Roland Hartwig, February 13, 2020, Withdrawal of U.S. Soldiers

Roland Hartwig

Withdrawal of U.S. Soldiers

German Bundestag, February 13, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/148, pp. 18335-18336

[Roland Hartwig is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the western German state of Nordrhein-Westfalen. He is a lawyer.]

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.

The motion of the Linke for the withdrawal of over 35,000 U.S. soldiers from Germany is, in one regard, remarkable. While you always wish in one respect to recover as many people as possible –

            Alexander S. Neu (Linke): As tourists!

– this time it is in reverse. Thence, the direction at least is alright. Only the timing is poorly chosen.

Let us summarize for a moment. To begin with, Germany for decades cut away at its own defense capability and ultimately out-sourced it to other NATO states. To this day, Germany has not made the promised contribution of the sum of 2% of BIP [gross domestic product] for this defense umbrella to be be put up by third parties and now the Linke wish to expel the U.S. soldiers still stationed here in a night-and-fog [Nacht-und-Nebel] action.

Alexander S. Neu (Linke): In the daytime, gladly!

And then? The AfD also wants no foreign troops on German soil on a long-term basis.Yet we must for once declare how we want in the future to defend our country from military aggression.

Germany’s defense capability is not a duty that can be completely out-sourced to third parties. When military decisions which are important to us are considered in Brussels, Washington or Paris, but not any longer in Berlin, then we run the great risk that German interests will therein no longer play a role. We must therefore take the initiative to re-build our own army.

The beginning of this has been made, albeit somewhat half-heartedly. In that regard, I address the present Defense Minister, Frau Kramp-Karrenbauer. She has in recent days publicly acknowledged that she is not suitable as a candidate for chancellor, nor for CDU party chairman. It would have nice had this acknowledgement process not stopped at the Defense Ministry.

To be able to meet the further increasing military requirements, and until the reconstruction of our own defense capability, we will in addition presumably require allies.

Alexander S. Neu (Linke): That is, ja, real patriotism.

Therefore, NATO membership for the foreseeable future is in the German interest. NATO certainly has not suffered a brain death as was prematurely diagnosed in Paris. It is, however, severely in need of reform. Subject to the overwhelming influence of the Americans, it is still inclined to fixate on the classic assessment of Russia as an enemy and thereby stands in the way of a rapprochement between Russia and western Europe.

The world also requires a new security architecture due to China’s military aspirations. It is not clear to me whether NATO in its present form will be sitting at the table in five or ten years. An alternative security and defense concept should thus, first, put the German Bundeswehr on its feet, second, accord to German security interests in NATO an essentially greater significance and, third, distinctly strengthen the European pillar in the transatlantic alliance.

Alexander S. Neu (Linke): Everything the CDU wants!

I reiterate: We also want the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Germany. Yet, in these days, we first must be prepared. Subsequent to the collapse of our defense capability, that is a long way’s away. For that, we require much time and energy and, before all, another Federal government.

Many thanks.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

Martin Hess, February 13, 2020, Islamism

Martin Hess

Islamism

German Bundestag, February 13, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/146, pp. 18219-18220

[Martin Hess is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg. He is a police officer. He here introduces an AfD motion directed against Islamism in Germany.]

Right honorable Herr President. Honorable colleagues.

Islamist terror is the greatest danger for our citizens’ security. The frustrated Rizin attack in Cologne has drawn our attention to the terrifying dimension of this threat. Had not our security forces intervened in time, according to the opinion of the Robert Koch Institute, possibly 13,500 dead and even as many wounded might have been lost – 27,000 potential victims of just one Islamist attack. That shows everyone in all clarity that our state must fight this terror with all consistency and severity [aller Konsequenz und Härte].

Yet the Federal government does exactly the opposite. You asseverate to be doing all that is humanly possible against terror, yet you are quite obviously unwilling to effectively defend our citizens against Islamist terrorists. For one, this is seen in in your destructive migration policy which has led to ever more potential terrorists flowing into our country. For another, it is also very clear how you are dealing with with fundamentalist Islam, the fertile soil of Islamist barbarians. Instead of fighting this with all severity, you allow them to go about their business in our country nearly unhindered. Precisely that must and will be corrected by our motion.

First: The Islamist Moslem Bortherhood. Burkhard Freier’s evaluation for the Nordrhein-Westphalen Constitution Defense Office states that the Moslem Brothers are a greater danger than the Salafists and even the “Islamic State”. Concerning the cover organization of the Moslem Brothers, Herr Freier states the following:

The IGD and the network of cooperating organizations pursue, despite assertions to the contrary, primarily one thing: The establishment of an Islamic theological state, even ultimately in Germany.

Nevertheless, you allow the Moslem Brotherhood to spread ever further throughout Germany. Before all in Saxony is this Moslem Brotherhood acquiring strategic real estate. It is reaching the point – and this is the official finding of your ministries – of a dangerous alliance between the Moslem Brothers and the Salafists. Moslem Brothers are thus copying concepts for the recruitment and radicalization of young people.  

All of the facts without any doubt testify to the enmity of the Moslem Brothers and their organizations against the state and therefore they must be immediately banned.

Second: The DITIB mosque association. The DITIB is without a doubt directed by Erdogan who, during a visit to Germany, without inhibition gave the greeting sign of the Moslem Brothers. DITIB allows children in our country to pray for the victory of the Turkish army in its illegal mission in Syria, has permitted its imams in our country to engage in large scale spying upon opponents of Erdogan, consistently rejects cooperation with de-radicalization initiatives and permits into its mosques the entry of central figures of the Moslem Brothers.

Despite all of this, the SPD’s Berlin Interior Senator in all earnestness demands that organizations like the DITIB or the Moslem Brothers should concern themselves with returning terrorists. You thereby assist Islamist despots to spread Islamism in our country. Enough of that!

You must finally awake from your lethargy and draw a clear borderline against the greatest danger to our security. The policy in Germany must be finally and unequivocally oriented and an unmistakable message directed at the Islamists: Political Islam does not belong to Germany.  Who does not share the values and rules of our country or who actively struggles against our society, he must leave our country.

And naturally it cannot be according to denomination. We must finally begin with complete severity and consistency to fight Islamism. Islamist organizations are clearly, without ifs and buts, anti-constitutional. We therefore cannot further, as you have done, naively and helplessly  witness their activity in our country, but must now take all necessary measures to defend our country and our citizens against such enemies of the state.

It is precisely here that our motion is an important, first step. To reject this motion would be to leave our free society nearly defenseless against its enemies. That we cannot and will not allow.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

   

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]