German Bundestag, December 20, 2024, Plenarprotokoll 20/208, pp. 27002-27003.
Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.
The so-called Constitution Defense in its present form does not defend democracy, it is a danger for democracy. This danger is embodied by two persons: By the former Constitution Defense chief Haldenwang, and by the Thüringen Constitution Defense president Kramer. Haldenwang stands for the reckless instrumentalization of the Constitution Defense for partisan political interests
Konstantin
von Notz (Greens): What are you saying here? My goodness!
and Kramer for an obsessive, personal crusade against the AfD.
We recall the background of Haldenwang’s appointment. In November 2018, the Union had lost votes to the AfD; at the Bundestag election one million, and at the 2018 Hessen State legislative election 100,000. Our polling numbers were climbing ever further.
Benjamin
Strasser (FDP): Hans-Georg Maaßen introduced a test proceeding against you!
In November 2018 we were at 16 percent and the Union fell further: About seven percentage points to 25 percent. The Merkel government therefore decided to employ the domestic secret service as a weapon against the AfD, invented the Chemnitz Hetzjagd lie,
Hendrik Hoppenstedt (CDU/CSU): I
thought you had always been against the legalization of cannabis!
and replaced Maaßen with the compliant accomplice Haldenwang. The battle order for the true CDU party soldiers was clear:
Marc Henrichmann
(CDU/CSU): For God’s sake! What stories!
to defame, belittle and ostracize the AfD and repress its election results,
Benjamin
Strasser (FDP): Hans-Georg Maaßen was never a CDU member, or?
and, as you know, – apology – the brainless Haldenwang
Hendrik
Hoppenstedt (CDU/CSU): We cannot accept the apology!
plainly admitted – cite: “The Constitution Defense is not alone responsible for lowering the AfD’s polling numbers.”
“Not alone.”, he said – yet it is responsible, and indeed essentially. For his true service to the CDU, he is allowed be a CDU candidate for the Bundestag.
Marc Henrichmann
(CDU/CSU): The local associations present candidates!
And, as we thought it does not get worse, then came the “Apollo” exposure of the Thüringen Constitution Defense president Kramer. It rendered every democrat speechless: In 2015, the social pedagogue from the rocker scene, together with the Putinist, extremist “Night Wolves” network, took part in a wreathe-laying for the Red Army dead. The Constitution Defense knew this – and shortly thereafter made him its president. He had failed in legal studies. It is almost a trifle that he is not only personally but also professionally unsuitable and unqualified.
As Constitution Defense president, he erected a regime of fear and intimidation. A fifth of the staff left the Thüringen Constitution Defense. The rightist and leftist extremism department leaderships are unoccupied for three years. A disciplinary proceeding is opened against him, and he has been classified as a security risk – the chief of the Constitution Defense. He openly threatened a co-worker with bodily violence. And what happened? Nothing. No denial, no resignation, no comment. A great silence, just like here now.
Benjamin
Strasser (FDP): We have just not yet debated, Frau von Storch!
That the public debate is absent is the real scandal; the total failure of public control by the media, even when the state of law and democracy break.
Benjamin Strasser (FDP): That was on the MDR and in the “Welt”! Is that also the “Lügenspresse”?
Leon Eckert
(Greens): Do you after all read newspapers?
Like Haldenwang, Kramer also meddled without limit in the daily political fight. He insulted a fifth of the German voters as “brown dirt”.
Marc Henrichmann
(CDU/CSU): No the voters, the functionaries!
He called for the AfD test case – without legal basis. In an internal e-mail, the responsible department leader declared, Herr Kramer had, cite: “knowingly left out” the responsible department. Herr Kramer's gathering of material originated with Herr Kramer himself. Not once did he explain to his officials the origin of these materials and then he made disappear a key juridical opinion in which all of this is condemned. Ladies and gentlemen, that is no substantial examination of a danger for the free, democratic basic order, that is Kramer’s personal, fanatic war against the AfD.
Kramer and Haldenwang are symptoms of a sick system of institutionalized abuse of power. In no other Western democracy may the domestic secret service be employed against the opposition. Since what distinguishes a democracy from a dictatorship? In a democracy,
Benjamin
Strasser (FDP): …complaint can be made of the categorization!
the voters decide the fate of a party; and in a dictatorship, the secret service chief.
Now for once quite briefly consider in which direction we are directly developing.
Marc Henrichmann
(CDU/CSU): In that regard, we are thinking directly of your speech!
If you do not use this debate today to admit that this Constitution Defense, that Haldenwang and Kramer are a danger for the free, democratic basic order,
Fabian
Griewel (FDP): You are a danger for the free, democratic basic order?
not even now, in regards to these persons, then you are a danger for the free, democratic basic order.
Many thanks.
[trans: tem]
