Alice Weidel, July 3, 2020, Violence in Stuttgart

Alice Weidel

Violence in Stuttgart

German Bundestag, July 3, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/171, pp. 21491-21492

[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.]

The rubble in Stuttgart’s inner city has been cleared away, the fragments of the shattered display windows and plundered shops swept up. Yet the shock still abides deeply with the police officers  who were attacked with maximum brutality by an organized mob and whose cudgeled colleagues are in the hospital, and with the citizens whose apparently peaceful city became over-night a showplace of scenes similar to civil war.

After the Stuttgart riot night [Krawallnacht], we cannot simply continue as before, as if there was no fundamental problem. Not only Stuttgart, every German city, the entire country has a problem; and that problem is not called racism, that problem is called political failure.

The violence on the streets of Stuttgart did not come out of the clear, blue sky. It was no Party and Event Scene having its fling. Rowdies and brawlers are not party people but criminals who must be strictly punished.

This trivialization is besides an insult to peaceful party goers, to bar patrons and club members suffering under the much too long and harsh lockdown and the continuing Corona restrictions. The mob in Stuttgart which challenged the state’s monopoly of force and made targeted attacks upon police officers as deputies of state authority was recruited from two groups: Aggressive, young men with migrant backgrounds and organized, violence-prone leftist extremists. Both are the fruit of a false, irresponsible policy.

An immigration which is in fact unlimited and uncontrolled has in the meantime lead to a situation in many German cities where there is a critical potential of young men, mainly from Islamic-oriental cultures, who more or less despise the German state and the majority society.

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): Lübcke’s murderer despised the state! Who donated 

            to you!

Along with that is the political and even in part publicly financed coddling of radical leftist groups which disguise themselves as fighters against the right. That has favored the formation of an organized and militant extreme leftist milieu which openly challenges the state of law and claims for itself areas free from the law.   

A majority of this house a few weeks ago refused to vote for a ban on leftist-terrorist Antifa groups.

            Gabriele Katzmarek (SPD): Now that is just idiotic!

The Stuttgart Krawallnacht is just one of the many receipts which are still to be presented.

And it is a receipt for the unexampled playing with fire which has increasingly gone about this country in recent weeks. The moral arsonists

            Helin Sommer (Linke): You are the moral arsonists!

are before all to be found on the green-red side of the political spectrum, unfortunately in this house – and by that I certainly mean you

            Helin Sommer (Linke): You are the moral  arsonists!

there, where one mindlessly acknowledges oneself to be a so-called Antifa, lying about its extreme leftist background, a dubious movement which is hostile to the state of law, and where the police and security forces are disassembled, accused of a general racism and placed under suspicion.

            Armin-Paulus Hampel (AfD): Go to the devil!

This irresponsible talk by all those who reject this state and legal order, with or without migrant background, with or without a German passport, is to be understood as an encouragement to experiment with revolt and civil war, just as we have seen.

A state which can no longer guarantee the security of its citizens, and cannot generally and at any time enforce law and statute, puts its own legitimacy at risk. For this duty, our police officers require more than lip service and good wishes; they require complete political backing!

            Helin Sommer (Linke): Not defined by you!

That is also called: A policy which without prejudice opposes anyone who posits extremism, who attacks the state of law and the public order, and expels from the country anyone who abuses the law of hospitality

            Helin Sommer (Linke): Who are here in house!

and attacks the state and its deputies.

            Timon Gremmels (SPD): Clean up your own act!

To openly address the facts and maldevelopments is the first step toward again enforcing the order of the state of law to its full extent. The Stuttgart Krawallnacht was also a wake up call with which to finally get started.

I am grateful.

            Helin Sommer (Linke): Shame on you!

Shame on you with your attack squad!

[Translated by Todd Martin]

           

Albrecht Glaser, July 3, 2020, Election Law Reform

Albrecht Glaser

Election Law Reform

German Bundestag, July 3, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/171, pp. 21439-21440

 

[Albrecht Glaser is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the western German state of Hessen.]

Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

Time is urgent because the window of time for change…is closing for the coming election in the fall

The dpa wrote that hours ago.

In delegation circles it is given out that a reduction of constituencies  may still be possible…if it is decided in the first week’s sitting after the summer pause

Ladies and gentlemen, according to §21, paragraph 3 of the Federal election law, from March 25 the inner-party elections for representative assemblies will be undertaken, and from June 25 the nominations of candidates for the Federal election of 2021. The SPD indicates that in some constituencies this may have already happened. How in the Lord God’s Name shall the current Federal election law be changed, and especially, how shall new constituencies be adjusted? In the draft law of the three small parties, and in the mind games of the Groko [grand coalition] which presently fly through the air in hourly variations, is exactly that nevertheless foreseen. An insoluble problem! Chaos in all ranks! What are we actually doing here and what should this organization be? It is a masquerade and a deception of the public.

The AfD in its draft law of November 13, 2019, foresaw the delay of three months of the period for the presentation of candidates, which would have been constitutionally permissible. That would have provided air until September so that an actual election law reform might still be added. Our proposed law was as usual rejected by all the others. From January 2018 until today there were fruitless negotiations between the parties. That is an injury to the reputation of this state and to democracy in Germany. A country’s election system is a corner pillar of democracy. There is not much which is more important.     

The election law reform of 2012, by which the Constitutional Court’s ruling of 2011 was implemented, was the license for an unlimited growth of Bundestag mandates. This 22^nd amendment of the Federal election law was one in a series of years of patchwork which did not solve the conflict of the agreed proportional election law with elements of a majority election. He who allows overhang mandates for direct candidates must also concede compensatory [Ausgleichs-] mandates so that the “fundamental character of the proportional election law”, as the Federal Constitutional Court has formulated it, will be followed. Thereby is the way, of quite dubious democracy, open to the inflation of the Bundestag. The 2017 election brought in 111 more mandates than regularly foreseen in the law. That is almost 20 percent. The vote basis of all members was thereby diluted.

A solution might be managed if only the lead principle of the proportional election is placed above the principle of the partial majority election, ladies and gentlemen. If overhang mandates are not initially allowed to originate, then there is also no problem of compensatory mandates. There is thus only one way, namely, the limitation of the number of direct mandates to the number of mandates owed to each party according to the proportional election results.

In November 2018 the AfD laid out a concept for such a solution. It met with a reflex rejection. In September 2019, after 100 constitutional scholars had warned of the overdue reform, the AfD on October 16, 2019, brought in to this place its concept as a substantive motion [Sachantrag]. It returned the size of the Bundestag from the present 709 to a fixed 598 mandates and thereby reduced the parliament by 111 seats. On November 14, 2019, this motion, as was expected, was rejected. The polemics against it were of two types.

First. The mandate of a directly elected contestant can not be taken away. You still hear that in the hall. This does not happen. It much more sets up an additional condition upon the achievement of a direct mandate, as for example it has been for decades in the Baden-Württemberg state legislative election law. It is not possible for a contestant in a state constituency with the relatively worst result to be the contestant of his own party. This naturally was only when in this state overhang mandates generally originated for this party without the additional condition. Consider: A contestant with a relative majority of, for example, 25 percent – numbers which, as we know, are in play at this level – would, without this reduction, win this constituency, the electorate of which is 75 percent against him.

Second. The limitation undertaken in this way of the number of direct mandates was unconstitutional. This opinion was occasionally advanced and supported in an ostensible decision of the Federal Constitutional Court. Reputable experts in the field do not see such a problem. Also, many expert opinions at the hearing on the small parties’ proposal were expressly opposed to this view, as was an experts’ opinion of the Bundestag’s scientific service of December 17, 2019.

This Bundestag would be well advised if it would find for itself such a solution as in Zusatzpunkt 38, which has been placed here in the orders of business by the AfD. Then we could spare ourselves all the others.

This draft law of the small parties, which has been held up for weeks in committee by the Groko, is not a principal solution of the problem. It was evaluated at the experts hearing as moderate. It may in fact be constitutional, but otherwise it is not actually meaningful. Just two numbers would be changed in the current election law -  an intellectually honorable, moderate performance. Instead of 598, the Bundestag shall in the future have 630 mandates. Thus the number of overhang mandates shall decline. That is exactly as sly as if the per milliliter limit for road traffic was increased so as to have fewer alcohol-conditioned traffic infractions.

Along with that shall the number of constituencies be reduced  from 299 to 250. Of which the constituencies formed of Mammon stand in obvious contradiction to those of the directly elected members near to the citizens. Thus, on the whole, not a solution but an alibi.

The Groko’s model pertaining to a solution concept is preposterous. The CDU speaks of capping, of capping direct as well as listed mandates which, according to the AfD model, is considered to be a tool of the devil.

And the SPD wants to destroy the principle of “to each citizen a vote” and instead introduces gender quotas. All of this is the political small game hunting which we know in many other areas of this house.

In sum: A solution to the problem, which otherwise on the basis of time is no longer possible, was in fact not desired. The maintenance of the present situation secures mandates and shall be maintained.

            Vice-president Hans-Peter Frederich: Please come to a conclusion.

The last sentence, Herr President. The coat of the commonwealth, as so nicely produced by the constitutional scholars, does not attract the Groko. They are nearer to their own shirt!

Hearty thanks.

[Translated by Todd Martin]

Uwe Witt, July 2, 2020, Working Conditions in the Meatpacking Industry

Uwe Witt

Working Conditions in the Meatpacking Industry

German Bundestag, July 2, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/170, pp. 21208-21209

[Uwe Witt is an Alternative für Deutschland Bundestag member from the western German state of Nordrhein-Westfalen. He is a human resources manager.]

Frau President. Right honorable colleagues. Dear viewers at the TV sets.

Concerning improvements of the healthcare of employees in the meatpacking industry, we really have nothing to discuss. I think all delegations in the German Bundestag are agreed that the abuses must be remedied. As always, it is only the approach to how which is very different. While we are of the opinion that there are sufficient public officials and instruments for the enforcement of the standards long since legally prescribed, we see the greatest problem in the implementation and control. We do not require additional control officials, as the Linke is planning. We require the strengthening of the present offices by personal placement, training and, before all, consequential enforcement of guidelines through closely meshed controls in the firms.

Worthy Herr Laumann, the situation of which you have rightly complained, you could have remedied through efficient controls at the state level. I put the question: Why did you not do that

            Alexander Krauss (CDU/CSU): He has done it!

            Uwe Schummer (CDU/CSU): He has done it!

or why was Corona first needed for you to act? If, as the AfD and the Alternative Union of Workers have for years demanded, a maximum limit [Obergrenze] for temporary and contract labor of 15 percent would have been introduced, there would be none of the present abuses of healthcare of the labor force.

Our colleagues in the Linke once again use the opportunity to spread talk of class warfare under the cover of labor and health protection. Their additional demands for strengthening works councils and labor unions we may be read in any motion of the Linke. These come out of the last century where the goal of the communists was the introduction of a soviet republic.

            Katja Mast (SPD): That is an impudence!

In the Federal Republic of Germany, however, there is as before the principle of the social market economy.

In the direction of the Greens, I must once again remind that the citizens are not to be sold as dummies.

           

            Ulli Nissen (SPD): What have you been doing the whole time?

They postulate that meat must become more expensive.

            Beate Müller-Gemmeke (Greens): That is not in the motion!

Do you really believe that increases in the price of meat will somehow change working and health conditions in the slaughterhouses?

            Beate Müller-Gemmeke (Greens): That is not in the motion! Stop with 

            the rubbish!

Yes, you actually do believe in such nonsense. You also believe that by setting a price on CO₂ the climate will be improved.

            Beate Müller-Gemmeke (Greens): Speak on the theme for once!

But while I am on the subject of CO₂: Along your forced march to the introduction of E-mobility, you could not much care less for the healthcare of the labor force. Since it is not elves [Kobolde], dear Frau Baerbock, who mine cobalt in the Congo for the production of E-autos, but minor-age children who either will never attain the age of majority or will bear considerable, long-term health impairments. The main thing is, the green eco-bourgeosie of Germany feels good! Your understanding of healthcare for the labor force is, said with permission, simply hypocritical.

Many thanks.

[Translated by Todd Martin]