Roland Hartwig, June 10, 2021, Constitution Defense

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/233, p. 29977.

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.

The AfD also sees considerable need for reform of the Constitution Defense.

            Stephan Thomae (FDP): I can imagine!

Behind this still quite friendly sounding name is hidden nothing other than a domestic secret service which has been committed to spy upon and publicly stigmatize political movements with secret service means like the listening in on telephones and the interception of e-mails. It is thus the more important that such a service be closely and exclusively bound by statute and law.

We see a need for action on two levels. For starters, the legal scope for this service needs to be improved. My delegation has here put forward two draft laws [Drucksache 19/ 30406, 304012] from which I want to call to attention just two aims in view.

First. Those affected shall receive an essentially improved right of information so as to ascertain which  information concerning them was gathered by the secret service.

Second. Criminal offenses committed in service by so-called undercover investigators shall in the future always, apart from quite narrowly limited exceptions, be reported to the state’s attorney office and by this also be prosecuted. Presently, the authorities’ administration can look away when it attributes no considerable significance to the criminal offense, and that is even for crimes subject to a minimum sentence of one year’s incarceration. That is unworthy of a state of law.

However a more fundamental need for reform exists at a second, political level. The Constitution Defense is no neutral institution like the Federal Audit Authority, but is subsumed by the Interior Ministry and thus by party politicians. This is a fundamental weaving flaw which needs to be disentangled; since it is to be feared that not each of the increasingly leftist-oriented politicians can withstand the attempt to commit this secret service as a political weapon in an indeed permanently summoned up struggle against the right. And of that there is a thorough-going example.

With permission of the President, I want to here cite the former leader of the Federal Office for the Defense of the Constitution, Herr Maaßen,

            André Hahn (Linke): Oh Gott!

            Beatrix von Storch (AfD): Maaßen, nicht Gott!

who in December 2020 in the “Preußischen Allgemeinen Zeitung” said – quote – :

I nevertheless need accordingly state that massive personal pressure was exerted on me to finally observe the AfD. That was an improper, an unaccustomed pressure [ein ungebührlicher, ein ungewöhnlicher Druck] from which I gained the impression that here I should be instrumentalized for partisan political purposes. I even in part felt myself compelled.

            Frank Sitta (FDP): There is an authority to direct.

Here at the latest need really all alarm bells ring out for you, ladies and gentlemen, even so as for the people out there in the country.

            Konstantin von Notz (Greens): The “Preußischen Allgemeinen Zeitung”                                wants that!

Against this background is it to be wondered that the Constitution Defense increasingly attacks political positions which were represented 20 years ago by the CDU/CSU when they were still conservative?

            Frank Sitta (FDP): When was that then?

The impression increasingly enforces itself that today’s Constitution Defense wants to defend the government and its, in many fields, utterly failed policy against criticism and opposition. Constitution Defense is however not government defense; since otherwise it would be nothing more than the continuation of politics by secret service means and thereby in the end itself be a danger for our democracy. It therefore needs be comprehensively on the testing stand.

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]

 

           

 

Roland Hartwig, May 6, 2021, Hong Kong

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/227, pp. 29039-29040.

Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen.

The U.S.A.’s dominant position as a world power will be increasingly challenged by China. This did not first begin with Donald Trump and it will also not end with Joe Biden. The conflict resulting therefrom will be decided on many levels. Obvious examples are the reciprocal economic sanctions and the measuring of military power in the South China Sea. Not quite so obvious is the instrumentalization of so-called civil societies so as to indirectly promote unrest. This is nothing other than interference in the domestic affairs of a country. And Hong Kong is an evident example of this.

First a look at the Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong, with whom our Foreign Minister let himself be photographed in common and who later was quoted with the words, “We will not attain our goal with purely peaceful protest.” He was for long built up by the U.S.A. as an icon. “Time” magazine chose him as one of the most influential teenagers of 2014. The American media firm Netflix placed him before a wide public in the production, “Teenager vs. Superpower”. And in 2018, American presidential candidate Marco Rubio even nominated him for a Nobel peace prize.

Let us look at Hong Kong civil society. It receives significant sums from foreign countries. Here by far the greatest money donor is again the United States, which alone between 2000 and 2015 has expended over 200 million dollars for the promotion of democracy in China. Already during the so-called umbrella protests in the year 2014, the Chinese government criticized this de-stabilizing interference in domestic affairs. And the internationally regarded advisor of the American Defense Department, Dr. Michael Pillsbury, conceded on American television that these accusations may not be entirely false.

Yet not only in Hong Kong; with us here also will transatlantic networks be built and politically well-meaning persons be promoted. The aforementioned Marco Rubio has in the past year quite decisively expedited the construction of an inter-parliamentary China alliance, the goal of which is to coordinate the China policies of members in different countries, presumably in the American interest. Among the members are names of politicians who have signed the submitted motions. They are in part also members of other networks like the Atlantic Bridge or the Young Leaders of the American Council on Germany. The discussions thus do not take place in thin air. They are elements of a growing Chinese-American conflict. What does this mean for us?

First. I am a representative of a party which wants win back sovereignty for our country.

            Christian Dürr (FDP): What is that for rubbish? That is ridiculous!

I therefore am of the strong conviction that we should not undermine the sovereignty of other countries, by which we de-stabilize them from within.

Christian Dürr (FDP): You take your orders from Moscow! That is ridiculous, what you are saying!

Second. We are concerned about the guarantee of an agreement which was concluded between Great Britain and the People’s Republic of China in 1984. Not us, but the British have called for the acceptance of eventual violations of this agreement. For that, they require no help from Germany.

Third. We should generally not let ourselves be hitched to the wagon of other powers which strive to involve Germany in their geo-political conflicts. That is quite clearly not in the interest of our country. Yet your motions go precisely in that direction. The AfD delegation will therefore not vote for them.

            Christian Dürr (FDP): Anti-American! Super!

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

Roland Hartwig, April 22, 2021, Europe and Ukraine

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/224, pp. 28489-28490.

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. Dear guests in the gallery. Dear viewers.

Many times, a glance in the past shows us the way in the future. Until the 20th Century, a cultural unity existed within the European continent. We were the scientific, cultural, political and economic center of the world.

            Manuel Sarrazin (Greens): Who is “we”?

The unity of the European culture shattered with the First World War and the October Revolution in Russia. The Second World War brought the definite descent of Europe.

            Manuel Sarrazin (Greens): And then you came!

In the year 1900, the portion of Europeans in the world population still lay at 25 percent, today it contributes less than 10 percent and it continually sinks further.

In economics and research we meanwhile have fallen far behind the United States and Asia. And we have lost influence politically. In Europe, west of the former Iron Curtain, a rapid decay of the European culture is to be lamented.

            Nils Schmid (SPD): What?

Today’s current affairs hour is a symptom of this downfall.

For eight years we have an armed conflict in the middle of Europe which for many has become the norm and with which we occupy ourselves again today only because it threatens to escalate.The Federal government almost always has an unbalanced, ideologically colored view of this world; Herr State Minister Roth has again today delivered to us a very impressive example of that. The one-sided reference to Russian troop movements in the title of the current affairs hour drawn up by the coalition delegations is an example of that. From the government and from the media  there is as good as nothing to be heard of the present NATO troop movements of around 30,000 soldiers.

We live today in a climate of political correctness and of repressive tolerance. Your tolerance, ladies and gentlemen, nevertheless ends immediately when others – like us – do not follow your opinion.Today’s debate again proves this and, before all things, your polemical heckling [Zwischenrufe] proves this. What does not correspond to the decreed Zeitgeist in Germany will be ostracized, oppressed and attacked.

            Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): You sound like Heike Hänsel!

That pertains to the relations with our own citizens exactly so as to those with our European neighbors: The Poles, the Hungarians, the Russians.

            Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): Exactly!

Here will be created quite purposeful caricatures out of which then arise images of enemies. You then let it appear to be legitimate to compel others to your own will with sanctions. And if that does not help, then in Germany it is believed necessary to forbid and to externally display military strength.

            Johann David Wadephul (CDU/CSU): Now you are speaking of Russia!

It was once otherwise, and we of the AfD delegation are working so that it will again be otherwise.

Europe was once united in its national variety and not separated in its distinctions. There was a positive curiosity about these distinctions; for all that, they make up the richness of our continent. Europe was once more than a common market and a military bridgehead of the U.S.A. It was a spiritual project [geistiger Entwurf] which united the European peoples on a basis of their common heritage and development, founded on the fundamentals of democracy first developed in Greece, Roman law, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment which again, alas, are threatened to be lost, and the Germans’ love of freedom. This love of freedom unites us with the countries of eastern Europe which stand up for their independence against many challenges, and now against a centralized European Union.

            Johann David Wadephul (CDU/CSU): Good to hear!

We want a Europe of fatherlands and the reconstruction of the centralized Union into a European economic community as it existed successfully for decades. The problem: Besides the loss of the idea of the state is also to be decried the increasing loss of the European idea. As a consequence, 30 years after the fall of the Wall, the European space remains partitioned into two camps opposed to one another.

            Peter Beyer (CDU/CSU): Mein Gott!

It is especially dramatic that this line of separation now runs through Ukraine. The origins of Russia lie in Kiev. The peoples of both countries are closely bound to one another by innumerable familial ties.

            Alexander Gauland (AfD): Ja!

Here, what belongs together is violently separated. We may in absolutely no case follow the voices of those who now want to demolish the last bridges and to further spin the spiral of military escalation.

Europe will not again arise from the rubble of a third great war. We therefore urgently require a new start in Europe with the inclusion of Russia. In the long term, there will be security in Europe only with, and not against, Russia.

Many thanks.

            Manuel Sarrazin (Greens): You have said nothing of the Super League, Herr                            Hartwig. Hermann der Cherusker, he was a good guy!

 

[trans: tem]

 

           

 

           

 

 

 

Roland Hartwig, December 9, 2020, Budget – Foreign Office

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/198, pp. 24978-24979.

Herr President. Herr Minister. Ladies and gentlemen.

Herr Foreign Minister, you want to expend around 6 billion euros for the work of your office in the coming year. That is a lot of money and far more than in past legislative periods. Let us therefore look just for once at what you have generally attained in the past years with these record expenditures.

Now: The balance of your foreign policy is meagre, not to say devastating. The relations with almost all of Germany’s important partners have in part dramatically deteriorated. That concerns first of all Poland and Hungary which you, in the context of the German presidency of the EU Council, wanted to force into a German asserted line with sanctions and threats. That further concerns the British who, on account of the policy of uncontrolled mass immigration advocated by the German government, have quite decisively taken leave of the EU.

            Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): That is false and you know that!

Yet the relations with the Americans, Russians and Chinese have, under your government, also suffered severely.

You therefore have started initiatives which in fact are not path-breaking. For who today still at all remembers your “Alliance of Multilateralism”, your “Europe United”, or the “Thursday for Democracy”? Your ideas, Herr Minister, for all that have long since landed in the wastepaper basket of history. It begins time to pass over you and your policy.

Let us look, for example, at the Russian government. They begin to be on the lookout for alternatives. Thus yesterday a delegation of our AfD Bundestag fraction, despite massive resistance – and from your house – was cordially received in Moscow by Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov.

Ladies and gentlemen, the world changes radically as not long since. China again becomes a significant world power,

            Gabriele Katzmarek (SPD): Mein Gott!

Russia again stronger. In Africa we experience a colossal population growth, this century’s greatest problem, largely ignored by all of you here. From Libya, through Iraq and Syria, to the Ukraine, Europe is surrounded and cut apart by conflicts.

            Ulrich Lechte (FDP): Thanks to your Russian friends.

The breathtaking technological progress leads to shifts in geopolitical gravity to Asia. To be able to successfully lead our country through the 21st Century, we therefore primarily require an encompassing objective and a clear course which knows how to use the great historical currents to our advantage.

Then which concepts for the future do you have for our country, Herr Foreign Minister? I fear there is not much there.

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): There is certainly nothing there!

You tear down what durably exists without erecting something new. At the very beginning of your time in office you ruined the legacy of your party, a successful German Ostpolitik. As an alternative, you have offered nothing. You define predominately negative goals. The national state is dead, overtaken, a concept from the 19th Century, so it is said from the side of this government. Consequently, the borders and social system will be opened to people from all the world and the tax money, hard earned in this country, will be grandiosely distributed to the entire world.

            Christian Petry (SPD): Oh dear!

            Johann David Wadephul (CDU/CSU): Man, oh man!

Checkbook diplomacy, Herr Foreign Minister, was however never a replacement for a strategy. And the national state is entirely other than dead! Scarcely a theme will so persistently influence us in the coming years as the re-ascent of China. We occupy ourselves ever more intensely with this country because it is, as a sovereign national state, very successful in ever more areas. I name only mobile communications, space travel, artificial intelligence. China is the powerful counter-evidence to your thesis that the national state was an anachronism of the 19th Century.

           Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): The song of praise of the Marxist-Leninist                               Chinese stamp from the AfD! I would not have figured on it! Super!

Foreign policy, Herr Maas, is not made just with the left. Nothing will come of it without the right engagement.

We again require visions so as to motivate men and direct energies towards a goal. As a country, we require a positive concept of wherein the 21st Century we wish to develop ourselves, of which place we want to take up in this newly ordained world order. Why do we not, for example, set a goal for ourselves for the year 2040, the 50th anniversary of the re-unification? Some ideas on that from my delegation: By 2040, we want to have re-established Germany as a sovereign national state of the German people [2040 möchten wir Deutschland als souveränen National-staat des deutschen Volkes wiederhergestellt haben]

             Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): That had abolished them, the Reichsbürger!

and thereby in this state maintain the German culture, language and tradition [und dabei in diesem Staat die deutsche Kultur, Sprache und Tradition erhalten]. By 2040, we want to build with all the European neighbors, thus also with Russia, a Europe of Vaterländer,

Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): Russia is not a neighbor! Poland lies in between. Into which you probably want to be marching!

and in common with them, technologically and economically meet Asia and North America eye to eye.

Only the national democracies are capable of providing their citizens the required and desired space for identification and protection. We all need a Heimat, we need our Heimat. The artificial separation of the European continent again after the end of the Cold War into standing eastern and western power structures must be overcome.

            Steffi Lemke (Greens): The speech is going to the Constitution Defense!

Herr Minister, you claim to be conducting a foreign policy united with values. Values can be choicely disputed, and you in recent years have done that with many countries and with particular effort. What however we actually require is a Realpolitik guided by interests, a policy which again puts German interests at the mid-point, just as you, Herr Minister, once had sworn an oath: To the well-being of the German people.

Many thanks.

            Steffi Lemke (Greens): The speech goes to the Constitution Defense! Good luck!

 

[trans: tem]