Jürgen Braun, June 25, 2021, Human Rights Report

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/237, pp. 30970-30971.

Esteemed praesidium. Very esteemed ladies and gentlemen. Dear colleagues.

            Steffi Lemke (Greens): You still cannot behave yourself, you lout!

In the last edition of the legislative period, the entire great government coalition, with FDP and Greens, has brought in a motion on the human rights situation in Iran. The motion contains nothing which we for months and years do not already know. Yet in this stale motion you mention not once the name of the new Iranian president.

Ebrahim Raissol-Sadati now governs Iran; for short: Raisi, a mass murderer. Two years ago, he was on the United States’ sanctions list. Raisi, an Israel-hater, a radical anti-semite. In 1988, towards the end of the Iran-Iraq War, Raisi had thousands of people murdered: Opponents of the regime, women, children, Christians and Jews – a total of at least 5,000 people, there is talk of up to 30,000 murdered. Raisi had clearly said: Pro-Iranian terror militias should also continue to threaten Israel, that Iran’s rocket program should be constructed.

What does Claudia Roth now do? Will she greet the mass murderer Raisi with out-stretched arms, as at the time with Laridschani? Or comes now a high-five with Raisi for a removal of the condition, for an improvement of the atmosphere, as at the time with the Iranian ambassador to Germany, likewise an Iranian mass murderer? We do not know.

Today deals with the Federal government’s report on its human rights policy. This report reads as it would have been written by leftist extremists. The entire leftist agenda is worked out. Left-wing extremist criminal acts do not appear in this report. Islamist extremism is completely dissimulated.

            Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): No longer even one interjection!

Once again we read nothing of brutal attacks on Christians in German asylum applicant shelters. The multiple vandalism of churches in Germany: Not documented. We also read nothing of censorship on the internet by means of the NetzDG [Network Enforcement Act].

Yet before all, the new anti-semitism in our country is trivialized and hushed – Islamist anti-semitism. This silencing fits seamlessly with the pandering to Iran; since the old parties have also previously hushed up the Judenhass of the Islamist mullah regime. I maintain: In regards the theme of anti-semitism, the old parties waver like a reed in the wind. The AfD is the only delegation in this house which consistently

            Ottmar von Holtz (Greens): It just cannot be so dumb!

proceeds unmistakably against every form of Judenhass,

            Helin Evrim Sommer (Linke): Haha! Haha!

be it right, be it left, be it Islamist.

Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): No one from the Israeli government wants to meet with you.

When rockets with nuclear warheads aimed at Israel are in the air, it is too late.

            Helin Evrim Sommer (Linke): What have you smoked?

The Federal government could have taken up the example of American President Trump. Instead, Trump was ever again witheringly denigrated by the old parties here in parliament, even for his Iran policy. It was nevertheless Trump who resolutely showed the limits to the mullah regime. It was Trump who defended Israel.

The old parties suggest in their motion today that Iran until 2019 had adhered to the stipulations of the so-called nuclear agreement.The old parties assert that only after the Trump administration’s withdrawal shall Teheran have violated this agreement. It is an impudence to assert that Iran had previously held itself to such obligations. You are telling fairy tales so as to conceal the failures of the Federal government. The German policy of pandering to the mullah regime has failed. Not least, this helpless motion again also shows that.

At the end of this legislative period, my thoughts today

            Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): Oh man, oh man! Oh man, oh man!

are with our soldiers in Mali. We had hoped to be able to spare them this. The soldiers in Mali

            Vice-president Claudia Roth: Your speaking time is at an end.

are there for us. I hope we all are thinking of them and draw the consequences.

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]

 

           

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rainer Kraft, June 10, 2021, Nuclear Power

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/233, p. 30051.

Today it is about many changes to the atomic energy law; for one, about executive reservation in regards decisions to approve; further, about the size of statutory indemnifications based on the withdrawal squabbling contrived by the second Merkel government; and lastly, about the question of whether legal exports of nuclear fuels from Germany to friendly foreign countries present a danger to our security.

According to order: The seventeenth law for altering the atomic energy law introduces an executive reservation in legal processes which thereby leads to that the executive partially overtakes judicial duties – thus, an interference in the state’s separation of powers. According to the AfD delegation’s interpretation, that is a serious interference in the separation of powers. It was thence logical to demand a specific vote for that, in which each member justifies his decision before the citizens. The AfD delegation does not at all trivialize that decision. But – and this should possibly pacify you – the AfD delegation trusts our executive not to abuse this law and will vote in favor of this bill.

We go one further, to the eighteenth law for altering the atomic energy law, to the newly negotiated sum for the figuring of the legal claims of nuclear power plant operators. We already had this with the sixteenth law for altering the atomic energy law in 2018, thus three years ago. I then had said here in this same place that you had regulated this in a slovenly manner. And behold: The Federal Constitutional Court ruled for us and you need to stay after class.

Nevertheless, one of the possibilities of regulating this is unfortunately no longer available, namely – we said it at the time – compensation by means of an increase in the quantities of remaining power for the operator. For the power plants already shut down or soon to be shut down, there remains no more time to compensate for the money by means of electricity generation. Now the entirety needs to be settled from state means at the cost of the taxpayer. But to you, as always, that is the same: As always, someone else pays.

The equivalent besides threatens in regards coal power plants. There, you have already agreed to a compensation contract. And now – you concluded this today – you subsequently change the limit values for these power plants with corresponding demands for investments by the operators. But it is to be seen what they will say to that.

For last: For the AfD’s draft law. Our bill [Drucksache 19/27773] wants with a Nein to answer for all time the question whether legal nuclear fuels from Germany in permitted power plants in friendly foreign countries endanger the security of Germany. This, which is always presented by the Greens and the Linke as a danger, today contributes to the securing of Germany's electricity supply by means of French electricity from nuclear power plants. Since each time wind and sun, your energy transition champions, start stuttering, then the French nuclear power plants leap into the breach to save Germany, and before all green Baden-Württemberg, from the blackout. So appears the result of the “world’s dumbest energy policy”, to here cite for once the “Wall Street Journal”.

The fact is – whether it suits you or not – : Nuclear energy is being established around the world. Only nuclear power is in the position to produce reliable, good value and, for all of those to whom it is important, low-CO₂ electricity. Only by this means is it possible to become fit for the challenges resulting from a world population of eight billion and more people. Only a reliable energy can continually produce synthetic fuels with Power-to-X. Only energy of good value en masse can desalinate enough water so as to green the wastelands for the overcoming of the challenges of a great world population. In brief: Only nuclear power fulfills the United Nations’ sustainability goal number 7 of a good value, reliable and clean energy.

The AfD therefore demands a re-entry into the research of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The lost ground in this area resulting from many false political decisions must again be overhauled so that here Germany does not lose the connection and so as to protect the living standards of coming generations.

Your policy generates shortage, poverty and under-supply. Our motions, on the other hand, stand for a future of prosperity and progress.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

Wilhelm von Gottberg, June 25, 2021, Expelled Persons

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/237, pp. 30915-30916.

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.

The Federal government’s comprehensive report for the promotion of cultural work according to §96 contains light and shadow.

My delegation recognizes the comprehensive financial promotion of museum establishments. The realization of the project “Flight, Expulsion, Reconciliation”, as well as the completion of the Sudeten German Museum in previous years, are two active entries in the submitted balance. Gut so! To be evaluated otherwise is that one did not have the human decency to invite to the opening ceremony on Monday Frau Steinbach, the initiator of the Center against Expulsions. As vice-president, I myself then stood close at the side of Frau Steinbach.

The State museums will today be promoted as institutions. The promotion is not luxurious. Just the same, places of remembrance have thereby been created which shall recall the real eastern Germany. The former Prussian eastern provinces are part of the German spiritual and cultural history. Whether with the establishments a long-term remembrance of this part of our history will be possible is doubtful. That can only succeed if the history instruction in the schools arranges the corresponding teaching content. One unfortunately cannot be optimistic.

The East Prussian State Museum is the property of the East Prussians. We purchased the real estate with our own money. Why is the report silent about that?

            Marianne Schieder (SPD): Because it deals with promotion of culture!       

The colleague Eckhard Pols, my esteemed previous speaker, has for more than ten years actively supported the house. He had a decisive part in that the East Prussian State Museum has with a Baltic branch experienced an expansion and cultural enrichment. – Dear Eckhard, we are long time companions. Thank you!

The report lists numerous establishments which will be promoted according to §96. As it thereby comes to overlaps, means will be distributed according to the watering can principle. The situation of the German folk groups in Poland comes off badly in the report. Under my leadership, the local associates founded 22 German associations in the Polish part of East Prussia. The Interior Ministry gave subsidies for the local establishments. That was a promotion of culture established locally. On the whole is to be said: It was those Germans expelled from the Heimat, and their descendants, who with life have fulfilled the Neighbors Treaty. I find nothing of that in the report.  

Numerous Poles are disturbed that German tourists in today’s Poland conduct themselves as more Polish than Polish patriots. That, national conscious Poles do not allow. In my numerous visits to today’s Polish part of East Prussia, I have made no secret of my Prussian and German sentiment. Respect was therefore shown to me.

The East Prussian Association has on its initiative and at its own cost founded local political discussion formats with Poland as well as with Russia. For the Russian discussion format, there has been to this day not one cent of promotion.

In 2005, I made contact with the great Russian writer, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a friend of Germany. We were agreed that both countries needed to endure the worst kind of totalitarianism. Over 60 years after the war – on this, we were also agreed – there was no more a place for self-accusation and displays of guilt. My planned visit to him in Moscow was prevented by his sudden calling away. His commitment to Germany [Einsatz für Deutschland] brought him ten years in the Gulag Archipelago. It is also by his service and the grace of God that the reconciliation with Russia has succeeded.

In the last days here, much has been spoken of disgraceful German actions during the Second World War. Nothing of that should be relativized. Yet so that the other side may be heard, I cite with the cordial permission of the President some lines from Solzhenitsyn’s epic, „Ostpreussische Nächte“:

22 Höringstrasse, though no fire, still a plundered waste. I find the mother, still living, were there many on the mattress? A daughter – still a child – the same as dead. All simply according to the word: Forget nothing, withdraw nothing. Who is a girl becomes a woman and soon a woman’s corpse. A clinic, a doctor, are not for you. Russia’s drivers scurry over grades and rises. Their wagons slant and slip. Rude, Asiatic customs, you are by us so well trusted. Forward further! Allenstein awaits us!

I am grateful. – Many thanks, Frau President.

            Marianne Schieder (SPD): Unbelievable! That is really unbelievable!

 

[trans: tem]

 

Lothar Maier, June 24, 2021, Consumer Protection

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/236, pp. 30731-30732.

Right honorable Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.

“Fair Consumer Contracts” stands out on the packaging of this law and I fear it is a trick packaging. The pretentious title of this law lets it be imagined that it deals with a comprehensive regulation of the law of consumer contracts. Of that, there can be no talk. Here will be regulated two, three clearly important yet nevertheless plainly specific matters.

In the hearing on this, the expert Schmidt-Kessel not by chance said word for word, I may quote him – :

This law is in the tradition…of inflated legislative labeling which indeed declares itself politically, yet is not justified as good Legistik [drafting of legislation].

Colleague von Notz of the Greens delegation has recently presented this with a bit more grip when he correctly said in the address to the Justice Minister: You give your laws “stupefied [benackte] names”. That is what is there; at least on this point, he is right.

When we ourselves look at the specifics of the regulation – I will not go into the general analysis, but select only two, three things – , then we see there the very problematic regulation of the term of the contracts. It is extremely complicated and not practical. This unconditionally requires a further alteration and improvement. This regulation works in such an intimidating way that scarcely any of it can be supported. The term of two years effectively remains; this ought no longer be the case. Consider some of the telephone contracts: Technical changes proceed so quickly that an agreement to a two-year term is not appropriate for the customer. Here, the market itself would lead to a better regulation.

The rolling back of telephone solicitation as a goal is to be welcomed. In this area, there will be scarcely anyone who is not ordinarily irritated that he is called for the purpose of closing some contract. It is sensible that the consumer’s consent and the keeping of documentation will be made the basis for that. I however fear there will be very many excuses from the side of the vendors which can be easily contrived and will then make the whole less effective.

Also not to be understood is why the regulations should apply only for the energy delivery contracts. In the counseling centers and somewhat in the consumer centrals, it is stated that the energy delivery contracts are plainly not foremost, but the telephone contracts. Why at all this restriction? It is not nearly substantiated and it is not comprehensible.

Allow me with this my last speech in the German Bundestag a brief word in conclusion – I deliver no tearful farewell, do not worry! – : I wish for the German Bundestag many reforms, root and branch. But at this late hour, I may content myself with one, modest wish: It would be really nice if the Bundestag would at least bring the labeling of its laws into better agreement with their contents.

I thank you and wish you all well.

            (Sustained applause from the AfD – members of the AfD rise)

 

 [trans: tem]