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]

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 18^th 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]

Tino Chrupalla, June 24, 2025, Iran, Germany and Honesty

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/12, pp. 978-980. 

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

Once again we have an additional center of conflict. This now extends in the Middle East. And once again we stand as more or less silent observers on the margin, and nevertheless since Sunday are once again in the midst of the parties to the conflict. 

Our narrow knowledge is often confined to one-sided information. Our own news service sources are, as we in this house have heard, directed to friendly organizations. Even these now appear to need be scrutinized. Thus the U.S. American President let it be known that the information of his services in the case of Iran would not correspond to the truth. At the same time, there were reports that the attacked Iran would be apprised of the plans of the U.S.A. 

All of this makes an objective categorization for us all today endlessly difficult. That was clear yesterday morning in the briefing by the chief of the Chancellor’s Office, Herr Frei. In so brief a time frame of events, just a little conclusive information is presented. For the open and informative atmosphere, I want in this place to thank the Chancellor’s Office. 

Yet clearly remains one thing: The possibility especially of a danger of atomic war needs to be excluded. Should the one-time attack by the U.S. Americans have been successful, and potential sources of damage for the security in the Near and Middle East eliminated, this could help prevent the resulting retaliation by Iran of a widespread fire. One reason for additional attacks would thus no longer be present. One question which arises from the past days is of course whether or not any country which has at its disposal such potential abilities should voluntarily submit to international controls. 

In the end, one again comes very quickly to the truly most important categories of politics: Trust and credibility. Besides all matters of interest, these need to be on hand so as to be able to conduct honest negotiations between individual persons, yet also states. In that regard, comes the position of mediators who moderate the speaking process. Here, Qatar for long takes an important role in the region, concerning which I myself in conversations could be convinced. So far, the efforts are certainly not estimated highly enough. It is now for the parties to the conflict to maintain the ceasefire. 

There remains, valued colleagues: Each state has the right to exist, and thus the right to defend itself. The relation here also lies in international law. Like no other, this stands before the challenge to assert itself in the present time. Here and today it is the agreed guideline, and is valid for all. 

All of us here are the representatives of the German population, and stand first of all on their side and on the side of our country. We always place ourselves behind states and their peoples. They decide – like us also – sovereign in elections, over governments and relationships. Yet what we as politicians may and need do when good relations to other states are attended to, is to confront them with the consequences of their actions. It is thus logical and correct to ever again refer to the importance of diplomacy as a guarantee for peace, and ever again remind. 

Beyond that, every advice needs be well weighed and decided here in the German Bundestag. Exactly for that reason, we stand even so on the side of Israel as on the side of all other states with which we share common interests. Anti-semitism has just so little place with us as a blanket valuation of other religions. 

Herr Chancellor, terms like “dirty work” are in the situation completely inappropriate and superfluous, even if they are overtaken from others. Therefore is one thing clear: Double morality brings no one together, but builds evident contradictions, divides and alienates. 

In a particular instance, as always, the future will judge the writing of history. In so far as the so-called Twelve Day War had the potential to contribute positively to a contemporary end point of a long line of conflict, I follow the call of the Chancellor to all participants to therein maintain themselves. 

Which contribution the United Nations, especially the Security Council, can make to this needs  to be discussed – which the Chancellor today did not mention. Along this way are required comprehensive talks, multi-faceted respect and mutual recognition. Discussions of overthrows and regime change in this regard completely lack standing. Ladies and gentlemen, should the Iranian people vote for a change of government, it needs be done from their own power. We are not in the position to determine its future. 

And we need ask ourselves, for example, how well-connected and desired by the people is a crown prince who now appears to almost stand in the starting blocks to have himself perhaps placed, generations after his father, at the head of this country? Do we have an understanding of that or, much more, reliable securities? 

And to call upon our experience: Do we have, as part of the world population in the last decades, really good experiences in strongly intervening from outside in a change of power? What were the consequences of those actions? In that regard, think of Iran, of Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria! Have we really pacified the region and made it safer? Or have we thereby generated trust in us and our actions? 

The core or our alternative policy in the German Bundestag is guided by the basic program of my party: No intervention in the internal affairs of other states. No delivery of weapons to war zones. And the central point is in diplomacy. 

These are our guidelines with which we also want to maintain and primarily advance the domestic security and the economic power of Germany. In that regard, the greatest obstacles are well known to us, one of which is and remains Islamism and the terrorism proceeding from it. This is to be fought by consistent measures in the area of information and prevention, just so as with equipment of security officials and border security, with repatriations, yet naturally also with deportations. And he who does not want to identify himself with the values of our Basic Law can have no place in our society. 

That – I emphasize it ever again – does not stand in contradiction to labor migration, to student residency in Germany, or to the cooperation in cultural-scientific areas. All of these people come because they esteem or want to get to know German Kultur and identity. For the Alternative für Deutschland, it’s about returning to their homeland people who are violence-prone, already convicted of violent acts without a basis to remain, or already refused admittance. Precisely that is only legitimate, and it protects everyone who thinks well of Germany. 

It therefore applies in the present situation to ever again put the question: In which interests occur such events? For the whole and named reasons, it is in our own interest that in the Near and Middle East the weapons finally be silent. We can and want to accept no additional waves of refugees. Any further destruction to infrastructure therefore needs to be avoided. The Federal government needs to commit itself to that. 

Alexander Hoffmann (CDU/CSU): Then speak for once with Putin, Herr Chrupalla! How would it be with that?

We all know that here diverge the interests between state and economic thinking. Reconstruction measures create economic opportunities, yet these would again burden the German taxpayer with special funds, special debts; see Ukraine. 

We are again at the point of credibility. Chancellor Friedrich Merz accuses the SPD of a policy of debts and high taxes, and himself speaks of low energy prices and a strong economy, and again today. Of that, not much has remained. Only, where do we stand today? Friedrich Merz is the Union’s debts Chancellor in red clothes. A new indebtedness of, believe it or not, over 846 billion euros up to 2029 the coalition wants to bring through the Bundestag. The goal should be economic growth. 

Let us take for example 100 billion euros for a comprehensive climate and transformation fund. There is ever still a theme of green hydrogen. Planned was the manufacture of green steel. Only, for whom do we still require these expensive forms of energy production? Besides, we of the AfD have ever again indicated these are fantasies. The German steel industry lies prostrate. When once the furnaces are extinguished, there is no more steel from German production. Therefore, finally take leave of these fantasies! 

And the 5 percent goal of NATO has been agreed, and it is desired to fulfill it. Ladies and gentlemen, one cannot vote for it. We need first for once to know for what the present investments will be used, and against whom do we arm ourselves? On the whole, to where does NATO steer? 

Herr Pistorius may recruit 10,000 additional soldiers. Are then within the Bundeswehr administrative and procurement channels cut back? Do we have sufficient functioning materiel? And before all: Have we sufficient qualified personnel to guarantee the defense of the country? We should all therefore hope that the alliance clause does not enter in. 

Much more important is and presently remains the Strait of Hormuz. It is in our unconditional German interest this commercial passage be kept free without restrictions, especially for raw materials. The oil price has meanwhile already reacted; the previously known highest prices for benzine and diesel are nothing in comparison to what the consumer can then expect. 

On the whole, the large countries of Europe need to come to an understanding of their role. We know nothing of the plans of the U.S.A. We were not drawn in, yet will be continually needed, primarily when the reckoning comes. Europe needs to be perceived as an active negotiations partner and finally clearly articulate its interests. 

Valued colleagues, all wars have one thing in common: They have losers on all sides and need to be avoided. We all for decades live in peace. Let us leave it as is. Let us not become weary of peace, Herr Pistorius, but much more fit for peace. 

Many hearty thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Rüdiger Lucassen, May 14, 2025, Defense Policy

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/3, p. 132. 

Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

Besides broken election promises and announcements, nothing is put forward to us from black-red one week after the assumption of government. It may be objected: New governments need time – in that regard, two things: First. Germany does not have this time; every citizen of this country feels that. Second. Half of the Merz government is not at all new. The SPD election losers are stuck – with a small intermission – for 27 years in the Federal government. How long do you still require to show results? 50 years? No, right honorable colleagues, there is no no-hunting season in politics. We’ve heard enough excuses. The AfD grants the new government no training period. 

Chancellor Merz was just in Kiev and has made photographs with his new colleagues, promised further weapons deliveries, and demanded an armistice which was just like before rejected. For me, it made the impression as if this rebuff from Moscow had been intended so to continue the old Ampel course. Otherwise, so much foreign policy naïveté cannot be explained. The Kiev trip was thus only a PR ploy, nothing other. There were no new ideas, no acknowledgment of Realpolitik facts, and no readiness to reconsider the broken down wrong way of the previous government. You simulate strength where none is. That will not work. For the German defense policy, the new government’s prognostics are in any case at a standstill. All announcements, your coalition contract and the old Defense Minister’s justifying the acceptance, that will be no rupture. You say that quite openly and call it continuity. Only, this continuity has led the German defense policy, just so as our entire country, into the dead end. Your continuity means not only a standstill, but loss of substance. 

What Germany needs is plainly no further so, but a new approach which the Merz government cannot deliver, because it lacks the prerequisite for that, the will, free and sovereign, to take in  hand Germany’s future. For that is required the exact opposite of continuity. It requires courage, a smart  readiness to take risk, and an affirmation that Germany stands for itself [ein Bekenntnis zu Deutschland, das für sich selbst steht]. My party has entered the 21^st Bundestag with exactly this claim. Our next goal is clear: We want and will overtake the government in 2029, and put the German defense policy, without restriction, in the service of our country. 

For the AfD, our armed forces, the Bundeswehr is an expression and means of a sovereign national state. Our demand is that the Bundeswehr be in the position to defend Germany on the water, on the ground and in the air. The question is thus: Which prerequisite do we require for that? 

            Sara Nanni (Greens): Cyberspace!

The answer of the old Defense Minister, we know – we’ve plainly heard it: More money. The result: An armed forces not capable of national defense. Our answer is a clear acknowledgment of Germany as a nation, a clear acknowledgment of the national state as the highest regulating framework, and a clear acknowledgment of the state as a servant of the nation. 

I have in the past eight years many times said: There is not only a materiel and personnel mission  readiness, but also one of ideas [ideelle]. Without an ideational mission readiness, even a fully equipped armed forces can never undergo a mission and a fight. Two examples: The Afghan national army was for 20 years armed and trained by NATO, and surrendered to a guerilla force in sandals in a few hours. The Ukrainian army fights for three years an opponent superior in materiel and personnel and holds out. With amazement, the CDU and SPD then stand before the Ukrainians’ will to fight, without asking themselves from where comes this will to fight. It is the soldiers’ undiminished relation [Bezug] with the country and people. 

Ladies and gentlemen, such a positive relation to one’s own nation is restrained by the self-named democratic middle, not only for our soldiers but also for our countrymen. You also restrain it for yourselves. At the same time, this positive relation is the clear acknowledgment of our grand country, which is what we require to again set Germany aright in defense policy, but also in all other policy fields. Precisely that, we of the AfD want to achieve and will at the latest by 2029 implement. 

Ladies and gentlemen, Boris Pistorius is representative of the new Federal government. He can ever only say what he wants to fight against: Against the Russians, against hate and agitation, against the AfD. Yet the AfD knows what is worth fighting for. Our soldiers know it also, their oath demands to bravely defend the German people. That is what is worth fighting for. 

Thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

René Aust, April 1, 2025, War Itself is the Enemy

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2025)04-01(2-0092-0000). 

Frau President. 

We mourn the victims of the war, and we condemn the aggressive war contrary to international law, just so as the war crimes associated with it. Our view is not allowed to stay with today. We require a long-term peace strategy beyond the Ukraine War. In recent weeks was ever more talk of a major war in four, five years against Russia – a nightmare since in the age of nuclear weapons, war itself is the enemy. Thus is now required a plan for a long-term, future order of peace in Europe. 

First: Many states have reported to NATO on apparent armies – on the paper, but not mission-ready. These states need to make mission-ready their troops reported up to 2020, but not to arm beyond that, if Russia in turn is ready to return to its troop strength after the Ukraine War in any case to the level of 2020. We thus prevent an armaments spiral.   

Second: Europe needs to make unmistakably clear: Not a millimeter of an EU member state may be placed in question. For that, a de-militarized zone in the Russian state territory is required, especially for the defense of the Baltic states; and a clear announcement to Russia: We do not allow ourselves to be put under pressure, and not by nuclear threats in the Russian state television. 

Third: Russia is stuck in a war economy. The entry into one such is easy, the exit difficult. Europe, in return for a de-militarized zone, needs to indicate an economic perspective: End the sanctions, and resume import-export relations, not as a gift, but as an incentive to rise up out of the rearmament, so to to give Russia a chance to get out of the war economy and not be long-term reliant on armaments, so to prevent the economic collapse. 

One thousand hours of negotiating for nothing are better than one, single minute of shooting at one another. We have the obligation to seize every diplomatic initiative so as to secure long-term peace in Europe. 

 

[trans: tem]

Anja Arndt, April 1, 2025, Christians in the Congo

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2025)04-01(2-0571-0000). 

Frau President. 

On February 12^th occurred in the Congo a horrific massacre: Seventy Christians – men, women and children – were kidnapped by the Islamist ADF militia and in barbaric ways and means murdered with machetes and hammers. This Islamist brutality is no single instance. I thank the Commission that it makes this terror a theme here, and finally commits itself to the religious freedom and security of Christians. 

In the Congo, 95 percent of the population are Christians; in Europe, it is 72 percent. Despite this overwhelming majority, they are selectively eradicated. And with us, Islamist murders as in Aschaffenburg, Mannheim und Solingen are a gruesome reality. My compassion is for all victims and relatives among us, in the Congo and in the entire world. 

The EU needs to come to terms with this violence. It needs to be the advocate of the Christians – with more secure borders, a clearer rigor against Islamists and an authentic protection. Germany needs the AfD, and Europe needs the Europe of Sovereign Nations. 

 

[trans: tem]

Hans Neuhoff, April 1, 2025, EU Foreign and Security Policy

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2025)04-01(2-0186-0000). 

Frau President. 

The Union’s foreign and security policy is a jumble of distorted perception and moralistic extravagance. Islamism in the reporting of the European Peoples Party is not worth a syllable. In Germany, Christmas markets, carnival rides, train stations need to be defended against Islamist perpetrators of violence, not from Russian infantrymen. What does the EU do? You finance a Taliban emirate in Syria. 

Russia is not the enemy of Europe. Russia is a defensive empire which sees itself existentially threatened by the expansion of NATO into the Donbass and the south Caucasus. Who does not understand that and arms for a holy war against Russia, he leads us into ruin. 

Ceterum censeo, the Europe of Sovereign Nations delegation rejects Ukraine’s membership in NATO and in the EU. The future of the Ukraine can alone consist in its return to neutrality. 

 

[trans: tem]

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 to 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]

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]

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]

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]

Alice Weidel, December 16, 2024, Economy, Immigration, War

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/205, pp. 26517-26519. 

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

Six full weeks have gone by since your failed government at last fell apart, Herr Scholz. Six weeks of delays, maneuvering, of the petty assignment of guilt as we have heard today, of sweet-talking and of denial of reality, until this Bundestag can finally vote on whether to withdraw from you the confidence which you have already long since lost amongst the people. 

Just for three years was your government in office. The damage which you in this time have inflicted, the Germans have to bear for decades: The automobile industry, thanks to gigantic false investments, in free fall, the machinery industry in decline, the chemical industry in flight from exploding energy costs, the electricity supply ruined, much too expensive, and from dark doldrum to dark doldrum on the edge of blackout, 

            Saskia Esken (SPD): Oah!

the country flooded by migrants summoned to appear, who despise those encountered, the domestic security in collapse, the social system over-strained, while the tax burden and inflation rob the citizens of purchasing power and prosperity and smothers them. 

Yet when the German citizens remonstrate, they are stalked by the internet spies and reporting offices of a tax-funded NGO Stasi. And a political class, as panicked as over-sensitive, abuses the justice system so as to silence rebellious citizens following one of its own lèse-majesté articles with criminal sentences, money fines and house searches. 

That is your work, even if the Union in 16 years of Merkel achieved a powerful preparation. The time presses. The clearing away after two decades of the governments’ damage to Germany cannot wait. Six weeks are already wasted thanks to your delaying tactics, Herr Scholz. You ought to have immediately put the confidence question. 

And a further two months pass in the country until the notified date of the advanced Bundestag election. Yet the crisis does not wait: Neither the economic, financial and energy crisis in our own country, nor the escalating war danger in the Ukraine and the consequences of upheaval in the Near and Middle East. 

The change of power in Syria – of which nothing was spoken today – has from the German viewpoint two consequences: 

First, Syrian war refugees, who asserted to be fleeing from the Assad regime, who now celebrate on German streets in the tens of thousands the liberation of Syria, and march under Islamist war songs through Christmas markets and through our pedestrian zones, need to immediately return to the homeland. 

Second, needs be prevented that new streams of refugees, still in the shadow of the asylum storm of 2015, again bring into the country unrecognized, battle-ready soldiers, Islamists and djihadis. Required is an immediate stop of the reception, the naturalization and family re-unification of Syrians, and the preparation of return options. You however – you do this – belabor return options. Frau Faeser lets naturalization continue, and Frau Baerbock simply continues the visa issuance for the reunion of families. 

The election of Donald Trump as President of the U.S.A. opened a realistic opportunity of endng the death of hundreds of thousands in the Ukraine by means of a diplomatic settlement. What do you do? Instead of seeking the line to Washington and Moscow, where the key to peace lies, you and the wannabe Chancellor Merz make a pilgrimage to Kiev, and toss still more good money after that already burned. You play with the escalation danger. Frau Baerbock fantasizes of a mission of German troops in the Ukraine, while Herr Merz wants to risk a Third World War with the delivery of Taurus cruise missiles. It is nothing other. So as to for once perhaps explain it to you of the Union, because you somehow do not understand: German rockets in the Ukraine which can reach Moscow, including the dispatch of German soldiers for the servicing, makes Germany a direct war party and a target of threatening atomic war. The historic experience of the 20^th Century should be warning enough to never again draw Germany and Europe into a war. That is our historic responsibility. 

            Gunther Krichbaum (CDU/CSU): Written down from Moscow!

Who chooses the fate of Germany in the hands of Friedrich Merz, he chooses war, right honorable ladies and gentlemen. And he chooses not only war, but he also chooses Robert Habeck – we heard it today – he receives a further so, the continuation of the Green politics of patronization, of de-industrialization, of impoverishment, of economic incompetence and the politically desired energy emergency. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Green): Yet you want out of the EU!

The worst wrong decisions of the last year – combustion engine ban, atomic withdrawal, heating Diktat, open borders – this Bundestag would have been able to immediately taken back. The majorities for that would have been possible after the end of the coalition. That also would have been a very strong signal of hope for the citizens, for the economy and the Mittelstand. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Green): You should not speak on the economy!

You, Herr Merz and the Union, have prevented that. With the rubble of the the failed Ampel, you have formed an undemocratic scheming circle so as to interdict this parliament and to prevent that initiatives for a correction of the red-green chaos politics can be undertaken. The CDU has thus, in the worst and most serious crisis of this country, paralyzed this parliament – so much for your understanding of democracy and your problem-solving competence. The leftist dogma of the firewall, the exclusion of millions of voters, is more important to you than Germany’s welfare. If it is up to you, the citizens have no choice: When they vote for the CDU, they again receive a Green government. And you will be able to implement nothing of what you here today have demanded. That belongs to the truth! 

            Friedrich Merz (CSU/CSU): Just you wait!

You can even imagine that Economy Destruction Minister Robert Habeck becomes Economy Minister. Thus the man who with chicanery, manipulation and obviously false statements forced through the final nuclear power withdrawal, who destroys the German energy supply, who ruins the Mittelstand and drives the industry out of the country. The man who with his incompetence ruins this country. 

A black-green coalition of war-obsessed and leftist destroyers of Germany is the last thing that Germany needs. Germany needs a new beginning: Freedom and a free entrepreneurship, 

            Britta Haßelmann (Green): Don’t you mouth that!

instead of climate socialism, an advantageous and secure energy supply instead of a transformation planned economy. And before all, we need reason instead of ideology, 

            Britta Haßelmann (Green): Thus says the righteous!

and a politics in the German interest instead of war-mongering. And this new beginning will only be with the AfD. 

I am grateful. 

 

[trans: tem]

Tino Chrupalla, December 16, 2024, Confidence in Government

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/205, pp. 26525-26526. 

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

Following the elections for the 20^th German Bundestag, was very quickly clear that a government of SPD, FDP, Bundnis 90/Greens will yield no policy in the interest of Germany, and we were more than confirmed in that. 

In regards the decision of conscience of the now to follow vote on the Chancellor’s confidence question, numerous origins of the Ampel government’s failure need to be considered. 

Herr Chancellor, to express confidence in you would be counter to the interests of the economy and the citizens. This coalition wanted to combine programs which are simply incompatible. Thus were entirely obvious compromises in statutory form carried through which only served the Ampel’s stability. In that regard, the future of German industry was never at the central point. As a result are over 20,000 business insolvencies in the year 2024. Germany declines economically, and international investors, due to the enormous tax burden, still come only when robust state promotion means are promised. 

Along with the one-sided and aggressive climate policy, there remains from this Ampel only a state becoming ever larger, more interventionist and more restrictive of innovation, which devours the citizens’ taxes. Consent for restrictions was expensively purchased with promises and gifts of money, as the heating law only too well demonstrated. 

In that regard, the Free Democrats have committed the truly greatest betrayal of their voters. Who, for a securing of power, so far distances himself from his program, needs also show no tenacity in regards resignation. That is not only too late, Herr Lindner, but simply unbelievable, just as you are as a person. That, Herr Mützenich has today wonderfully summarized. 

Yet now we also need be so honest and say that politics is a long-term business. Every Federal government knowingly takes up the inheritance of its preceding or penultimate government. Accordingly, it’s simply just ridiculous when the CDU/CSU again shows no humility and not once develops its own ideas. You copy AfD demands: Solve the migration question by border controls and deportations, re-name Bürgergeld in a new basic security, abolish the supply chain due diligence law, reduce the business taxes. Herr Merz, the question is: With whom do you want to actually implement all that? With whom do you want to actually do all that? 

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): With you, certainly not. Certainly not with you! 

That, you did not say today in your unsympathetic speech, Herr Merz.

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): With you not! 

So as to make our country competitive again, of course need be developed the infrastructures which were neglected for decades: Structural, personal, and of course also financial. In that regard, it’s also about efficiency. Finally look at what you expended for particular posts. For years already, I call [anmahne] for an audit and it would have been your duty as Finance Minister, Herr Lindner, to finally realize that. We of course may no longer fleece those who create value in Germany. And we need not do it if the Federal government finally had come or would come to decisions with a future. 

A successful state provides an infrastructure – streets, railways, schools, hospitals, etc. – in which firms gladly settle and create workplaces and also can expand. If however these firms are alienated by ever more bureaucratic demands and expensive energy, they will go to another country, as we, ja, presently see. 

Herr Chancellor, I nevertheless hold one thing of yours to be good: Your Nein to a delivery of Taurus cruise missiles. For the war-lovers of the FDP, the CDU, the Greens, you were hesitant; for me in this case prudent. It is really not to be imagined if a Friedrich Merz had decided in your place. 

            Hermann Gröhe (CDU/CSU): Radio Moscow!

We would have been drawn much deeper into war. For there is, ja, peace in every cemetery. There we can, with a CDU/CSU-led government under Friedrich Merz, then visit our children. 

            Alexander Dobrindt (CDU/CSU): That is unbelievable!

Right honorable ladies and gentlemen, we finally need a politics in German and European interest. And that is only with a Chancellor candidate Alice Weidel and with the Alternative für Deutschland. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Petr Bystron, November 26, 2024, Ukraine War

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2024)11-26(2-0018-0000.) 

Frau President. 

More weapons to the Ukraine – you do it for whom, actually? The colleague has just said it: The majority of Ukrainians want negotiations, want finally peace – and for that they will even renounce territory. This is now a current poll from the Ukraine. Ten million Ukrainians have voted with the feet. They have already left the country. Among which are 500,000 men of military service age, who do not want to die most miserably. An additional 500,000 certainly could no longer vote, since they are dead. Is that not enough for you? 

Even Zelenskyi now says he wants negotiations and a diplomatic solution. That is precisely what we demand for two years. All of you have insulted for two long years those who demanded this as Moscow’s agents, as Putin’s agents. So, is now Zelenskyi Putin’s agent? Of course not. He has only noted that the war is over. Trump has won the elections. There is an end to further weapons deliveries. You here want in all seriousness to further escalate and draw us all into a third world war – just before the war’s end? 

Here actually the question needs be asked: Whose interests do you at all represent? Not those of the Ukrainian people. Here, you only represent the weapons lobby, NATO and the secret services, since they conduct the war against Russia. Who now feel themselves already in a war against Russia legitimated by no one. No parliament at any time has voted for that. The people in the Ukraine do not want the war. Most Europeans do not want the war. So stop drawing us into the war. It is over. 

 

[trans: tem]

René Aust, November 14, 2024, European Defense

EU Parliament, Brussels, P10 CRE-PROV(2024)11-14(2-0018-0000). 

Frau President. 

In the past decades, the European Union has neglected to coordinate the member states’ security policy so that a maximum standard is guaranteed for our citizens. Whether it be the defense of the air space, the ending of mass migration or the protection of our raw material or commercial routes on the world seas, we are generally dependent on the structures of the United States of America. In none of these areas are we currently in the position to independently defend our security interests. 

Yet the EU itself is guilty of this dependence. It invests much money in ideological projects – from gender questions to climate protection – it worries about all possible things, but does not correctly worry about what is important. It is therefore necessary to dismantle [zurückzubauen] the European Union: Fewer competences, fewer duties, fewer expenditures. The European level should concentrate on fewer, yet decisive, duties for all; one of which would be a coordinated defense and security policy at the European level; for example, fewer weapons systems instead of 150 in the European Union today, few of which are comprehensively compatible for the armies. 

Yet it needs be clear: More security policy cooperation does not mean the creation of a common European army. It would be a nightmare if the EU bureaucrats and Frau von der Leyen were allowed to decide on the mission of German, French, Polish and other European soldiers. The further distant from the citizens are the decisions over war and  peace, the greater is the danger that decision makers thoughtlessly undertake a war – and nothing is further from normal life, from we citizens, than Ursula von der Leyen. To summarize: We say yes to more cooperation in defense and security questions, but a clear Nein to any phantasms of a European army. 

 

[trans: tem]

Joachim Wundrak, September 27, 2024, Bundeswehr, Iraq and the U.S.A.

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/189, pp. 24644-24645. 

Frau President. Frau Defense Commissioner. Herr Minister. Ladies and gentlemen.   

Again the Federal government puts forward a motion for the prolongation of a mandate which presents an inadmissible mingling of the U.S.-led operation Inherent Resolve for the combatting the “Islamic State” on one side and the NATO Iraq mission for advising and training the Iraqi armed forces on the other. As in previous years, we reject the presented draft mandate. 

First, since 2019 the IS has been militarily defeated. The further and long-term containment [Eindämmung] of IS is the duty of the sovereign states of Syria and Iraq. The continuing presence of foreign armed forces in Syria, without the agreement of Syria and without a UN mandate, merely on the basis of an explanation of the right to self-defense according to Article 51 of the UN Charter, is to be increasingly evaluated as counter to international law. This applies in especial measure to the presence of NATO partners U.S.A. and Turkey, as also the German Bundestag’s experts indicate. 

The Federal government has shown itself to be thoroughly aware of this problematic and thus two years ago withdrew from the mandate the mission of German aircraft in Syrian airspace. Yet support of violations of Syrian airspace by the allies with German contributions of air refueling and radar surveillance is also in our view illegal. 

The U.S.A. continues to maintain around two dozen support points with nearly 1,000 soldiers in Syria, against the will of the government in Damascus and for the withholding of the output of Syria’s rich oil fields. 

And the Iraqi government – we have just heard it – has since 2020 raised an objection to the presence of 2,500 American soldiers in its country. The Iraqi Defense Minister Thabat Al-Abbas has now publicly announced that the Iraqi and U.S. governments have agreed to a step-wise withdrawal of U.S. troops and their allies. The withdrawal of the soldiers of the U.S.-led counter Daesh coalition shall follow in two stages. The coalition wants to give up by September 2025 its support points in Bagdad and other parts of Iraq. By September 2026, the coalition shall also leave the autonomous Kurdish area in northern Iraq. This plan is still not confirmed by the U.S. government, yet nevertheless indicates the direction of the foreseeable development. 

What the withdrawal of U.S. armed forces along with allies from Iraq announced by the Iraqi government means for the continued presence of NATO in Iraq presently remains unclear. Nevertheless, the abrupt and chaotic termination of the missions in Afghanistan and Mali should be a warning for Germany and the Bundeswehr. For the signals in the Near and Middle East are stormy. An involvement of NATO and thus also of the Bundeswehr in armed conflict in Iraq is not acceptable. The constitutional core duty of the Bundeswehr is the defense of the country. And Germany is defended neither in the Hindukush nor in Iraq. The NATO mission outside of the alliance area we fundamentally reject. NATO should be consistently directed defensively [Die NATO sollte konsequent defensiv ausgerichtet werden]. 

For the named reasons, we therefore reject the presented motion. 

I thank you for your attention. 

 

[trans: tem]