Tomasz Froelich, June 16, 2025, Hungary

EU Parliament, Strasbourg,  P10 CRE-REV(2025)06-18(3-0243-0000) 

Herr President. 

Hungary is a sovereign state, Hungary defends traditional values, and Hungary has every right to ban the Pride, for it is right to protect children from sexual exhibitionism. You here contrive a tribunal against Orbán so as to divert from your own problems. Since not in Budapest are women gang raped, the caliphate is not proclaimed in Budapest, but truly in our cities, in Berlin, in Brussels, in Paris. Here, you shut your trap. Yet when Orbán does something which does not agree with you, you turn right around. 

You do not respect Hungary, you expect obedience. Who does not obey, will be sanctioned. That is like a social credit system on a supra-national level. In countries which were under the Soviet knout, that awakens evil memories; yet you don’t get it. You don’t understand how humiliating and arrogant your words act in Hungary, because you lack every cultural sensibility. Your variety is a simple-mindedness. Your tolerance applies only to those of the same opinion. You behave like colonial masters with imperialistic values, and you do not once notice it. Hands off Hungary! 

 

[trans: tem]

Götz Frömming, May 14, 2025, Cultural Policy

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/3, pp. 109-110. 

Right honorable Frau Vice-president. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

Immediately after me, the new Culture State Minister Wolfram Weimer will here make his first speech. I can say: We are very curious [gespannt], Herr Weimer. In the run up, it was reported that you are a conservative man and that here was negotiated an ideological decision to now name you Culture Minister. The talk was even of a shift to the right [Rechtsruck] and the beginning of a new Kulturkampf.

We find that astonishing in view of the fact that you replace Claudia Roth. More ideological than the previous culture policy under Claudia Roth, it can scarcely be, ladies and gentlemen. The talk of a shift to the right in the culture policy is therefore pure hypocrisy. A shift to the right considered from the standpoint of a Claudia Roth, that would be nothing further than a normalization. 

In fact in regards these accusations, it’s about the money. The culture scene is highly subventioned, without tax money it is scarcely viable. The Spiegel interpreted the naming of Weimer as “a prolongation of the minor inquiry” of the Union to the Federal government which is known under the shorthand, “551 questions”. Now the Federal government could itself answer these questions. We will remind you not to forget that.

We certainly expect from the new Federal government no shift to the right, ladies and gentlemen. An escape from the left would be fully sufficient. It would be fully sufficient if no more tax money flows into extreme leftist propaganda which passes itself off as art. 

            Filiz Polat (Greens): So, really! What is that then?

 I know that you here feel yourselves addressed; that is also thus correct. 

The culture policy in the era of Frau Roth was not merely leftist, ladies and gentlemen, it was anti-German, anti-Christian, and was directed – we have previously heard – also against Israel. What we, with the documenta and during the Berlinale, needed to experience in anti-semitic invective was unbearable. It has never come to a real reappraisal of those events. 

Much thereof speaks that in regards to what we have seen, only the tip of the iceberg is dealt with. The leftist anti-semitism has more deeply penetrated the culture scene than many want to admit. Were it an anti-semitism coming from the right, ladies and gentlemen, I am sure Heaven and Hell would have long since been set in motion against it. 

We therefore welcome that the new State Minister, as a first act in office, has separated himself from the upper officials and confidants of his predecessor – I now leave the names aside. Their anti-Israel attitude was “known to the scene”, as the Judische Allgemeine recently wrote. 

So as to name one additional positive point: The agreement with the house of Hohenzollern on the storage place of art treasures is a good sign. Since let us look back: Frau Roth and the Greens wanted, as is known, to break up and re-name the Prussian Cultural Foundation. It meant nothing other than to eradicate Prussia. Frau Baerbock even let the Bismarck room in the Foreign Office be re-named. Frau Roth wanted to fade out [überblenden] the Christian inscription on the Berliner Schloss and have the cross on the roof preferably dismantled. 

Ladies and gentlemen, to the Greens, all is a horror which is German. Peoples and cultures they only accept when they are as foreign and exotic as possible. Yet who does not love his own, ladies and gentlemen, he cannot also respect the foreign. 

            Alice Weidel (AfD): Exactly!

 Herr Weimer, you see in Christianity, as you formulated, the opportunity for a “cultural renaissance of the West”. You thus clearly have concepts different from your predecessor and we are therein very curious. Primarily, we are curious as to how you will get along with Frau Nancy Faeser, who now as a kind of revenge of the SPD could possibly overtake the chairmanship of the Culture Committee so as to be able to there continue her fight against so-called disinformation which, ja, principally comes from her house. That will become an exciting show. 

            Filiz Polat (Greens): What then is that for an unashamed imputation?

 Ladies and gentlemen, it is besides no political goal of the AfD to generally abolish the cultural subventions which were here and there maintained. It is merely our goal to end the one-sided political enlistment of theaters and other cultural institutions. We want to no rightist theater. We also want no leftist theater. We want an independent theater. 

Britta Haßelmann (Greens): What you want is nevertheless not to be reconciled                        with artistic and cultural freedom! 

Ladies and gentlemen, the leftist daily newspaper taz fears, following the change of government, a headwind for many leftist cultural projects. We do not fear that. We even hope for it. To stay in the metaphor, ladies and gentlemen: He can really sail who also comes forward with a headwind. In this sense: Herr State Minister, make a steady wind [machen Sie ordentlich Wind]! In this regard, you can count on us. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Tino Chrupalla, May 14, 2025, Politics and Policy

German Bundestag, May 14, 2025, Plenarprotokoll 21/3, pp. 102-104. 

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

New Federal governments have one thing in common: They bear the burden of the failed Politik made a half-century before. The bad infrastructure in transport and communication, in health and education, has a pre-history, and this is substantially connected with CDU/CSU, SDP, Green and FDP governments. Chancellors come and go, yet one thing remains: There never was the will for courageous and honest reforms. 

Meanwhile, one thing has become more difficult about the political competition. The inconvenient change from the government to the opposition and back is history, since in this parliament more than three parties make Politik. For Politik means: To make compromises. And yes, it is more strenuous that more parties need to be won. Each delegation thereby represents a number of voters, for my delegation following this Bundestag election, over 10 million who have given their votes to the Alternative für Deutschland. Herr Spahn, it is plainly not just the frustrated who have voted for the AfD. We think it is time to engage with these voters with respect. For you to make general accusations, and to thereby curl yourself up in political Berlin, convinces ever fewer voters. We speak now in the third legislature of vice-presidents, committee chairmen, and meanwhile even over whether we can use a delegation hall which corresponds to the occupational safety and evacuation regulations. Last year, the business and house order was passed, ja polished, so as not to need to designate it strategically changed. There were media campaigns orchestrated which want to deprive my delegation of the parliamentary practices in accord with making Politik in the interest of our country. All of that is long since no longer little games, ladies and gentlemen. 

Now the Social Democrats do not want to make available to us a work room, the delegation hall. In that regard, two points: 

First, the historic Reichstag building belongs to no party, but to country and people.

Second, we all, members and parties, are elected by the sovereign, the German people, as it is out there on the building, to a time in this parliament. This maneuver thus discredits this parliament and thereby also the citizens of Germany who elected all of us to this position. In likely four years are the next Bundestag elections. Until then, make good Politik. Then perhaps with a strong delegation, you have a good chance to enter 22^nd Bundestag, and advance a claim to a larger hall for your delegation meetings. Until then, dear colleagues, defend the dignity of the parliament, and end this little game! 

Frau President Klöckner, I hereby expressly request you support my delegation’s ability to work. You said following your entry into office, “There are clear…rules” Precisely that, I hope, applies for all delegations. I take you at your word. 

Ladies and gentlemen, let me briefly enter into the Constitution Defense theme. The staging of  May 2, 2025, as I unfortunately need to designate it, caused not only a quake in the media world, but also left behind an utterly insipid taste of a political exercise of power against an opposition party. The departing Interior Minister used her next to last day in office to announce to the media an opinion which in fact was not evaluated by the Federal Interior Ministry, yet was apparently leaked exclusively to individual representatives of the press, but not to the affected party which learned of it from the press. That contradicts not only the equality of opportunity, but also squanders the trust in state organs and measures. As we today know, the opinion is supported on public sources, whether even by parliamentary connections is presently being examined. Everything else will be clarified by legal experts and the courts. For our parliamentary work, it will have only so much influence as we take seriously the duty of the largest opposition delegation. We stand for the freedom of opinion and for the Basic Law. We will closely pursue the government’s Politik, and comment, and indeed hard but constructive. 

In this connection, I need today to speak to the role of non-governmental organizations. To their role in political decision making processes and the thereby associated state financing, a stop needs to be ordered; since all parties should, according to German party law, cite: “Take care for an […] active association between […] people and state organs.” Certainly therefore are biases not only unacceptable, but also contradict the equality principle. In this regard is to be mentioned the denied, as before, financing of the party-associated Erasmus Foundation. Also here, new reasons will ever again be gathered to forgo the state finances to the Alternative für Deutschland, and to distribute to the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the Böll, the Luxemburg Foundation, and the Ebert Foundation, etc. It’s gladly kept amongst themselves. 

I want to again expressly point out that on the the day of the Chancellor election, we did not provide for the famous result of two ballots. Those, Herr Chancellor, were clearly your majorities which did not come about, the majorities from CDU/CSU and SPD. Besides, afterwards, the CDU approached my delegation and asked for a vote in favor of a time period waiver so that Herr Merz could still become Chancellor on May 6^th. We besides voted for it. The rest of the story, you all know. We were and are ready for constructive cooperation. All channels of discussion for the sake of the people are for us in all cases open. 

I want at this place to enter into the role and significance of eastern Germany [Ostdeutschland]. In your coalition contract, the word emerges three times. Gratefully, you designate the achievements of the eastern Germans as extraordinary. The five new Federal States were and will still be financially supported, by the billions in debt besides everything else. Only, after 35 years of German unity, most of the citizens in the east have not succeeded to stand there in similar financial independence like those in the territory of the old Federal Republic. Much more, the following generations inherit a debts package which is without equal. Beyond that, you plan nothing to improve the east’s infrastructural basic equipment. To that belongs not only roads which lead in the direction of the east, but also advantageous energy prices so that firms can be founded without years-long subventions, settle in and, before all, survive. 

The Mittelstand was and, in the east, certainly is the backbone of the German economy. Here, training- and work-places are created. Here, taxes are generated and social duties paid. That is value-creating work. Precisely that makes up Germany. Precisely that Germany needs. Instead, we receive ever more state operations which only live from public means. 

Interesting in that regard is the position of the eastern commissioner. Why actually is this again necessary? The CDU in the election campaign regarded the permanent office as superfluous. Do you believe that your new eastern commissioner of the SPD is really representative for the east? 

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): Nein!

It’s now really sporty that an eastern commissioner of a party which in Thüringen, Saxony and Saxon-Anhalt unites behind it between 5 and 7 percent of the voters is clothed with this office. That has nothing to do with acceptance. 

Let alone that: The role of eastern commissioner anyway my party, the Alternative für Deutschland, has overtaken. And here I again invite you: Come along with us into discussion. 

I welcome besides the elimination of commissioners’ posts. You thereby implement an important program point which we also for long demand. A commissioner alone bears no responsibility, makes no laws and, before all things, solves no problems; governments and parliaments do that. 

Still a few words for the foreign policy situation. With interest, I follow your approaches to give to the continent of Europe a perspective. It first required a U.S. President by the name of Trump so as to formulate one’s own goals. And we say that European cooperation is basically right and good. Continual new sanctions and ultimatums nevertheless do not contribute to peace. You work for the most part awkwardly, Herr Merz, when you want to make no statement on weapons deliveries. That unsettles all sides. Your predecessor in office remains on this point with a consistent Nein. You should just so leave it as is. 

Otherwise, I very much hope that with you the Great Forgetting does not become a sustained event. From the firewall word, through securing the borders, to the Bürgergeld, you’ve already left behind some impressions. 

We are besides agreed that we in Germany need investments, yet not only those of the state. Finally make an audit so that unnecessary expenditures can be eliminated, and also private investors may find incentives for investing in Germany. 

For last, yet a glance at the energy supply. The Nord Stream pipelines are, following negotiations with Russia, possibly soon in the possession of the U.S.A. Herr Chancellor, do you then have the power to speak out for advantageous gas? The German business and citizens have deserved it. 

To you and your government remain the famous 100 days – even if Germany does not have 100 days’ time for it – to set the switches for the future. We as the largest opposition party will thereby critically accompany you, hard and honest in tone, and fact-oriented. We as opposition delegation are responsible for control of the government. We need, may and will not say what you want to hear. 

Many hearty thanks. 

 

[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]

Bernd Baumann, May 6, 2025, Chancellor Election

German Bundestag, May 6, 2025, Plenarprotokoll 21/2, p. 44. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

Herr Merz, you have failed. This is a historic defeat, as has never been in this Bundestag. Your own members deny to you adherence. And it is no wonder regarding this scale of election fraud, in election promises which you have broken. I hope there are intelligent people in the CDU, those who have brought about that you did not win the vote, who want that the CDU again comes back to a reasonable way. And that is still possible, ladies and gentlemen. 

There is now a second ballot. We do not reject it; since the cards need to be on the table. Germany requires now a government. We do not prevent that, we support that. Yet even if you, Herr Merz, now obtain a vote in favor – you have,  ja, spoken with all here: With Greens, with the Linke, with the SPD – that changes nothing. This government begins in most extreme instability, and it will remain unstable. That is the opposite of what Germany requires, ladies and gentlemen. 

Since it is clear – the election result shows: There is a majority, Herr Merz. For all points for which you have spoken in the election campaign, there is here a majority. Each member is elected from the people, the sovereign. Each member who is here, these majorities which are here, are by the will of the people. And following the will of the people, all demands which you have raised, which you have overtaken from us, can be implemented. You prevent that. That is the instability in the Bundestag, that is the instability in Germany. 

We of the AfD not only vote for holding this second ballot because the cards need to be on the table, we now also stand ready at anytime for reasonable solutions for Germany, as they appear in our program, as we have represented them in the election campaign, and also as you represented them in the election campaign. We are available for reasonable solutions for Germany at anytime. It thus remains, ladies and gentlemen. 

 

[trans: tem]

Rüdiger Klos, April 10, 2025, Automobile Industry Employment

Baden-Württemberg Landtag, Plenarsitzung 17/121, pp. 7293-7295. 

Frau President. Valued colleagues. 

The AfD expressly acknowledges the social market economy and international trade as bases of our prosperity and of peaceful partnership. We want to deconstruct trade barriers in Europe and worldwide. 

            Andreas Stoch (SPD): Putin sees that otherwise!

Normally, I would have said, Herr Minister-president, Listen! Since all of these citations are from our principles program. Thus all of you stop the permanent spreading of false assertions concerning us! We know that for the worldwide increase of prosperity, for the abeyance of hunger on this planet, we have primarily to thank global trade. Because it brings profits of worldwide welfare. 

Andreas Schwarz (SPD): Who wants to withdraw from the EU? Who wants to withdraw from NATO? 

Anton Baron (AfD): That is yet again Fake News! That is in no program! 

Andreas Schwarz (SPD): All of that is verified! 

Daniel Lindenschmid (AfD): Simply nothing is verified! In your dream-world perhaps!

We are therefore against tariff and non-tariff trade impediments. The foreign trade theory of comparative costs advantage according to Ricardo is part of the AfD DNA. We want industries of general interest – the pharmaceutical industry, for example – to again settle in Germany, and at best of course in Baden-Württemberg. We are thus dismayed that today, just in terms of business, we stand before an economic policy tipping point. Mercedes-Benz removes a part of its vehicle production to Hungary. That means annually 100,000 fewer vehicles from Germany. A concern rich in tradition withdraws piece by piece from its home market. The same applies to the automobile suppliers like Bosch, ZF in Friedrichshafen, Marquardt – to name only some examples. 

That is a pauper’s oath of your failed regional economic policy, if you ever had one. Herr Minister Hermann, you have concisely commented on the emigration of Mercedes-Benz with the words – I cite – “That does not sadden me”, and further expressions circulated from you. Unfortunately, your statements of yesterday have raised more questions here in plenary session than were clarified. Yet you can now explain yourself in detail. Thinking myself in your position would nevertheless yield that these expressions on everything would be immediately evaluated as credible and ideologically acceptable. That is no seal of approval, Herr Minister. 

Baden-Württemberg was indisputably the land of the automobile in Germany. Here beat the industrial heart of the Republic. Yet the environment, which once made possible the economic power of our State, was systematically demolished for ideological reasons. With the false assertion of a solely man-made climate change, you shoved aside healthy human understanding and all scientific recognition. Finally stop denying the natural climate change. The climate has always changed, will always change, and how we deal with it is the political challenge of the future, ladies and gentlemen. 

So as to once more go into your facts, which are: CO₂ makes up just 0.04 percent of the volume in the atmosphere. Of this minimal value, 90 percent is of natural origin. Thus the worldwide portion of man-made CO₂ contibutes 0.0016 percent. Because Germany’s part herein contributes 2 percent, our portion thus contributes 3.2 billionths. 

For this ideological madness, you destroy workplaces, you destroy leading technologies, you shift workplaces to foreign countries. That, ladies and gentlemen, is no reasonable policy, but nonsense. Yet what should one make of political groups which present themselves and say: “There are an endless number of sexes”? 

Origins of this dangerous trend are thus primarily not economic reasons, but a purely politico-ideological induced weakening of regional economic policy: Combustion engine Verbot, chicanery with automobile drivers like the Trojan Horse mobility pass, chicanery and Verbot against individual transportation. The State government openly applauds the resulting de-industrialization of Baden-Württemberg, and then calls the whole a “transformation” – ja, a transformation into nothing, ladies and gentlemen. 

A central problem is the one-sided, simply ideologically-driven fixation on the e-mobility. While Germany is known worldwide for the diesel- and benzine-driven vehicles, 

            Thomas Hentschel (Greens): Which can no longer be sold!

the government of our State fights this technology: Driving Verbot in the cities, CO₂ penalty payment, damnation of diesel in the media and politics, excessive exhaust norms. All of that contributes to insecurity in the markets of manufacturers and purchasers. 

Yet at the same time, e-mobility will be kept artificially alive by means of massive tax investments, purchase premiums, lightened taxes, construction of the charging infrastructure, promotion of battery research: That is green ideology at the cost of the taxpayer. That the demand nevertheless stagnates, says all. 

Our supply networks are meanwhile run to their limits, yet what does the still in office Federal Minister for the Economy propose? Industry production should in the future – I cite – follow “after the availablity of electricity”. That, ladies and gentlemen, is nonsense hostile to regional economic policy. It can no longer be formulated otherwise. 

The alignment of prosperity within Europe is doubtless an important theme. Yet with permission, Herr Minister Hermann, when you comment on the workplace deconstruction in the automobile business in our State with the words – I cite – “Eastern Europe is not allowed to remain poor”, the end effect of that is a mockery of all those in the automobile industry who presently fear for their workplaces. What then are they supposed to do with your notion of “local for local”? Yet the green State policy does not think of regional economic policy factors, it thinks in dogmas. And for that, you bear the responsibility, Herr Minister-president and Herr Minister Hermann. 

 

[trans: tem]

Bernd Baumann, March 25, 2025, The Will of the Voters

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/1, pp. 1-2. 

Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

Today, the new Bundestag finally meets, one month after the election. Why just now? Because Union, SPD and Greens as a party cartel prevented any earlier summons; so they could, with the majorities of the old Bundestag long since voted out of office, as good as three times alter the Basic Law, against the will of the voters. In a newly elected Bundestag, there would never have been a majority for that, no 1,000 billion euros state credit, no end to the debt brake, and no compulsion for climate neutrality in the Basic Law, ladies and gentlemen. 

The voters wanted what was completely different. Millions therefore voted for Friedrich Merz and the CDU; because he had  promised that. Yet the CDU once more confirmed, with its gigantic election fraud: Who votes for the CDU, receives in the end left-green, he receives open borders, mass migration, 72 sexes and the red-green rainbow flag high above the Bundestag. 

            Friedrich Merz (CSU/CSU): Speak to the order of business! 

            Elder-president Gregor Gysi: Dear Herr Baumann –

This unholy power cartel of Union, SPD and Greens, already in 2017 with the entry of the AfD, played a pre-arranged game. 

            Elder-president Gregor Gysi: Dear Herr Baumann, I ask you to speak to                                the order of business, since it is about that presently. 

The order of business was quickly changed so to prevent that the eldest in life experience might open the Bundestag; that would have been an AfD man. Only so as to prevent that, this cartel of SPD, Union and Greens changed the order of business. Not the eldest might open, but he who sits the longest here in the Bundestag. Thereby were all of the AfD excluded, because all were new. How pitiful, how perfidious was this action! 

And because this still applies today, Gregor Gysi opens the Bundestag and plainly not Alexander Gauland who, following parliamentary tradition of hundreds of years, is the legitimate and true Elder-president here in house. Other than Gregor Gysi of the Linke, which is the legal successor of the SED, the Wall defense party, Alexander Gauland for 40 years of his life served in the CDU, among others as leader of the Hesse State Chancellery. Yet for today’s Union is a figurehead of the radical left preferred to a deserving veteran from their own, former conservative ranks. That says everything about today’s CDU, ladies and gentlemen. 

It therefore brings you simply nothing to withhold from us our rights in regards Elder-president, Vice-president, in regards the committee chairmen. 

            Elder-president Gregor Gysi: Herr Dr. Baumann, your speaking time is                                    already past.

The majority of voters have long since had enough of the left-green cartel. 

            Elder-president Gregor Gysi: I ask you to come to a conclusion.

We of the AfD have doubled, are stronger than ever before. With your tricks, you will not prevent our rise, ladies and gentlemen.

            Elder-president Gregor Gysi: That’s right, but it doesn’t double the speaking                        time. 

But in case sometime you want to undertake what is positive for Germany: Our hand is always out-stretched. 

 

[trans: tem]

Björn Höcke, March 20, 2025, Financial Coup d’État

Thüringer Landtag, Plenarsitzung 8/12, pp. 2-4. 

Right honorable Herr President. Right honorable colleague members. Right honorable visitors in the gallery. 

I want to beforehand admit that I stand before you today with a feeling that represents a mixture of rage and sorrow: Rage and sorrow over what happened two days ago in the German Bundestag. We need to speak of it, that we have a political special situation in Germany these days. On that account, the summoning of this special plenary session has been enormously important, and was a correct decision which we as the AfD delegation have reached. I very much regret that even in regards this important theme that Minister-president Voigt is not in the house. 

Right honorable colleague members, on February 23^rd of this year, the state sovereign of the Federal Republic of Germany with a perfectly clear result voted out of office the Ampel government. The Greens lose massively, the SPD brings in its historically worst result and the FDP left the Bundestag. The message of the voters was clear: We want no further so, we want a fundamentally new direction in the German Politik, we want less multi-culti, we want less climate policy, we want less debt, we want more fiscal solidarity. The was the clear message of the sovereign. 

And what did the CDU do, did Friedrich Merz do, in fellowship with the red-green government? They summoned the old, voted out of office Bundestag, already dissolved by the Federal President, so to go around the new power relation to enforce a debts policy of madness to the harm of the German people. 

            Liebscher (SPD): That is just nonsense, stop spreading lies! So far, the                                    new Bundestag has not yet met…!

What we experience here, right honorable colleague members, what was passed in the Bundestag two days ago and tomorrow in the Bundesrat shall brought to a conclusion, is nothing other than  a financial policy coup d’état. Ice cold, a career-crazed Friedrich Merz slapped the voters in the face. Merz broke a central election promise of the CDU and piled up a debt mountain of a trillion, and that only so as to receive in hand the key to the Chancellor’s office, only so as to make his latest, striven career step. This, right honorable colleague members, this conduct is without character and is one of the low points in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany. 

The pre-history of the financial policy coup d’état well needs enrage every democrat. Still in February, Merz vigorously twittered – just a few days before the Bundestag election, he did this – against the Ampel government’s debt orgy, especially that of the SPD, and posed as a defender of the debt brake. 

Yet it was a central election promise of the CDU to maintain this debt brake and let justice be done for coming generations. And now leading CDU representatives and leading Green representatives disclose that the debts coup was already planned in November 2024 in a CDU committee, and this quarreling with the Greens was pure election campaign noise. The Union simply lied impudently in the face of the Germans. 

Do you know, right honorable colleagues of the SPD and right honorable colleagues of the CDU, that this theater which has now been contrived in the German Bundestag – the Greens are, Gott sei Dank, no longer present in the sovereign house in Thüringen – 

            Liebscher (SPD): What you contrive here is theater!

do you actually know what an injury you have caused? Do you actually know which injury you have inflicted on the German democracy? 

I am much underway in Thüringen, I speak with many of Thüringen’s citizens, and ever more say to me: I no longer have the feeling of living in a democracy; I have the feeling of living in a simulation of democracy. And I cannot contradict these people. 

The changes of the Basic Law and the undermining of the debt brake first in the Bund and then in the States have fatal effects for coming generations. Thüringen, right honorable colleague members, right honorable State government, must set itself in the Bundesrat against this financial policy run amok. An abstention does not suffice for this highly important theme. And your conduct and this circumstance which I have just sketched, it is now to be discussed, and I therein rejoice. 

Many thanks.

[trans: tem] 

 

Bernd Baumann, March 18, 2025, Debt and Democracy

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/214, p. 27736. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

A new great coalition of Union, SPD and Greens had the Budget Committee called in last  Sunday so as to vote on a gigantic debts package of 1,000 billion euros. Yet the final statutory proposal reached the members just one day previously with profound innovations. Suddenly to be taken up is the compulsion for climate neutrality in the Basic Law. Climate neutrality, this central dogma of leftist-green ideologues, destroys the competitiveness of our industry. No other country does something similar to its economy. 

Members of the AfD, SPD and BSW thus demanded an immediate hearing in committee, which the committee chairman would have needed to grant, since the necessary quorum was attained. That was compulsory. Yet the committee chairman, Helge Braun – former chief of the Chancellery Office and intimate of Angela Merkel – refused and forced the immediate waving through of the debts package. What a parliamentary low point, ladies and gentlemen! 

Yet why this flogging through? Because already in the coming week the newly elected Bundestag meets. But it has new majorities which the people want. It would thereby completely reject the mega-debts and Basic Law alterations. And the new Bundestag is the legitimate one, which reflected the majorities, ladies and gentlemen. Yet why does the new Bundestag meet just one month after the election, even though such fundamental decisions should now be passed? The Union and the SPD have rammed this through the seniors council. Against the will of all other delegations, Bundestag President Bas called in the new Bundestag just at the last possible moment. 

The entirety ultimately shows the true spirit, the true character primarily of Friedrich Merz who in this way wants to become Chancellor. 

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): “Whatever it takes!”

With a trillion in debt, approved by a Bundestag long since voted out of office, he wants to buy the Chancellorship with the SPD and Greens – like in a banana republic, ladies and gentlemen. 

And we thereby have still not spoken of the gigantic election fraud. I cite Herr Merz: I will put an end to this politics of leftist and green spin doctors. I cite CDU Secretary-general Linnemann: New debts are not to be made with the CDU; with us, there is no alteration of the debt brake because that is our deepest conviction. 

Ladies and gentlemen, who wants to lead the democracy ad absurdum, needs not falsify the ballots, as Erdoğan and Putin have been accused of. He just so robs democracy of every substance when by such false promises he deceives the voters, thus swindles their votes, and then does the opposite. 

 

[trans: tem]

Alexander Gauland, March 18, 2025, Merz, CDU and Germany

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/214, pp. 27761-24462. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

In the course of this debate, on the previous Thursday as well as today, much which is correct and also false has been said. A new assessment by me is therefore not needed. Allow me then to make a couple of personal remarks. 

Herr Merz and I were for many years in the same party. I went, because I could no longer bear the destruction by Angela Merkel of the CDU as a conservative-liberal, bürgerliche alternative to the left-green mainstream. Herr Merz was a victim of her will to power. 

I grant, ladies and gentlemen, that I therefore expected much of his return to politics: A different economic and social policy, a reversal of false developments, like the illegal mass immigration to the exit from atomic power and the combustion engine. 

            Andreas Mattfeldt (CDU/CSU): That is coming! All comes!

My idea – you call it a vision – was that Germany receives a Politik of reason and judgment, thus a middle-right Politik, like many people in this country wish it as evidenced by the election results. 

            Andreas Mattfeldt (CDU/CSU): Yet you have only a hostile goal!

Instead, Herr Merz, you’ve erected a firewall, which today and in the future makes you prisoners of left-green social alterations. So as to get into the Chancellor’s Office, you have sacrificed everything that was still conservative or bürgerlich in the CDU, and your voters to whom you gave your word on the debt brake, you have betrayed with billions of euros at the pump. Seldom, ladies and gentlemen, has bügerlicher decency been so quickly replaced by political cynicism. 

Herr Merz, that you do not listen to me is fully clear. Yet you would have been able to listen to Andreas Rödder, the earlier chairman of your basic values commission, who in the Welt am Sonntag wrote precisely the same in the album of the CDU. 

You will, Herr Merz, apparently become Chancellor with a Politik like we have experienced in recent years. And this Politik will exactly so fail as that of the subsiding Ampel. Not even your transatlantic allies in Washington support your dubious efforts to solve today’s problems with yesterday’s answers. Such a change of times [Zeitenwende], dear Herr Merz, will only be with us, not with the failures of yesterday. 

And if in recent years I ever again had doubt in my own party, today I am proud and glad to have stood with others as godparent to it in the year 2013. For since this week is it clear: The Merz CDU is the continuation of the Merkel CDU – a further so, Herr Merz, in Germany’s downfall, for which you in the future need to answer. 

I am grateful. 

 

[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]

René Aust, March 12, 2025, The Will of the People

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2025)03-12(3-0020-0000). 

Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

The European Semester should be concerned with producing stability in Europe. In fact, it would be necessary for us in Europe to again find stability, though what we are planning in the European Union, in the European Commission, is the further disempowerment of the parliament, is a further setting aside of the will of the people. 

We want that austerity does not continue to occur in Europe. We do not want that the European Parliament be further disempowered. We want that the people’s will is really, fully respected. What we presently see in Europe is: The people’s disempowerment itself destabilizes. Look at what just occurs in Roumania: A candidate wanted by the people, who is ahead in all surveys, will be excluded from being a candidate. Look at what has happened in Bulgaria: A referendum for an introduction of the euro is rejected. Look at what has happened in Germany, where is discussed whether a party should be banned, or where a re-count of the results of the German Bundestag election is rejected, even though the entry into the Bundestag of a party will thus possibly be prevented.   

We need to again find in all Europe that the people’s will is brought to bear. We thereby provide for stability, not by additional centralization through the European Commission. 

 

[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]

Alice Weidel, March 13, 2025, Finances and Values

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/213, pp. 27703-27704. 

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

We live in historic times. Yet no applicant for the Chancellor’s office in so brief a time has broken so many election promises as you, Herr Merz. Border controls, you no longer want, refusals certainly not. Deportation of those obliged to leave? Nonsense! Debt brake? Away with it, even though it is in your election program. You will enter history as the gravedigger of the debt brake which you in the election campaign just as vehemently as mendaciously defended. 

Without consideration, you sacrifice the well-being of the citizens so by hook or crook to become Chancellor. You have therein agreed with the SPD, the great election loser, to approve beforehand the largest debts package since the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany. Around one trillion euros – 1,000 billion – which is just so unclear as your entire profile. You want to force that through with an unscrupulous attack on our constitution and on democratic legitimacy, which you, with the dubious special sessions and rush jobs, make contemptible. 

Because the election results do not suit you, you again bring in the old Bundestag – thus, forces which the voters voted out and punished – with whose help you want to tie the hands of the newly elected Bundestag by means of a trillion in additional debt. These procedures show your contempt for the will of the voters. These procedures derive from your contempt for the democratic legitimization process, and these procedures derive from your character, Herr Merz. 

500 billion euros of special debts which you re-classify as “special funds” [Sondervermögen] for barely defined infrastructure measures and for the nullification of the debt brake, and for additional, in any case not more precise, defense expenditures in a similar sum, yet without an upper limit, and debts for climate protection so as to purchase the assent of the Greens. That is a gigantic mortgage with which you have indebted the coming generations who need to answer for this spending frenzy. 

With your blank check rises the debt burden per taxpayer – this value is more significant than the usually given per capita indebtedness – from today’s 58,500 euros to over 77,700 euros, that is an increase of 33 percent. Measured by GDP, Gross Domestic Product, Germany’s debt burden with your coup will rise from the present 64 percent to over 85 percent, and that is nothing other than a financial policy coup d’état which you here manage. 

The German government bond is valued as a risk-free benchmark for the costs of borrowing in the euro area. Germany’s financial policy change of course thus has negative effects on the risk premiums of German state bonds; that is to say: We will need to pay higher interest rates. 

At the announcement of your plans, the return for ten-year German government bonds rose in one day around 16 basis points, and in one week until today over 50 basis points – and that, even though the ECB had previously again reduced the interest rates 25 basis points. You thereby not only shrink the scope of action of future governments and drive the German state finances into derangement. By your actions you put at risk the creditworthiness of Germany in the international financial market. 

You thereby similarly endanger the house of cards of the weak euro currency, the existence of which is still primarily based on the present triple-A top credit. Germany will lose this triple-A rating as a result of your irresponsibility, Herr Merz. The interest rates will go through the roof and the euro will be devalued with massive consequences for the people. People in this country will be paying for that by higher interest rates on mortgages, through higher rents and rising prices for import goods for production and consumption. 

Your reasonings are just as pretentious as mendacious, as we’ve heard here today. You conjure up an ostensible “suddenly altered world situation” and stir up a war panic so as to intimidate and make pliant the citizens. It is the same cheap manipulation with which earlier governments have supported themselves in the Corona hysteria and the climate mania so as to justify the massive expansion of state spending and the limitations of freedom. And you commit this grotesque enormity just at this moment when the U.S.A. and Russia are about to end the mass death in the Ukraine, while you, the black-red-green coalition, want to there unconcernedly sink financial aid and armaments. 

Yes, it is right: Germany needs to do more for its defense capability so as to create an army which does not just devour money but is also fully mission-ready for the defense of the country. Yet required for that is no debts watering can, which will be exactly so thrown away as the first so-called special funds. Required for that is first a strategy, and then targeted expenditures. To recruit motivated soldiers, required is not only money, but a positive, patriotic Selbstbild of one’s own nation and one’s own army. For a woke, leftist ideology will no one give his life. 

And right: Germany urgently needs to invest in its neglected and rotting infrastructure. I ask myself: What in the last decades have you actually done as you were in the government? Yet also for that, a previously manipulated in the budget law, 500 billion euro shunting station is not the solution. Infrastructure and defense are core duties of state action. To appropriately finance them, the priorities of state expenditures need to be correctly set. 

A total state income in taxes and duties of over two trillion euros does not signify the solution of still more debt, but to rigorously slash superfluous spending. Thus eliminate all incentives for immigration into the social system. End the illegal immigration by closing the borders. Concern yourselves for a turning back without exception and a consistent sending back. End the horrendous subventions for climate protection and the failed energy change. Eliminate all payments to so-called NGOs, which in truth are not when they are dependent on state money. In this way, you can liberate a three-figure billion contribution in the budget to invest in infrastructure, defense and domestic security, and nevertheless still reduce taxes. 

Your exploratory paper negotiated with the Social Democrats is a declaration of capitulation before the green-socialist desires for which you have thrown overboard nearly all of your election promises. One may well ask, what you still want to offer the Greens after you submissively threw yourself on your knees. What you have charged to social and economic policy bears throughout the handwriting of the SPD and the Greens: Redistribution, subventions, state interference, Verbote. For this lamentable result, you betrayed your voters, ripped wide open the debts sluices and damaged the constitution. 

This voter fraud and this attack on democracy you’ve publicly planned with care. The unworthy presentation which you delivered here, Herr Merz, sounds now like an end-stage, black Ampel. It happens, just as each time it has happened: Those who vote for the CDU get presented with a left-green Politik. 

Because you cling to the firewall, you deliver yourself over to green-left-red majorities. You arrogantly show contempt for the votes of over ten million voters, who voted for the AfD, and thus for a political new beginning right of center. The duties, to which you have not awoken, continue to lie at hand: To correct the failed leftist policy which has led the country to loss of prosperity, de-industrialization, collapse of domestic security, collapse of infrastructure and public order. The wrong way of mass migration, squandering of tax money, and a planned economy, is to be left behind. We need to again bring Germany to the right way. 

We of the AfD are unalterably ready to take up these duties and assume responsibility, yet not with you, Herr Merz, and also not with the Union which maintains you as Chancellor candidate and a left-green policy. Render to this country, Herr Merz, a service, a quite great service: Give up wanting to become Chancellor. Since you cannot do it. On this point, Angela Merkel was right. Your time has run out, before you’ve at all begun. The Union should separate itself from you – for the good of our country and the good of their party; since you cannot do it. Why, Herr Merz? Because you have no principles and no values.

 

I am grateful.

 

 

 

[trans: tem]