Marc Jongen, March 17, 2022, Anti-totalitarian Consensus

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/21, p. 1548.

Frau President. Valued members. Right honorable members of the inquest commission.

“There is never a document of culture without there being at the same time one of barbarism.” This sentence of Walter Benjamin came to me in the sense of preparing for today’s debate on the reappraisal [Aufarbeitung] of the SED dictatorship. The barbarians commit crimes, be it by national socialists or later the red socialists, and following generations found inquest commissions, institutes, build memorials, organize a most highly scrupulous remembrance culture around the past crimes and evil – necessary, yet oppressive.

One of the central conclusions of the first SED inquest commission in the 90s stated – I cite:

The SED state was a dictatorship. It was one not as a result of maldevelopment or individual abuse of power – which occurred in particular instances – but of its historical and ideological fundamentals.

An enormously important statement, in regards to which we are not allowed to forget one thing: The party by the name of Die Linke, which since 1990 sits in the Bundestag, which was earlier called the PDS, was before that called the SED. This Linke is legally identical with the SED; even today, they live on the assets which they robbed from the citizens of the DDR and they still stand on the same ideological fundamentals. This is a disgrace for this sovereign house and for this country, ladies and gentlemen.  

DDR spelled out is: German Democratic Republic. You should please always think of that – primarily you of the CDU – when you here call yourselves in common with all others as far as the Linke “the democratic delegations”. To be democratic, that does not mean to have the allegedly only correct opinion and a hyper-moral conscious. To be democratic means to accept the competition of political ideas, to allow for authentic alternatives, ladies and gentlemen.

Otherwise, in regards the bloc parties of the DDR which pretended a variety, we are still where it is only ever the same in red, yellow or black. The irony of history wills that old grievances with spite again insidiously creep into all remembrance and admonition, often it even happens impudently clothed in remembrance and admonition. The concluding report of the second inquest commission retains the following which is of much importance:

The anti-totalitarian consensus as part of a democratic remembrance culture is one of the best sureties that what is not allowed to repeat is not repeated.

The former Family Minister Schwesig, SPD, and the former Interior Minister de Mazière, CDU, who abolished the extremism clause, have forsaken this anti-totalitarian consensus so that leftist radical associations could again be promoted, vehemently cheered on by Anetta Kahane, a former Stasi informant, who today again manages censorship at public expense. It cannot be imagined.

This anti-totalitarian consensus has Interior Minister Faeser also forsaken, who writes in Antifa approved publications and is totally blind in the leftist extremism eye. Under the banner of anti-fascism – now finally become a state doctrine – free opinion is again today cut off and sanctioned, those thinking otherwise cancelled and punished.

The Wall, as is known, was called in DDR jargon an “anti-fascist defense wall”. Well, for their own defense some inmates of the DDR, those who sought the way to freedom, were bled to death at the Wall. “Yet I love all people” – the famous words of Stasi chief Mielke.

Seven years ago, in rhetorical overdrive, Stern wrote: “Germany is completely DDR-ized…accommodation pays, opposition today is best practiced silently.” Why today is such like no longer to be read in the state-fed media? Because everything of this kind has improved? Or because the climate of opinion meantime has become still more repressive? Please ponder over this. And please, Frau Roth: Let us look at Russia, yes; yet let us also mind our own business.

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

Joana Cotar, March 17, 2022, Telegram Disconnection

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/21, pp. 1562-1563.

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen.

In January, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser threatened the messenger app Telegram with disconnection [Abschaltung] as an ultima ratio. Markus Söder agreed with her and demanded the geo-blocking. And Boris Pistorius, the Lower Saxony Interior Minister, wanted to ban the messenger service from the app stores. The policy appears united: Telegram is dangerous. Telegram must go if the makers of Telegram do not bow to the wishes of the German government.

Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, well knows these proceedings, although not from Western democracies; since previously only countries like China, Byelorussia, Russia or Iran have proceeded against Telegram. That the Federal government in fact plays with the thought of aligning itself with this list is a disgrace for our country, ladies and gentlemen, and discloses a double morality which seeks its like. Since, two years ago, the German policy still had a very positive view of Telegram. I remember the praise as it organized oppositionists in Byelorussia. Now, Telegram has become of one of the most important channels of communication in the Ukraine. Ukrainian Telegram channels mostly transmit in three languages: In Ukrainian, in Russian and in English. Thus we too may receive what is happening there. Thus many people in Russia also use the app to grasp at news which does not correspond to the state-sanctioned version of events.

Pavel Durov recently said:

Nine years ago, I defended the private sphere of the Ukrainians from the Russian government – and lost my business and my home. I would without hesitation do so again.

Thus speaks someone for whom freedom really means something, who opposed the powerful and defends the rights of citizens even if he must make sacrifices for that.

In Germany also is the commitment of Telegram in the Ukraine praised. Yet as soon as extra-parliamentary opposition is organized over Telegram, the messenger service suddenly becomes a problem for the policy and a ban of Telegram is debated. Pressure on Apple and Google is exerted so that they threaten the app with expulsion, and nothing is left untried for blocking entire channels.

That Justice Minister Marco Buschmann of the FDP emphasizes that the NetzDG was binding, self-evidently applies also to Telegram, and he wants to more strongly control the messenger service, leaves me completely bewildered since it was the FDP which demanded many times in the last legislative period the abolition of the Internet Enforcement Act. All forgotten! I ask myself how you in the morning can still look in the mirror, valued colleagues.

The disconnection demand also shows how little technical knowledge is on hand. Russia already attempted this disconnection. They blocked 18 million IP addresses in the hope of being able to disconnect Telegram. The result: State websites were no longer reachable, banking services, AI systems, on-line storage; overall, it came to a loss. And Telegram? Telegram simply changed servers and went on. At some time or other, Russia gave up. Freedom had won. For that, it shall now be cut off in Germany. It is about control. People should not network without supervision. People should not make arrangements, not for marches, not for protests. The government is afraid of its own population.

Ladies and gentlemen, the disconnection of Telegram in Germany would be a fatal signal for the world, certainly at the present time,

            Gabriele Katzmarek (SPD): Ach, ja? Man, man, man!

quite irrespective that the European High Court for Human Rights has categorized such proceedings as contrary to basic rights. This appears to have escaped the Interior Minister.

The AfD Bundestag delegation therefore demands of the Federal government: No ban and no network blocking of Telegram! No use of the NetzDG! Do not put Google and Apple under pressure to toss out of their stores legal software applications! Instead, they should improve the means of the state of law and concern themselves that more police officers and more state attorneys are hired and especially trained so that they can do their jobs on the networks; since the same laws apply on the internet as in the analog world.

Dear colleagues, defend with us the right to freedom of opinion on the internet and on messaging services guaranteed by the Constitution, and vote for our motion [Drucksache 20/1029].

Hearty thanks.

            Gabriele Katzmarek (SPD): Defend with you!

            Thorsten Lieb (FDP): An embarrassing scene!

            Gabriele Katzmarek (SPD): Ja, they fear their hate commentaries which                                they are no longer able to get rid of!

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

Rainer Kraft, March 16, 2022, Nuclear Power Plants

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/20, pp. 1474-1475.

Right honorable Frau President. Valued colleagues.

The energy costs in Germany are too high. We know not from where the energy for the coming winter shall come and international dependencies exist to an extremely unhealthy, one-sided degree. Thus, after 20 years of the energy transition, may be summarized the German energy policy. Yet Germany can no longer afford this experiment. I here forgo assignments of guilt, since the situation in this regard is much too serious.

You now want, so as to solve the gas problem, to switch suppliers, which the Ministry will succeed in doing, but is naturally united with corresponding high costs for the consumers and the economy in Germany. The examination by two ministries has yielded that nuclear power in this regard can make no noteworthy contribution because it cannot be made fit in good time and that the build up of the renewables and the hydrogen shall bring us through the coming winter. Many professional organizations and associations contradict this examination and complain that they were not included in this.

Furthermore, your ministries concentrate exclusively on the coming winter of 2022-2023. Yet here a truism: There will also be a winter of 2023-2024, and the energy security in that winter is exactly as unknown as in the coming one.

Yet let us now look at your solutions: Build up of the renewables and the hydrogen. In that regard, some numbers: In the year 2021, last year, the six remaining German nuclear power plant units in eight of twelve months generated more electricity than 1.5 million photovoltaic installations altogether in Germany. The generation of electricity by the six remaining power plant units was one-third, approximately 33 percent, higher than by all the photovoltaic installations together, despite the priority storage of energy from the photovoltaic installations. For the construction of this insufficient output [Minderlesitung] you have required over 20 years, and in this nonsense you have invested tens, if not hundreds, of billions of euros of electricity consumer and taxpayer money.

Exactly so unrealistic is your hope in hydrogen. While in regards nuclear power plants, we speak of real, existing installations which I can visit and walk through, which I can look at where the fuel comes in, that it works,

            Harald Ebner (Greens): Do the solar installations and windmills run on fuel,                            or what?

with hydrogen you have nothing. It moves exclusively in the realm of “wish what you will”. Today you have nothing, you will in eight months have no hydrogen and you will in the coming winters have no hydrogen.

Here is shown the contradiction of the BMWK [Economy and Climate] and BMU [Environment] ministries’ examinations. If it turns exclusively upon the coming winter, then as shown can the build up of the renewables and the hydrogen contribute nothing to redeeming the gas or replacing the nuclear power. The nuclear power, according to the opinion of the professional associations, can very well do that,

            Harald Ebner (Greens): What professional associations, then?

if one now gets to work and makes them fit for that. If however your argumentation is not about the coming but the future winters, then there is, according to your own examination, sufficient time to make fit the nuclear power plants which we still have and order the necessary fuel.

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): Bravo!

The motion of the Alternative [Drucksache 20/1021] shows here a way to a solution: For one, we concern ourselves with the legality; since, despite all examinations, it is after the course of this year forbidden to generate electricity from nuclear power. This passage must go.

            Harald Ebner (Greens): Nein, it must remain. It is clear!

For another, the time has now come in which we need to speak of the country’s secure, reliable and also affordable energy supply in the coming years and winters. And yes, this also includes the question of how to deal with the still existing yet shutdown nuclear power plants, how they can be made fit so they again receive a permit to operate,

            Harald Ebner (Greens): …and continue to produce waste!

so they again can produce reliable, safe electricity.

The very last thing that we want, quite honestly, is,

            Filiz Polat (Greens): We now want the end of your speech!

when sometime brings the unadorned energy emergency, to need to take into the network a nuclear power plant which has no operation permit. It ought never come to that.

For that, it is necessary to take responsibility, show foresight and introduce the required course corrections. I here want to demand of Minister Habeck, who unfortunately is not there, to show this foresight and undertake this responsibility, since he owes this to our citizens.

Harald Ebner (Greens): And you would prefer to produce radioactive waste for                    thousands of years!

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alice Weidel, March 17, 2022, Vaccination Mandate

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/21, pp. 1504-1505.

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

The proposals put forward for a vaccination mandate are in various ways the product of a stubborn obsession and an ignorant denial of the facts. With this absurd and anachronistic debate, Germany once again stands forth as a European oddity. Even our neighbors in Austria have for the meantime set aside the “vaccination mandate” project.

The vaccination mandate has been built on false asseverations of the data. That a vaccination effectively defends another from infection and lessens the spread of the virus is fake news. It is false! Even the Robert Koch Institute needs to concede that. The promised protection against serious cases is in any event questionable in view of the increasing portion of those vaccinated and boostered in intensive care. A healthcare system endangered by an overburdening of hospitals never existed, does not exist and does not threaten. That moreover had to be unwillingly conceded by the Health Minister.

A vaccination mandate is also not required to prevent lockdowns in the fall. Lockdowns are prevented by the government not ordering them. It is simple as that. The uselessness and harm of lockdowns should in the interim have been spoken of. Yet the potential side-effects of mRNA and vector vaccines are on the other hand far more serious and widespread than originally maintained. When will that be actually spoken of in this house?

The arguments for a vaccination mandate were from the beginning weak. And they have in the meantime collapsed like a house of cards. There is no legitimate and constitutionally permissible justification for the introduction of a vaccination mandate against Covid-19, regardless whether as a vaccination mandate at 18, at 50, as a vaccination mandate in reserve, or as related to a facility. A general vaccination mandate violates central basic rights: Human dignity, the right to life and bodily inviolability and right to freedom of belief and conscious. The standard of proportionality which would legitimate a serious encroachment of this kind on the basic rights has not been given. The vaccination mandate has not been adapted to attaining the goals strived for. It is also not required since there are other and much more mild therapies and measures, and it is not appropriate. The state is not permitted to endanger the life and health of one citizen so as to protect other citizens.

The reasoning that a vaccination mandate may be necessary so as to prevent an overburdening of hospitals is not only false, it is dangerous. According to this pseudo-logic, people in the future could be compelled to all possible treatments, from obligatory medication for those threatened by high blood pressure, to forced dieting for those overweight. For a rationale suffices a politically manufactured capacity shortage. – I hope you yourselves note how absurd this is.

The vaccination mandate is an act of deprivation of rights. It degrades millions of people from sovereign individuals, equipped with rights of freedom and self-defense, to recipients of commands and objects of state arbitrariness. It drives millions of people to conflicts of conscious and existential distress.

Right honorable colleagues of the governing delegations and the Union who support one of the vaccination mandate proposals put forward: You are riding a dead horse. Please, dismount. Withdraw these bills and allow yourselves in common with us to end as quickly as possible the wrong way of the vaccination mandate related to nursing facilities. As quickly as possible!

            Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Frau colleague, come to a                                               conclusion, please.

In these difficult times we cannot afford, out of obduracy and obstinacy, to further divide society with a vaccination mandate 

            Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Frau colleague.

for which there is no foundation, neither medical nor legal.

I am grateful.

 

[trans: tem]

 

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