Alice Weidel, March 20, 2024, War and Peace

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/159, pp. 20331-20332. 

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

The omens under which you set out for this European Council are dark. The Ukraine war is already in a third year. Serious efforts to end the fateful bloodletting in the midst of Europe are  not in sight. Warmongering and war rhetoric determine the tone in Brussels as well as in Berlin. 

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): Not in Moscow?

Michel, the President of the European Council, demands: Europe needs to prepare itself for war and change over to a war economy. 

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): In which world do you live, actually?

The French state President Macron speaks of the mission of NATO troops in the Ukraine theater  of war, and boasts that France would be in the position for that. 

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): What you say, Putin could not say better!

In the ranks of the Union, in a remarkable historical amnesia, –  Herr Merz, because you the entire time interrupt – 

            Till Steffen (Greens): That’s in your manuscript, but he didn’t do that!

one dreams of carrying the war to Russia. The Union stands for that. In lock-step with the FDP armaments lobbyist Strack-Zimmermann forms a black-green coalition of warmongers which flatters itself with martial rhetoric – even you, Herr Chancellor; a shame that you are not here – and accuses others of defeatism. 

            Till Steffen (Greens): I believe that was a failure of translation from the Russian.

The bellicose over-bidding competition rings the more absurd against the background of the desolate state of our own armed forces. The Bundeswehr has at its disposal, as before, not one, single mission-ready army brigade. Nevertheless, the debate revolves steadfastly around new weapons deliveries and financial aid in the billions to Kiev, while the reconstruction of our own army and the recovery of capability for our own national defense is here obviously of no priority. It was right, Herr Chancellor, that you spoke against the delivery of the Taurus cruise missile to the Ukraine. 

Dorothee Bär (CDU/CSU): Yes, praise from the AfD! That is super for the SPD! Madness!

It would not be in the German security interest to strip our armed forces of an additional important weapons system. In that regard, the Bundeswehr does not even have at its disposal a sufficient number of these cruise missiles so as to fulfill its obligations vis-à-vis NATO. The delivery of this system, which as an offensive weapon may have effect far into Russia and can even reach the Kremlin, would be a quite clear participation in the war. The commitment of German soldiers for servicing would necessarily follow after it and thereby dramatically increase the potential of escalation. 

And even you, Herr Scholz, have ever again fallen down and have let yourself be forced into escalation. First should German armored howitzers bring the war’s turning point, then German defensive panzers and finally German combat panzers. None of that fulfilled the ratcheted-up expectations. Now the escalationists extol the Taurus as a game-changer or wonder weapon. Even with the Taurus, the Ukraine has not the faintest breath of a chance to achieve its war aims. The truth is needed for that. 

Even if this time you remain steadfast, the Nein to Taurus does not suffice. Germany is acting de facto as a war party. Germany participates by means of the sanctions in an economic war against Russia. Germany delivers weapons to the Ukraine. Germany gives to considerable extent financial assistance, 

            Christoph Meyer (FDP): Has the Kremlin written down all of that for you?

and Europe expropriates capital income on Russian reserve deposits – from my viewpoint, that is forbidden. 

Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): Russia Today speaks! Here is the latest news from Russia Today!

Instead of driving forward the escalation with warmongering and weapons deliveries, the German policy needs to call to mind its strengths. That means: It needs to venture all to step forward as a mediator and get negotiations underway. To that, we are besides also obligated by the peace precept in the German Basic Law. 

Without question is Russia’s war in the Ukraine an attack contrary to international law. 

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): Ach ja? 

            Christian Dürr (FDP): Ah!

Just so without question has the Ukraine the right to self defense. 

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): Aha!

The decision in that regard to support it does not however release us from the obligation to rational policy in the well understood interests of our own country and our own people. 

German interests are represented and defined in Berlin, not by chance in Kiev or in Washington. Even in the U.S.A. are there long since signs of an exit [Ausstieg]. To believe the Europeans could alone continue to conduct the U.S.A.’s proxy war against Russia would be folly and hubris in one. 

            Kordula Schulz-Asche (Greens): Proxy war?

The Ukraine war has long since run aground. It devours month by month billions in money and material and countless soldiers’ lives. The talk of victory and endurance from Kiev is unrealistic. This war must not be frozen in, it must be ended. 

            Katja Mast (SPD): Putin can pull out!

A Ukraine as a theater of war, de-populated and devastated for years, helplessly dependent on foreign payments and under the continual danger of the escalation to a Third World War, is neither in the German nor European interest. It can also ultimately not be in the interest of the Ukrainian nation. 

Germany’s interest is peace in Europe, the normalization of economic relations with all countries, Russia also, and the ending of the sanctions war which most harms us alone. The way there leads through negotiations. You cannot execute this charge, in that you glorify one of the war’s opponents and demonize the other. Realistic foreign policy has the duty, in the propaganda thunder of the war parties which we here everyday hear, 

            Patrick Schnieder (CDU/CSU): Just from you!

to find the contact points for a durable exchange of interests. Certainly, when the weapons speak, diplomacy is not allowed to be silent. 

            Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Your time is expired, Frau Weidel.

Act for the best of one’s own people and the peoples of Europe. Seek the way to peace 

Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Frau Weidel. 

so as to prevent a major European war.

 

[trans: tem]

 

           

 

 

 

Tino Chrupalla, March 14, 2024, Peace and Cruise Missiles

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/157, pp. 20089-20090. 

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

A delivery of Taurus means the prolongation of the war. Yes, it harms perhaps Russia, yet the Ukraine as well, and primarily it endangers Germany. As the Alternative für Deutschland, we condemn the Russian attack on the Ukraine. We stand for the territorial sovereignty of each country and honor the will of the respective population. For that, is required a peace which we want to attain by all peaceful means. It therefore ultimately needs to be about discussing various solutions in common at the negotiations table. 

The delivery of Taurus harms primarily Germany. Yet we still are not perceived as a war party – still! You have it hand, Herr Chancellor. Therefore, we request of the Chancellor to consistently further pursue at this point the line of peace in Germany and in Europe. And before all, do not allow yourself to be extorted by the warmongers in the CDU, in the FDP and of the Greens. That, we request of the Chancellor. 

Valued colleagues, 75 years ago the German people fortified themselves with a Basic Law – cite – “as a member of equal right in a united Europe to serve the peace of the world.” And precisely that still needs to be the commanding guideline. 

A so-called voltage drop [Spannungsfall] was posited here in parliament. Then came into play the Bundeswehr as a defense army. Except: We are not allowed to let it come even so far, ladies and gentlemen. International involvements are just so to be avoided as a self-provoked status as a war party. Both, we of the AfD do not want. 

We want to provide humanitarian assistance in a proportionate framework – and that, consistently. For that, however, we require an efficient economy. Yet instead of being concerned for durable infrastructures, the Federal government tells tales of a war economy, of novelties even in the health sector. 

A defense-ready Bundeswehr we still cannot put forward. A 100 billion euros special facility – special debt – is ready and cannot be invested. Why actually not, Herr Pistorius? Instead, one-way frigates will be deployed to the Red Sea. 

Allow me to say a few sentences on the theme “Security in the Bundeswehr”. From an unprotected discussion on the potential delivery of weapons and their employment, a necessary measure of respect, morality and professionalism was missing. The loose connection with security standards has brought forward a situation which could be understood as an open meddling [offene Einmischung] in the war. 

Today, it’s about Taurus. And what would be the next step? Do the colleagues of the so-called middle of the house want to send soldiers to the combat mission? Think primarily, in regards your decisions of conscience, – I know, there is no conscience in regards Herr Kiesewetter and Frau Strack-Zimmermann – in the interests of your families, friends and acquaintances! 

We as members of the German Bundestag decide here in the end on war or peace. I therefore demand of you to take in hand your own responsibility for the peace and to reject this war motion of the CDU. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

Jürgen Braun, February 21, 2024, Navalny, Russia and Germany

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/153, pp. 19512-19513. 

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

The core of every democracy is the opposition, not the government. There are governments in China, North Korea, Iran; however, there is opposition only in democracies. 

            Norbert Röttgen (CSDU/CSU): In Russia also! 

Make a note! 

Russia has been deprived of its most important oppositionist. On Alexei Navalny, millions of cultured Russians in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk had placed their hopes. They wanted a fatherland that would be a part of that common European house of which Michail Gorbaschev spoke and for which Navalny fought. 

For this fight, he first needed to pay with his health, then with his freedom and finally with his life. The convictions he tangibly represented thereby played a subordinate role; for thoughts are not crimes. When anyone is unjustly confined or is persecuted, one should also then stand up for him when one does not share his convictions – in the case of Navalny as also in the case of Assange. 

Nevertheless, a look today at Navalny’s tangible positions is worthwhile, especially since the old parties ably ignore these positions. Alexei Navalny was a patriot – according to green-left standards, even a nationalist. He fought against a prevailing corruption and the erosion of the state of law. While for ethnic Russians an infrastructure is scarcely available, party bosses enrich themselves without limit. And the political competition is either not permitted for election, or is similarly banned. Yet Navalny also fought against excess foreign influence. He never forgot that the murderers of the oppositionists Politkovskaya and Nemzov were the Moslem handymen of the regime. He criticized illegal immigration and the spread of Islam on Russian territory. He criticized the accompanying criminality and religious radicalization. He also wanted no building of mosques in Moscow, since he was a patriot. The sympathy of the Ampel parties and of the Union at the death of Navalny thus appears more than questionable; since against anyone like him, they would have immediately introduced a party expulsion proceeding on account of so-called hostility to Islam or foreigners, and in no way would have celebrated him as a hero. 

Let us recall in remembrance: For what was Navalny officially condemned? For so-called “extremism” and the propagation of “narcissistic ideology”. Does that perhaps remind you of something, dear colleagues? 

Agniesczka Brugger (Greens): To compare yourself with Alexei Navalny! That is an impudence! 

With a cunning similar to Putin’s, you proceed against the only opposition in this country. 

            Frank Schwabe (SPD): Unterirdisch!

Minister Faeser even openly discusses an AfD ban and sics the domestic secret service on us. 

Omid Nouripour (Greens): There is no secret service in Germany! There is only an intelligence service! 

That no longer has the least thing to do with legality. The Internet Enforcement Act of the preceding government even finds official applause in Russia and China – thus, internet censors. For years there in Russia, opposition gatherings were forbidden, as were demonstrations against Navalny’s imprisonment, and in fact under the pretext of Corona. And that we also know from the best Germany ever. 

            Frank Schwabe (SPD): Mein Gott! 

            Derya Türk-Nachbaur (SPD): Shabby! Sick!

And not least: The state media in Germany increasingly attempts to generate a climate of non-contradiction [Widerspruchlosigkeit], a political unity brew. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Such stupidity! Such rubbish! 

            Stephan Brandner AfD): Completely right!

In the face of the farmers’ protests against the Greens, the journalist Knut Bauer just last week raged on the compulsory financed state radio that one dared to disturb the event of a – I cite – “government party”. This same mentality in the GEZ media is similarly found in the Russian state media. 

Agniesczka Brugger (Greens): Your AfD-mimimi has nothing to do with the debate’s subject. 

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): Just listen for once! That is the truth!

And there, it is held to be criminal when the government is criticized. 

            Julia Klöckner (CDU/CS): Here, no one is imprisoned! 

And there, judicial positions are politically appointed. And there, movements of private citizens’ finances are controlled. Frau Faeser has again done so as before. Minister Faeser thus wants Russian conditions in Germany. 

            Renata Alt (FDP): Shame on you! 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Such stupidity! 

            Frank Schwabe (SPD): Yet it is your friends who sit in Moscow!

There are governments everywhere, even in dictatorships. The decisive difference between dictatorships and democracies is not in the existence of a government, but in that of an opposition, of a free and unrestricted acting opposition. 

            Till Steffen (Greens): What are you afraid of? 

            Frank Schwabe (SPD): Yet you drive to Moscow for Herr Putin! 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Putin’s sychophant!

 Now after the death of a courageous oppositionist, let us in the future the more take to heart to let the citizens freely vote and to promote free political competition, instead of wanting to ban opposition parties. 

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): Excellent! 

 

[trans: tem]

Alexander Gauland, February 22, 2024, Russia, Munich and Realpolitik

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/154, p. 19630. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

“War is a mere continuation of politics with other means” [„Der Krieg ist eine blosse Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln“]. Everyone knows this sentence of Clausewitz. In traditional international law, a war therefore ends with a political result, a conclusion of peace. If however one party to a war excludes the other from the civilized world with a judgement of unworthiness [Unwerturteil], a conclusion of peace becomes impossible. 

Since 1648, as the peace treaty of Münster and Osnabrück ended the ideological war between protestants and catholics, the rule applies that all subject to international law are alike in the sense of a like ability to speak. Even in the times of the Cold War, there were talks between both sides. The expression that one is not allowed to let the line of communication to rupture,  belonged until recently to the standard vocabulary of German foreign policy. 

            Kurt Abraham (CDU/CSU): Who then has broken the line? 

Why, ladies and gentlemen, does this no longer apply to Russia?

            Kurt Abraham (CDU/CSU): Because the Russians have broken the line! 

It was a political failure that Russian representatives were uninvited at the Munich Security Conference, a conference the motto of which is “Peace through Dialogue“ – not through weapons deliveries. 

Realpolitik, ladies and gentlemen, is the art of the possible. The possible is often not to be had without painful compromise. Values-led foreign policy on the other hand, as we lately manage it, does not know the lesser evil. When values-led foreign policy leads to that communication and negotiations stop, or are simply just not undertaken, it needs to be replaced by Realpolitik. And when the values-led foreign policy leads to that the war will then be continued when the war aims are not achieved, it needs to be replaced by Realpolitik. 

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the central distinction between Realpolitik and that which we meanwhile have come to know as “values-led foreign policy“. 

Marianne Schieder (SPD): It is a lie when you assert that there were no talks. You know that! 

Values societies feel themselves obligated to fight against unworthiness [Unwert]. With a representative of unworthiness, values societies conduct no negotiations. The opponent of war becomes an absolute enemy. His interests are criminal. 

            Marcus Faber (FDP): That is called war crimes! 

The enemy must be annihilated. That unfortunately leads, with a known consistency, to that the war escalates. 

            Marianne Schieder (SPD): That is your vocabulary, not ours!

Ladies and gentlemen, Putin conducts a war which can be held to be unjust and wrong, 

            Agnes-Marie Strack-Zimmermann (FDP): “can be held”! 

or needs be. So as to end it, however, nothing is served by assuming his criteria; but on the contrary, by again recalling Münster and Osnabrück and by overcoming the Western inability of speech [Sprachlosigkeit]. Yet, ladies and gentlemen, for that is required a Metternich at the Vienna Congress or a Kissinger in Peking, instead of a presenter of war. It’s too bad that no one in Munich wanted to undertake that role. Therefore, we will also have no peace if we so continue. 

I am grateful. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

Michael Espendiller, January 31, 2024, Foreign Office

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/150, pp. 19170-19171. 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable colleagues. Dear spectators in the hall and on YouTube. And, of course, dear Frau Baerbock. 

One of my favorite headlines of last week was: “Russian Campaign Uncovered”. The Foreign Office shall have undertaken a data analysis which of course is totally trustworthy, yet quite incidentally is put forward in Spiegel. 

This data analysis comes to the conclusion that on X thousands of German language tweets were removed which include the accusation that the Federal government neglects its own people so as to support the Ukraine. O mein Gott! How has it come to this? One is, ja, completely shocked. Or yet: One is informed. 

One need only read the Finance Ministry’s report of December 2023 in which is found that, since the war’s beginning, Germany has arranged a total expenditure in the sum of 27.8 billion euros for the benefit of the Ukraine. This number does not at all include the German contribution for the EU program. Thus, 27.8 billion euros: That is nearly the 2024 budget for the Foreign Office, the Family Ministry and the Agriculture Ministry reckoned together. Yet for this Ampel of horrors, this presumably is all just peanuts. Electricity comes out of the socket, money grows on trees and stylists are paid by the taxpayers. 

Apropos taxpayers: While we here in this country burden our citizens’ income with tax rates between 14 and 45 percent, there is in the Ukraine a slim flat income tax of 18 percent, plus a 1.5 percent war tax. That means, the average Ukrainian oligarch pays less tax as a percentage than most of the normal employees in Germany. Presumably, the Christmas ski season in the Ukraine thus again runs recht gut. 

            Deborah Düring (Greens): You should be ashamed! This is unbelievable!

To the enjoyment of these pleasures come of course only those able to afford it and, in wondrous ways, are not with their countrymen at the front, 

            Vice-president Petra Pau: Herr member?

at the front, where entire generations of Ukrainians are sent to death by their President, instead of finally starting armistice negotiations. 

            Jürgen Hardt (CDU/CSU): Kremlin propaganda! 

            Peter Beyer (CDU/CSU): Shame on you!

Vice-president Petra Pau: Herr member – I have stopped the clock – do you accept a question or remark from member Farle? 

No, thanks. 

And this naturally interests the Ampel not at all. 

In Germany meanwhile flutter into the mail boxes the utility bills for renters, which demand in part additional payments in the four-figure range. It is estimated that an average 581 euros has been the additional payment per renter. Price driver number one: The energy costs. 

The government’s tellers of fairy tales will now again object that Putin is guilty for the high energy prices. That however is not the truth. Since it is the foreign policy and the energy policy of the Ampel and its black-red predecessor government which have gotten us into trouble. 

Besides, no one yet has been able to explain to me why it is now so much better to be dependent on American LNG instead of Russian gas. It certainly cannot be the fault of Putin's evil Politik; otherwise, the government might also make no energy deals with the United Arab Emirates. I do not know whether you have heard, but women’s rights do not look so good there. 

Deborah Düring (Greens): Since when are you interested in women’s rights? This is just a farce! 

           Gabriele Katzmarek (SPD): An AfDer mouths the words “women’s rights”!

Yet to the Federal government it is quite obviously all the same – just so as the human rights of the Israelis who are routinely rocketed by their Hamas neighbors and cut down with the utmost barbarity. For years, the Federal government nevertheless supports the so-called Palestinian aid work of UNWRA with contributions in the millions. 

            Ulrich Lechte (FDP): Have pity! Mercy!

And for ever has there been evidence that this organization supports the Hamas terrorists. 

            Peter Beyer (CDU/CSU): You are the Kremlin’s useful idiots!

On X on Sunday, we were allowed to learn that twelve members had participated in the Hamas surprise attack on October 7 of last year. And for precisely these long since known reasons, my delegation for years ever and ever again demanded to stop the payments to UNRWA and to completely dissolve UNRWA. 

Yet ever again the same thing happened: When the great media wave of indignation rolled, the payments were frozen for effect in the media, only so as to again be furtively undertaken a brief time later. And thus this Federal government not only supports terrorists and murderers, but furthermore, for example, the traffickers in the Mediterranean. And here besides we have moved for the elimination of the means. 

While we are on eliminations: We have also moved that the means for the political foundations in the Foreign Office budget of around 84 million euros be cut. With this money, all of the old parties manage a kind of network of their own embassies. Look, for example, at the website of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation. There are worldwide locations; for example, in Manila, Islamabad, Lima, Harari and Tiflis. And so it is in regards all the foundations of the old parties – except of course in regards the AfD. 

Yet the question actually is: Need the German taxpayer pay for that? Our answer to that is quite clear: Nein, he need not. In that we put this question in regards all positions of Frau Baerbock’s budget, we could identify a savings potential of a total sum of 1.4 billion euros. We thereby require 21.5 percent less money than this Ampel of horrors. And quite honestly, I think, there is still more. 

Many thanks for your attention. 

            Ulrich Lechte (FDP): Dank sei Gott!

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

Tino Chrupalla, December 13, 2023, Economy and War

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/143, pp. 18091-18093. 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

            It needs be well stated following the government declaration of Chancellor Olaf Scholz and  after Herr  Merz’s speech, that they have argued completely past the primary cares and problems of one’s own country. Frau Haßelmann, your speech was a pure war speech, nothing other. That has really shaken me.  

            It thus need not be wondered that ever more citizens look at the Federal government with concern and really with a lack of understanding. If one peeks at the half-time of this Federal government of which it needs be truly said: This country has never been so run down since the Second World War. Within a few months, the economic nation of Germany has been decisively changed by this Federal government: Inflation, a shrinking economy, rising insolvencies. And, as a crown, the Federal Constitutional Court declares your special debts budget unconstitutional. Your conclusions from that – we have today already again heard it: You do not allow yourselves to be diverted, and run exactly so as ever, with the KTF and eyes open into the dead end. – Thus appears this government’s present policy.

 

From the SPD we hear at the party day: Social spending certainly belongs to the SPD’s DNA, social spending which is meanwhile most deeply unsozial because it no more cushions the emergencies of individuals but presents in the form of Bürgergeldes [citizens’ wage] a kind of basic income. This is tied neither to conditions, 

            Christian Petry (SPD): Nonsense! 

nor is partially worse paid work motivated and generally something done for the social state. You see, valued colleagues: This policy continues to create one-sided dependencies and plainly no innovations.  

            Christian Petry (SPD): No idea!

Herr Chancellor, we know you are not a man of many words. You will perhaps go into the history of the Federal Republic as the eternally silent Chancellor. 

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): Olaf, the Forgetful! 

For you, not only the information for the Warburg Bank has gone missing; there is also no idea in your cabinet – none which we notice – of what you actually want to make of Germany. In that regard, we have again today heard nothing. The entire world you want to save and the climate, too. Yet these cannot be the only goals of a German Federal government. 

The citizens of this country need to stand quite high on the agenda for you. In your election campaign, your yourself ever again spoke of “respect”. Where remains the respect for those in this country who are economically active, for the Mittelstand, for the trades, for industry? Instead, you artificially restrict the energy supply. You disconnect intact nuclear power plants, permitting, with the attacks on Nord Stream, that our critical infrastructure be destroyed, and stop the import of Russian gas. 

The Economy Minister conducts his green economic war within Germany and in the entire world. These also he will not win. He so far fails with that, as the economic sanctions against Russia indicate. These have for a consequence – we certainly see it presently – that the Russian economy grows and ours shrinks. That is presently the situation. 

Today, almost every second large business considers emigration from Germany, and every third already sits on packed bags. In that regard, no words from you, Herr Chancellor. And with the rising CO₂ prices which you today have announced, you make Germany as a business venue even more unattractive. Industry associations warn of a de-industrialization. The Alternative für Deutschland had done that already for years. For that, we were accused of conspiracy theories; that was then your assertion. The CO₂ duty – Frau Haßelmann has just said it, subventions were cut – will not then rise around 30 euros per ton, but around 45 euros. Thereby will the inflation be further heated up next year, and this business venue be further ruined. That is your policy, and that we will prevent. That, I can promise you. 

Ladies and gentlemen, Germany finally needs a prosperity policy in the citizens’ interest. There is therefore finally required an audit. Unnecessary spending needs to give way, and to that belongs the entire theme complex of Ukraine. What I have heard here today really leaves me to an extent stunned. Presently there is six billion euros yearly of Bürgergeld for 700,000 Ukrainians. To the year 2027 shall be expended an additional 17 billion euros for weapons deliveries and five billion euros for the reconstruction. And that – we have heard today what you want to arrange at the European Council – also includes the planned entry of the Ukraine in the EU. This will cost 130 billion euros; the Institute for the German Economy has calculated that. As primary financier, we will of course again need to finance that. 

These expenditures should now before all be defrayed from the regular budget. And here is seen how this Ukraine emergency situation, which you today in principle have announced for next year, shall be planned in the future: By overtaking future, eventual payments lapses of other countries  –  this you have already today said. Here is seen that we ever more become a war party. We really cannot allow that we continue to impose ourselves in the Ukraine and make ourselves, as single payer and a war party, co-responsible for misery and suffering in the region. 

We presently see – let us peek at the U.S.A.: The U.S. Republicans in the Senate block a package in the billions for the Ukraine and for Israel, because the U.S. citizens plainly do not want to spend more money for foreign wars. The German citizens also no more want that. We need no invented enemy images and firewalls. We finally need – it is what the economy also demands – reasonable parameters so that the remaining businesses continue to produce here. Grasp tax reductions as investments! Businesses and end consumers could figure on a relief of seven billion euros were you, for example, to take back the increase of the [trucking] fee. So as to justify your own budget, you continue to invent additional possible emergency situations. For the hospitality industry, the emergency situation ends in January of next year, and the complete value-added tax will again be due. We say: Seven percent needs to be retained, because otherwise the 19 percent will also apply for meals in day-cares and schools and here also prices for families will further rise. 

Valued Federal government, you all flit through the political everyday. You have no concepts, no goals. Yet with your chair circle policy, you have meanwhile again made hyper-morality and black-white thinking socially acceptable [fähig]. You promise everything to everyone, and of that can thus passably hold to nothing. And therefore, dear colleagues, it lies at hand: This Ampel – so long as it should exist – stands permanently in the red and thus at a standstill. Germany requires change. Germany requires the Alternative. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Tino Chrupalla, September 12, 2023, Ukraine and Cruise Missiles

AfD Kompakt, September 12, 2023. 

The Federal government is not allowed to let itself be pushed again already into a delivery of additional weapons in the Ukraine war. Cruise missiles can contribute to escalation. With her demand for weapons with greater range, the Foreign Minister neglects the path to peace indicated by the G20 summit in India.  In the interest of Germany and for the well-being of the Ukrainians, she needs to work towards a negotiated solution. 

[trans: tem]

Joachim Wundruk, July 6, 2023, NATO

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/115, pp. 14195-14196. 

Her President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

The CDU delegation 

            Johann David Wadephul (CDU/CSU): CDU/CSU!

thus wants the upcoming NATO summit to lead to success. A laudable intention, if it would then serve the interests of Germany and the German citizens. 

The Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany in Article 24, paragraph 2, specifies that the Bund may arrange for the guaranty of peace in a system of mutual, collective security and can willingly agree to restrictions of its sovereign rights. A look at the AfD’s program of principles shows that we also regard Germany’s membership in NATO as a central element of our security strategy. 

We nevertheless understand NATO as a purely defensive alliance in regards the alliance territories according to the NATO treaty and basically reject interventions outside these territories. The recent experiences with foreign missions should here be a strong warning for us. Alliance solidarity alone cannot replace vital national interest for a mission of armed forces outside the treaty territories. We therefore also reject the globalization of NATO in the direction of the Indo-Pacific, especially the meddling in Chinese affairs regarding Taiwan. 

            Wolfgang Hellmich (SPD): Where does it meddle there? 

The Federal government should instead strengthen its diplomatic efforts for a peaceful solution of the Taiwan question. 

We support the endeavor for a fair burden-sharing in NATO 

            Ulrich Lechte (FDP): Against freedom and democracy obviously!

and thereby also the so-called two percent goal. The strengthening of the European pillar of NATO is in the German interest so as to strengthen the weight and say of Europeans and also that of Germany vis-à-vis the dominant leading power, the U.S.A. Nevertheless, these additional fiscal means need in fact to be invested in armament and the Bundeswehr’s sustainable capability. It unfortunately is a fact that in the last 15 months the already reduced mission readiness of the German armed forces, as a result of donations to the Ukraine, has still further worsened. This is unacceptable.   

We welcome the membership of Finland and also soon that of Sweden in NATO because this will increase Germany’s security. On that account, we reject the acceptance of the Ukraine into NATO because that would mean not more security but less security. 

We also welcome that the NATO-Russia basic document of 1997 will not be seen as obsolete, despite the Russian aggression. In can in the long-term form a nexus for a new security structure which needs to be based on the principle of common security in Europe. Yet foremost must be sought practical ways for a rapid ending of the Russian war of aggression against the Ukraine. For that are to be used, in my opinion, NATO’s communication channels to Russia, as they were maintained for the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. 

We are critical in regards the announced long-term stationing of a German brigade of approximately 4,000 soldiers in Lithuania; colleague Wadephul has more precisely expressed that. This decision was certainly knit together quicktime with a hot needle. The question presents itself, At whose pressure was this done? From our viewpoint, the existing rotation solution for deterrence is fully sufficient. 

On the whole, we reject the motion put forward by the Union on account of the offensive character of the overall approach for NATO, although we thoroughly share in some of the points in regards the strengthening of the Bundeswehr. NATO needs to again concentrate itself on the its core duty according to the NATO  treaty: On the defense of the alliance territories. 

I thank you for your attention. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

Rüdiger Lucassen, June 28, 2023, Bundeswehr in Lithuania

AfD Kompakt, June 28, 2023. 

The Ampel government here proclaims in passing a decision of strategic importance without parliamentary participation or putting forward a concrete plan for implementation. The stationing of a combat brigade on foreign ground would be a novelty in German post-war history. Never yet was a large unit of the Bundeswehr stationed long-term in a foreign country. The Federal government thereby besides renounces de facto the NATO-Russia basic document. For the AfD delegation, it is settled: A decision of such range needs to be decided by the Bundestag. Should it in fact come to a stationing, the prerequisites for that would scarcely be able to be met. Four thousand soldiers require a military infrastructure and provision facilities for their families. It is entirely unclear how the government wants to muster the forces and financial means for that. 

 

[trans: tem]

Alexander Gauland, June 16, 2023, European Defense Architecture

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/110, p. 13436.

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.

From Germany should never again a war proceed: This is the lesson of our history. With the power politics as seen in Yugoslavia and in the German weapons deliveries to the Ukraine, this objective was and is nevertheless irreconcilable.

Over eastern Germany presently take place the largest NATO air maneuvers since 1945, a calculated affront and an edifying example. Defense against air attacks on Rostock is practiced  only a few minutes flight distant from the Baltic Sea where the explosion of the Nord Stream pipelines could have been prevented. Instead of that, many here applauded.

This leads us directly to the security architecture of our country and of Europe. We are tightly bound as a part of the NATO American interests policy, many times a little too tightly. Since 1990, over 250 military operations have been conducted with U.S. participation. From others is it gathered to designate this as “war”.

The migration flows from the Near East and North Africa are proximately connected with the U.S. interventions. Failures in Afghanistan, in Iraq and Libya, as well as the financing of color revolutions in Russia’s vicinity, make the U.S.A. a not always unproblematic partner.

For us it is in any case time to reconsider alternatives in Europe, not unconditionally in the EU but in a Europe of sovereign nations as we imagine it, as our party has imagined it: Initially in parallel to NATO, later, if possible, as a sovereign defense architecture which comes to its own decisions, yet – and this is the problem – also can and must carry through.

            Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): Just like before 1945! It certainly worked out                            super!

The Minsk agreement certainly was good: It could have been and needed to be carried through,

            Henning Otte (CDU/CSU): That should have been said to Putin!

even if the U.S.A.’s diverging geopolitical interests, as surely in regards the eastern expansion of NATO, do not unconditionally agree with an all-European security interest.

            Ulrich Lechte (FDP): You now become not even mediocre, Herr Gauland!

Ladies and gentlemen, a contribution to the security of Germany is first for once the definition of German interests to be secured in each instance. A rules-based, values-driven foreign policy is plainly too little for that, plainly an ideologically-driven phrase, like so much of what you put out as policy.

I am grateful.

 

[trans: tem]