Showing posts with label Defense. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Defense. Show all posts

Sunday, February 8, 2026

Hans Neuhoff, January 22, 2026, To Fight for Europe

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE REV(2026)01-22(4-0016-0000). 

Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

The drones report of colleague Pozņaks is distinguished by excellent technical knowledge, yet it completely ignores the factual situation of risk in which we find ourselves. We need to be aware that Europe today stands before a security policy shambles. For decades it was believed to be able to exercise influence as an economic power alone. Yet only who is equipped by his own military strength can also effectively manage security policy. As far as the project is to create our own European defense technology and industrial base, it is correct, and the AfD and ESN will essentially support it. The beginning of every security policy realignment however needs be a qualified situation assessment. It is usual in security policy that you know how to distinguish between risks and threats. A threat is present where the aggressor possesses the intent as well as the capabilities to inflict a harm on others. Is Europe, are the European NATO members presently threatened militarily? The answer to that can only be: No, they are not. And not by Russia – regardless of how often this nonsense is repeated. Russia has neither the intent nor the capabilities to successfully attack and invade a NATO member. The Russian armed forces have not succeeded in four years to completely occupy even just the Donbass, although that is the  declared aim of the Russian leadership. Russia at Berlin, Russia in Paris – do you really believe that, Frau Strack-Zimmermann? And why, at all? Does Russia need more territory? Does Russia perhaps need the European rare earths? 

Colleagues, it is quite obviously an absurd scenario with which the peoples of our states shall be intimidated and be made pliant. It is exactly so unrealistic to nevertheless believe the Russian armed forces can again be driven back to the borders of 1991. The unfortunate words of colleague Reuten which the Parliament approved yesterday – his assertion that Russia’s defeat in the Ukraine is the most effective and thrifty investment in the European security – are a complete security policy false projection. The AFD and the ESN delegations stand for a security policy which is oriented to the realities. According to Carl von Clausewitz in his great work Vom Kriege, the political and moral powers are decisive for success in combat, especially the will of the fighting society. This will does not arise from the statements of self-righteous politicians. It arises only when the people know whom and what they should defend. 

A Europe which denies its borders, a Europe which permits massive, illegal immigration, a Europe which passively witnesses an Islamization instead of preventing it, a Europe the elites of which threaten freedom of opinion, a Europe which teaches the young people rainbow propaganda instead of love of country, a Europe which is consumed by a loss of meaning and an inner fatigue – such a Europe can produce no people who will fight for their self-preservation. 

In a recent survey in Germany, just 38 percent of those questioned said they were ready to support the Bundeswehr in an emergency. 59 percent answered negatively [ablehnend]. Vice-president Vance unmistakably expressed it at the Munich Security conference: The greatest threat for Europe is not Russia or China, but the retreat of fundamental values within Europe itself. Colleagues, so long as the political elites of Europe – and to that belongs this Parliament – manage a refusal of cultural conscription [kulturelle Wehrdienstverweigerung betrieben], they should not complain when young people are no longer ready to fight for Europe. Just when we again know for what we should fight, will we also be able to build up those military capabilities which colleague Pozņaks so impressively identified in his report. 

 

[trans: tem]

Monday, January 26, 2026

Markus Frohnmaier, December 19, 2025, U.S. National Security Strategy

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/51, pp. 6139-6140. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

The foreign policy spokesman of the CDU, Jürgen Hardt, lost himself [verstieg sich] in a remarkable analysis of the new National Security Strategy of the United States. He called it – and I cite: “AfD nonsense”, which somehow found access into American strategy. You hear correctly: In the bizarre, imaginary world of the Union, the AfD is no longer only remote-controlled from Moscow. No, now we even guide the pen of U.S. President Donald Trump for his National Security Strategy. We are the auto-pen, when wanted. 

Who looks away from CDU propaganda to reality nevertheless quickly recognizes: Godfather of the strategy was not the AfD, but healthy human understanding. 

            Boris Mijatović (Greens): Nice that you confirm the distinction.

In the introduction, it says – Listen: “The purpose of foreign policy is the protection of the core national interests; that is the sole focus of this strategy” [*https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf, 1]. A sentence like a rock, a sentence for the ages! And now compare this sentence for once with the expressions of Foreign Minister Wadephul this week, who justified the flying in of Afghans at taxpayers expense. Wadephul said, I cite: “I see in each refugee a creature of God.” 

            Peter Beyer (CSU/CSU): Do you see it differently?

Herein appears the fundamental rupture. The U.S.A. makes an interests-guided Realpolitik, the Federal government continues to make a values-guided, feelings policy. Only the flavor has been shifted a bit. Under the Green Baerbock, the foreign policy was feminist, under the Christian Democrat Wadephul, it is now pastoral. Church day sayings are Wadephul’s foreign policy offering. That is no policy change, and that is no “left is past”. That is old wine in new bottles. 

Donald Trump said what the German foreign policy for decades sought to deny: States have no friends, states also have no values, at least not in foreign policy. States have interests. And who believes foreign policy is a study circle for values friendships, he errs not only like the Union, but treads underfoot our German interests. 

            Deborah Düring (Greens): Which interests do you then represent?

The misfortune of values-guided foreign policy is chronic double-morality and impotence. Frau Baerbock was so feminist that she fed the Islamist regime of al-Julani in Syria with millions of euros of German tax money. In thanks, the latter refused to shake her hand and ordered the massacre of minorities. A truly great moment in feminist diplomacy

Wadephul prates: “Each refugee is a creature of God.” Yet does he overtake every refugee on this planet to Germany? Naturally not, even if the Union would perhaps gladly do it. Such statements are thus cheap courage free of cost. Out of the mouth of a German foreign minister, they are a declaration of political bankruptcy. At the end of the day, you sell to the population values promises which in the hard reality are not to be kept, and which, with permission, in the migration policy also should not be kept. 

How refreshingly clear on the other hand is the U.S. American strategy. Cite: 

            “We want full control over our borders, over our immigration system,                                        and over transportation networks through which people come to our                                                          country – legally and illegally.”[*, 3]

Why exists no German paper which expresses this self-evident thing, why does there exist no German paper which clearly says this? A glance at the government bench here delivers the answer: This government has no strategy, this government is incapable of strategy. 

It is revealing there is just one, single area in which the CDU/CSU is suddenly not at all interested in political values. Cite from the U.S. Strategy: 

            “The larger issues facing Europe include activities of the European Union and                      other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty,               migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife,                                                   censorship of free speech, and” 

– listen well, dear colleagues of the Union –

             “suppression of political opposition, cratering of birthrates, and loss of national                                      identities and self-confidence.” [*, 25] 

End citation from the U.S. Security Strategy.

Ja, ladies and gentlemen, your anti-democratic, even wicked machinations do not remain hidden on that side of the Atlantic. A wrong word on the net? House search! Criticism of migration? A case for the Constitution Defense! Engagement in an association? Only with the correct party book! Election success of the opposition? Verbieten! – that is your policy. You have changed Germany into a attitude-state, into a woke, open-air prison. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD):  Rubbish!

And when the U.S.A. holds up the mirror to you, you react with whining and are outraged. That is the hideous reality which you yourselves have created. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): You don’t believe that yourself! You yourself                                need to laugh!

In that regard, it would nevertheless be so simple. The Americans write, cite: 

            “America [Die Vereinigten Staaten] is, understandably, sentimentally [emotional]                                        attached to the European continent” [*, 26] 

Naturally, since it is ultimately so that descendents of Europeans have settled the American continent. Therefore: Who so acts as to estrange America from Europe, who estranges the growing child from the parents, he lies. America does not estrange itself. Yet America has no  desire for parents who have given up. America has no interest in European and German self-abnegation. Unlike you, the U.S.A. wants no Europe, no Germany, which degenerates into an authoritarian, Islamized Moloch, incapable of alliance. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Such rubbish!

What Washington demands is nothing new. It is something which my party, the AfD, demands for many years in this house. Dear colleagues, finally end the course of civilizational self-abnegation. The U.S. strategy is no affront, the U.S. strategy is a blueprint. We require no priggish church day sayings, 

            Boris Mijatović (Greens): Were you ever at a church day, Herr Frohnmaier? 

we require a return to Realpolitik

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Where actually is your delegation? 

we require a Politik which our border, our sovereignty, 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Not ten people are there! 

and our identity defends without compromise. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Where are the people? 

Ladies and gentlemen – and to the hecklers in this place – I can only simply say again to you: Listen for once! Then perhaps even your Politik finally becomes better. You would thereby render to the citizens in Germany at Christmas a great service; since the citizens in Germany have a nose full of the bad Politik of the old parties. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Weak speech!

 

[trans: tem] 

[*https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf]

Sunday, January 18, 2026

Hans Neuhoff, December 17, 2025, U.S.A., Europe, Russia

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2025)12-17(3-0028-0000). 

Frau President. Colleagues. 

The U.S.A.’s national security strategy shows that the international relations will be newly ordered. It is a goal of the United States to now obtain a strategic settlement [Ausgleich] with other great powers. From that follows that Europe in the future needs to overtake more responsibility for its own security. It thus does not lie in the European interest to make the Ukraine into a total front state, into a steely porcupine on Russia’s border. Let us not forget: The Russian military possesses in regards critical weapons systems a development advantage of 20 years. Colleagues, the leader of the NATO intelligence service declared at the beginning of this year, not a single piece of evidence is available to him that Russia after the Ukraine war wants to attack an EU member state. Therefore stop intimidating the people of Europe with ever new tales of menace. Let us finally begin a serious and constructive dialogue – and with the Russian Federation. 

 

[trans: tem]

Monday, January 5, 2026

Rüdiger Lucassen, December 5, 2025, Service in the Bundeswehr

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/48, pp. 5614-5615. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

The coalition’s defense service modernization law is discussed for weeks in the context of the general conscription [Wehrpflicht] as a kind of preliminary stage thereof; yet it is not. The core of the law only foresees that the attraction of voluntary service in the Bundeswehr shall be increased – and that, now for the umpteenth time. With the defense service modernization law, the Federal government does what it always does when it does not want to get at the root of the problem: It pours on more money. That is Merkel Politik, and it comes to its end. 

Yet in regards the defense service modernization law it is not only about money; it is about something fundamental. The Defense Ministry in the future pays to each new recruit 2,700 euros gross – a lot of of money for one leaving school. For the Federal government, attraction means money. To it, something else does not come to mind. Yet soldiers who come on account of the pay have no strong basis for the service. That does not suffice. 

The antithesis is the soldier who serves out of conviction. It is the German soldier who knows what he fights for, who bears within the inner bond [der das innere Band in sich trägt] – the born defender of his country, the German common destiny [Schicksalsgemeinscahft]. Theodor Körner, Lützow, Roon, Moltke, Hindenburg, Jünger, Rommel, Stauffenberg, Heusinger, Hartmann, Topp, Förtsch, Kammhuber – there are hundreds of thousands of names of German soldiers who carry this bond and pass it on. And, ladies and gentlemen, the Bundeswehr consists of these soldiers. In no other institution of Germany is the consciousness of one’ own, for what is worth protecting, for our country, so present as in the Bundeswehr. The soldiers who serve in it are the daughters and sons of our people. To them, they perform their oath. 

            Lamya Kaddor (Greens): Yet without völkischen language!

And they are thereby not soldiers of this government, but Germany’s soldiers. 

The Bundeswehr thus stands in a 200 year tradition, a tradition of the true, the dutiful, and of the bond to Germany, regardless under which government. Lützow’s riflemen did not fight for the king, but for the freedom of the Germans. 

            Sara Nanni (Greens): That is abysmal! Really!

The Heeresgruppe Kurland fought not for the wretched regime in the bunker. Its soldiers withstood the Red Army so as to save 1.5 million East Prussians. And the soldiers of the NVA [National People’s Army, East Germany], a German conscript army, 

            Jens Spahn (CDU/CSU): Where have you landed, actually?

placed themselves in a decisive moment of their history in the service of this German tradition. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Please do not speak of the Bundeswehr! 

            Christian Görko (Linke): You have no idea!

             Siemtje Möller (SPD): Good diversionary maneuver! That shows you have no                                           position on the conscription!

As namely the SED planned to fight the 1989 freedom movement with military means, the soldiers of the NVA refused the mission order. German soldiers do not shoot Germans. The German bond blocked the mission order. 

Ladies and gentlemen, the Thüringen chairman of my own party gave a speech on conscription on Wednesday in the Erfurt Landtag. In this speech, he came to the conclusion that Germany is no longer worth fighting for. What would the men and women of the Wars of Liberation have said to that? They would never have followed that diagnosis. Dear countrymen in Thüringen and everywhere: The fight for Germany’s salvation is the basis for the founding of the AfD. 

            Jens Spahn (CDU/CSU): How low have you sunk?

Where shall I at all begin? Our culture, our children – Goethe, Schiller, Eichendorff, Wagner – Potsdam, Dresden, Munich, the Rheingau, the Swabian Alb, the Alps, our forests and lakes, the German food, 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Na, there, you’ve finally positioned yourself!

the North Sea, the greatness, the tragedy, the ever again arising can do. 

We are the West and, for that, it always pays to fight. 

 

[trans: tem]

Saturday, January 3, 2026

Björn Höcke, December 3, 2025, Conscription

Thüringer Landtag, Plenarprotokoll 8/29, pp. 53-54. 

Right honorable Frau President, right honorable colleagues. 

Colleagues, like Boris Pistorius, for Germany, Fabien Mandon, the French chief of the general staff, for France, wants the war efficiency [Kriegstüchtigkeit]. He demands – I cite: The country needs to be ready to lose its children. 

Right honorable colleague members, please now in your thoughts take your son or grandchild in arms, feel his heartbeat and think of all the happy moments with him. And now please imagine how he with arms and legs torn away lies in a minefield and slowly bleeds to death. Imagine how a hollow charge has pierced the wall of his panzer and all lives in the interior are extinguished by a gigantic welding beam [Schweißstrahl]. Imagine how he as a prisoner of war is tortured. First, his ears are cut off, then his genitals, finally his eyes are put out. After hours, the torturer ends his agony in that he pours benzine over him and ignites. Thus, right honorable colleague members, die in a war young men of 18, 19, 20 years, who have established no families, who to some extent have still not lead their lives.   

Right honorable colleague members, it is here about the revival of the conscription [Wehrpflicht] in a quite concrete situation – a situation which is stamped by a war in the Ukraine and a showtime bellicosity of German politicians throughout the cartel parties. The people out there feel it is plainly not about their own way of life, since that assumes love of one’s own, that assumes patriotism. Yet the politicians of the CDU and Linke disdain this patriotism. And precisely that is the decisive point in the present discussion of the conscription. 

The revival of the conscription here and today cannot be well founded by the old parties. Therefore, young people and their parents intuitively and rightly reject the war efficiency project. The young people note that when an obligation to fulfill an ostensible securing of their future is exacted from them, at the same time the ruling Politik destroys this future piece by piece. What shall the young man, who knows no patriotism and no tradition, defend with a Bundeswehr? 

Yes, what shall he defend? Drag queen displays in kindergartens, the de-industrialization, the plundering of the social security system, the festival of lights secured with concrete walls, which earlier were called Christmas markets, the mass immigration which makes him feel foreign in his own land, the Schuldstolz

Right honorable colleague members, I want in closing to emphasize: Before one, single young man should under compulsion again enlist in uniform, this state needs to finally again become a state for the Germans – for the Germans. Freely directed and oriented toward German interests and clear in an understanding of the people. Before young people in this country are again taken by the Politik into the obligation, the Politik must first finally again enter into the obligation to its own people. 

I thank you for your attention.   

 

[trans: tem]

Tuesday, December 30, 2025

Tino Chrupalla, December 17, 2025, German Security and the U.S.A.

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/49, pp. 5757-5759. 

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

Initially I want to remember the dead and wounded of the terror attack in Australia. We stand against this brutalization of and the growing violence against the vulnerable. It makes me speechless with which means throughout the world the struggle of the religions is ever still on the daily order, be it in the Near East, at attacks on German Christmas markets, or now in Sydney where a Jewish community wanted to celebrate the festival of lights. All of these incidents are to be condemned and political consequences need to be drawn, and precisely for that reason we as parliament need decide to speak out against religious fanaticism, extremism and terrorism. It is therefore only fitting when we as the Alternative für Deustschland demand consistently deporting perpetrators without German citizenship to their home countries, since these present a danger for all Germans, with or without a migration background. In that regard, in the various religions there should certainly exist a consensus, and which should enjoin peace. 

It is precisely these negotiations for peace which we since 2022 ever again demand for the Ukraine and Russia. The German governments under Olaf Scholz and Friedrich Merz have allowed themselves a long time for this. In the meantime, the re-elected President of the United States, Donald Trump, seizes the initiative and mediates between the parties to the conflict. The goal needs be ending the senseless death on both sides. I for years have said: The Ukraine will not be able to win this war. 

And what were the political consequences? Herr Merz burdens the German taxpayers with 70 billion euros of debt for weapons deliveries and military assistance to the Ukraine – and here we do not know to this day into which channels it in part trickles away – and with an additional 11.5 billion euros in the next budget. In addition comes the Bürgergeld payments in a sum of 6 billion euros per year to Ukrainians. 

Before which challenges do we now stand? After almost four years of war, hundreds of thousands of soldiers have fallen or been wounded; in addition, comes the civilian victims and a destroyed land. The United States for months have clearly signaled it will withdraw from the circle of supporters of the war. Yet that also means that the billions required for additional weapons purchases, for example in the U.S.A., now need to be paid for by Europe alone – thus, new debts for Germany and precisely that is completely unacceptable. 

I thus insist: It was and is not our war. At the beginning of the destruction was clear that here much money will be required for the reconstruction, that however also much more can be earned. Precisely there has Friedrich Merz been able to gather his best experiences in his mother house, BlackRock. Quite according to the motto: “Good business with other people’s money” [Mit fremdem Geld lässt sich gut wirtschaften], the Chancellor proceeds with his over-reaching plan to illegally expropriate Russian state assets and to give it to the Ukraine. This announcement alone pours additional oil on the fire of this war. Beyond that, the Chancellor promises that Germany self-evidently is readily available for an eventual default of payments. As has been said, Herr Merz: Other people’s money – the money of the Germans – is plainly easier given than one’s own. 

In common with your Union comrades in Brussels, you impose one sanction after another which should be directed against Russia, yet which primarily harm Germany. The energy prices burden the private budgets even so heavily as those of business. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Do you make a memorial of Putin, who has bombed                                       every week, every day? 

You are responsible for the death of the German economy, and there, Frau Haßelmann, the tears come to me. We in Germany in the year 2025 have lost almost 1,000 industrial workplaces per day; 60 bankruptcies per day. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Are you already through with the Ukraine?

It affects the automobile industry, its suppliers and thereby the skilled trades and the Mittelstand.  And “gone” means gone. You need be politically responsible for that, yet our children and grandchildren need to solve this dilemma. 

            Vice-president Omid Nouripour: Herr Chrupalla, do you allow an                                             interim question from member Hoffmann? 

No, later please. 

            Vice-president Omid Nouripour: Then continue readily.

And these need already today shoulder the financing of your credits. You make debts so as to be able to cope with the basic expenditures of the social system. The pensioners you fob off in the future with 48 percent of the last years of service. You drive those who create value, after at least 45 years of work, into old age poverty. Yet you want, ja, to bring precisely the pensioners again into an occupation and then call that an active pension [Aktivrente]. Know, Herr Merz, one as Chancellor can scarcely more dismissively deal with these who keep the social state running with their work. 

At the same time you drive forward the de-industrialization, willfully bring us into conflict with Russia and support a corrupt system around the still president Zelenskyi. Your colleagues of the Union delegation emphasize to the press the German Bundestag should be tied up in the use of the frozen Russian assets, and that shows us two things: First, you want to have your perfidious plan provided with a parliamentary majority. And second, we as members should agree to the almost certainly arising contributions of billions to the further support of the Ukraine. That is a deceit scarcely to be surpassed! 

            Steffen Bilger (CDU/CSU): Hä? Why then should the Bundestag occupy itself                                           with it?

You travel today and tomorrow for the EU summit. Should you there make good on precisely these commitments, with your solo you act completely against the interests of the German citizens. And I may therein remind you: In Germany are lacking investment means for the vital infrastrucure, for streets, bridges, railways, schools, hospitals and kindergartens. 

We are all elected by the German people so as to bring forward our country, Germany. Besides, with Victor Orbàn, Andrej Babis and Robert Fico, three EU countries have already indicated the rejection of using the Russian assets, or giving financial guaranties for the Ukraine. So much for your European unity. And those in the Union who still some weeks ago made themselves advocates of the transatlantic relations, now slowly note that there are no more guaranties and no hegemon. The United States’ new security strategy shows us quite clearly: In the center stands the U.S.A. – and only the U.S.A. – and which already has written off the partnership with the old Europe. 

            Jens Spahn (CDU/CSU): And therefore your young people make a pilgrimage                                           to America!

Simply nothing is understood of how one can bring balance to the continent and Europe’s interior security with a failed migration policy and lacking a relationship to Russia. 

And once again our Chancellor appears to falsely analyze this announcement. Driven by his old Federal Republic antipathy against the east, he drives forward strategies which let the graves become ever deeper, in foreign lands even so at home. At the CDU party day in Magdeburg, Herr Merz once again showed his quite charming side as he said he had the good fortune to have grown up in the west. And here you once again have misunderstood something: It is we eastern Germans who have given ourselves to the long way of integration in a unified Germany. We do not want to return to the old Federal Republic. 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): You’ve still not arrived!

In that you give citizens in the east the feeling that, for you, they are of less value, you again prove your incapacity for dealing with people. 

            Jens Spahn (CDU/CSU): That is simply just nonsense, what you are telling here!

And therefore, Herr Chancellor, I am happy that you grew up in the west. You would have failed us in the east! 

            Jens Spahn (CDU/CSU): Oje, deeper is does not get!

Allow me in conclusion just briefly go into the Chancellor’s announcement to set up a multinational troop for the Ukraine. You thereby show not only that you continue to want to spin the escalation spiral in Europe. You speak of securities for the Ukraine, but mean armament and the construction of new scenarios of intimidation in Europe. 

            Steffen Bilger (CDU/CSU): That is bad for your Russian friends!

For me and us, you however also show that we, with our positioning for peace and against the reinstatement of conscription at the present point in time, stand exactly on the right side. Since this reinstatement indeed later becomes what you here today and also what you yesterday announced, and is in a later future only to be rejected. You said yesterday we would need to respond to a Russian attack. Meanwhile now, not unjustly, the German press also asks: Do you know what you actually said there? Do you actually know what that means, Herr Merz? – We cannot trust you. For you, it is not about the defense of the country. It is to be feared that you with your policy, in view of a loss of tension, initiate or want to initiate deploying conscripts in the Ukraine. 

            Lisa Badum (Greens): You are a problem for the defense of the country!

We do not trust you with our children! 

And in regards the present negotiations with the Ukraine has become very clear that it will be no part of NATO and thereby is excluded a possible alliance. You however attempt with all means to create options for yourself and the Ukraine to prolong the war. To that are we quite clearly opposed. 

The President of the United States had begun the negotiations with Russia as equals [auf Augenhöhe]. Your attempt, Herr Merz, to make clientele policy for Herr Zelenskyi will not be crowned with success. With your kind of policy-making, you were and remain at the children’s table. Herr Chancellor, a state is no international finance concern. Leave therefore the foreign policy to the foreign policy makers, and finally concern yourself over how you may relieve the German economy, the Mittelstand and the skilled trades, in west as in east. For that, you wanted to become Chancellor. Finally trouble yourself for Germany! 

Ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to have left the east-west conflict behind us. With an international troop, you again conjure this up, Herr Merz. You, on that account, are and remain a diehard of the old FRG. You do not consider the future of our country or our children; you as Chancellor are already history. 

            Sara Nanni (Greens): Who actually wrote that for you?

I wish you and your families a peaceful Christmas and hope for a peaceful year in 2026. 

            Steffen Bilger (CDU/CSU): For the Ukraine, too!

Many hearty thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Sunday, December 28, 2025

René Aust, December 17, 2025, European Security and the U.S.A.

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2025)12-17(3-0098-0000). 

Herr President. 

For ten years were we of the AfD denigrated by you as militarists and as anti-Americans because we demanded investing in strategic autonomy, because we wanted that we invest in our capability and readiness in security policy. You have instead denied the reality. Barack Obama said already in the year 2011 that the U.S.A. would develop itself into a pacific country and that it is no longer desired to tie up additional forces in Europe. 

You have for 15 years squandered security policy on this continent. You have brought us to the dependency and to the dead end. On that account, you are also the wrong ones to bring us out again, since you now fall into the other extreme. From years-long, with the CDU even decades-long, submission vis-à-vis the U.S.A., you now fall into the extreme of insulting an entire government, even though there continues to be a large security policy dependency on the U.S.A. Numerous terror attacks, just lately in lower Bavaria, could nevertheless only be prevented because we have the U.S. American secret services information placed at our disposal. You risk with your anti-American course the security of Germans. We want authentic cooperation without submission and without pandering. We want an authentic partnership without anyone prescribing to us into which countries we have to send our soldiers, yet plainly also without instructions and affronts to other parts of the world. 

 

[trans: tem]

Sunday, December 7, 2025

Hans Neuhoff, November 25, 2025, European Armament of the Ukraine

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2025)11-25(2-0031/34/36-0000). 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

It is completely right that the European states want to themselves command the technological and industrial bases of their defense capability. It is however completely wrong to include in these the Ukraine as an equal and even privileged partner. Since the country finds itself in a war which it threatens to lose, and is crippled by notorious corruption. Promotion of the Ukrainian arms industry? In no case! 

Secondly, it is right that the strategic autonomy can only be developed by a small group of leading states. It is however wrong to give large strategy programs into the hand alone of the Council of the European Union without participation of the affected national parliaments. 

With the EDIP [European Defense Industry Program] decree, the bases for a supra-national defense union will be created. The ESN delegation will thus not vote for this decree. 

…Herr Sieper, many thanks for the question. As a result of its time frame, the Ukraine will in no way be able to use the EDIP. What it will effect, however, is that a strong incentive is presented for Russia to move the western border in the Ukraine, the contact line, as far as possible to the west. And that is not in the interest of the Ukraine. 

…Herr Sieper, your assumption is wrong, that it would be in the Russian interest to rule over, to control the Ukraine in its entirety. Since the invasion would not have been entered into with such a small army. Russia’s goal is: No NATO membership for the Ukraine and the Ukraine’s return to a status of neutrality, as was the case prior to 2014. That was and would be the best for this country and therefore we should support that. 

 

[trans: tem]

Monday, December 1, 2025

René Aust, November 26, 2025, Peace in the Ukraine

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2025)11-26(3-0029-0000). 

Herr President. 

Finally, a glimmer of hope; U.S. foreign minister Rubio speaks of considerable progress in the Geneva peace talks, and hopes for a rapid agreement. Now, in this historic hour, required are politicians who are supporting every credible peace initiative, instead of slowing them down. 

Peace treaties are no request program. They arise by means of – oftentimes, very painful – compromise. Yet they are the first step to a long-term order of peace. They are thus not at the end of a peace process, but are frequently at the beginning of a reconciliation.

 Peace ends suffering. Yet peace also ends costly spirals of military armament. Then we can make investments where they are really needed: In future technologies, modern infrastructure, education, healthcare, families and in affordable housing. On that account, we now need to grasp every chance for peace.

  

[trans: tem]

Monday, October 20, 2025

Rüdiger Lucassen, September 17, 2025, Defense Procurement

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/24, pp. 2531-2532. 

Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

There is nothing more useless than the so-called politicians’ ranking. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius is in first place. 

            Sara Nanni (Greens): Jealous?

Yet who profits from the first place? No one. Who profits from this first place? The SPD not once, see Nordrhein-Westfalen.  Boris Pistorius, also not; since he cannot transmute his favorability into political success. That hinders his party friends; see conscription. Pistorius wants it, his party wants it not. And who still believes that the SPD will send Herr Pistorius into the running as the next Chancellor candidate plainly does not know the SPD. Nothing in this party is so unloved as success. The SPD since Gerhard Schröder always decides for mediocrity. See Heiko Maas, see Norbert Walter-Borjans, see Saskia Esken, see Bärbel Bas, see, see, see. 

Who unfortunately also has nothing of the favorability of the Defense Minister are the Bundeswehr and Germany’s security, since, except for announcements and an explanation that runs at length, Boris Pistorius has delivered nothing. 

Ladies and gentlemen, the Federal government’s 2025 defense budget suffers from a lack of concept. The government with the debts empowerment bowls over the future generations and orders everything that the industry offers. Since 2022, the Bundestag has voted for and agreed to 324 procurement proposals, an unbelievable number, without a conceptual basis. No one can say which procurement will be urgently required, and which not. 

Yet what the Defense Ministry has not accomplished is the operationalization of the armament of the Bundeswehr. That would be an urgent prerequisite for the mission-readiness of the armed forces. What shall Germany’s armed forces be able to do operationally? Where shall it be able? How long shall it be able? It plainly does not suffice to throw around keywords like “East Flank Lithuania” or “Hub Germany”. An authentic operational plan needs to go into details and it must set priorities. All of that is not put forward. Thus the coalition also does not prioritize the procurement. You procure what is there, and not what will be needed. 

I want to address a second defect which I hold to be utterly unacceptable, namely the lack of transparency in the armaments procurement. The German Bundestag needs to know to whom are ultimately allotted the weapons which it has agreed to procure. The AfD has basically voted for the armament of the Bundeswehr. We stand for national defense and external security. When however the Federal government takes upon itself the right, immediately upon delivery, to redirect to the Ukraine weapons which we as parliament have procured for the Bundeswehr, that is contempt for the will of parliament, and it is unconstitutional. 

Next point. We also reject the financing of German weapons for the Ukraine by Budget item 60 – primarily because it is German tax money, no political plan is acknowledged beyond the carry-on talk, and the Federal government does not trouble itself for a diplomatic solution of the Russian-Ukrainian war. Yet we also reject these proceedings because it leads to displacement effects in regards our own armaments procurement. You propose to quickly make the Bundeswehr ready for defense, yet with your tax-financed Ukraine procurements, ensure that armaments orders for the German troops will be shoved behind. You thereby sabotage the German defense readiness. 

The Federal government invented the term “Zeitenwende” [change of times], yet cannot do it. The AfD can do it, and we will do it. 

Thank you. 

 

[trans: tem]


Tuesday, October 7, 2025

Michael Espendiller, September 16, 2025, Fiscal Policy, II

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/23, pp. 2316-2317. 

…We here in Germany need to do our household chores, and we require the money, much too much of which at the moment is being transferred to the European Union, in our own country. We therefore reduce our contribution to the EU by about 18 billion euros. And now one may call  me out, that it does not go, there are binding treaties. Then good, it agrees with the treaties. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Ach!

Yet treaties are not laws of nature and can be changed. Best example: Margaret Thatcher, the “Iron Lady” of Great Britain. When it was very bad in her country, she negotiated with the EU and extracted the so-called “British rebate”. Great Britain thus every year saved billions in contributions to the EU. Why should that not also work for Germany? Germany is ultimately the largest net payer to the EU and the stability anchor in the euro area. When Germany falls, the euro also falls. And against this background, we are very optimistic that the EU would prefer to agree with Germany rather than lose us completely. It thus may go, if one really wants to. 

Where do we save? The Federal government provides a large portion of its new debts for military expenditures. As you know, we have ever criticized the bad equipment of the Bundeswehr and committed ourselves in recent years to corresponding budget increases. Yet the present Federal government here exceeds every reasonable measure and schedules for this year debt-financed increases which, in fact, it simply cannot expend this year. For this reason, we in an AfD budget expend 10.7 billion euros less for military spending and thereby come to a total outlay in the defense area of 76.9 billion euros. And that is again very much money. Yet also in the following years, the Federal government in the military area simply wants to expend too much and too quickly. Decades-long shortcomings plainly cannot be compensated with a wave of the hand. 

Yet you not only thereby worsen Germany’s position, but also with delivery of military material to the Ukraine. In 2025, you want to spend all of 8.7 billion euros for the weapons deliveries to the Ukraine. And these costs we eliminate completely. You only prolong the unnecessary dying in the Ukraine. Besides, the Ukrainians themselves have meanwhile grasped this, which is why the number of deserters ever further increases. Yet that interests no one in the government, because reason is on vacation. 

Less reasonable besides are the exorbitant costs for a misguided climate policy. We do not at all save the climate with the deconstruction of industry in Germany. Here too, the red pencil. And we therefore can save with the elimination of the senseless climate projects of the climate and transformation funds around 37.6 billion euros, and indeed completely. 

Still what? The Sozial budget of Bärbel Bas is next, which blows up in our faces. It is absolutely right that we support the pension account with tax monies. That, our pensioners after a life of hard work have honestly earned. Yet it is wrong that we extend it, at the cost of the working middle, to millions of Bürgergeld recipients who are fully capable of earning. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): That’s just not right! What nonsense                                                are you then telling?

Moreover, it thus comes to that around 50 percent of the Bürgergeld recipients have a foreign citizenship. That is further evidence for the uncontrolled mass immigration into our social system. By means of a corresponding adjustment of our laws, we may end this social injustice, and here save an additional 14.6 billion euros. 

And still more money is to be found in the Federal budget: One billion euros as a “reconciliation payment” to Namibia can, for various reasons, go. 

In regards the political foundations, we eliminate means to the sum of 444 million euros. In addition, the Federal government plans to expend one billion euros for the performance of integration courses. The driver’s license in Germany needs to be paid by oneself; we can thus expect a German course will be paid by oneself if then one wants to have the German citizenship. 

The Union-led Federal government in addition herein continues to breed its own political opponents and carry on the financing of the leftist “Democracy Lives” programs. With its abolition, we save an additional 200 million euros. 

This and much more we can eliminate and, except for a few lobby groups, no one in Germany would notice. 

Yet what millions of people in Germany would notice in the purse are the reliefs of our AfD budget, the key points of which I want to here go into. 

We are of the opinion that the present climate policy damages the economic position and burdens the consumers with charges. The CO2 price and the CO2 emissions trade we therefore eliminate completely. 

And the trucking fee we cut by around 2.25 billion euros so as to lower the transportation costs in Germany. Everyone who drives to work with an auto, or who plans the next large purchase for the family, will notice that in the supermarket balance. These alone are 23 billion euros of relief for the consumers in Germany. 

And while we’re especially on the families: When both parent spouses are earning so as to feed the family and somehow pay for their own home, the budget account also suffers under the enormously high non-wage costs [Lohnnebenkosten]. This money does not at all land in one’s own account, but goes directly to the state. In our finance planning, enough money is available so that we can stabilize the social security system with 7.7 billion euros. This would prevent that in this year the contribution rate and with it the non-wage costs increase, and that keeps workplaces in Germany. 

Yet not only duties, but also taxes we in our AfD budget can properly save. Alone in regards the wages tax, that is one billion euros. With the income tax, we come to around two billion euros on top of that.  And the enormous burden on our Mittelstand we can reduce with three billion euros in the corporate tax. And the solidarity surtax with 12.45 billion euros we can completely eliminate. Work shall again pay. 

And we also want that good earners continue to remain in the country and plainly not – as presently – in large numbers of around 200,000 men and women each year leave our country, and thereby as contribution- and tax-payers permanently fall out of our social system. 

By means of the lowering of the CO2 duty and the wage tax, together with the other measures, the small earners at the same time will be relieved by us, so that they can again live from their own income. 

All together, we relieve the citizens with 66.1 billion euros in our draft budget. That is impressive! 

In sum: Saving is something for the advanced. We have shown there is an alternative to limitless debt creation, and put forward a reform budget which we will also still further construct. We are convinced: This is the draft which Germany now needs, and which has what it takes to kindle a dynamic and again bring our economy into the running. 

The AfD is ready, and we hope the Union soon gives up its failed experiment with the SPD so as to include itself in the rescue mission for our country. We can, simply and profoundly, no longer afford this firewall. 

 

[trans: tem]

Friday, September 19, 2025

Alice Weidel, September 17, 2025, Kirk, Migration, Budget, War

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/24, pp. 2455-2456. 

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

The citizens are becoming impatient, Herr Merz. They are waiting for you to bestir yourself from your self-complacency and a leftist-green denial of reality. 

Not a word from you on the insidious political murder of Charlie Kirk whose death has shocked not only the U.S.A.. He was a conservative, a believing Christian, a courageous defender of the values for which your party for long once stood. Charlie Kirk was a convinced champion of free speech and of open debate with all, even with those who think differently. He wanted to convince and not exclude and, for that, needed to die. 

Why you are silent lies at hand. For you, radical leftist parties count as a so-called political middle, parties like the Greens and the Linke whose youth party up to the leadership the murder of a conservative Christian cynically trivialize, justify or even approve. 

Some of those want to take up arms when the election results do not suit them, shoot the rich, or stick in work camps, or adopt harsher action like Frau Reichinnek – what is thereby always meant. For Herr von Aken, leftist crimes serve the common good. 

            Cansin Kökturk (Linke): Speak to the theme!

The leftist terrorist Antifa provide the militant troops. When skull and joint, families and life, are smashed, Frau Göring-Eckardt pays her respects to the perpetrators. 

            Katharina Dröge (Greens): What, please? That is unheard of!

What leftist activists dressed up as journalists have done lately strengthens us to abolish public broadcasting compulsory financing. No one should be forced to pay for inhuman malice and the glorification of violence. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): What else do you do here, then?

You however, Herr Merz, beg in these left-green camps for support of judicial elections and manipulations of the constitution. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Fire-starting! That is what you do!

That also well explains why you still say nothing on the escalation of leftist violence. Where  remains your clear condemnation of left-extremist acts of arson and sabotage which damage vital infrastructure, paralyze important railways and cause day-long electricity outages, as recently in Berlin as tens of thousands of households were cut off from the electricity supply, and small merchants and businesses needed to accept existence-threatening losses? 

Until today you also have found no word of compassion and of the responsibility for the murder of young Liana who was tossed in front of a freight train in Friedland by a rejected, repeat offender, Iraqi asylum applicant. Liana stands for the much too many people who since the fatal Wir schaffen das” of your party friend Angela Merkel need lose their lives as victims of the unregulated, illegal, negligent policy of open borders and mass migration: Attacked, robbed, raped, killed by people who ought never have come to our country, 

            Cansin Kökturk (Linke): You spread lies!

by illegal migrants who long since would have needed to be gotten out of the country. 

More than 2,000 women since 2015 have become victims of sexual assaults by migrants – the statistics record as before two gang rapes per day; this especially horrific crime has just in the last ten years become an authentic epidemic. Dozens of knife attacks every day, all too often with fatal outcomes, women who no longer dare to be on the streets or in public transportation, 

            Zada Salihović (Linke): On account of men!

no-go areas, and schools in which the last native children are mercilessly bullied and mobbed. 

The politically willed loss of control simply continues and with it the Politik of sweet-talking and lies, of looking away and a closing of eyes. It plainly does not suffice to order with a lot of noise random border controls and to stage rejections by which 98 percent of illegal asylum migrants are certainly not affected. It also does not suffice to restrict for a short time a small few of family reunions by which as before a large city each year immigrates. 

            Cansin Kökturk (Linke): That is the falsehood!

Sporadic deportation flights to Afghanistan with some dozens of murderers and rapists with pocket money also impresses no one when your Foreign Minister at the same time has Afghan extended families flown in with the acceptance permits of his Green predecessor in office. 

            Cansin Kökturk (Linke): That is the falsehood!

With alibi measures and symbol politics you cannot in the long-term lead the citizens behind the lights, who of course precisely note that nothing changes in the desolate situation. 

An authentic migration change requires an overall concept as follows: 

            Katharina Dröge (Greens): When your own people are disturbed by the speech,                    then it must be frightful! 

            President Julia Klöckner: Excuse me, I want to quickly clarify something.                            I here require no attendant session chairmanship [betreute Sitzungsleitung],                            regardless by which delegation. You have the word, Frau Dr. Weidel. 

            Bernd Baumann (AfD): It’s about the heckling which you haven’t punished!

An authentic migration change requires an overall concept as follows: Border completely and seamlessly closed, those entering illegally without adequate papers and not entitled to asylum turned back without exception, stop family reunions, naturalization at the earliest after ten years, examination of irregularities in regards residency permits and naturalizations, immediate, consistent deportation without exception of delinquent foreign citizens not entitled to residency, confinement of social benefits to the minimal payment period – since no one has a right to social benefits when he has never paid into our social system. 

To that applies: Benefits in kind instead of money for asylum applicants and refugees, and definitely no Bürgergeld for Ukrainian citizens. 

The unrealized migration change is not the only election promise which you have broken, Herr Merz. You have broken namely every election promise. Return of nuclear power: Prior to the election, promised; later, denied. Abolition of the heating law: Prior to the election, promised; later, denied. Abolition of the combustion engine Verbot: Prior to the election, promised; later, denied. 551 questions: No answers; instead, still more money for leftist lobby NGOs. Debt brake: Prior to the election, promised; by financial coup d’état after the election similarly annulled with the leftist majorities of an old Bundestag – instead, record indebtedness.   

Electricity tax reduction: Prior to the election, promised; later, denied. Bürgergeld reform: Instead of savings, still higher spending scheduled. The autumn of reform becomes the autumn of empty words, and it will lead to a winter of still higher expenditures. Tax relief: Prior to the election, promised; later, rejected. On the contrary, for citizens and business, the burden increases by means of the stepping up of social duties. 

The next CDU collapse is announced with the inheritance tax. In their insatiable greed for tax money, the SPD, Greens and Linke plan a new pillaging of the business Mittelstand and the hard earned and saved private assets of the bürgerliche middle class – and in which the CDU is already half-immersed. 

The result of the refusal of reform and the CDU’s serial collapses is a cobbled together, irresponsible budget without measure or purpose, which solves not a single problem but drives the crisis to the extreme. The consequence: Still greater gaps, still more debts for plugs. It is only a question of time until this crazy carousel throws you off. 

Instead of eliminating superfluous spending, you drive this still further to the heights: For the fiction of climate protection and the failed energy transition, you simply continue to manage the Green energy policy. For the watering of leftist non-governmental organizations, for absurd development aid projects, subventions, migration costs, for overdone payments to the EU, to international organizations and to all the world, you simply carry on aboard the green ship of fools. 

The producing industry you will thereby just so more reliably drive out of the country. Here helps also no auto or steel summit in the Chancellor’s Office. The big manufacturers still profit from the subventions and workplaces, and later they close the rear door on Deutschland. 

Before the approaching disaster and your plunging confidence values amongst the citizens, you flee into the pose of world politician and lord of war who moves about ghost armies in sandboxes and gives away to countries billions which he certainly does not have. 

With the French President Macron, who is stuck still deeper in a state indebtedness swamp, and the British premier Starmer, he whose own people no longer want, you have found the right soul mates. Your coalition of the willing is a coalition of the losers who, with backs to the wall, play with fire at a powder keg. You sabotage the strivings of U.S. President Donald Trump to quickly end the Ukraine war. – That you laugh is fully clear. 

You encourage the Ukrainian ruler Zelenskyi to oppose a painful yet rapid stop to the hundreds of thousands of deaths. And you conjure up the bogeyman of an immediately imminent Russian attack so as to have a pretense for your debt and spending orgies. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Not a critical word for Putin! Not a word on that!                                           Moscow’s voice!

With this warmongering, you risk the escalation of the Ukraine war to a uncontrollable world war which could annihilate our country. 

            Knut Abraham (CDU/CSU): Embarrassing!

Your Defense Minister, Herr Pistorius of the SPD, 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): A good man!

especially distinguishes himself ingloriously in this roll of the dice. Instead of again making the Bundeswehr mission-capable, there is the War Minister and he links the debate on conscription with the enemy image of Russia. Herr Pistorius, the conscription is there alone to guarantee the army’s capability for national defense, without which a state will not be taken seriously in  foreign policy. It is never to be allowed to happen that our young men and sons, over a thoughtless quarrel, die in a war in the Ukraine. [Es darf niemals geschehen, dass unsere jungen Männer und Söhne in einem leichtfertig vom Zaun gebrochenen Krieg in der Ukraine sterben]. Never! 

            Knut Abraham (CDU/CSU): Malign!

Leave this wrong way! Our country needs to concentrate its remaining economic and financial powers to again get back on its feet. A prerequisite for that is a solid and realistic draft budget. Our alternative budget shows in around 1,000 motions that this is possible and can be seriously counter-financed. 

We propose essential savings in regards climate transformation funds, Bürgergeld, development aid, EU payments, weapons deliveries, and various unnecessary state expenditures. And it would have been your duty to order a halt to the squandering of tax money, and to sustainably and effectively relieve the working people and German business. 

We as AfD are ready to come to grips where the Union and SPD are obviously neither willing nor in the position.           

            Knut Abraham (CDU/CSU): Um Gottes willen!

I am grateful. 

 

[trans: tem]

Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Alexander Gauland, June 6, 2025, A Tragedy in Israel

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/11, pp. 911-912. 

Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

Helmut Schmidt, a German statesman whose stature is recalled with a certain nostalgia, 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): He unfortunately can no longer defend himself against you!

designated one decision as the most difficult of his political life. On September 5, 1977, RAF terrorists kidnapped the employers’ president Hanns Martin Schleyer and demanded of the Federal government the release of eleven imprisoned terrorists, otherwise Schleyer would need to die. Helmut Schmidt decided not to give in to the demands. He thus remained following the hijacking of the Landshut by Palestinian terrorists. The hostages on the Landshut could be freed, Hanns Martin Schleyer not. 

Helmut Schmidt acted as an actor in a tragedy. He knew whatever he did, he would be guilty. Yet his message was clear: One does not negotiate with terrorists. Terrorists are to be fought – with all means, ladies and gentlemen. 

Already by that time, German leftist extremists and Palestinian terrorists got along quite well. Their common enemy was and is the Western system. For them, Israel is a colonial state which should disappear from the map. In the DDR media, Israel seldom emerged without the epithet of “aggressor”. That as it happens the Linke now bring in this motion is suggestive of crocodile tears. Never could one with a better conscience be an anti-semite than presently. Never better understood are Islamist and leftist radicals than today [Nie konnte man mit besserem Gewissen Antisemit sein als derzeit. Nie verstanden sich islamische und linke Radikale besser als heute]. 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): That says as it happens an AfD representative!

I want in no way to thereby say that all who criticize Israel’s proceedings in Gaza are anti-semites – um Gottes willen! I want only to thus say that there was never better times for the enemies of Jews to condemn Israel. 

In the German Bundestag, no formulation has been more frequently used than that of the German responsibility vis-à-vis the Jews and the Jewish state, which follows from the fact that in the name of Germany was attempted to make extinct the Jewish people. 

The National Socialists came horrifyingly far with that project.

           Ralf Stegner (SPD): “Vogelschiss”, what you then declared!

Today there are organizations in the Arab world which want to make extinct the Jewish state, thus continue Hitler’s work. At the head is the Hamas. Of their views, their members make no secret. They even publish the pictures of their acts of murder. The Hamas abuses civilians as defense shields. The Hamas takes the Palestinian people as a hostage. The Hamas has only one goal: The annihilation of Israel. 

Israel is a state under siege. May I therein remind you that in Israel live two million Arab Israelis, approximately 20 percent of the total population? Gaza was, however, free of Jews, and from Gaza have attacked those who would gladly have all Israel free of Jews. 

I can only here repeat what I in this place have often already said: It does not in my opinion pertain to us as Germans to condemn Israel when it defends itself against an aggressor who murders Jews and dreams of the extinction of the Jewish state. 

Germany in the years 2023 and 2024 alone transferred almost one billion euros to the Palestinians, as was produced by an inquiry of the FDP to the Federal government. From the EU in any case flows millions. From 2014 to 2020, UN organizations expended almost 4.5 billion dollars in the Gaza strip. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the aid supplied to the Palestinians between 1994 and 2020 was over 40 billion dollars. 

Gaza would have been able to become a blooming landscape. Instead of building schools and factories or founding businesses, the Hamas dug tunnels and built rockets – and on October 7, 2023, attacked Israel, massacred far over 1,000 civilians in bestial ways and put the pictures on  the internet. No one can persuade me that the Hamas has not justified a massive retaliation. I would quite well know how those who condemn Israel here in the hall, and primarily outside, would react had that been done to their children and family members. 

And I would also quite well know, ladies and gentlemen, how Israel should defend itself, without that also striking the innocent and civilians, those who were also struck by the bombing attacks of the Allies on Hamburg, Dresden, Cologne or Chemnitz. And yet we speak today rightly – and especially on the anniversary of the landing in Normandy – of liberation, and of that especially loudly by those who have brought in this motion. Henryk Broder has rightly put the question of the proportionality in such a war. 

There are in the Linke’s motion also naturally reasonable passages,

            Daniel Baldy (SPD): As opposed to your speech!

primarily in regards to the humanitarian assistance. Humanitarian assistance we of course support. Yet Israel cannot permit a two-state solution with the participation of the Hamas. Strictly speaking, Israel can no longer permit the existence of the Hamas [Israel kann streng genommen die Existenz der Hamas nicht länger zulassen]. That is the lesson from the history of the Gaza strip free of Jews. How long would it last until out of the Palestinian state rockets were again fired at Israel? 

Ladies and gentlemen, we in the West have forgotten in 80 years of peace what a tragedy is. We meanwhile designate every accident a tragedy. Yet the essence of tragedy lies in that the man who acts will be guilty. The conflict in a tragedy is insoluble. In Israel, a tragedy occurred. We should thank God that we are merely on-lookers, and need not redeem our lightly made promise that Israel’s security is part of our reason of state. Yet at least we should refrain from cheap condemnations in this situation. 

I am grateful.

  

[trans: tem]

Monday, July 7, 2025

Alice Weidel, June 24, 2025, Germany, the U.S.A. and Peace

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/12, pp. 986-988. 

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

Even following the ceasefire called for by U.S. President Donald Trump, the danger of an escalation of the Israeli-Iranian conflict into a wildfire is still not banished. In this situation, it is important to use all existing channels at one’s disposal so as to actually take leave from the dynamic of military escalation. A foundation for that is a realistic estimate of the situation. Israel’s right to exist thereby stands beyond any discussion. Israel has the legitimate right to a maintenance and guaranty of its security. An Iranian atomic bomb would not only be an existential threat to the State of Israel but also for stability and peace in the Near and Middle East and in the entire world. 

Iran, like every other country in the world, has the right to peaceful and exclusively civil use of nuclear power. It needs to not only acknowledge a renunciation of the development and manufacture of nuclear weapons, but also to open all facilities and establishments of nuclear development and research for independent international control. With the removal of Iranian nuclear capacity and rocket launch facilities by Israel and the U.S.A. lapses a central reason for the further pursuit of an exchange of military strikes. This opens the opportunity for a diplomatic solution which takes into account Israel’s security interests. The U.S. American Vice-president J. D. Vance has expressed himself in this sense and thereby indicated the way which now needs be taken. That will not be possible without the participation of world nuclear powers allied with Iran, especially Russia. The Israeli-Iranian war forcefully demonstrates how severely [bitter] necessary an American-Russian understanding for peace and security would be in this world.   

The EU states and Germany have needed to painfully experience that in this discussion also they  play no role. For mindless action for action’s sake, and embarrassing false estimates, the German Foreign Minister Wadephul, his European Office Minister and the overwhelmed EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner are thoroughly to blame. A European Union which is primarily occupied with itself can play no serious role in the world. Who harms himself with a ban on combustion engines and a climate planned economy, squanders his resources in the manipulation and restriction of citizens’ rights, and is grimly fixated on the prolongation of war in the Ukraine, takes himself out of the game. 

Still a word to you, Herr Chancellor: Unserious tough talk over supposed “dirty work” damages Germany’s image, primarily in international matters. I could not believe it as I heard it. 

Germany and the European nations need to find a way back to a realistic estimate of their own possibilities and limits so that they can credibly enter on the way of mediation; since it is most urgently in the German and European interest to quickly end the warfare in the Near East. It threatens commercial movement and supply of raw materials, and contains the danger of new migration flows which destabilize the European continent and especially Germany. 

Where we ourselves can act, we need to take the matter in hand. It is of concern to us to prevent, with robust border protection, a new wave of immigration of Islamists and those posing a danger into our country. It is within our power to put a stop to the import of conflicts and civil wars from other regions, in which we consistently deport foreign instigators and rigorously punish anti-semitic excesses. Therein ultimately depends the continuation of Germany as a democratic and freely constituted Republic of Germans. This existence right of Germany should be in the hearts of us all at least even so as the uncontested and legitimate existence right of Israel. 

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers have already fallen in the Ukraine in this American-Russian proxy war. To quickly end it is in any case in the German and European interest. The key to peace lies in Moscow and Washington. That a new American leadership is ready in that regard signifies a grand opportunity. 

It is frankly absurd when, Herr Merz, in a grotesque self-overestimate, you believe you needed to take responsibility to continue the proxy war in which even the U.S.A. has for long lost interest. While you with martial rhetoric dig the graves ever deeper, the U.S. President long since sounds out the possibilities of future economic cooperation in Russia. 

You instead are enthusiastic that for the 17 EU sanctions packages against Russia an 18th is to follow which will again harm the German economy. President Trump besides rejects new Russia sanctions because the U.S.A. would thereby – I cite – lose “billions of dollars”. The American President is right! 

            Markus Frohnmaier (AfD): German interests!

And on the other hand, your Foreign Minister as it happens says – I cite – “Of German claims there need be now no consideration taken”. This disdain for the interests of our country frankly appears to be the leitmotiv of your government. 

You are silent when the EU Commission plans, to Germany’s disadvantage, to completely forbid gas deliveries from Russia, and to thereby drive the energy prices still further to the heights, and you even signal agreement when the EU by law permanently prevents any restart of Nord Stream 

            Hendrik Hoppenstadt (CDU/CSU): Who turned it off?

and in this way wants to retroactively legitimate the criminal assault on Germany’s infrastructure. It would actually be a post facto witticism [Treppenwitz] if the exploded Nord Stream gas pipelines were restarted as it happens by a U.S. consortium. Advantageous pipeline natural gas from Russia is indispensable for the supply of Germany with secure and affordable energy. Expensive imports by sea of liquified gas are in the long-term no alternative. 

The foolish remark of your Foreign Minister Wadephul, Russia will ever remain our enemy, is revealing. The overcoming of the fatal hereditary foe thinking by the generation of Konrad Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle was once the foundation for peace and prosperity in Europe. And you regress [Sie fallen dahinter zurück]! Geography does not allow itself to be simply denied! Russia will in the future be our European neighbor. No way, short or long, leads past agreement with Russia and a new security architecture of all actors and their legitimate security interests. 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): Borders of 1937?

Now would be the point in time, Herr Chancellor, for a first step on this way to peace. 

Many hearty thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]