Alice Weidel, June 18, 2020, German Presidency of EU Council

Alice Weidel

German Presidency of EU Council

German Bundestag, June 18, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/166, pp. 20642-20643

[Alice Weidel is a chairman of the Alternative für Deutschland delegation in the German Bundestag as well as AfD chairman in the western German state of Baden-Württemberg.]

Right honorable Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

It is a pity, Frau Merkel, to again miss an opportunity to tell the citizens the plain truth concerning the enormous increase in the financial burden which is to come to our country.

Of that, is first – occurring at the beginning of German council presidency – the impudent demand of the EU Commission to permit an increase of more than 40 percent in the German EU contribution. That alone means around 13 billion more euros per year. Instead of correspondingly cutting the EU budget following the exit of Great Britain, the German taxpayer shall step into the breach, ja, even over-compensate.

Second: The ECB’s pandemic loan purchase program, after just two weeks, was affixed at the astronomical sum of 1,350 billion euros. The pretext of the Corona crisis must be made to pay for the almost unlimited, illegal state financing by means of the monetary printing presses. The guarantor in the final instance is the German taxpayer who, what’s more, will be expropriated by the zero interest rate policy. And that without a word from you. I ask myself, Have you really not heard the warning shot from Karlsruhe? We have. And the AfD delegation will bring suit.

Third: The so-called Green Deal; you simply mentioned that Commission President von der Leyen is juggling with at least 1 trillion euros which she wants to squander on the green, CO₂-neutral pipe dreams. Who will actually pay for that?

Fourth: The so-called Reconstruction Funds of 750 billion euros. Germany alone guarantees at least 135 billion. Again, the Corona crisis serves as pretext to break the taboo of the mutualization of state debts. Already in Paris, Madrid and Rome, new expenditure programs are eagerly being planned. The German citizen, who now works longer, pays higher taxes and has smaller pension and private assets than the citizens of the countries receiving these transfers, must in contrast prepare himself for the increased charges.

You have agreed to all of these liability risks and transfers of billions, Frau Chancellor, even though we in this country have enough of our own problems to solve and for which we urgently need our money.

            Ulli Nissen (SPD): Always only thinking of yourself!

We are no longer a rich country. The infrastructure crumbles. The education system is crashing. In digitalization matters, we are in deep decline. The social security system is stuck in the demographic double trap of an aging population and the immigration of the unqualified into our social system.

            Ulli Nissen (SPD): You are the unqualified!

Then comes the economic damage of the Corona crisis which day by day becomes greater. We today already have over 7 million part-time workers. That is ten times more than at the height of the financial crisis in February 2009.
           
           Ulli Nissen (SPD): Better than unemployment.

Our country is threatened by a never before known wave of unemployment and business bankruptcy. The Mittelstand grows poor. We will in no way come out of this crisis with debt-financed expenditure programs. No, just the opposite: By that way, you heighten the crisis even more!

In this situation, we do not have billions to give away; we must help ourselves. Completely end the lockdown and the Corona limitations under the prevention regulations – thereby will the Mittelstand get back on its feet.

Second: Reduce taxes and duties substantially and for the long term so that the employees and the self-employed again have some air to breathe. And third and before all: No to new transfers of billions and liability risks by which the wealth of the German people will be pawned for the euro rescue and a transfer union. Please act in the interest of this country and its citizens, Frau Chancellor,

            Ulli Nissen (SPD): It is not better, how you want it!

and no longer hide yourself behind phrase-mongering loaded with ideology as you have done here in your speech today. A great pity, this missed opportunity.

Ulli Nissen (SPD): So painful! Herr Gauland fell asleep at the start of your speech! Super!

[Translated by Todd Martin]

             

Leif-Erik Holm, June 17, 2020, Memorial, June 17, 1953

Leif-Erik Holm

Memorial, June 17, 1953

German Bundestag, June 17, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/165, p. 20557

[Leif-Erik Holm is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the eastern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern where he is also the AfD state chairman. He is a radio moderator and here participates in the Bundestag’s commemoration of the rising against communist rule in East Germany in 1953.]

Right honorable citizens. Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen.

June 17, 1953, is and remains as important day in our history because it shows us citizens that we can influence the course of things. And if the rising was then bloodily put down, it was nevertheless the foundation stone for the later peaceful revolution. We can only bow before the brave ones of that time.

Yet what do we learn from this day? June 17 shows that socialism always proceeds along with the rule of force. It functions only with coercion because the people have no desire to let themselves be re-educated by a politburo but want their own lives. Socialism has never worked and never will work.

Yet can we be sure that it will not be attempted again? No, we cannot. The old parties’ cuddling with the re-named SED must horrify anyone who values freedom. The Union today may even celebrate fraternization with the SED with the motto “Once a block party, always a block party”. It cannot be otherwise explained how you, dear colleagues of the CDU, have assisted into the highest judicial office as constitutional judge a concrete communist in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.   

Let alone that Frau Borchardt has not the least qualification for the judicial office, she is a co-founder of the Anti-Capitalist Left which has been classified as left-wing extremist and which adheres to a revolutionary communist world-view. Frau Borchardt has never distanced herself from that. Just the opposite: To this day, she relativizes the many deaths at the Wall. During a memorial minute for the victims in the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern legislature, she ostentatiously remained seated. The victims cannot be much worse mocked.

And what is most perfidious: If the newspaper reports are right, this woman as a mayor in the DDR extorted refugees shortly before their departure. How can such a woman be elected as a constitutional judge? I certainly expect nothing other from all the left-wing parties. But that the CDU assisted into office such a person is truly remarkable. To that, I can only say: He who leaves the defense of the constitution to a judge who obviously has problems with the constitution, makes the goat the gardener and he himself thereby becomes a hazard for democracy.

Besides, this election transpired in the home CDU association of the chancellor. Where properly is the call from Frau Merkel that it must be rescinded? Then she was quick on the draw. This time we hear nothing, and that is indicative of the CDU’s situation. This party busies itself as the stirrup holder for the extreme left. The worst is, among you there is no remonstrance against that. That shows the whole, small potatoes limit of your gang.   

The Association of the Victims of the Communist Rule of Force has found the right word for this situation in the CDU: Shame. The citizens who in 1953 and 1989 went out into the street to oppose the communist regime will not forget this total capitulation to the children of the SED. The CDU has thereby betrayed the inheritance of the reunification and the inheritance of the brave men of June 17.  

[Translated by Todd Martin]

Tino Chrupalla, June 17, 2020, Memorial, June 17, 1953

Tino Chrupalla

Memorial, June 17, 1953

German Bundestag, June 17, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/165, pp. 20550-20551

[Tino Chrupalla is a national chairman of the Alternative für Deutschland and an AfD Bundestag member from the eastern German state of Saxony. He here participates in the Bundestag’s commemoration of the rising against communist rule in East Germany in 1953.]

Right honorable Herr President. Honored colleagues. I want also to welcome the representatives of the 17. June 1953 association on the tribune.

We today remember the people’s rising of June 17, 1953, in which at least 55 people died – by way of state violence in the Soviet-occupied part of Germany. Among the victims were women and children.

Besides Leipzig and Berlin, my home of East Saxony/Lower Silesia was a center of resistance. The protest was directed not only against the social and economic conditions under which the people had to suffer. The rage was also aimed at the communist rule of force and against the post-war order. In Gorlitz and Niesky, workers and brave citizens stormed the MfS offices and jails and disarmed the state powers. The mayor was spontaneously voted out of office. For a few hours, Gorlitz was a free city.  

But the rising was soon put down with brutal military force. In the days following the rising, the citizens were terrorized by house searches and arrest. The government designated the rising as an attempted fascist coup. In the following months, 10,000 people were arrested. 16 alleged ring leaders of the rising in Niesky were sentenced in a show trial in Dresden. The wife of the lead defendant in Gorlitz received the following two-liner from the state prosecutor:

We inform you that Lothar Markwirth was sentenced to life imprisonment on 18.7.1953. The property was confiscated.

Two death sentences were issued and carried out. Despite pleas for mercy, Erna Dorn and Ernest Jennrich were executed by guillotine.  Responsibility for the harsh judgment was ascribed to the First Lady of the DDR terror justice, Comrade Hilde Benjamin – in the West, also known as the “The Red Guillotine”.

For me, remembrance means to once again call events to mind. And to remember means to give the dead an appropriate place in our consciousness. They died as martyrs for freedom – for our freedom.

I do not understand everything that the Federal Center for Political Education is doing.Yet I welcome the fact that those murdered on June 17 have been presented on the homepage by name and with pictures. A national memorial for the victims of the communist rule by force in Germany is still outstanding – the AfD in contrast looks forward expectantly to its rapid implementation.

The era of the Stalinist Soviet occupation of Germany is ended. And Russia has also freed itself of the communist rule of force. May our countrymen who lost their lives on June 17 rest in peace. And may all the others who were politically persecuted, who in the following years had to suffer imprisonment, find their peace. May our country in the future remain spared from every form of violence and foreign rule.

I thank you.

[Translated by Todd Martin]