Marc Jongen, April 22, 2021, Cultural Identity

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/224, pp. 28499-28500.

Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen.

Patriotism, that is love of fatherland, was for me invariably vomit. I knew not what to make of Germany and do not know to this day.

Robert Habeck, of the Greens, a party which in all seriousness wants to install the Chancellor in Germany.

Next citation:

“A specific German culture, besides the language, is simply not identifiable.”

Aydan Özoğuz, SPD, former integration commissioner of the Federal government.

And a third: We all have in view the images of how Chancellor Merkel, at a CDU election party following the 2013 Bundestag election, indignantly disposed of a German flag into a corner.

Three scenes, one finding: A country in which the highest political representatives manifest such a mentality suffers from a serious derangement of identity, ladies and gentlemen.

            Matthias W. Birkwald (Linke): You surely know the history of the 20th Century,                    or?

While the ruling class and its opinion makers at every opportunity vehemently vouch for the identity of other peoples and cultures, for the identity of minorities in their own country, there yawns where one’s own should be at most only a black hole. And anyone who undertands positively the terms “Volk”, “Nation”, “kulturelle Identität” is in danger of being defamed as a “Nazi”.

In 2017, the Greens write to the German Cultural Council. I cite:

We support that in these theses – of the Cultural Council – the term “Leitkultur” be avoided. Since in culture there may be no boundaries which in the name of an alleged “cultural identity” may determine who belongs thereto and who not.

Dear Greens, are you not in a condition to grasp that cultural identity does not mean to be identified only with oneself, to allow no critical self-reflection, no cultural imports? Quite the contrary: Curiosity of the foreign, the ability to assimilate it, to be one’s own harshest critic: This has always belonged to the cultural identity of the Germans.

Yet open to the world and tolerant, as we have always gladly wanted it, can nevertheless only be he who knows where he stands, what are his heritage, his values and traditions. To all others pertains the old saw: Who is open to all is not quite solid.

When we are perfectly clear on this, yet do not self-consciously represent and demand a Leitkultur informed by tradition, then Germany becomes a container without quality which others will fill with their cultural identities and customs. They will thereby become those values, ostensibly so important to you, least of all to be observed. So much is clear.

We thus urgently require a process of cultural self-affirmation [Selbstvergewisserung] in Germany. Therefore, the AfD delegation demands a national action plan of cultural identity. The Federal government in consultation with the States should get this underway. The reconstruction of devastated buildings of cultural importance, according to the example of the Berlin Stadtsschloss or the Dresden Frauenkirche, should be a central point in the remembrance culture.

Because I already hear you scream at this theme, I say again: We do not want to abolish remembrance of the dark times of our history. They also belong there. But as the Swiss writer Adolf Muschg already said 40 years ago with regards to the Germans’ identity:

It is one thing…to subscribe to history’s receipt as an honest debtor. It is another to, at the same time, walk out on one’s own history.

Who can only think back as far as 1933, or lately as far back as German colonial history, lops off the deep historical realm from which we come and which the Briton Neil McGregor has so impressively re-worked in his fantastic exposition, “Germany – Memories of a Nation”. That, ladies and gentlemen, should also actually be possible as a properly German contribution, and it should become the self-evident cultural heritage [Bildungsgut] of all Germans.

And especially to counteract the deterioration of the language resulting from gendered speech, easy speech and other distortions like those in the daily order, we in addition demand a German academy for language and culture. With a seat in Berlin, it should consist of independent personalities who have made themselves servants of the German language and culture and who, following the example of the Académie française, will be elected to a life term. We are also open to good ideas from foreign countries when they also permit of being implemented with profit to us.

I come to conclusion. Ladies and gentlemen, with these motions [Drucksachen 19/28764, 28794] we are reacting to a leftist counter-revolution – of which colleague Renner has already spoken – which, with cancel culture, toppling of memorials and an ever more open disdain for the cultural contributions of the past, presently enters a heated phase. From Greens, Linke and SPD, we expect nothing other than the most vigorous rejection; for they are the political arm of this course of abolition of cultural Germany.

            Vice-president Hans-Peter Friedrich: Herr colleague, come to an end.

CDU and FDP on the other hand may today again have an opportunity to prove that they are not yet completely toppled over onto the left side.

Good luck!

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

           

 

Michael Espendiller, April 22, 2021, Digital Vaccination Pass

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/224, pp. 28422-28424.

Right honorable Herr President. Dear spectators in the hall and at YouTube.

Basically, Herr Sorge, it is quite simple: Point one: No one should be compelled, directly or indirectly, to vaccinate against the Corona virus.

Point two: No one should be compelled, as a condition for the exercise of his basic rights in the future, to necessarily show a Corona vaccination pass.

When we today debate on the digital vaccination pass, precisely these premises are nevertheless in question. For we have experienced since the beginning of the year how the digital Corona vaccination pass, meanwhile named the “green certificate”, was and will be forced through in heave-ho proceedings at the EU level, and with robust German government participation – except for, once again, that of the German parliament.

Initially, it was apparently only about the restoration of freedom to travel. It did not last long and plans were devised whereby soon the vaccination pass also need be shown for shopping or for a visit to the cinema. And each speech was resonant with, that in the future, concert and cinema visits should only be possible for the vaccinated. Apropos of this, we also experience at that time a most well endowed vaccination campaign which negated the vaccination risks and instead spread the enlightenment of feel-good advertising.

In this connection, I want for once to ask the Federal government: Do you not also hold it to be an outspoken fraud when Gunther Jauch, the face of the vaccination campaign, touts the Corona vaccination on all media channels, a short time later is ill with Corona, and then even needs to admit to not have been vaccinated?

            Karin Maag (CDU/CSU): Have you considered how old Herr Jauch is?

It is really going too far, and for the population’s vaccination readiness it is surely not useful, when the Federal government has recourse to such conjuring tricks.

Also in this connection, we are interested in the sum of honoraria that Uschi Glas has received for her contribution to the vaccination campaign. Yet you do not gladly hear such questions. You here prefer to play the Good Samaritan who wants to do something good for the citizens, while what you actually have in mind is quite otherwise.

The vaccination campaign and the digital vaccination pass will be made palatable and be attractively packaged for the people. It is desired in this way that the citizens surrender as quickly as possible their freedoms – we have just heard it from Herr Sorge. Yet beneath this noble appearing pretense it was planned to install national data banks for the Corona vaccination pass in which vaccination and test data shall be stored; of this,  the “Süddeustsche Zeitung” reported in March.

It also involves a nationwide data bank with the personal health data of millions of citizens, to which a multiplicity of authorities then would have continual access. That would have meant considerable restrictions of basic rights and well corresponds to the wet dream of every surveillance fanatic.

           Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): What then is your alternative to                                   vaccination?

           Maria Klein-Schmeink (Greens): So he knows nothing of healthcare!

Yet, dear government: We here as opposition do our job and keep watch. I would say our motion in March and our outcry on these themes in this house were good enough to change your plans so that “would have” becomes no “is”.

           Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): It’s all just a flu, or?

Since, for all that, the installation of national data banks does not now come. The government indeed did not dare. I am glad that we were here. It is good that the AfD sits in the parliament. I would not want to know what all of you here may otherwise wave through.

           Maria Klein-Schmeink (Greens): The advertising set is now at an end, or?

Nothing to the contrary: The digital Corona vaccination pass raises additional questions. We of the AfD Bundestag delegation desire, just as all other people in this country, to be able to return as quickly as possible to normality.

           Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): In your view, how does that go?                                   What then is your means of a solution? 

People want to travel again, they want to again drink an afternoon coffee with friends, they want together to barbeque again.  

          Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): Say for once what you want!                                          Make a proposal! Man, man, man!

And it is perfidious of this Federal government to selectively condemn this yearning for normality and freedom, and, in the interests of personal power, to denigrate or simply criminalize tobogganers or walkers.

           Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): No solution, just grumbling!

If one matter has become clear to me in the last three and a half years in this parliament, Herr Grosse-Brömer, then it is that this government is not about the people, not about the economy, not about the climate or whatever happens to be in vogue.

            Maik Beermann (CDU/CSU): Article 2! 

It is only and alone about power and control.

            Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): Say for once what you would do!

For you, the mature citizen is only in the way. One literally feels your lust for autocratic rule. That is also seen in how the governing delegations here have whipped through the infection defense law.

           Maik Beermann (CDU/CSU): Now to your motion!

It is however not the duty of the Federal government to rule autocratically here; it is your duty to listen, consider and reach decisions which are for the welfare of this people.

           Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): What, for example?

I think we all here are agreed that vaccinations are an important component of fighting the pandemic and on that account it is the obligation of this Federal government to make ready sufficient vaccine.

           Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): Ach!

           Tino Sorge (CDU/CSU): Hear, hear! Entirely new tones, Herr colleague!

Yet it is also the duty of this government to respect the rights if every citizen who rejects an offer of vaccination,           

           Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): No one is forced!

and in fact on whatever grounds. Since it is simply no concern of us as parliamentarians what the citizens out there may want [Denn es geht uns als Parlamentarier einfach nichts an, was die Bürger da draussen möchten]: Whether they want to allow themselves to be vaccinated, or reject this for some reasons of health, or plain and simple do not want to.  

            Maria Klein-Schmeink (Greens): It becomes ever more perfidious,                                        what you are doing here! 

We all here in parliament have no right to judge or to at all defame a so highly personal decision.

            Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): Yet no one does!

And too when so many here do not want to hear it: It is fully legitimate to concern oneself over the risks of vaccination and to reject a vaccination date.

            Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): Who then objects to that?

Now you will equally again say that this is not at all in question; we certainly have heard that many times. That is however nothing other than pretty words, your actions of course speak an entirely different language.

Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): Ach so! Has anyone been carried off for vaccination? Have I not been aware?

“Privileges” for the vaccinated are ever again spoken of. We ask ourselves: How is it actually now then with the non-vaccinated? Are they now outlaws?

We of the AfD Bundestag delegation have inquired of this Federal government, at various opportunities in plenary session as well as in the committees, how it will prevent a discrimination based on vaccination status. We have received no answer.

We therefore demand [Drucksachen 19/27197, 28045] of the Federal government that it prevent the discrimination of the non-vaccinated by statutory means. Briefly stated: If you before Corona without a vaccination pass could go to the cinema, you should now and in the future be able to go to the cinema without a vaccination pass. It cannot be that here the government tersely declares that restrictions of the basic rights for the vaccinated can no more be maintained, and at the same time postulate that the non-vaccinated need to continue to submit to such restrictions. Give back to the people their freedom.

It lies in the individual responsibility of each individual whether he lets himself be vaccinated or not and whether he enters into these risks or not. We therefore reject making the Corona vaccination pass the measure of all things.

Hearty thanks for your attention.

            Maria Klein-Schmeink (Greens): Such perfidious nonsense!

            Michael Grosse-Brömer (CDU/CSU): The speech is not logically cohesive!

            Jan Korte (Linke): Merkel vaccinates you all!

 

[trans: tem]

 

           

 

           

 

 

 

 

Sebastian Münzenmaier, April 16, 2021, Travel Insurance and Insolvency

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/222, pp. 28165-28166. 

Right honorable Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen.

According to applicable law, insolvency insurers, who offer and provide package tour insolvency protection, can limit liability to 110 million euros per fiscal year. We all know that this regulation was relevant in September and October of 2019 when the German affiliates of Thomas Cook moved to open insolvency proceedings and the liability for that ultimately provided that the taxpayer need answer for a sum of approximately 160 million euros. For this reason is it already long urgently necessary that finally a new draft law be put forward and we expressly welcome that the Federal government now finally follows up.

We in the Tourism Committee, in good time and, before all, across delegations, had demanded a new regulation and had already debated on the draft presented, and in that regard conversed with many experts. I therefore find it quite particularly unfortunate that the Federal government plain and simple tossed to the wind the relevant information and suggestions of the industry representatives and of many experts.

The federal association of the mittlestandische economy indicated in its comments thereto that, with a giving of security of 7 percent of turnover and a remuneration of 1 percent of turnover, many firms in the future must pay twice as high a contribution to the travel insurance fund as previously was to be paid for the insolvency insurance. With the new regulation, the strived-for improvement of the insolvency insurance for customers of the larger travel firms could thereby lead to an increased cost for small and mid-sized travel firms.

The international bus tours association, the RBA, sees it similarly and in its comments for the draft papers spoke of the accident risks of large international concerns which, by means of the mechanisms of the travel insurance fund, would in fact be shifted onto the mittlestandische and, before all, family-led travel firms. With this draft are thus once again the small and mittlestandische firms encumbered and their considerations ignored. These proceedings would even in normal times be feeble of the Federal government, yet in one of the greatest crises of the tourism industry, in which many diligent businessmen and employees are plain and simple at an end, the government’s behavior is a scandal, ladies and gentlemen.

I would have gladly spoken personally with Herr State Secretary Bareiss – he at least is the Federal government’s tourism commissioner – yet he once again is not here.

            Paul Lehrieder (CDU/CSU): He is here! He is sitting in the back!

It may be, he sits somewhere in the back. – Ach, Herr Bareiss, I greet you! You after all know the situation of the branch. It is your duty that the Federal government stands up for those in the tourism industry. Perhaps today you take an extra backward place, because you no longer fight at the front, Herr Bareiss.

            Volker Ullrich (CDU/CSU): That is an awful thing to say!

– Yes, but apparently on point. Since Herr Bareiss is part of the government and should himself stand up for the government, but apparently he does not ordinarily do that.

Let us come back to the draft law. The apportion limit of 3 million euros of turnover, under which there is the possibility to separate oneself from the compulsory membership in the fund and in another way insure oneself, is held by many experts to clearly have impinged too deeply. We should finally for once discuss whether we could not raise that 10 to 15 million euros.

Yet it truly lies in the rush, and the many open questions, and, before all, the ignoring of the experts’ complaints, that the Federal government for very long has done nothing and now suddenly takes note that urgent action is needed because otherwise by the end of the year we may have a giant problem.

In many other places is indicated that the draft law has been knit with the hot needle and shall now be quick whipped through the parliament. The GmbH [limited liability company] which shall manage the fund remains vague. No one know quite exactly how the arrangement of details will function. Has then the ominous adviser some possibility of influence or will one or another figurehead be installed there, who only advises and in the end costs money? How does the BMJV [justice ministry], for instance the Federal Office for Justice, actually undertake the supervision? And, before all: How so is it figured in the draft that, with only half a position, the supervision of a fund with 750 million euros shall be conducted? And here I am very anxious as to how you will explain this disproportion to us in the further consultations.

On the whole, you see, ladies and gentlemen: The draft leaves open important questions, ignores essential complaints of the tourism people concerned and appears to me to be not yet fully thought through. I am therefore glad of further consultations in committee and hope that in the future you let sensible suggestions influence your work.

I thank you for your attention.

 

[trans: tem]