Alexander Gauland, February 13, 2020, Thüringen Election

Alexander Gauland

Thüringen Election

German Bundestag, February 13, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/146, pp. 18267-18268

[Alexander Gauland is a chairman of the AfD delegation in the German Bundestag. Walter Ulbricht was a leader of communist East Germany of which the MfS, the Ministry for State Security, was the home of the infamous Stasi, the state security police. Bodo Ramelow (Linke) is the former minister-president of the state of Thüringen who was recently voted out of office.]

Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen.

If an extra-terrestrial had glanced at Germany, let us say, six weeks ago, and now in recent days once again, then he must have had the feeling that a meteor had struck and produced a putsch to which the CDU chairman has now fallen victim. Yet, ladies and gentlemen, it was neither a heavenly stone’s throw nor a putsch but a democratic legislative member elected minister-president by other democrats in a German parliament.

            Sönke Rix (SPD): That can also be false!

That is the natural and democratic way of the world.

            Marian Wendt (CDU/CSU): Yet not all were democrats!

            Franziska Brantner (Greens): That is not true!

Ladies and gentlemen, it is also natural and democratic that a party, which sees that its own candidate has no chance, votes for one of the other, more closely aligned candidates who had promised to vote for the removal [Abwahl] of the previous minister-president. So far, ladies and gentlemen, so natural.

            Sönke Rix (SPD): Yet you want to hunt the Federal government!

What is not normal in a democracy is to “rescind” [„rückgängig“ machten] the results, as was formulated by the Chancellor, because the decision rendered appears to be ideologically disreputable.

            Eberhard Brecht (SPD): Politics is not mathematics.

Since legislative members are free in their voting behavior. Here, not even Walter Ulbricht would have followed Frau Merkel. For whom the motto still is: We must have all in hand, but it must appear to be democratic. And that never appears democratic here.

            Matthias Zimmer (CDU/CSU): Exactly as with you!

It is not normal, ladies and gentlemen, when the leftist street terror of so-called civil society wishes to seek to exert unconstitutional pressure against the relatives and offices of the FDP. The Linke obviously can always use some kind of fascists.

            Steffen Schmidt (Greens): You have enough!

Ladies and gentlemen, we know today that the confidence vote against Willy Brandt in the year 1972 failed in an MfS-purchased election. No one then or later had the idea to consider the successful Brandt years as illegitimate. Measured by the new logic, AfD votes are dirtier than the MfS-purchased votes.

            Kerstin Steinke (Linke): Yes, that is so!

            Martin Reichardt (AfD): And the FDP there says yes to that! That is really pitiful!

If that is the case, dear bürgerliche colleagues, in the future you will have to have frequent recourse to Görlitz coalitions, all against one, which can only make us stronger. I wonder, have you actually thought through all of that? The next step might then be to lift the ban on cooperation with the Linke, as recommended by Herr Günther. I fear that soon Herr Günther may replace Herr Ziemak –

            Wilfried Oellers (CDU/CSU): All are agreed, he will not do that!

– since, according to his logic, the horseshoe theory being false, the AfD cannot be equated with the Linke.

            Sönke Rix (SPD): That is agreed!

            Eva Högl (SPD): Exactly so!

            Christoph Matschie (SPD): That is so! Agreed!

Agreed! At one end of the horseshoe is a democratic, people’s party, at the other end the heirs of the Wall murderers –

            Anton Hofreiter (Greens): At the other end are fascists!

– who continue to demand expropriation and socialism.

Should the CDU, contrary to what Herr Ziemak now says, go this way and, for example, help Bodo Ramelow into office –

            Paul Ziemak (CDU): You want to help him!

– “then no one really knows what the Christian Democrats stand for”, as formulated by a commentator in “Welt.”

Franziska Brantner (Greens): Yet you have said that one should vote for him! You yourself said that! For what do you wish to reproach the CDU?

Ladies and gentlemen, for us, that can only be right. We would then be the only opposition party –

            Matthias Zimmer (CDU/CSU): Obstruction party!

– and the Union would accompany the SPD on the way to meaninglessness. It is good that Konrad Adenhuaer and Helmut Kohl did not live to see this!

            Kirsten Tackmann (Linke): Turning over in the grave!

           Uilli Nissen (SPD): It would be nice if we did not live to see you!

It is simply unfortunate, dear colleagues of the CDU, that a long-term, bürgerliche majority might then no longer be an option.

Thank you.

            Sven Lehman (Linke): You are not a bürgerliche party!

[Translated by Todd Martin]

           

Björn Höcke, January 13, 2020, Thüringen Election

Björn Höcke

Thüringen Election

AfD Kompakt, January 13, 2020

[Björn Höcke is the Alternative für Deutschland chairman in the eastern German state of Thüringen as well as chairman of the AfD delegation in the Thüringen legislature. He is a teacher.]

It is an unreasonable state of suspension [Hängepartie] which for months the old parties here have offered. The country must be governed so as to solve acute problems. We have extended a hand to the CDU and FDP for a middle-class [bürgerliche], patriotic politics. If the election programs of the three parties, AfD, CDU, FDP, are compared to one another, there are found to be large, substantial common grounds which can be converted into concrete policies during this legislative period. Here can be mentioned the stop of wind power construction, the return to a capable, differentiated school system, the strengthening of special needs schools, the hiring of more teachers, an improved financial apportionment for local communities, as well as the urgently needed alteration of refugees policy. The CDU instead shall now support the Linke, SPD and Greens in a state government from which the people of Thüringen have clearly withdrawn confidence. Yet if the CDU vote in Thüringen means that red-red-green can continue to govern, then the CDU ultimately makes itself superfluous.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

Steffen Kotré, January 31, 2020, Withdrawal from Coal, Electricity Price.

Steffen Kotré

Withdrawal from Coal. Electricity Price.

German Bundestag, January 31, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/144, pp. 17988-17990

[Steffen Kotré is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the eastern German state of Brandenburg. He is an engineer. He here introduces an AfD motion opposing the German government’s policy of ending coal production in Germany.]

Many thanks for the floor.

Right honorable Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

I see yet again no minister on the government bench.

          (Federal minster Christine Lambrecht waves from the government bench)

Ach so, excuse me. I take it back. To the theme.

Welcome to Madhouse Germany! Nonsense reigns in our country. With the coal withdrawal, the government damages its own economy; approximately 100 to 150 billion euros will be taken from the citizens’ pockets in the form of tax money and the price of electricity. That alone is already nonsense, but is also nonsense in that there is no basis for it and the specific aim in view cannot be attained.

After the withdrawal from nuclear energy, the Federal government now wishes to withdraw from a second domestic and valuable source of energy. They wish to destroy half the assured electricity production, half the assured output, 43 gigawatts, without an assured replacement. That means that soon we will not have a sufficient supply of electricity. The consequences will be devastating, ladies and gentlemen.  

The withdrawal from coal is the product of an infantile policy; over-hasty, guided by impulse, and without understanding. It is without foundation; it is in regards its intended purpose completely inappropriate; it is un-social and dangerous, ladies and gentlemen. The German coal CO2 portion of world-wide emissions is 0.6 percent and is thus negligible. It is doubtful whether a reduction can practically effect a decrease in the rise of temperature. The climate model can indeed at not point apprehend or clarify the past climate.

The withdrawal from coal is therefore insupportable and contributes nothing to achieving its stated goals. It will however contribute to the un-social, further increase in the price of electricity: 30 cents per kilowatt-hour per household is the world’s highest. Hearty congratulations, Frau Merkel, on this position! In that regard, there is in the CDU/CSU government program for 2005 to 2009, I cite:

Almost nowhere in Europe is energy so expensive as in Gemany. That is the result of an ideological policy.

Thus, ladies and gentlemen of the CDU/CSU, expensive electricity and the energy transformation are an ideological policy. You have acknowledged that. Yet today you yourselves implement this ideological policy! Under your government, the price of electricity has increased an additional 50 percent. Please make a note of this figure! Besides, you should in any case stop in and rummage through your older programs.

          Sylvia Kotting-Uhl (Greens): You are still in favor of the old programs!

One or two of these may still be correct.

Frank Passemann (AfD): They have long since forgotten that!

Please do that sometime.

The un-social policy disproportionately burdens those of low income and damages the German economy. A citation from the Bavarian chemical association:

It – that is, the price of electricity – must be reduced. Otherwise, internationally competitive production in Germany will soon no longer be possible…The reinvestment quotient of the energy intensive industry in Germany already in the year 2000 was less than the write-off…A creeping de-industrialization is already for years underway here

  

Or take Wacker Chemical, one of the largest of electricity consumers. I cite:

The question of a more secure, of a before all interference-free electricity supply on a large scale and at competitive prices, emerges as an immediate, existential concern

And a re-location of production to the USA is being considered.

Please once again make a note…The withdrawal from coal plus the energy transformation equals de-industrialization and loss of prosperity.

         

The transfer network manager predicts for 2021 a shortfall in output of 5.5 gigawatts. It remains completely unclear as to how this gap can be closed. There is no strategy, no concept. At times of peak output, we will not be able to draw from foreign countries, since then there also the capacity is reached. Gas power plants are too expensive, must be subsidized and are available at the earliest in ten years. The costs will be distributed to the citizens. Costs without end, ladies and gentlemen.

The unstable electricity from renewables does not have a guaranteed performance; that is to say, one cannot proceed on the basis that it will be available at a given point in time: The wind does not always blow, the nights are dark and electricity cannot be stored for industrial purposes. Technologies like hydrogen or fuel cells are not competitive. Fuel cell technology has been around for 180 years and it will be here in the future to serve us. Yet were it the future, it would have long since have been put to use. But it plainly is not because it is not competitive.

The electricity supply is becoming more insecure, the network outages more frequent and longer. Energy intensive businesses can no longer rely 100 percent on the electricity supply. Electricity is becoming a scarcity good, the German energy policy a socialist, scarcity economy, ladies and gentlemen. And what can happen during an area-wide electricity outage can be read of in the 2011 report of the Committee for Education, Research and Technology Assessment: After a few days, there can be the first deaths.

The Renewable Energy Law – we can remind ourselves – is a planned economy law, leading to exemptions. Industrial firms and such which export are partially exempted from the EEG assessment. And so non-exporting firms, such as the manual labor [Handwerk] bakeries, must pay the EEG assessment while exporting, industrial firms, with the same goods and the same customer base, do not. Bakery goods of the exempted industrial firms – to stay with the example – can thus be offered at a lower price than those of the manual labor firms. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the state-ordered distortion of competition.

Yet one word on nuclear energy. We should put aside the poisoned and ideological discussions and the left-green disaster fantasies and test and develop new concepts for new reactors. Part of the CDU is also for that. It is to be thereby noted that the worst examples of Fukushima and Tschernobyl cannot happen here –

          Gesine Lötzsch (Linke): That is what was earlier thought!

 – and the disposal site problem is on the way to being solved.

          Joseph Weingarten (SPD): Which solution?

Even for the CO2 fantasists is that indeed the right way.

It is thus high time for a policy change in Germany. No more planned economy, socialist experiments around here! Back to a healthy, human sensibility and an ethic of responsibility.

Many thanks.

[Translated by Todd Martin]