Mariana Harder-Kühnel, June 6, 2019, Command of the Air: Children's Rights in the Basic Law

Mariana Harder-Kühnel

The Command of the Air: Children's Rights in the Basic Law

German Bundestag, June 6, 2019, Plenarprotokoll 19/104, pp. 12650-12651

[Mariana Harder-Kühnel is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the central German state of Hessen. She is a lawyer and here responds to a legislative proposal concerning children's rights. The expression "command of the air above the children's beds" was initially used nearly two decades ago by Olaf Scholz (SPD), the current German Finance Minister.]

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

The demand for “Children's Rights in the Basic Law” at first sounds richtig gut. For this reason, to the question of whether they want children's rights in the Basic Law [Grundgesetz], many citizens understandably and reflexively respond with agreement. Yet are not children already to a full extent holders of the basic rights? Is the Grundgesetz incomplete? Must children's rights be introduced? Or is it in truth about something entirely other?

I say to you that no alteration of the Grundgesetz is required, since the Grundgesetz knows no age limitation. Children like grown-ups are holders of the basic rights to life, bodily integrity, freedom of opinion and religion, etc. This is also the opinion of the Federal Constitutional Court. Every child is entitled to the basic rights and will be comprehensively defended by the basic rights.

Montesquieu said:

            When it is not necessary to issue a law, then it is necessary not to issue a law.

What then is the true background of this populist demand?

Ladies and gentlemen, what is concealed behind the draft legislation is an attack upon the parents’ right of education. To the expression of leftist dreams of a state command of the air above the children's beds [Lufthoheit über den Kinderbetten], the AfD imparts a clear denial, ladies and gentlemen. Since, according to Article 6, paragraph 2, of the Grundgesetz, “the care and education of children” are the “natural right of parents” and for them the “foremost obligatory duty. The state community watches over their activity”. The state’s function is purely that of a watchman. The state must intervene should the parents fail, but may not appropriate to itself the primacy of parental care.

            Sven Lehmann (Bündnis90/Grünen): Then who does that?

Children have the right to education by their parents, and there is no one who can do that better than they – no state, no day-care [Kita]. The parents, not the state, shall decide how to raise their children and which values to impart to them; since it was indeed during the horrifying experiences of the Nazi time that an over-reaching, totalitarian state interfered in family life –

            Katja Dörner (Bündnis90/Grünen): You know altogether nothing of what 
            you are saying!        

- and which moved the fathers and mothers of the Grundgesetz to this strong emphasis on parents’ rights. That would now be superceded in many situations by the introduction of children's rights, since children's rights would in the future be defined as the state would have it. In an emergency, it can, as children's advocate, enforce these against the parents. That can begin with a kindergarten mandate –

            Katja Dörner (Bündnis90/Grünen): We likewise have that today!

- and end with the removal of children from families of political ill-repute. We had all that during socialism and fascism. That we never again want to have and therefore the AfD takes its stand.

You should know that until recently the CDU/CSU thought exactly the same. In 2017, the family policy spokesman feared a weakening of parents’ rights – I cite Marcus Weinberg -:

I am concerned that the explicit embedding [Verankerung] of children's rights in the Grundgesetz sets children at a legal distance to the parents…Since ultimately the state takes the part of advocate of the child against the parents.

And yet even here the CDU/CSU only a little later completed a change of course in the direction of leftist ideology and tossed overboard this consideration in the coalition contract.

            Ingmar Jung (CDU/CSU): Simply nothing was heard!

What is to be retained is that we all want love, protection and care for the kids. It is on precisely this ground that the AfD takes up a child-friendly society as an aim of the state in the Grundgesetz.

However, the purpose of the here proposed draft legislation of the Linke and Greens is not an increase of rights for but ultimately the statist seizure of children. It is thus indeed not about strengthening the rights of children. Once more: Children already have all rights. It is about weakening the rights of parents. It is about giving the state the potential to interfere in the education rights of parents. We of the AfD are decisively opposed to that, since the command of the air above the children's beds belongs not the the state. The command of the air above the children's beds belongs to the parents.

Many thanks.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

Armin-Paulus Hampel, June 27, 2019, INF Treaty

Armin-Paulus Hampel

INF Treaty

German Bundestag, June 27, 2019, Plenarprotokoll 19/107, pp. 13275-13276

[Armin-Paulus Hampel is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the western German state of Lower Saxony and was a television journalist. He is the AfD's foreign affairs spokesman in the Bundestag.]

Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Dear guests in the German Bundestag.

Herr Kiesewetter, from midnight, it becomes a simple bit after all.

Timon Gremmels (SPD): Agreed. It really is midnight and you are the 

next speaker.That was an own goal!

Peter Bleser (CDU/CSU): Own goal!

            Roderich Kiesewetter (CDU/CSU): You are into your time!

Just remain entirely at ease concerning the hour.

And you suppress a pair of things which you have left unmentioned. Perhaps some more of you ought to have been at the economic forum at Saint Petersburg a few weeks ago. There was a great panel discussion with UN Secretary Guterres, the Chinese President Xi and the Russian President Putin. There you could have heard both Herr Xi and Herr Putin speak of a strategic partnership of the two countries, Russia and China. Had you paid attention, it would have rung a bell for you. Herr Xi had even called Herr Putin his “dear friend Herr Vladimir Putin”. The Russian president on the other hand did not do that.

There, it was about trade agreements and trade relations between Russia and China. What will you actually do once this strategic partnership develops into a military relationship? Since then what do you do when, in regards strategic weapons, the Russians and Chinese come so closely into contact or understanding that we no longer have any influence there, Herr Kiesewetter? What do we do then?

With your sanctions policy, you do the exact opposite. That was perceptible in Saint Petersburg. Consequently, for years you drive the Russians into the arms of the Chinese. German foreign policy cannot be more stupid, Herr Kisewetter. That is thereby the salient point.

Roderich Kiesewetter (CDU/CSU): You visit the war criminal Assad, and you visit Crimea. You commit a violation of international law and you mis-use the diplomatic passport. It is the AfD that mis-uses the diplomatic passport!

Listen rather for once!

Because we must deal reasonably with the realities in Europe, we have proposed the following – we have not proposed a one-page treaty; you must simply read through the proposal. We have advanced that it must be in the German interest and the European interest to maintain a Europe free of intermediate range missiles.

            Ulli Nissen (SPD): A bit softer please.

I want to see who in this house votes against that – I hear no contradiction. That is just fine, you have moreover learned something.

We wish now to get at what we also say to our American friends, that we do not always have common interests. America has a big bathtub 5,000 nautical miles long between itself and Europe; we are distant only a couple of hundred kilometers. Therefore, it must be in the European interest that these weapons simply be not at hand in our territories, on our European continent.

We must do what I have today urged upon the colleagues of the FDP. We must negotiate in the spirit of the great foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, which always again is held up as an example. We must finally return to Realpolitik and present to ourselves problems as they really are, and not allow ourselves to dream of the situation.

The understanding with Russia is not directed against America – just the opposite: we have therefore pleaded to include the American friends – but in the European interest.

There are presently no intermediate range missiles in Europe, and we wish to maintain this state of affairs. We particularly know that it is a quite lengthy process before China and others – besides Israel – will assent to an international agreement – I agree with you, Herr Kiesewetter, that it would be desirable.We also know that before we arrive at a result here, years, if not decades, will elapse.

We want to use the intervening time and come to an agreement with Russia. We want Europe to conclude a treaty with Russia whereby this continent becomes a zone free of atomic weapons. What is properly opposed to that?

            Marcus Faber (FDP): It involves Iran!

Who challenges us? Who threatens us when we in common conclude that with one another? And our American friends must agree because it would be a sensible [sinnvoll] decision. To that, I see no contradiction and I also generally see no rupture with American interests.

I believe that this proposal which we have made for the interval, until we have negotiated a corresponding treaty with the other powers, is sensible. You all – we have often enough said it – particularly know that when we speak thereon that it concerns China, Pakistan, India, Iran and Israel and we have a long way ahead of us to arrive at an international treaty.

Let us span this time in common with the Russians. Let us end the sanctions policy. Let us set ourselves on a course by which we will not have the Russians on the side of the Chinese in a few years.

…

            Roderich Kiesewetter (CDU/CSU): Legalized violation of international law!

[Translated by Todd Martin]