Armin-Paulus Hampel, November 19, 2020, National Security Council

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/192, pp. 24313-24314.

Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Dear colleagues.

If our country had a national security council, as demanded by the AfD, then we likely would have been spared fatalities on this scale in the Corona crisis.

                Fritz Felgentreu (SPD): Like the U.S.A.!

A national security council would not, like the Federal government, have tossed the comprehensive Robert Koch Institute study of 2012 into some corner in the archive, but would have converted this blueprint for combating the viral illness into a practical plan of action in agreement with all areas of expertise.

A national security council would likely have recommended to the Federal government what I had already demanded at the beginning of the Corona crisis; namely, – which is what no expert doubts – the acknowledgment that 85 percent of those infected with this illness notice either light or indeed no symptoms, only the 15 percent seriously or very seriously ill must be intensively treated or are threatened in life and limb. There then would have been a national strategy to first of all professionally protect these at-risk groups and thus avoid a total lockdown at a cost of hundreds of billions of euros.

The same applies to a concept of the Interior Ministry from the year 2016 under the title “Konzeption Zivile Verteidigung”. There, the weak points in this area were minutely exhibited. The Interior experts already warned at that time, for example, of a blackout induced by your energy transformation – catastrophic in its effects, and in fact on such a scale as, until now, cannot be imagined by the citizens out there in the states.  

Although the study describes in detail a comprehensive catastrophe scenario, offers solution assessments and also says who should implement it, nothing has happened in our states – simply because there is no national, inter-disciplinary point of coordination at which all knowledge comes together, resulting in the required implementation of proposed solutions. And just as I here deplore this do-nothing government and its non-existent strategy in regards the domestic policy challenges of past years, I see this exact same same deficiency in our foreign policy relations. Like a little dog staring at the snake, so now for years the Merkel cabinet stares at the rapid political, economic and technological developments in China.

Long-term strategy? Nil, Herr colleague. Instead of looking out for appropriate allies, in this case the United States and Russia, to be able to ward off the immense challenges from the Middle Kingdom, we have successfully alienated both possible strategic partners. We have on the other hand permitted the most modern high-tech firms like KUKA to pass into Chinese hands, and we still pay – I believe until the year 2021 – hundreds of millions for development projects in China. You for once must explain that to the citizens out there, ladies and gentlemen.

Every other country thinks we are crazy. On one side, we cannot keep up with the G-5 states, and on the other side we still pay out development money.

These examples can be pursued: How in the long-term do we deal with an altered American world-view? Which values actually still unite us, even with a Biden government? Achtung, ladies and gentlemen! Where must we look for new partners, and where do the old ties still bind as before?

How do we wish to deal with a Russia which, after centuries of Tsardom and nearly 70 years of Soviet dictatorship, hesitantly develops in the direction of democracy? What ignorance and what a lack of understanding to believe that this process can be concluded within one generation! You however, ladies and gentlemen, cannot remove Russia to South America. It will always remain our great neighbor in the east. Who here formulates the German long-term strategy?

Who has a durable concept of how the Ottoman, great man dreams of Herr Erdogan are to be dealt with? Where must we restrain [in den Arm fallen] the Turkish government when, for example, Herr Erdogan seeks to influence German policy by means of his countrymen in Germany? Where and with whom can we regain influence in Turkish policy?

Who in the Chancellory or in the Foreign Office has a strategy for a peaceful solution in the Near and Middle East? Herr Kushner, that non-diplomat from the U.S.A., has shown us how to do it. Who here in Berlin has the concept? No one. We muddle along from one crisis to another and think we Germans are still an important player in world events. Does this house not notice that we have lost this role years ago, that we, by our completely unnecessary positioning in inter-state conflicts – far from us – , have been driven out of the classical role of mediator?

A national security council, which in terms of personnel and concepts is in a position to plan strategies in the German interest throughout the duration of a legislative period, is therefore long since overdue. We need this standing and structured institution, organized and staffed, for the inter-disciplinary development of a long view of the pressing domestic and foreign policy questions.

Otherwise, Germany may turn into what our neighbors continue to fear: That we, an economic giant, will politically degrade into a dwarf.

I therefore request your support for our motion [Drucksache 19/24393] and vote for a German national security council.

I thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

Rüdiger Lucassen, November 20, 2020, Bundeswehr Conscription

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/193, pp. 24397-24398.

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.

It is conservative to defend things which work. Conscription [Wehrpflicht] in Germany worked for 200 years. It united the armed forces with the people. It breathed a fresh spirit into the barracks of our country. Young men from all regions and classes of Germany came to the Bundeswehr. Many of today’s generals began as conscripts. Without the Wehrpflicht, they would have never found the way to the armed forces. The military leadership supports in large parts today’s motion [Drucksache 19/24401] of the AfD for the re-activation of the Wehrpflicht.

            Tobias Lindner (Greens): What?

            Tobias Pflüger (Linke): I do not at all believe that!

The motion is the opportunity to correct a capital failure of the Federal government. The Wehrpflicht was much more than just the ensuring of personnel for the Bundeswehr. It was an essential of our armed forces. Entire generations of young Germans thus came together to serve a higher duty, to feel what it meant to place themselves in service to our country, to learn to integrate into a society. For a few months in a life, all were equal: No distinction of money, expensive clothes, and background – a worthwhile matter. The Wehrpflicht was not only an essential of the Bundeswehr. It created a social bond for many generations.

The Wehrpflicht was part of the DNA of our country. Who surrenders something like that, he is not conservative. Who surrenders something like that is responsible for the destruction of a basic pillar of our state and of our society.

            Henning Otte (CDU/CSU): Na, na, na!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, a conservative does not do.

The surrender of the Wehrpflicht in the year 2011 is part of a destructive policy in Germany. It is part of a policy at the end of which stands the abolition of our national state.

            Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): O Gott! O Gott!

This policy destroys the mission readiness of the Bundeswehr just so as it places at disposal the energy security, the cultural identity and now the economic basis of Germany.  

 For it was always the duty of the Union to oppose the leftist radical powers of Germany,

            Tobias Pflüger (Linke): Eijeijei!

the business model of which is the fight against one’s own national state. Instead, the CDU sacrifices a treasure of our national civil-state, the Wehrpflicht. To the greed for posts and power, much of the table silver of our Republic has already been sacrificed. That is not conservative. That is dangerous.

Our Bundeswehr is now 65 years old. I thank all soldiers for their service to Germany. It is not easy for them in these times. For this jubilee, the Foreign Minister congratulates a Belgian on Twitter. The Defense Minister greets in gendered terms the Bundeswehr’s soldiers of the year 1955. And the Federal President in his address arbitrarily alters the form of the oath. Our soldiers have not deserved such a government.

            Stefan Müller (CDU/CSU-Erlangen): Oje!

            Tobias Pflüger (Linke): Resign!

 

 

[trans: tem]

Götz Frömming, November 19, 2020, Stasi Documentation

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/192, pp. 24217-24218.

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

            “…I confess that I am disappointed…”

            Christoph Bernstiel (CDU/CSU): By your party!

With these words, Marianne Birthler, the earlier civil rights advocate and former Federal commissioner for the Stasi documentation, ended her statement during a hearing here in the German Bundestag on the planned dissolution of the Federal authority. And she continued – I cite with her permission, Frau President – I had hoped for a departure [Aufbruch]. Yet what here lies before us is more a probate of estate. – That, ladies and gentlemen, was four years ago.

And when we today glance at the draft law before us, then we must state: Not much has changed. With the law, for which today the majority in this house will vote in favor, the German Bundestag buries one of the most prominent achievements, if not the prominent achievement, a world-wide, one-time inheritance, of the Peaceful Revolution.  

            Monika Lazar (Greens): It does not become better when it is repeated!

The Federal authority for the Stasi documentation properly owes its existence – as we have already plainly heard – to a revolutionary act: The occupation of the premises of the Ministry for State Security on January 15, 1990, by the break in of citizens. It is perhaps a German peculiarity and perhaps in fact nothing bad, that a revolutionary act ends in an authority. This authority was and is just as much also a monument, a living memorial, in which approximately 1,500 people work in a total of twelve locations. To this remarkable monument that is an authority belong the documents, preserved from destruction, of the State Security, as just so does the Federal commissioner, the guardian of these documents.

Now we hear in committee that in fact not much of this will change. The documents will simply be incorporated into the Bundesarchiv and instead of a Federal commissioner for the Stasi documentation, there shall be, 30 years after the unification [Wende], now for the first time a victims commissioner.

            Christoph Bernstiel (CDU/CSU): “Wende” is SED-speak!

Ladies and gentlemen, I do not know whether you today actually expect applause for this. To install a victims commissioner 30 years after the Wende is no claim to fame. That is a proof of poverty. That ought to have been done much, much earlier.

Let us nevertheless say it clearly: The so-called victims commissioner is in truth actually a compensation for the suppression of the Federal commissioner, a fig leaf to appease critics and victims associations and to de-couple from the actual matter. The AfD delegation therefore in a motion put before you today, has demanded that a Federal commissioner with expanded competences be appointed. According to our presentation, he shall not only be there for the victims but also to protect the functioning of a commissioner for the working through of the SED dictatorship; for, ladies and gentlemen, not only the victims but also the perpetrators are still among us. Who really wishes to do something for the victim shall not at the same time make his peace with the perpetrators and take the actual SED, legally still in existence, into a governing alliance.

            Monika Lazar (Greens): Take a peek at your own!

And so as not to be misunderstood: Yes, the DDR naturally was a German state, the second German dictatorship of the 20^th Century. Naturally, the documentary evidence, official documents and special documents belong sooner or later in the Bundesarchiv.Yet, ladies and gentlemen, there is not at all an urgent necessity to do that now.

            Christoph Bernstiel (CDU/CSU): Naturally!

The basis for this law is exceedingly thin – and that has also been stated in many hearings. All described problems which you wish to solve with this law could also have been solved in other ways. I name only the essentials: The securing of the documents, so you say, can no longer be fulfilled. That would naturally have been achieved by means of cooperation with the Bundesarchiv or by means of a better equipment of the documentation authority itself. An ombudsperson for the victims – I have already referred to it – would have long since been able to be appointed and naturally quite independently of the question of the documents.

On the other side, the law offers in fact no solution to actually existing problems. How and when, for example, will the approximately 15,000 sacks of torn Stasi documents finally be reconstructed and secured? Since 2016, apparently not a single document has been electronically joined together. Of that, the citizens committee 15.Januar wrote on its internet presence – I cite with permission – :

            “The Jahn authority for years deceived the public and the parliament over the factual standstill of the virtual reconstruction.” Meanwhile, almost all project experts at the Frauenhofer Institute…with their special knowledge have left the team and, at year’s end, the project’s long-time leader and initiator is retiring.

Ladies and gentlemen, how shall these problems be solved? Not a word of that in your motion. How does it now appear with the research activity and the pedagogical education work? Here will arise in the future something worthy of note; since a Bundesarchiv naturally is primarily, as the name says, an archive. Here therefore, a push, a real departure, as rightly desired by Marianne Birthler, is not to be expected. Since an archive primarily places sources at the disposal of research. Its first duty is not to conduct its own, independent research.

Ladies and gentlemen, 30 years are no reason to draw a summary line. You too do not want that. 30 years, for a historian, that is only the blink of an eye. For the historian, the proper work first begins after 30 years. And I may add: Also for pedagogues, for teachers, the real work is just beginning. Ask the youth what they today know of the DDR. Terribly little! That has to do with your education policy, with your suspended information policy, which you for years pushed here. We need a departure. We need a push for an investigation of the SED dictatorship. We need a strengthening of the existing research associations; for example, here at the FU [Free University, Berlin] and at many others. And in this regard, the law allows no good hope.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is at least worthy of note – so concluded Marianne Birthler – that we in Germany have a teaching chair for the history of Azerbaijan, yet we have, 30 years after the end of the DDR, not one teaching chair for the history of the SED dictatorship or the communist rule of violence in eastern Europe. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a proof of poverty. We just so urgently require a memorial day for the victims of the communist dictatorship. Our motions [Drucksachen 19/14348, 22240, 22295] for that lie before you. You have only to vote for them.

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]

 

           

Beatrix von Storch, November 18, 2020, Turkish Gray Wolves

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/191, pp. 24127-24128.

Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

The process of the debate over and the banning of the Gray Wolves follows the debate over and the banning of Hezbollah. Both organizations were directed by Islamist regimes, by Erdogan and by the mullahs. Both organizations push forward the Islamization and infiltration of Germany with violence or political influence. And: In both cases have the Union and the SPD for decades looked the other way and thereby have humiliated themselves and our country before the Islamist dictators.

And now you become active only and exclusively because the AfD

            Benjamin Strasser (FDP): Dream on! Look at France!

had placed the ban in tomorrow’s orders of business. Since your motion has not yet been written and it was not yet notified for the orders of business. For that very reason, we are debating this today.

For all that, the AfD works. How good it is that we are now here!

            Christoph de Vries (CDU/CS): Mimimi!

The case in that regard was for decades quite clear. The Gray Wolves are Turkish Nazis; there are Turkish fascists.

            Benjamin Strasser (FDP): It is also the first time that you name                                                                    the “Nazis”. 

Niema Movassat (Linke): Thus actually your soul mates! Thus you must actually     even find that good!

 With 20,00 supporters, they are the largest extreme right organization in Germany.

Now let us compare the established parties’ hatred of the democratic AfD with their pandering to the Turkish Islamo-fascists. The result: If thou in Germany art conservative, then they insult thee as one of the fascists. If thou art a Turkish fascist, they give thee a German passport, then they elect thee to the integration council, then they conduct with thee a cultural dialogue. Until today, that for decades was the situation under all of your governments. 

The Gray Wolves’ slogan goes: Become German, remain Turk. – That is the strategy of the Turkish Islamo-fascists. Who want to receive the German passport and keep the Turkish; who want the German right to vote but not the Geman values – not so as to integrate themselves into Germany, but so as to conquer Germany. By means of the German passport, a Gray Wolf does not become a German who shares our values; and an Islamo-fascist, by means of the right to vote, does not become a democrat.

The assumption of power in entire city sections began early. Since 1976, “Der Spiegel” spoke of: Turkish terror, Turkish attacks, Turkish wars on German soil. In 1984, they perpetrated the assault on Seyran Ates and shot her client. There were then 2,000 Gray Wolves, Now, the number is ten times greater.

The politicians of the CDU, CSU and the SPD conduct themselves – again, a 1998 citation from “Spiegel” – , “like sheep”. For 40 long years, you, the sheep, did nothing; just the opposite. Two examples: In 2002, the Bavarian interior minister, together with the Gray Wolves, celebrated Ramadan. And as is known, to this day the Chancellor, in relation to the genocide of 1.5 million Armenian Christians, refuses to say the word “genocide” – a kowtow to the employers of the Wolves.

Your motion of the Union and the SPD, which is now to be shared in by the FDP and Greens, comes 40 years too late. And you hush up the elephant in the room: The extortion potential of Erdogan and the Islamist infiltration.

For us, it is clear: We tolerate no Erdogan fifth column on German soil. The Gray Wolves are due to be banned and their adherents do not belong to Germany. When the AfD governs, we will solve such problems in the first year and not postpone it for 40 long years.

   Steffi Lemke (Greens): You just need a vacation. Such a crude                                                                  world-view!

 

 

[trans: tem]