René Springer, May 15, 2025, Sozialpolitik

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/4, pp. 216-217. 

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

Frau Minister, for a beginning: We wish you all the best and much luck. You will need the luck; since you overtake not only an important ministry, but also a social policy field of rubble. 

Eight million pensioners in Germany are under the level of the basic security. A hairdresser who worked 40 years gets a pension of 700 euros, while a Syrian with two wives and four children receives 5,000 euros for doing nothing. That is absurd, that is wrong. Those who criticize this are not right-wing extremists, they are simply extremely right. 

High energy prices, expensive groceries, and the tax burden drive broad swathes of the population into poverty. The Tafeln report record crowds, the unemployment increases. A country in which a fresh apple and a warm dwelling become luxuries has a failed social policy. He who works in this country will be systematically taken advantage of. The Bürgergeld rises while the real wages sink. The social state becomes an apparatus for punishing the diligent. And then comes Herr Merz tottering around the corner and says to the Germans they need to work more so as to secure the prosperity in this country. 

What is sold to us as skilled labor immigration is much too often an immigration into our social system, into a maintained dependency. 

            Rasha Nasr (SPD): That is a lie!

More than half of the young foreigners in Germany have no occupational certification, and the number of foreign Bürgergeld recipients is exploding. 

            Clara Bünger (Linke): That is mendacious.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is no modern Sozialpolitik. That is a failure of the state. 

            Tanja Machalet (SPD): That is a falsehood, what you are telling!

That, what you of the so-called progressive coalition have left behind, is not progress. That is decay! That is the bitter consequence when leftist-green ideologues are allowed to govern, who think there is a basic right to migration, not depending on training level, not depending on the qualification, and without use for our country. 

Those who are convinced that a well built social state can combine with unlimited immigration, those are beyond help, and they are not to lead this country [denen ist nicht zu helfen, und die haben nicht dieses land zu führen]. 

And then we still have the ideologues to whom equality is more important than justice, and redistribution more important than relief. He who produces in Germany will be punished; who does not produce will be paid. The Bürgergeld stands emblematically for your madness. Those same ideologues dream of saving the world climate and of intentionally expensive energy, heating, dwellings and driving. For many, that means freezing in winter, daily renunciations, rising unemployment, and poverty as a new normality. That is no environmental protection. That is a social-political powder keg! 

151 AfD members have been elected to stop this ideological blind flight of the cartel parties. We now need a clear change of course – away from ideology, into reason; away from global redistribution, into responsibility for one’s own people. It is time for a Sozialpolitk for Germans. 

Precisely for this reason we demand the following measures: 

First. Stop the immigration into the social system. Germany may no longer be a magnet for poverty migration. Foreigners maintained long-term have nothing to lose in the Bürgergeld. The social state must be there for our citizens and not for social tourists. 

Second. Lower taxes for small and middle incomes! Abolition without replacement of the CO₂ duty. An end to green inflation! He who carries the country needs to be relieved – immediately and long-term. More net from gross is no act of grace. It is what the people have earned, those who keep this country running. 

Third. An end to social transfers without conditions into Bürgergeld. We need an activating basic security with clear rules and considerations. We need tough sanctions for those who are exploiting us. 

Fourth. A life’s work deserves respect – you mentioned it – and not alms. Who has worked for decades can in old age plainly not become a social case. And who has worked must in old age always have more than anyone who has plainly not done that. The whole would be able to be financed if the plundering of the pension accounts by non-insurance benefits was stopped. 

Fifth. Let us use the potential we have in our own country. 1.6 million young people have no occupational qualification. We need to give them a perspective with a real occupational training, a targeted qualification. The skilled labor shortage will plainly not be solved by mass immigration, but through training and innovation. 

Frau Minister, if you really want social justice, then end this ideologically driven self-destruction of our social state. Finally protect what millions of Germans and well integrated foreigners have built. If you are not in the position for that, then vacate the field, and leave to us this responsibility. 

            Rasha Nasr (SPD): Certainly not! 

            Tanja Machalet (SPD): Never!

I thank you for the attention. 

 

[trans: tem]

Alice Weidel, May 14, 2025, Democracy, Migration, Extremism

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/3, pp. 89-92. 

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

Weakness and instability are the signals which proceed from your historic false start, Herr Merz. You are the Chancellor of the second ballot, and from this stain you will no more be free. You are weak primarily for one reason: You are a Chancellor of the leftists. 

            Heidi Reichinnek (Linke): We are not to blame for everything! 

            Sören Pellman (Linke): This is an impudence, what you say! That is ridiculous.

Your way to the Chancellor’s office is lined with broken election promises and capitulations before the Linke and Greens. The debt brake, to which you high and holy wanted to adhere, you have removed in a financial policy coup d’état, with help of the Greens, with an old Bundestag voted out of office. 

This manner also shows your character, Herr Merz. Up to 1.7 trillion euros in new debt are thereby authorized at one blow. In sum, that is the doubling of the Federal debt – and this in times of recession, of the shrinking economy and the accelerating impoverishment of the citizens. What you thereby serve up, you know quite precisely, since you yourself before the election warned of it. This money will trickle away in all possible channels. The urgently necessary consolidation of the state finances is thereby sacrificed, and the costs for the taxpayer and consumers will drastically rise. In regards another opportunity, you flirt with new taxes and tax increases. And that is an additional broken election promise. Almost 47 billion euros of tax money was devoured in 2024 by the Bürgergeld – you name it basic security – which has long since mutated into migrant money. 47 billion! Almost every second recipient is a foreign citizen. The naturalized foreigners have already fallen out of the statistics. 

            Luigi Pantisano (Linke): What’s with the foreigners from Switzerland?

Around 4 billion euros go to Syrians. That corresponds to the entire budget of the Federal police. Afghans – the nationality with the highest criminality charge in regards violent crimes – received around 1.6 billion euros, as much as foreseen for the social housing construction. It cannot so continue! You however are too weak to change course. 

It continues: The promised abolition of the heating Verbot and the cold expropriation of homeowners by means of the compulsory heat pump is also already again disowned. Exactly like the combustion engine Verbot. You go further with the destruction of the German automobile industry. And you continue Habeck’s heat pump coercion by other means in which you namely make heating with oil and gas even more expensive by the CO₂ air management. 

Instead of ending the planned economy wrong way of the energy change, you even give it a new push, for you, under pressure from the Greens, have even written climate neutrality into the Basic Law. You have additionally cemented the German wrong way drive into impoverishment and de-industrialization. That is dramatic! Heating now becomes more expensive by around 20 percent – the situation this week in the newspapers – tendency rising. The assets of private households in Germany, which in European comparison as well lie in the lower range, according to the Bundesbank’s newest numbers adjusted for inflation since 2021, sank around 20 percent. 20 percent for private households!  The industrial production is in a dive in any case, while the unemployment rises steeply because the production in Germany recedes. It will be stopped. Why? Because the energy prices are too high. 

Without a reliable and affordable energy supply, no economic reconstruction is possible. That goes only by means of a fundamentally different energy policy. End the energy transition. You need to push the re-entry into nuclear power, coal power and the use of advantageous natural gas from Russia! 

            Konstantin von Notz (Greens): Still going to Moscow!

All of that, you do not want. The election promises to correct the nuclear power exit by a responsible CDU Kanzerlin, you in any case have broken. The rest of the world commits to nuclear power. You cling to the Greens’ fetish, hostile to technology. You thus ruin Germany as a business venue. 

Even when you hit upon something correct, half-measures and chaos come forth. The turning back of illegal migrants who enter from secure third states needs be forcefully pursued. It is not discretionary. Border controls and turning back need to ensue without a break and long-term, and not just as momentary pacification measures. Since the illegal immigration into Germany and into the German social system needs to be driven back to zero. 

Turning back at the borders is just a first step, and you even stumble over that. The migration magnets need to be turned off, which lead poverty migrants from all the world over the EU borders to Germany. The Bürgergeld is only one of them. The family reunifications for refugees and asylum seekers, as well as the practices of turbo- and mass-naturalization, need to be immediately completely set aside! Millions of people in illegal ways have come into the country in the last ten years as a consequence of the migration policy rule of injustice which a CDU Kanzerlin set in motion. Hundreds of thousands are immediately obliged to depart, for countless others the residency status needs to be examined and if necessary revoked. To that end, nothing comes from you. 

The migration criminality as a consequence has exploded. The murders, knifings and rapes go on, day by day, week by week. To speak out on these facts is, in the eyes of your subordinated Constitution Defense, allegedly hostile to the constitution. I named named facts, which is urgently necessary so as to finally correct this mis-development. 

The citizens await your plans for sending back and deportation [Abschiebung]. They will well need continue to wait; since your coalition partner, the SPD, does not want to cooperate in any of that. You are stuck in the asylum case, Herr Merz. You yourself have actually built this case because you submitted yourself to the dogma of the anti-democratic firewall which, for the Linke voted out of office here, shall secure a long-term subscription to power. 

And the domestic secret service, the Constitution Defense, which in regards the fulfillment of its actual duties, the defense against Islamic terror and foreign espionage, has miserably failed, arbitrarily and abusively cements this dogma. 

            Konstantin von Notz (Greens): Agent Moscow!

The absurd confidential opinion, which the SPD Interior Minister voted out of office launched shortly before the end of office, is the best evidence for that. Under pressure of the legal situation, the Constitution Defense needed to meanwhile take back its classification. 

            Konstantin von Notz (Greens): Such rubbish! 

            Luigi Pantisano (Linke): That is false!

To you, despite that, it is right to discriminate against our delegation and over 10 million voters, and withhold from us essential parliamentary rights. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): No idea! You would have it gladly!

That the Constitution Defense’s defamations are ludicrous, you know quite precisely. An ethnic term for the people is not counter to the Basic Law; since the Basic Law itself takes it as a basis [Ein ethnischer Volksbegriff ist nicht grundgesetzwidrig; denn das Grundgesetz selbst legt ihn zugrunde]. 

            Saskia Esken (SPD): Then re-read it!

Ah, ja, that was a caesura, because you all have experiences with real extremists. Since an extremist is he who installs and maintains the destructive policy of the open borders. The U.S. foreign minister Marco Rubio certainly needs be recalled: An extremist is he who under the label of Corona preventive measures spreads panic, arbitrarily limits basic rights, and with hate campaigns, with the aid of the public broadcasting, covers, defames and discriminates against those not vaccinated. 

That you laugh, I can imagine.

An extremist is he who destroys the welfare of the citizens and the nation with an eco-socialist transformation. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): You’ve gotten lost with your speech!

An extremist is he who, with majorities voted out of office, manipulates the constitution so to present himself with a debts blank check – at the cost of the taxpayer and of the future generations. 

And now you come in!

            Katharina Dröge (Greens): What was that then?

An extremist is he who with a hammer gang attacks those who think differently, and for that, with the blessing of Bavarian Minister-president Söder, receives a culture prize, paid for by the state, for smashing life and limb [Gelenke und Leben zu zertrümmern]. You should be ashamed! 

An extremist is he who like the Linke wants to overthrow the system, and shoot the rich, or stick in works camps, and, despite that, will be flattered by you with submissive pandering. 

An extremist is

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): Who speaks like you!

he who wants to abolish our free, democratic basic order – you screech the entire time, I know that it hits you – 

Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Yet you know what’s what with the theme! Look at your ranks!

the pluralism, democratic basic principles, bürgerliche freedoms and the freedom of opinion. He is an extremist! 

To maintain this mendacious, leftist, double morality, you plan, under the false label of the fight against hate and agitation, an attack on the freedom of opinion which even exceeds the excesses of the Ampel. You want to intimidate and silence the citizens, thereby to still be able for a while to go on in the old, false paths and sun yourself in the shine of power. 

To the same purpose serves the martial rhetoric with which you spread the war mood so as to divert from the mountains of domestic problems and conflicts. The agitators in your own ranks still bloviate, far from every reality, of Ukraine’s victory over Russia, without saying that would be without having a third world war – and with a third world certainly not. You yourself flash with your advances that the European leadership should dissemble [simulieren sollen], just so in Washington as in Moscow. That is no wonder; since vis-à-vis both powers, you yourself have already shattered very much political porcelain. Of a return to diplomatic reason in the Foreign Office under your government, is also not much to see. If it’s up to you, weapons deliveries to the Ukraine should no longer be spoken of in public. Does that mean you want to deliver Taurus cruise missiles to Kiev, secretly, silently, easily, so as to manage the escalation of the Ukraine war and make Germany a target? 

The citizens have a right to learn what you propose. You however have no answer. Since your government is not a government for citizens, but a government for warmongers and the maintenance of one’s own power. And before all, you have no answer to the question which most moves the citizens: Where remains the political change for the voters, which the people in this country voted for? When finally comes the break with the false, leftist policy which has thrown our country into prosperity annihilation and de-industrialization, into servitude and insecurity? Should there still be anyone in the Union who still has a sense of responsibility for our country 

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

and wants these questions answered, he knows where he may find the alternative majorities. 

I am grateful. 

 

[trans: tem]

Mary Khan, January 22, 2025, Migrant Trafficking

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

Frau President. 

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

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

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

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

 

[trans: tem]

Alice Weidel, February 11, 2025, A Future Government

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

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

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

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

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

            Katharina Dröge (Greens): This self-hypnosis!

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

            Katharina Dröge (Greens): That is just weird!

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

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

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): It would be Hell! 

            Manfred Todtenhausen (FDP): Gott bewahre uns!

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

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

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

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

This Germany would have a from the ground up reformed – 

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

            Katharina Dröge (Greens): That is really malignant!

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

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): What do you want?

You are at best only hecklers. 

Manuel Höferlin (FDP): Thus says the righteous!

You are at best only howlers. 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): Look in the mirror!

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

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

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

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

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

Frau President, this heckling! 

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

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

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

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

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

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): A bit weak today! 

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

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

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

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

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

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

We want direct democracy in Germany. 

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

No, the others have not.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A functioning Germany would have its own, strong currency 

            Ralf Stegner (SPD): The reichsmark!

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

            Saskia Esken (SPD): Then good night! 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            Katharina Dröge (Greens):…buy from Russia!

and buy it where is most advantageous. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

            Irene Mihalic (Greens): To Russia!

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

 

[trans: tem]

Bernd Baumann, January 31, 2025, The Firewall Dead

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

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

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

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

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

            Friedreich Merz (CSU/CSU): Forget it!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Only the AfD can credibly and lastingly redeem Germany. 

 

[trans: tem]

Christian Wirth, January 30, 2025, Migration, Public Safety, CDU

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/210, pp. 27274-27275. 

Frau President. Valued colleagues. 

Ten years of catastrophic security policy in asylum questions, in questions of migration, in questions of the defense of borders, millions of people from countries of alien culture – Africa  and Arabic countries – expulsion of women, Jews, homosexuals from the public spaces, and exploding criminal acts – according to the criminal statistics – by those seeking protection. Suddenly, the voters experience that all the AfD has said, proposed and moved in the six weeks during the election campaign is really not inhumane, not “Nazi”, but thoroughly feasible – ja, if one has the political will, if one has a backbone. 

Why the change of mind? Because the migration policy and the security are for the voters in the election the most important criteria, and because the AfD’s polling numbers are rising. What is done against that besides the usual slander campaigns? I mention just “Correctiv” lies. Exactly, the AfD’s motions are copied. And for self-justification the AfD will be powerfully insulted in the motions. That is a novelty in the German Bundestag: Hate and agitation in resolution motions against the political opponent whose arguments are overtaken. 

Marc Henrichmann (CSU/CSU): Yet you want out of NATO, and out of the EU, and out of the euro!

Questioning one’s own policy of the last ten years? Non-existent. Yesterday, the vote was a test. Reason won, Germany won. 

Tomorrow it’s about the influx limitation law [Zustrombegrenzungsgesetz], a diligent gathering of our demands from two legislative periods. Yet it is already questionable whether the Union-governed States will grant to you, Herr Merz, the vote in favor in the Bundesrat. That is your true test as Chancellor and as party chairman. It may be doubted; since in the States govern the CDU’s diehards; namely, those who were politically socialized under Merkel, those who have internalized the Weiter-so, the “Wir Schaffen das”, the “Jetzt sind die halt da”. Those are for example the Minister-president Wüst in Nordrein-Westfalen and the Minister-president Günther in Schleswig-Holstein. That is also the governing Bürgermeister of Berlin, Kai Wegner. 

In regards deportations, the Union-governed States have poor quotas similar to the other States. And domestic security is primarily a State matter. Wüst and Wegner, CDU regents in Germany’s crime strongholds, stand directly for failure in domestic security. 

            Marc Henrichmann (CSU/CSU): Oh, man! Prejudices, prejudices!

The attacks in Solingen, Magdeburg and Aschaffenburg stand for that. Perpetrators who were umpteen times conspicuous, and despite the security authorities of the Bund and of the Union-governed States, have not gone into the net. The result: An embarrassing shoving-off between Bund and States and between the security authorities over the question of who is responsible. That was a show yesterday in the Interior Committee which cannot be imagined. 

Self-reflection and political responsibility? Non-existent. On that account was the vote yesterday so important. And on that account the vote tomorrow is important. Since the citizen again picks up on one thing: Without the AfD, there is no domestic security, and without the AfD there is no reasonable migration policy. 

Many thanks. Glück auf! 

 

[trans: tem]

Alice Weidel, January 29, 2025, Democracy and Migration

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/209, pp. 27050-27052. 

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

Herr Scholz, you have made an outrageous speech. That is democracy without a people. That is democracy without voters. Whose thinking is so authoritarian should not be Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. Your red-green rump government is a concentrate of all those negative forces which ruin our country. That even exceeds, at the height of the driven migration chaos for which you have to be responsible, the catastrophic effects of the arbitrary loss of control over our borders by the former CDU Chancellor Angela Merkel. This politically-willed loss of control costs human lives and leaves behind wounded, oppressed, traumatized bodies and souls, day by day, week by week, month by month, for ten years now. 

The extremist fanatics of the unrestrained migration are not troubled that the victims of this criminal policy suffer and relatives weep; in Aschaffenburg, in Magdeburg, in Solingen, in Mannheim and in countless other places in west and east, north and south, city and country. 

You arrange tasteless rallies against rightists on the backs of the victims, and Green top functionaries even rejoice there, with smirking, self-satisfied photos. Where actually were your demonstrations against the knife assailants? Where were your memorials to the victims? 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): I’ve already indicated the Hildesheim AfD!

What a mockery for the people of this country, just so for native citizens as for law-abiding and well integrated naturalized Germans with a migration background who primarily expect one thing from the Politik: Ending the illegal migration and lawlessness, deporting criminals and those who come into the country illegally, reconstructing security in the public space; in short, the enforcement of law and statute. 

Do you seriously believe, Herr Merz, you could inveigle the citizens, that something would be better, if you at the same time yet again pander to the Greens and the SPD and commit yourself to form a coalition with these parties? Since precisely there you run straight into the dogma of the undemocratic firewall, unmindful of the Basic Law. The so-called firewall is nothing other than an anti-democratic cartel arrangement to undermine the will of the voters and exclude millions of voters. You shall guarantee to the Greens and the SPD – we heard it here – the continuation in power even though they have long since lost the assent of the majority for their ruinous policy of mass migration and economic and energy destruction. 

You’ve had your chance to demonstrate an authentic Chancellor format. “I peek not right and not left. In these questions I peek straight ahead.” You said that at the presentation of the five-point plan. 

Yet you do not look straight ahead. You look left, and you look backwards in your own ranks. Your CDU Minister-president Günther from Schleswig-Holstein has already announced to let  laws for the limitation of migration fail in the Bundesrat if they are here accepted with the votes of the AfD. That is your CDU. 

What a pitiful understanding of democracy! As if there were no dead children, partisan political games will be set over the lives of innocent citizens. With this Union, there is in fact no state to make. 

Your five-point plan which you today put forward, you have copied from us. A non-binding resolution motion – this you also know – is still by far no migration change. Copying instead of deporting; with you, that is method. For in the States in which you sit in government – whether Bavaria, Nordrein-Westfalen, Sachsen-Anhalt, Baden-Württemberg, Schleswig-Holstein –the deportation balance is just so miserable or still worse as in the SPD-governed Federal States.  

Thorstein Frei (CDU/CSU): In Baden-Württemberg, it has risen by around 37 percent!

That the Union, following the dreadful knife attack of an Afghan on small children, misuses the reasoning of your motion so as to belabor the AfD, is disturbing and shows that you still have not understood the signs of the time. We do not want to need mourn additional dead children. Do you understand that? – You laugh, Herr Frei. 

            Thorstein Frei (CDU/CSU): Yes, exactly!

Your irresponsible and infantile maneuver – infantile! –           

            Thorstein Frei (CDU/CSU): Yes, quite clearly!

will not restrain us from doing the right thing and voting for every reasonable initiative. Thus have we always maintained. 

Since the welfare of the country and its citizens always has priority with us before egoistic party tactics, and distinguishes us from the Union. 

We will also vote for the influx limitation law [Zustrombegrenzunggesetz] which you in any case have copied from us. A few weeks ago, you took this law, ja, from the daily order, out of fear of accidental majorities. Now you have again set it up – after of course we announced to put it to a vote. This law would have been long since been able to be concluded. 

We will continue to enlist for a real migration change with a closing of the borders, turning back and deportation of illegal foreigners. And the longer you struggle against concluding in common the required laws, just so greater will be the harm. You thereby harm not the AfD; you thereby harm the entire country and its citizens, every child who therefore still needs die, every innocent person who therefore will be wounded, raped or murdered. 

The Union’s insincerity is best read in the number of AfD motions for a limitation of migration and for border controls which you in the past years – seven years – here in this house have rejected. It thus so appears. 

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): Which we will continue to reject!

That is insincere. 

As long as you cling to your firewall, so will there also be firewall dead. 

Katharina Dröge (Greens, to the CDU/CSU): You were advised in the case of the Nazis! This is a serious failure which you today make! 

It cannot so continue. It is already for long much too much. The time for symbol politics finally needs be over following the Aschaffenburg murders. This country lies prostrate. Germany can no longer wait. The migration change and economic change must come, and this will only come with the Alternative für Deutschland! 

I am grateful. 

 

[trans: tem]

Alice Weidel, January 23, 2025, Open Letter to Friedrich Merz

January 23, 2025, Junge Freiheit, http://jungefreiheit.de/ 

Right honorable Herr Merz. 

The latest knife murders and terror acts of Mannheim, Solingen, Magdeburg and lately Aschaffenburg have unmistakably led before all eyes the ruined domestic security in our country as a consequence of the nearly decade long “rule of injustice” in the German migration policy. 

From your comment on the Aschaffenburg act of blood by a rejected and actionable Afghan asylum applicant obliged to depart, I take it that you share this estimate of the situation. That is a good sign. A still better sign is that you have evidently made as your own an urgent solution proposal by my delegation, the Alternative für Deutschland, for bringing about a migration policy change of course: Complete, strong border control and rejections of illegal migrants without exception, substantial deportations and returns as a responsibility of the Federal government, additional competences for the Federal Police and for an unconditional deportation custody [Abscheibegewahrsam]. 

Much of this, which you have announced for the time following your possible election as German Chancellor, would long since have been able to be concluded on the basis of initiatives of my and your delegations with now existing majorities, beyond red-green, since the break of the Ampel coalition. 

Any further delay contains the danger that still more people will be killed, wounded, traumatized, and robbed of their right to a future and to a normal, peaceful life. This price is too high. This country’s citizens would have no understanding if the introduction of the overdue migration change and the steps required for a reconstruction of domestic security were put off for additional weeks and months until after the Bundestag election. 

In responsibility for the state, I appeal to you: Let us without further delay make the necessary decisions so as to in fact implement what the citizens now rightly expect from the Politik. The coming week in session at the German Bundestag offers an opportunity which may not be passed by unused. The majorities for that are at hand. 

For a coordinating discussion, my delegation and I are at your disposal anytime. Regardless of this, I now look forward with expectation to our TV discussion on the pressing political questions of our time. 

Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Dr. Alice Weidel

[trans: tem]

Steffen Kotré, December 18, 2024, Germany and Syria

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/206, pp. 26598-26599. 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

In contrast to the Federal government, an AfD delegation five years ago traveled to Syria so as to there form a picture of the situation. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Assad!

It was quickly clear: The western sanctions destroy the country and primarily affect the people. Syria was one of the wealthiest countries of the region. There was schooling without cost, a good healthcare system, relative freedom of religion and the doors of houses were never locked. 

            Lamya Kaddor (Greens): Such rubbish!

And then came the civil war with support of the West. 

            Sara Nanni (Greens): Unbelievable!

The U.S.A. has diligently exploited the oil resources, and Turkey then supported the Islamists. It was a service of the Russians which weakened the Islamic State, if not having entirely defeated it. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Rubbish! That is such idiocy! Radio Moscow!

Following the logic of my preceding speaker, Herr Kuhle, it thus needed be that the “Islamic State” now should govern in Syria. 

Sara Nanni (Greens): What then brings you to the point that you tell such idiocy here? Unbelievable!

Or how should I understand it? And if he means that migration here is to be used as a weapon: It is nevertheless exactly the Federal government which has made possible this mass migration, 

Sara Nanni (Greens): The butcher Assad, whom you visited, he drove the people to flight. Already forget?

and thereby employed it as a weapon against our society; it is nothing other. Yet one thing was already then clear; namely, what German interests are: 

            Lamya Kaddor (Greens): It is pretty clear what your interests here are!

Reconstruction of the country and a repatriation of Syrian migrants. 

            Sara Nanni (Greens): Nazis raus!

The AfD already then had a time table which just now is being slowly taken over by the Federal government: 

            Lamya Kaddor (Greens): Herr Kotré, what then are your interests?

Setting up channels of communication and a step-by-step taking up of diplomatic relations, re-opening the German embassy, lifting the sanctions which primarily affect the people, access to international payments commerce, a reconstruction plan in common with all international partners and with inclusion of the German Mitteslstand           

Sara Nanni (Greens): Your colleague from Hamburg, is she not in a WG with Assad, or how need I imagine that? The living room slowly becomes scarce!

and, lastly, remigration and re-integration of all Syrians living with us – but then in Syria; Syrians who have not integrated with us are those thereby meant. Yet Syrians who have integrated with us, and who recognize the Basic Law, who themselves provide their livelihood, are heartily welcome. 

            Sara Nanni (Greens): Ja, all heartily welcome. That shines from you!

Yet unfortunately that is not the largest group. And the lie, that every Syrian would be a skilled worker, nevertheless has long since collapsed. 

            Karamba Diaby (SPD): No one said that!

Why is the remigration 

            Sara Nanni (Greens): There it is again, that word!

of Syrians unwilling to integrate in the German interest; before all things, in the interest of our pensioners? 

Sara Nanni (Greens): Whom do you mean? The pensioners who are cared for by Syrian refugees, or whom do you mean?

We have approximately one million Syrians in the country. Their employment rate [Erwerbsquote] is slight. The Germans are working quasi for the Syrians. And when the Syrians have work, it is rather in the low wage sector. 

            Rasha Nasr (SPD): Like the over 5,000 doctors?

They will have to rely on social beneifts and tax money, at the latest until pensioned. The average costs of the annual sums run in a total of approximately 25 billion euros. What does this sum signify? The sum signifies that in two years the entire school grounds in Germany could be restored. 

            Jörg Nürnberger (SPD):  You yourself do not believe that!

Among the Syrians are terrorists; even Frau Merkel has admitted that. Essen, Solingen, Bad Oeynhausen – the worst perpetrators are Syrians. 

            Till Steffen (SPD): You can tell that to Putin! 

            Sara Nanni (Greens): And the biggest Nazis are German!

Among the Syrians are many who reject our free, democratic, basic order. 

Johannes Fechner (SPD): Toss out the criminals from your delegation just for once! Who then sits there?

In Stuttgart and Hamburg, thousands have clearly positioned themselves with cries of “Allahu-Akbar” at Christmas markets – anti-democratic, disdaining our customs, traditions and practices, seizing power, and ultimately with a claim of forcing all others to the wall. Every one of these needs to be deported, ladies and gentlemen. 

And the German law demands remigration. The Syrians have no right to asylum. They have a subsidiary status as refugees. With the end of the civil war and the fall of Assad, their residency right has expired, since the refugee status has fallen away. 

            Sara Nanni (Greens): Assad, your pal!

It is thereby automatically given that they need to leave our country, 

            Sara Nanni (Greens): AfD, Assad for Deutschland!

since no EU law supports that deportations somehow be opposed. That, from humanitarian viewpoints, naturally needs to follow, that is fully clear. Germany in this regard is quite generous, and will support the reconstruction and thereby the future perspectives in Syria. That means, reconstruction, future perspectives and the return of Syrians are united with one another. 

            Till Steffen (SPD): You can take the lead and make everything nice!

The HTS, the new leadership in Syria, is an Islamist organization; a bounty of 10 million euros has been set for its leader. Yet many Syrians here in the country celebrated Assad’s fall. 

            Sara Nanni (Greens): Unlike you!

They thereby show that they have no problem 

            Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Your speaking time is up. 

            Lamya Kaddor (Greens): Thank God!

that now, as the Federal government names the leadership there, rebels govern.

 

Lamya Kaddor (Greens): Please sit down and be calm. All have more,                                     Herr Kotré! Really! 

            Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Your speaking time, Herr Kotré, is up.

Therefore: Remigration can save human lives. The AfD demands the repatriation and thereby represents the people’s interests           

            Lamya Kaddor (Greens): Stop speaking! 

Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: The speaking time is up, even if you simply speak. I can next turn off your microphone.

and those of well integrated foreigners. 

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]

Götz Frömming, November 13, 2024, CDU and Democracy

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/199, pp. 25915-25916. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

“…parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good...” [*] 

            Hendrik Hoppenstedt (CDU/CSU): Amen! 

            Patrick Schnieder (CDU/CSU): Claims for which you have never been fit!

So far Edmund Burke in his famous speech to the voters of Bristol in 1774. Ladies and gentlemen, let us compare the present situation of this parliament with the ideal of then. 

            Patrick Schnieder (CDU/CSU): You might need to get out!

This, what you have made of our parliament, is the exact opposite in comparison to what Burke described, ladies and gentlemen. 

Real deliberations, the struggle over the best solution for the good of the people, no longer take place. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): No self-evidently! 

            Patrick Schnieder (CDU/CSU): You’ve never done it!

SPD, CDU, Greens and FDP have come to an understanding for a trimmed daily order of the German Bundestag. Only urgently necessary points of the daily order shall spoken on. Initiatives of the opposition – the actual opposition – shall be set aside with or without debate. Ladies and gentlemen, that is unparliamentary, that is undemocratic, that is an assault on the heart of our democracy. 

It is evident, ladies and gentlemen, for you, the general good does not come first, but your party interests. We presently in fact have a minority government. That has been seldom acceded to in German parliamentary history, but is commonplace in other countries. There, one has no fear of the free struggle for the best solution. Minority governments, ladies and gentlemen, need not necessarily go along with a parliamentary standstill. They could be stellar moments of democracy. Yet for that is required authentic and courageous democrats. 

            Patrick Schnieder (CDU/CSU): Then you need to get out!

Of those, ladies and gentlemen, we have too few in this parliament. It also does not help that you yourselves always mutually dilute being democratic. Now, where it would come to that, you deny democracy, ladies and gentlemen. 

What then would be so bad if members for once really follow their consciences when a good motion achieves a majority only with votes of the opposition? Yet as I hear, you want no votes from the wrong side. Honored colleagues of the CDU, when it is about the good of our country, then there is no such wrong side. 

Patrick Schnieder (CDU/CSU): The level was already low, but now it becomes subterranean.

You then stand with your firewall on the wrong side. 

            Patrick Schnieder (CDU/CSU): You are always on the wrong side!

Following the frightful terror attack at Solingen on the 23^rd of August of this year, the CDU/CSU  delegation chairman wrote an urgent letter to the Chancellor. I may cite therefrom: 

“Release…the vote in the Bundestag on the the required laws…We want no participation in your government and no offices; we want that you fulfill your oath of office and avert harm from the German people. For that, with us you have a majority in the German Bundestag…” 

            Jürgen Braun (AfD): Aha! Hear, hear!

Thus far the Chancellor. In what concerns forgetfulness, Friedrich Merz in fact has a Chancellor quality, ladies and gentlemen. 

In fact in September the CSU/CSU brought in such a motion. Its content: To limit the migrant flow and begin with a return. Not by far enough, but a step in the right direction. And what have we experienced? Last week, precisely this draft law was on the daily order for a second and third reading. It would have been able to receive perhaps a majority with the votes from the ranks of the FDP and AfD. Yet precisely on this account it was withdrawn by the CDU/CSU. 

            Jürgen Braun (AfD): Ach, here, someone is afraid!

You were afraid that your own motion could pass, ladies and gentlemen. That allows a deep look and says much of your understanding of democracy. 

Who should at all still believe that your motion was seriously meant by you, which you previously presented and in which was written a bit in the AfD sound? Did you perhaps only present all of these motions because you know that they will be rejected, and now where you could receive a vote in favor, 

Hendrik Hoppenstedt (CDU/CSU): No, we want to pass them, only not with you! That is the only reason! 

you present no more such motions. 

The long since running secret negotiations on a new government with the Greens or the SPD should not be encumbered. Ladies and gentlemen, you have the entire time only simulated opposition. That is shabby. 

Ladies and gentlemen, the problem nevertheless is: Who votes for Merz, receives Habeck. How often have the two actually met for secret negotiations? 

            Till Steffen (Greens): What does secret mean? 

            Erhard Grundl (Greens): If you knew it, it’s not secret. 

            Sebastian Hartmann (SPD): What did you plan in Potsdam?

The citizens can vote for that they want, they receive always the same politics. Here, one need not be surprised by a political dissatisfaction. 

            Vice-president Aydan Özogŭz: Come please to a conclusion. 

Following the next elections, ladies and gentlemen, we will, in Edmund Burke’s sense, again make the parliament of our nation a deliberating and deciding assembly. 

Many thanks. 

            Gabriele Katzmarek (SPD): There, you contribute definitely nothing! 

 

[*] The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke. 6 vols. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854-1856.

[trans: tem]