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]

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]

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]

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]