Gerold Otten, December 9, 2020, Budget – Defense

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/198, pp. 24989-24990.

Herr President. Right honorable colleagues.

Compared to 2013, the Defense budget for 2021 has been increased around 9 billion euros to almost 47 billion euros. The Grand Coalition’s defense politicians will here praise themselves for that. Yet how does the Bundeswehr stand after seven years of the Grand Coalition, and who bears responsibility for today’s condition of the troops?

The Bundeswehr through the years, under the euphemism of a “peace dividend”, has frankly been economized into ruin [kaputtgespart]. It will take decades to rescind this development and modernize the Bundeswehr so that it can again perform its constitutional duty, the defense of Germany.

The Bundeswehr’s 2018 capability profile sought to take this diagnosis into account and to draw up a recovery plan for the armed forces. Allow me to continue with this medical metaphor. A decade and a half of being doctored-around – rather in this case, Merkeled-around – requires at least a decade and a half of healing. It is thus also not difficult to predict that it is not possible that the body of empty structures becomes what is desired. What is today put off, remains and will thus more heavily burden future budgets.    

Yet that no recovery of Patient Bundeswehr is within sight may also therein lie that the doctors  who dispense the medicine are the same who have made him sick. Since it is so – you cannot shirk this responsibility – : CDU/CSU, SPD, FDP and Greens have to answer for the years of the Bundeswehr’s chronic illness.

The fact is: The Bundeswehr, in this state, is not in condition to defend our country. The troops, with your run-down material, are not at all in condition to smoothly organize crisis missions at the same time as basic operations here at home, despite the model and engaged commitment of our soldiers and civilian co-workers, whom and for which we expressly thank. Presently, basic operations moreover are not to be thought of. The troops at this time perform their mission against Covid-19 splendidly; but they have become a stop-gap which must jump in where other state authorities have been overwhelmed or simply refuse.

Symbolic of the Bundeswehr’s chronic illness are the problems occurring on all sides in regards the large procurement projects. For this review, let them appear in five categories. They are, on one side, the dead – failed projects like Pegasus – , then those in a trance, thus those past due like the tactical air defense system, TLVS. Not to be forgotten is the third category: The non-sellers, as for example, the A400M – actually a very capable military transport aircraft which unfortunately is not for sale on the world market. The number of projects not brought to maturity is also large, as for example, the Puma armored personnel carrier, also happily named “banana projects”, since they ripen just in time for sale. And the best for last: European prestige projects like the FCAS [Future Combat Air System] and MGCS [Main Ground Combat System] – both predominantly German-financed for predominantly French interests, political purpose thereby surmounting financial, economic and military use.  

Ladies and gentlemen, as before, a powerful investments backlog prevails in the Bundeswehr, whether it now be in housing, be it the munitions and spare parts supply, be it the preparations of personnel, be it the re-attainment of lost capabilities or the research of future technologies. All of them yield no accounting in the 2021 budget. With regard to the rapidly increasing state debt, the question moreover arises how much of the future budget increases, if they then will be made, are to be available for investment expenditures.

The result of previous armaments projects can thus be overlooked. Parallel to that, for years one reform of the procurement system follows the next. Yet where remain the efficiency increases in the procurement system? The system is imprisoned in formalism, stuck between an inhibiting over-regulation, time-consuming bureaucracy and a chronic lack of workforce. Yet one impression continues to apply: Either the system cannot reform itself, or it does not want to.

The central question is however: The armed forces are actually for what purpose? The answer to this question separates the souls. The central distinction between us, the AfD delegation, and you, the here already long dealing delegations, is very distinct: The AfD thereby pursues a realistic policy course.              

                Tobias Pflügler (Linke): That was good!

I can only say to the colleagues: The trip to Moscow was concerned with Realpolitik. For the Bundeswehr, that means: The core duty is the defense of the country and the defense of the alliance. To make this credible, a will and a capability are required, ultimately to employ lethal military force. A strong Bundeswehr serves at the same time the defense of Germany as it does that of our allies. It makes clear Germany’s credibility as an alliance partner and underpins the foreign policy capability of our country.

Foreign missions in our view are however only justified if a UN mandate is issued and a national interest has been presented. That is the leitmotiv of every reasonable nation on this planet; only in Germany, emphasis of a national interest up to now is disreputable and politically most highly suspect.  

You know all that, yet out of fear of the left-green publicized opinion, you shrink away from clear words and base the existence of the armed forces on meaningless phrases and empty cant like “Germany’s international responsibility”, “crisis management” and “humanitarian aid” or – especially beloved – a “networked approach” [„vernetzter Ansatz“]. The terms however have nothing to do with the core duty of the armed forces and of a defense alliance. This might be comprehensible in regards the self-renunciation of the pacifist portion of the population in our country; in terms of state policy, it is in no way responsible.

According to Carl von Clausewitz, the great Prussian army reformer, a state needs two things to be able to deal as an individual state with foreign countries: A government of assured management and a – I cite – “spirit of the people which gives life and strength of nerve to this whole” [„Geist des Volkes, welcher diesem Ganzen Leben und Nervenkraft gibt“]. As what concerns the Federal government, there is in this regard nothing to expect and as concerns its mental and moral capability, I see black. The one is the material and financial equipment of the armed forces, the other however is the will to fight [Wehrwille] which even to that whole gives life and strength of nerve, as Clausewitz expressed it.

I thank you for your attention. We reject Section 14.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

 

Roland Hartwig, December 9, 2020, Budget – Foreign Office

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/198, pp. 24978-24979.

Herr President. Herr Minister. Ladies and gentlemen.

Herr Foreign Minister, you want to expend around 6 billion euros for the work of your office in the coming year. That is a lot of money and far more than in past legislative periods. Let us therefore look just for once at what you have generally attained in the past years with these record expenditures.

Now: The balance of your foreign policy is meagre, not to say devastating. The relations with almost all of Germany’s important partners have in part dramatically deteriorated. That concerns first of all Poland and Hungary which you, in the context of the German presidency of the EU Council, wanted to force into a German asserted line with sanctions and threats. That further concerns the British who, on account of the policy of uncontrolled mass immigration advocated by the German government, have quite decisively taken leave of the EU.

            Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): That is false and you know that!

Yet the relations with the Americans, Russians and Chinese have, under your government, also suffered severely.

You therefore have started initiatives which in fact are not path-breaking. For who today still at all remembers your “Alliance of Multilateralism”, your “Europe United”, or the “Thursday for Democracy”? Your ideas, Herr Minister, for all that have long since landed in the wastepaper basket of history. It begins time to pass over you and your policy.

Let us look, for example, at the Russian government. They begin to be on the lookout for alternatives. Thus yesterday a delegation of our AfD Bundestag fraction, despite massive resistance – and from your house – was cordially received in Moscow by Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov.

Ladies and gentlemen, the world changes radically as not long since. China again becomes a significant world power,

            Gabriele Katzmarek (SPD): Mein Gott!

Russia again stronger. In Africa we experience a colossal population growth, this century’s greatest problem, largely ignored by all of you here. From Libya, through Iraq and Syria, to the Ukraine, Europe is surrounded and cut apart by conflicts.

            Ulrich Lechte (FDP): Thanks to your Russian friends.

The breathtaking technological progress leads to shifts in geopolitical gravity to Asia. To be able to successfully lead our country through the 21st Century, we therefore primarily require an encompassing objective and a clear course which knows how to use the great historical currents to our advantage.

Then which concepts for the future do you have for our country, Herr Foreign Minister? I fear there is not much there.

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): There is certainly nothing there!

You tear down what durably exists without erecting something new. At the very beginning of your time in office you ruined the legacy of your party, a successful German Ostpolitik. As an alternative, you have offered nothing. You define predominately negative goals. The national state is dead, overtaken, a concept from the 19th Century, so it is said from the side of this government. Consequently, the borders and social system will be opened to people from all the world and the tax money, hard earned in this country, will be grandiosely distributed to the entire world.

            Christian Petry (SPD): Oh dear!

            Johann David Wadephul (CDU/CSU): Man, oh man!

Checkbook diplomacy, Herr Foreign Minister, was however never a replacement for a strategy. And the national state is entirely other than dead! Scarcely a theme will so persistently influence us in the coming years as the re-ascent of China. We occupy ourselves ever more intensely with this country because it is, as a sovereign national state, very successful in ever more areas. I name only mobile communications, space travel, artificial intelligence. China is the powerful counter-evidence to your thesis that the national state was an anachronism of the 19th Century.

           Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): The song of praise of the Marxist-Leninist                               Chinese stamp from the AfD! I would not have figured on it! Super!

Foreign policy, Herr Maas, is not made just with the left. Nothing will come of it without the right engagement.

We again require visions so as to motivate men and direct energies towards a goal. As a country, we require a positive concept of wherein the 21st Century we wish to develop ourselves, of which place we want to take up in this newly ordained world order. Why do we not, for example, set a goal for ourselves for the year 2040, the 50th anniversary of the re-unification? Some ideas on that from my delegation: By 2040, we want to have re-established Germany as a sovereign national state of the German people [2040 möchten wir Deutschland als souveränen National-staat des deutschen Volkes wiederhergestellt haben]

             Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): That had abolished them, the Reichsbürger!

and thereby in this state maintain the German culture, language and tradition [und dabei in diesem Staat die deutsche Kultur, Sprache und Tradition erhalten]. By 2040, we want to build with all the European neighbors, thus also with Russia, a Europe of Vaterländer,

Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): Russia is not a neighbor! Poland lies in between. Into which you probably want to be marching!

and in common with them, technologically and economically meet Asia and North America eye to eye.

Only the national democracies are capable of providing their citizens the required and desired space for identification and protection. We all need a Heimat, we need our Heimat. The artificial separation of the European continent again after the end of the Cold War into standing eastern and western power structures must be overcome.

            Steffi Lemke (Greens): The speech is going to the Constitution Defense!

Herr Minister, you claim to be conducting a foreign policy united with values. Values can be choicely disputed, and you in recent years have done that with many countries and with particular effort. What however we actually require is a Realpolitik guided by interests, a policy which again puts German interests at the mid-point, just as you, Herr Minister, once had sworn an oath: To the well-being of the German people.

Many thanks.

            Steffi Lemke (Greens): The speech goes to the Constitution Defense! Good luck!

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marc Vallendar, December 10, 2020, Corona Decrees Committee

Berlin Abgeordnetenhaus, December 10, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 18/68, pp. 8153-8155. 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

For nearly ten months, the Senate has issued incisive legal decrees in the fight against the supposed Corona pandemic. The first decree was issued on March 14, 2020, yet even at that time this parliament made clear that a decision over serious infringements of the basic rights  required a steady, continual control by the parliament.

Diverse amending decrees have followed. At the present time we have arrived at over 27 decrees. For a long time, it was rejected that these decrees be put in due time before the parliament. In most cases it was scarcely possible for the standing committee to undertake in due time an examination or to demand amendments or a replacement of the decrees in parliament. “Duly noted” [„Zur Kenntnisnahme“] reads the parliament’s decision in regards almost all decrees: An indictment.

The rapid pace of legal decrees in parliamentary practice has shown that the assignment of legal decrees to the committees presents an unsuitable means of examination since, besides these decrees, the committee must also occupy itself with the daily business. Generally, nothing results from the referral of these decrees. Our submitted motion [Drucksache 18/3092] now takes aim at this – in a special committee. This shall occupy itself exclusively with the Covid-19 legal decrees and be able to present to parliament by means of timely treatment a recommendation concerning passage. Its meeting shall be flexible. It is long since overdue to put these decisions and the debate over the measures into the hands of the elected representatives of the people and not to leave it to a central committee, extraneous to the constitution, of the Chancellor and the Minister-presidents.

For these in their self-empowerment have meanwhile developed fantasies of omnipotence and lost every measure and mean. And the unspeakable third population defense law, which was passed by the Bundestag to post facto legitimate the preventative measures, only intensifies this difficulty. This perhaps not approximately recalls a law of dis-empowerment, that of the Weimar presidential cabinet. A consideration of the the basic rights no longer occurs. The basic right to health and life will be raised to a super basic right to which all other basic rights have to defer. Freedom of movement, to be free to move about on Federal territory – set aside. The freedom of assembly to protest, without limit of number, against the preventative measures of the government – set aside. Freedom of occupation for restaurateurs, artists, sports managers, exhibitors and many more – set aside. The basic right of families to visit members – set aside. Equality before the law means no unequal treatment of those essentially the same. The First Bundes League may play, regional leagues not – set aside. Inviolability of a dwelling: If more visits are received than foreseen by the decrees – set aside. The right to information self-determination – set aside. The basic right to free development of personality – set aside. In brief: The Basic Law has been set aside.

A regime by decree is an imputation against democracy, and the longer this situation lasts, the greater the damage to our free-democratic state of law. My appeal is thus to all elected representatives of this parliament, independent of party colors: Let us in common finally show this government its boundaries! Let us contend in parliament over which scientists and experts shall be heard. Let us speak in parliament of the many fateful assaults on independent businessmen, artists and employees who do not know how they shall feed their families because they for months are only in a reduced way or even no longer at all allowed to work because they were not considered to be system relevant. Let us speak of the youth who want to go unhindered through the world, as is their right, and not feel themselves threatened by Corona. Let us speak of the old, the weak, the ill, how we can protect them without at the same time restraining every social contact.   

Let us dispute under open skies the suitability of a mask obligation!

Vice-president Manuela Schmidt: Do you consent to an interim question from member Walter?

Yes.

            Vice-president Manuela Schmidt: Please.

            Sebastian Walter (Greens): Many thanks. – I have still not understood two things. One is:  You already would have been able to do all of what you say. In that regard would have been required, i.e., motions from your delegation to amend something pertaining to the decrees and not only to take notice of it. Why so far has that not followed? All that would have been able to be done. How so is a committee still required? Of that, you still have said nothing at all, but have spoken in general of Corona. It is for me not understandable why the motion is needed.  

Herr colleague. I see for once that you had not noticed that we in the special session of November 1 had submitted amending motions on the legal decrees which were immediately voted on in parliament during the brief light lockdown which allegedly should last only four weeks. I also see that you do not know that we of the AfD delegation on the Legal Affairs Committee had in any case some months previously presented amending motions which you however rejected.

Independent of that, I see before all things that the other delegations have presented almost no amending motions at all to the legal decrees, the CDU not a single one. It must for once be put forward, that is the opposition here in this house. That is really a disgrace. On that account, let us by means of a special committee focus on the work, let us attain acceptance and democratic legitimization for the preventative measures, for otherwise we may drift into an authoritarian-led regime by decree which takes from the people every joy of life and perspective and the consequences of which can be much more destructive than the virus itself.

Vice-president Manuela Schmidt: Do you consent to an interim question                                    from member Woldeit?

Yes, please. 

           Karsten Woldeit (AfD): If the colleague of the Greens delegation did not notice that the respective motion to amend had been presented in the Legal Affairs Committee, then that is naturally his affair. – Herr colleague Vallendar, do you agree with me, or have the same impression as I, that for all communications – duly noted – , all confinement decrees which, for example, pertain to the Interior Committee, it was not at all desired that these be debated but really only duly noted, preferably to be voted on with a scrap of paper, so that the parliament in fact should not participate?

Yes, Herr colleague, that is absolutely correct. The only committee of which I am a member which twice concerned itself with the legal decrees was the Legal Affairs Committee. It debated on that once. Once there was also a slight amendment which the coalition had brought in regarding places of religion and assemblies. That however is completely correct in regards 27 decrees throughout one year; that really is an indictment. We as a parliament must nevertheless ask ourselves: Who actually governs us? – Yes, the government. And do we at the moment control it? – At the moment, we do not control it. That is plainly and simply the case. 

On that account, I say: Let us please vote for the way of freedom. Let us set up a special committee.
 

Many hearty thanks.

 

[trans: tem]