Axel Gehrke, June 11, 2021, Hospital Infections

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/234, pp. 30337-30338.

Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

Herr Riebsamen, it was interesting, what you have said of all that is worthy of remark. Before all things, you have said: The numbers recede. – Unfortunately, you have not exactly said which numbers recede.

Each year die some 30,000 people of a germ acquired in hospital, and 90,000 people of a serious infection, of a sepsis. And up to today, exactly this number has not receded. For over 15 years you are in the responsible government and nothing but certainly nothing has improved in this line. Sepsis thereby becomes the third most frequent cause of death, and in regards children even the second most frequent. No wonder that 62 percent of the population fear being infected with such germs in hospital. There is no lack of initiatives for a solution from policy and professional associations; that we have just heard.

Yet what was hitherto implemented? That we have asked of the Federal government in a major inquiry. The evaluation of our major inquiry indicates spirited steps. It was also interesting how you interpret DART [German antibiotics resistance strategy]. We interpret it wholly the opposite. You speak of successes; we see that DART 2020 has as a goal displaying the 2020 results. What does the Federal government do? You make DART 2030 out of DART 2020 – and are done. And generally: We see many initiatives, big and small dribbles of money sprays here and there, yet – as was said – results? Not a sign. I can only repeat: The number of deaths has, despite all, despite all interventions, despite all results, up to now not receded.

On that account, the most important point of our motions [Drucksachen 19/29780, 30486, 21882, 28076] is a proposal, which we take up as a fundamental and not as estimates, to finally be able to arrive at concrete numbers – and this is largely financial neutral.

According to §23 of the infection prevention act, the leaders of medical institutions are obligated to the documentation of nosocomial infections and must store these for ten years. We demand that all data gathered since 2011 be retroactively sent by the respective State health officials to a Federal institute which therefrom draws up a yearly atlas of nosocomial infections in the Federal Republic.

It may at once be seen whether the problem is homogeneously distributed and, for example, [whether] hospital financing, the connection with antibiotics in all areas of use, as well as the development of medications and vaccines need be supported. Or, in indicating hotspots, to then apply local measures for multi-resistant germs, better trained cleaning staff, strengthening of medical education and continuing education, as well as inclusion in the teaching plans. To implement this alone, according to the reckoning of the professional associations, would save the lives of some 30,000 people per year. Yet besides mutual assigning of guilt, nothing happens.  

In that regard, I find in my archive a notable interview of Herr colleague Lauterbach, who I unfortunately do not see here today.

            Andrew Ullmann (FDP): There is an interview with Lanz.

I want, with permission of the President, to cite from the interview. Herr Lauterbach said:

A very, very important problem in all hospital reforms of the last years, at the level of the Bunderat as well as at the government level, when they have co-governed, was the FDP. The FDP has been the spearpoint of the hospital lobby in politics and through its work in coalitions and through its watering-down of already concluded laws in important points in the last 15 years has had an essential share therein that we have not come much further in hospital hygiene. That unfortunately needs be said.  

           Götz Frömming (AfD): 30,000!

Now all of that may be correct. Yet presently, the SPD itself was for four years responsible! And what have they achieved?  

                     Götz Frömming (AfD): Also nothing!

We are waiting.

There are only two parameters which really count, and those are the numbers of the sick and of the dead; and both numbers – I can only ever repeat it – have to this day not receded one jot; on the contrary. Compared to the potent financial and media expenditure in regards Corona, with daily reports of death, including bankruptcy, bad luck and breakdowns, this must bring the blush of shame to the face of the entire government. 

There are, ladies and gentlemen, no two kinds of death. And as for the hospital germs: Each death is one death too many. You will also again reject these motions. Yet despite that, conduct yourselves in this sense: This is my urgent request to you all at the end of my political mandate, that you continue to bear responsibility for healthcare policy. 

 Good luck and many thanks. 

                      (The members of the AfD rise.)

 

 [trans: tem]

 

 

                                                                                         

 

 

 

 

Björn Höcke, June 3, 2021, German Language

Thüringer Landtag, Plenarprotokoll 7/48, pp. 143-145, 149-151.

Right honorable ladies and gentlemen, dear patriots in the sovereign house and on livestream.

A few weeks ago, the automobile manufacturer Audi announced that as of immediately it was desired that gender-correct speech be used in the concern; at Audi now no longer in proven mode and ways were Audianer spoken of, but Audianer/-innen. It should actually be thought that automobile manufacturers in the present time have other problems. Yet instead of investing time and money in technological advantage, the same prefer to invest in ideology, since genderism is nothing other; which can be read without difficulty in its fight over the language. I want briefly to arraign that, ladies and gentlemen.

            Vice-president Kaufmann: I request quiet so member Höcke may speak.

The emancipation of man from God in the Enlightenment had a reverse side, of which the freedom from the laws of the Creator, the freedom from the laws of nature itself, made him the absolute master of his own fate. Truth was now no longer of God, but could now also be of men believed to be in possession of the truth. The supposedly good purpose, the establishment of a rule of reason or the leveling of the classes, justified all means. Beginning with Jacobism, the ideologists have drawn a path of blood in the history of mankind for the last 200 years.

Rothe-Beinlich (Greens): Says the righteous!

In this connection, Hölderin spoke words valid to this day: “It nevertheless has made the State a Hell, that Man wanted to make of it his Heaven.” [„Immerhin hat das den Staat zur Hölle gemacht, dass ihn der Mensch zu seinem Himmel machen wollte.”] Ideologists were and are always occupied with the removal of traditions, of what has grown up, so as to create a new man. And language was and always is a lever with the aid of which one wanted to manipulate the consciousness of man; since it is so. That which we cannot speak, we also cannot think. In brief, the speech policy of gender-mainstreaming is a classic ideology and has nothing to seek in a free state of law.

And without knowing this background, the people in the country shake their heads in view of the abuse of speech policy. When from mother, the bearing, and from father, the non-bearing become parents, then one of the aphorisms of Henryk M. Broder comes to mind, who said: “Germany is a madhouse. Could the Federal Republic be roofed, it would be an asylum.”

            Lukasch (Linke): You however get a single room!

We nevertheless see the German language placed under pressure not only by means of gender ideologies, but also by negligence.

            Müller (Linke): What then is the German language?

I recall here only the unreflective use of English words in everyday speech, and that in the last years and decades parallel societies have spread in which the former use of the German language seldom takes place.

Certainly in a time in which the commonality [Gemeinsame] will be placed ever more in question, it is the duty of the public community to strengthen the commonality. To this in particular contributes the preservation and care of the German language, our language.

To give expression to this, right honorable ladies and gentlemen, is the concern of my delegation’s draft law [Drucksache 7/2797]. The avowal of national language, the avowal of German as national language, belong without if or but – certainly in this time which is in search of a new commonality – in the Thüringen State Constitution.

            Bilay (Linke): What about Belgium?

…

Ja, right honorable ladies and gentlemen, right honorable Frau Marx, I am happy that you have fun at the speaker’s podium [Rednerpult].

            Rothe-Beinlich (Greens): Redepult!

Your statements naturally remain on the surface and are also seemingly those over which all the multitude have rejoiced, not being in the position and not being willing to search more deeply into the matter. On that account, it is also a necessity that I continue this speech. And right honorable Herr colleague Zippel, perhaps for once you may inform yourself concerning the flag of the Federal Republic of Germany or else the historical development of this flag and then you may surely come to a new recognition.   

            Zippel (CDU): Take a peek behind, there you see the German flag!

Thus, with my compliments, you are somewhat well-read in this thematic.

            Zippel (CDU): Place yourself beside it, then you may see the difference!

The problem plainly is that you are somewhat deformed by the Zeitgeist, Herr colleague.

Right honorable ladies and gentlemen, we write in our law – I cite with omission – : “…The German language is […] the decisive bond capable of unifying the Germans in all Federal States and in Germany as a whole with each other, yet also with those who as persons with a migration background live here on a long-term basis. A central social and political integration function is thereby due them.” Yet this unifying bond, which is indispensable, right honorable colleagues, ever more unravels. And that has two causes. The first cause is the neglect and the second cause is the manipulation of the language by ideologists.

            Rothe-Beinlich (Greens): Yes, plainly! You are an example of that!

And that, right honorable colleague members straight from the red-red-green delegations, right honorable colleague Marx, that exceeds by far what you have here correctly described as natural language development and natural language change.

I want to briefly illustrate both of these causes, thus first the cause of the negligence. German post-war linguistics, right honorable colleagues, under the impress of American functionalist and structuralist linguistics, completed its aversion from the previous view of language [Sprachbetrachtung] which was historically and thoroughly laid out and displayed true to the language [Sprachloyal]. Presently the attention therein rested on whether the language was useful for the language participant. Language from now on must be communicative, functional and efficient. Language as the mirror of the nation, as Freidrich Schiller once described it, or even as a House of Being, as it once had been classified by Martin Heidegger, fell ever more from the field of vision. In addition came the soft American cultural imperialism. The western Germans willingly let themselves be Disneyfied, Coca-Colonized and McDonaldized.

            Bilay (Linke): Yet that now is not German!

Media language spoilers, advertising fuzzies straining for effect and globalization-obsessed businessmen ever more frequently make references in a most pitiful English, instead of setting up in a much more at hand wonder work of rhythm, richness of expression and knife-sharp precision – the German language.

Language power and language fidelity, which were shaped for centuries in our old Kultur nation, forfeit ever more and today are scarcely to be recognized. One can well recognize this in the tendency to surrender to the loan translation. In the 50s, a pocketbook was still a Taschenbuch, today the e-book remains an e-book. The German Language Association counts in its index of anglicisms 8,000 anglicisms. Only 20 percent of the entries contained in this list were categorized as supplementary or language differentiating, as for example, Dumpingpreis, leasen, and Rowdy. Sale, cash, and casting belong to the 80 percent of superfluous (because well translatable) anglicisms. The German Language Association has besides started an appeal against the gender nonsense which has been very successfully run. 36,000 people in the meantime have subscribed to this appeal. In the name of the AfD delegation, I want to further publicize this and therefore call for powerful support of this appeal.

Now I am at gender, thus at the second cause which destroys this unifying bond – the German language. I am in the position of needing to do something which I actually would have once not thought I need do. I must praise the former Bundestag President Wolfgang Thierse. Yes, that Wolfgang Thierse.Wolfgang Thierse a few weeks ago wrote a brave contribution in the FAZ [Frankfürter Allgemeine Zeitung] in which he sharply criticized the leftist identity political manipulation of language by means of gendering. He stated: If variety should be lived peacefully, then this plurality must be more than a mere co-existence of not only differentiating but also demarcating minorities and identities. Then is required a fundamental commonality, to which self-evidently belongs the common language; an agent of diversity – thus Wolfgang Thierse’s good proposal – should at the same time be an agent of commonality. He so stated. Congratulations, Herr Thierse.

Following this box on the ears by Herr Thierse, there is then still a powerful kick in the shins for the leftist identity politicians. I cite Thierse verbatim: “In its determination, it is in danger of not being able to accept” – I speak of the leftist identity politicians – “that not only minorities but also majorities have justified cultural claims and that these may not be denounced as merely conservative or reactionary or certainly racist.” Wolfgang Thierse.

Naturally it needs be said, Wolfgang Thierse immediately came into the crosshairs of the acknowledged good guys [Gutmenschen], the gender activists and other extremists from their own ranks and in their own parties. We do not know whether Wolfgang Thierse must do a Thilo Sarrazin. I personally do not wish it for him. What we do however know, right honorable ladies and gentlemen: A very clear majority of Germans reject this so-called gendering in the language. Just recently, a Infratest-dimap poll confirmed that 65 percent of the population do not support a stronger consideration of the different sexes in the language. According to the poll, even a majority of the the adherents of the Greens – hear, hear! – are against the gender blah-blah. In our neighbor country France, one is already a step ahead. There lately gendering in the schools has been explicitly forbidden. For this, a draft law of the Macron government was submitted to the National Assembly with which gendering shall be forbidden in public establishments.  

Right honorable ladies and gentlemen, again: Yes, language is constantly changing. That can, that wants to, that will no reasonable man deny. What however needs be stopped, and what can be stopped, if one possesses the political will – we of the AfD delegation possess it – is the manipulation of the language by ideologists by means of negligence. This besides is also shown in the Corona crisis, which also has become a language crisis – unfortunately, I need say and positively emphasize this. If the responsible politicians in Germany are not ashamed to speak of shutdown, lockdown, social distancing, superspreader, home office, home schooling, click and meet, etc., then an end needs be made of this ignorance.

Yes, right honorable colleague members, we of the AfD are of the opinion that those belonging to a language community have the right to be spoken to by the governing politicians, by the responsible politicians, in their own mother tongue. Period, exclamation point!

And if a virus is thus spread in that millions cannot be reached in the national language in appeals for restraint – over 50 percent of the patients in intensive-care beds have a migration background, as we know – then the policy must make unmistakably clear that learning German is an obligation for any of those who want to live here together with us. As our state thereby functions, and because we ourselves value it, German belongs in the State Constitution. On that account, I request a vote in favor of transfer to the committee.

Hearty thanks for your attention.

 

[trans: tem]