conscious representation of national interests is their foremost duty. We therefore enlist for a Germany which is based on respect for freedom, on the unconditional respect for law and equality before the law, and on unity in the defense of these values. 

That is our vision for Germany. Our hand is out-stretched 

            Irene Mihalic (Greens): To Russia!

for all who want to realize it with us. And it lies with you, whether you grasp this hand. Our beloved country has long since deserved it.

 

[trans: tem]

Tino Chrupalla, February 11, 2025, Dismantlement of Germany

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/212, pp. 27669-27671. 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Dear countrymen. 

With this plenary debate and with this sitting, we not only close the 20^th legislative period of the German Bundestag, after three and a half years we’ve also finally overcome the Ampel experiment. After 16 years of the political standstill and initial dismantlement of Germany under Angela Merkel, since 2021 this coalition has implemented the most truly radical social and economic reconstruction of this country. 

Herr Chancellor, what now do you and your cabinet leave behind? In the election campaign, you want to clarify all of what you have accomplished; that, you’ve clearly done, ja, today in your speech. For our country, it would have been very good had you so self-consciously come forward in the past years as social democratic coalition leader and Federal Chancellor. Then of course the heap of fragments of your policy which you leave behind would be essentially smaller. 

And from the government’s representatives and indeed also from the FDP, Herr Dürr, I am missing a large portion of humility. You act as if you had nothing to do with what you have in fact brought forward. You signed the coalition contract, with all its points, which you and Herr Lindner now criticize. You collaborated. You have broken the back of the skilled trades, of the Mittelstand. You are co-responsible. And today you speak of “truth” and “responsibility”. You will get the receipt at the end of the month in the Bundestag election. I hope your party no longer belongs to this Bundestag. 

Trust in the Politik has sunk. Forty percent of those eligible to vote do not know what they shall vote for. 

            Judith Skudelny (FDP): FDP!

There plainly are still citizens outside the Berlin bubble, and these citizens want to see solutions for the problems. They want that the problems finally be addressed. They also have a claim to that, and for that, all of us in this parliament were elected. 

Yet instead of constructively developing Germany, you mutually obstruct yourselves. While you quarrel, the switches are being flipped for the future of Germany and of Europe, economically and politically. Facts are being made. Our European neighbors invest in research and further development of nuclear power. You meanwhile bring our country back to the pre-industrial age, and hope in wind and sun which, ja, send no invoice. That, we all see. You accept that with Nord Stream our critical infrastructure is destroyed, and you trouble yourself not once for an explanation; it is for you plainly all the same, Herr Merz. What’s more, Herr Habeck explains that Germany is not allowed to be one-sidedly dependent on Russia, while he one-sidedly buys fracking gas from the United States. Ladies and gentlemen, we meanwhile steer back into the Middle Ages. Only now we have wind mills and electro-autos, yet still no network structure or energy storage. 

In your excess zeal, Herr Habeck, together with your colleagues of the green parties, you have best serviced the lobby interests – this was important to you – of the firms and consultants. Nevertheless remain those who fell by the wayside, those who have to pay for these hysterical measures; namely, the citizens, the Mittelstand, the trades. 

We are meanwhile world’s champion of Verbot laws – see the heating law, see combustion engine Verbot – and I do not want to leave here unmentioned the Corona time –  and meanwhile taillight in regards economic growth and leader of the pack in regards state spending.   

For months and years, we of the Alternative für Deutschland were the only opposition in the German Bundestag, the corrective for this Federal government. I personally and my delegation, well before the beginning of this legislature, warned of the de-industrialization of Germany. That was just as well condemned by you, and by the media representatives inclined to you, as a conspiracy theory. 

And where do we stand today? The energy costs and the non-wage labor costs are too high, the bureaucracy is oppressive. For that, however, there is an inferior infrastructure. The Tagesschau yesterday added, cite: Experts had warned for years of a death of industry. And where was the Federal government? You narcissistically rode your hobby horse and played poker with our children’s future. Thus this Ampel government for long no more has a majority in the German people. 

That was also clear following the past plenary week. As a reaction to the horrific murders of children and adults, this Federal government was called upon to finally carry through measures for securing the borders, expulsion of criminals and a tightening up of the right of asylum. Herr Dürr, you have apparently also forgotten that. A quarter of your delegation did not vote for these things – so much for your party and delegation. 

The reactions since then, certainly also that of the Union delegation, speak for themselves. Herr Merz believes to be able to thereby take as his own the migration themes. In common with almost all other parties, the Union now does not tell tales of how security in this country can guaranteed, but of firewalls. That is important to you, that is your most important theme. 

Honored colleagues, you construct a firewall which ostracizes 20 percent of the voters, and 40 percent of the voters in the east. How long do you want to still hold onto this friend-foe model? Herr Merz, you are exactly so a politician of the past as is Olaf Scholz. 

            Julia Klöckner (CDU/CSU): And you were never one!

For us, one thing matters: Patience is the courage of composure [Geduld is der Mut der Gelassenheit]. For reality and actuality [Wirklichkeit], right honorable ladies and gentlemen, will overtake you all. Believe me, you’ve not acted for the welfare of the citizens. And that you at all reconsider domestic security in our country is our success; that is a success of the Alternative für Deutschland. 

We are the only opposition delegation in this house which directs its policy in the interests of Germany without first casting a glance at possible coalition partners, as Herr Merz has done. We will also after the election drive forward the discussion of a good migration policy. 

Basic prerequisites for that are and remain a good relation with as many as possible of all the world’s states, and before all things peace. We need to clearly formulate our interests, which the partners know and are primarily esteemed by us. Enough porcelain has been broken by the values-led Frau Baerbock. That is now at an end. Herr Mützenich, on February 23 the citizens will throw open the door to paradise. Election day is payday, Herr Mützenich. 

One thing is certain – I want to mention this in conclusion: In the year 2025, we no more require an eastern commissioner. The eastern commissioner is called Alternative für Deutschland. 

Many thanks.

  

[trans: tem]

Bernd Baumann, January 31, 2025, The Firewall Dead

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/211, pp. 27529-27530. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

Herr Merz, you wanted to bring in today at 10:30 a draft law for the limitation of migration. You wanted to take the lead in this country. 

Yet then you began again to hesitate and to trip, again negotiating with red-green, for three and a half hours. Every voter needs now understand: There is a fundamental change of migration policy only with the AfD. We stand fast, ladies and gentlemen, we do not trip, we do not cozy up to red-green. We overcome red-green; that is our goal.   

Already on Wednesday, there was an earthquake here in the Bundestag. The Union attempted for the first time to free itself from the embrace of left-green, and in a vote sought a majority beyond that. It was a majority with the votes of the AfD. We in common reached a majority, and immediately in the first attempt. Decisive was the cooperation of blue and black. And after the Bundestag election, this majority will be still greater – as a result of the AfD’s strength, Herr Merz. 

            Friedreich Merz (CSU/CSU): Forget it!

The journalists asked me afterwards: Herr Baumann, are you saying that the Union has now overtaken all of your migration points, even the turning back at the borders? What then distinguishes you from the Union? – Do you know what I answered? Yes, the Union has overtaken all points. Yet it still does not amount to what the Union promises in the election campaign. It comes to whether they are credible. And precisely that, they are not. They will form a coalition with SPD and Greens and implement nothing of what they promise. 

We were able to see the same after the successful vote on Wednesday. Here went a Friedrich Merz with trembling knees 

            Friedreich Merz (CSU/CSU): Ach du lieber Gott!

to the speaker’s podium and apologized to SPD and Greens that he received a majority for his own motion. That is today’s CDU: You do not stand, you stagger – how pitiful is that actually! 

Today the Union wants to place a proposal for migration limitation in the daily order, this time a draft law proposal. It’s about the residency law, strengthening the police, limitation of family reunion. Again all good demands, since it has renewed our demands – the Union has only copied them – and we will therefore again vote in favor. 

We vote in favor, yet the Union staggers. Daniel Günther, Minister-president of Schleswig-Holstein, already announces that today’s immigration limitation law will be stopped, at latest in the Bundesrat, by CDU State chiefs who vote against a law of their own party. And the Berlin CDU head of government has already expressed that. That says everything about this Union: They cannot be trusted, they are simply without credibility. 

It is not enough. Yesterday, ex-Chancellor Merkel also stabbed in the back her party friend Merz. She held it to be wrong if he brings in a law without previously negotiating with red-green, with red-green voting. Three-quarters – this, everyone out there needs to know – of these present-day Union members, as they sit here, were already with Merkel, are old-time Merkel servers, three-quarters of the present Union delegation, upon whom Merkel now calls for resistance – against one of their own laws. For what can the Union still be relied on? On simply nothing. This party is without credibility through and through. 

A glance at the Federal States in which the Union governs shows this. Nowhere there will more be deported than in left-green-governed States. Nowhere does the Union realize its election promises. The Union can be trusted neither in the States nor in the Bund; that, the voters need now know in regards the upcoming Bundestag election. 

The Union and Friedrich Merz now also assert that it is the present Aschaffenburg murders which have brought them to a reconsideration. Yet, Herr Merz, what then was with the many, many previous murders? Maria from Freiberg, in 2016 murdered by an Afghan. Mia from Kandel in 2017 killed by an Afghan. Susana in Wiesbaden: In 2018 killed by an Iraqi. And these are only the cases upon which the media has reported. The present total figures for asylum migrants indicate something quite different: For 2023 alone – these are the latest figures which are presented – 64 murders, 8,800 rapes and sexual assaults, and 56,000 cases of bodily harm. This has never interested you of the Union. And now, four weeks before the Bundestag election, you come to it. The present murders are thus not the reason for this reconsideration, just as little as the previous murders. It is alone the AfD’s success shortly before the Bundestag election. That drives the Union, and simply nothing at all otherwise.   

On account of all of these horrific acts of violence, we of the AfD have here ever again placed motions. First in 2017, we were just then in the parliament, an AfD motion for turning back at the borders – rejected by the CDU. In 2020, a renewed motion for turning back at the borders – rejected by the CDU. 2022, 2023, 2024 – rejected, rejected, rejected. How many people need die on your account, dear Union? You have them on your conscience. They are the dead of your firewall. 

Only the AfD can credibly and lastingly redeem Germany. 

 

[trans: tem]