René Springer, May 15, 2025, Sozialpolitik

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/4, pp. 216-217. 

Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Dear guests. 

Frau Minister, for a beginning: We wish you all the best and much luck. You will need the luck; since you overtake not only an important ministry, but also a social policy field of rubble. 

Eight million pensioners in Germany are under the level of the basic security. A hairdresser who worked 40 years gets a pension of 700 euros, while a Syrian with two wives and four children receives 5,000 euros for doing nothing. That is absurd, that is wrong. Those who criticize this are not right-wing extremists, they are simply extremely right. 

High energy prices, expensive groceries, and the tax burden drive broad swathes of the population into poverty. The Tafeln report record crowds, the unemployment increases. A country in which a fresh apple and a warm dwelling become luxuries has a failed social policy. He who works in this country will be systematically taken advantage of. The Bürgergeld rises while the real wages sink. The social state becomes an apparatus for punishing the diligent. And then comes Herr Merz tottering around the corner and says to the Germans they need to work more so as to secure the prosperity in this country. 

What is sold to us as skilled labor immigration is much too often an immigration into our social system, into a maintained dependency. 

            Rasha Nasr (SPD): That is a lie!

More than half of the young foreigners in Germany have no occupational certification, and the number of foreign Bürgergeld recipients is exploding. 

            Clara Bünger (Linke): That is mendacious.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is no modern Sozialpolitik. That is a failure of the state. 

            Tanja Machalet (SPD): That is a falsehood, what you are telling!

That, what you of the so-called progressive coalition have left behind, is not progress. That is decay! That is the bitter consequence when leftist-green ideologues are allowed to govern, who think there is a basic right to migration, not depending on training level, not depending on the qualification, and without use for our country. 

Those who are convinced that a well built social state can combine with unlimited immigration, those are beyond help, and they are not to lead this country [denen ist nicht zu helfen, und die haben nicht dieses land zu führen]. 

And then we still have the ideologues to whom equality is more important than justice, and redistribution more important than relief. He who produces in Germany will be punished; who does not produce will be paid. The Bürgergeld stands emblematically for your madness. Those same ideologues dream of saving the world climate and of intentionally expensive energy, heating, dwellings and driving. For many, that means freezing in winter, daily renunciations, rising unemployment, and poverty as a new normality. That is no environmental protection. That is a social-political powder keg! 

151 AfD members have been elected to stop this ideological blind flight of the cartel parties. We now need a clear change of course – away from ideology, into reason; away from global redistribution, into responsibility for one’s own people. It is time for a Sozialpolitk for Germans. 

Precisely for this reason we demand the following measures: 

First. Stop the immigration into the social system. Germany may no longer be a magnet for poverty migration. Foreigners maintained long-term have nothing to lose in the Bürgergeld. The social state must be there for our citizens and not for social tourists. 

Second. Lower taxes for small and middle incomes! Abolition without replacement of the CO₂ duty. An end to green inflation! He who carries the country needs to be relieved – immediately and long-term. More net from gross is no act of grace. It is what the people have earned, those who keep this country running. 

Third. An end to social transfers without conditions into Bürgergeld. We need an activating basic security with clear rules and considerations. We need tough sanctions for those who are exploiting us. 

Fourth. A life’s work deserves respect – you mentioned it – and not alms. Who has worked for decades can in old age plainly not become a social case. And who has worked must in old age always have more than anyone who has plainly not done that. The whole would be able to be financed if the plundering of the pension accounts by non-insurance benefits was stopped. 

Fifth. Let us use the potential we have in our own country. 1.6 million young people have no occupational qualification. We need to give them a perspective with a real occupational training, a targeted qualification. The skilled labor shortage will plainly not be solved by mass immigration, but through training and innovation. 

Frau Minister, if you really want social justice, then end this ideologically driven self-destruction of our social state. Finally protect what millions of Germans and well integrated foreigners have built. If you are not in the position for that, then vacate the field, and leave to us this responsibility. 

            Rasha Nasr (SPD): Certainly not! 

            Tanja Machalet (SPD): Never!

I thank you for the attention. 

 

[trans: tem]

Siegbert Droese, May 21, 2025, Nord Stream and Trump

EU Parliament, Brussels, P10 CRE-REV(2025)05-21(1-0286-0000). 

Herr President. Esteemed colleagues. My dear elders in the gallery. 

The total de-coupling from the Russian oil and gas market truly presents the height of nonsense. The consequences can be observed in my Heimat Germany: Years-long recession, businesses fleeing to foreign countries, and everyday there are mass lay-offs of skilled workers. Just today the economic experts reported of a further worsening of Germany’s economic situation. If one speaks with businessmen, without exception reference is made to high energy costs. Prior to the Nord Stream 2 explosion, Germany had competitive energy prices. The Commission’s present plans are willful nonsense. Still more: The Commission lies to the people: Neither are the sanctions effective against Russia, nor were the Russians unreliable trading partners before the Commission decided on Europe’s economic suicide. There where trade is managed for mutual advantage – that was once Germany’s strength – is as a rule no shooting at one another. I commend Donald Trump’s wise policy of interests. Donald Trump is even considering, in common with the Russians, to repair and operate Nord Stream 2. Bravo! Nord Stream 2 as a peace project – a beautiful concept for the new Europe. 

 

[trans: tem]

Götz Frömming, May 14, 2025, Cultural Policy

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/3, pp. 109-110. 

Right honorable Frau Vice-president. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

Immediately after me, the new Culture State Minister Wolfram Weimer will here make his first speech. I can say: We are very curious [gespannt], Herr Weimer. In the run up, it was reported that you are a conservative man and that here was negotiated an ideological decision to now name you Culture Minister. The talk was even of a shift to the right [Rechtsruck] and the beginning of a new Kulturkampf.

We find that astonishing in view of the fact that you replace Claudia Roth. More ideological than the previous culture policy under Claudia Roth, it can scarcely be, ladies and gentlemen. The talk of a shift to the right in the culture policy is therefore pure hypocrisy. A shift to the right considered from the standpoint of a Claudia Roth, that would be nothing further than a normalization. 

In fact in regards these accusations, it’s about the money. The culture scene is highly subventioned, without tax money it is scarcely viable. The Spiegel interpreted the naming of Weimer as “a prolongation of the minor inquiry” of the Union to the Federal government which is known under the shorthand, “551 questions”. Now the Federal government could itself answer these questions. We will remind you not to forget that.

We certainly expect from the new Federal government no shift to the right, ladies and gentlemen. An escape from the left would be fully sufficient. It would be fully sufficient if no more tax money flows into extreme leftist propaganda which passes itself off as art. 

            Filiz Polat (Greens): So, really! What is that then?

 I know that you here feel yourselves addressed; that is also thus correct. 

The culture policy in the era of Frau Roth was not merely leftist, ladies and gentlemen, it was anti-German, anti-Christian, and was directed – we have previously heard – also against Israel. What we, with the documenta and during the Berlinale, needed to experience in anti-semitic invective was unbearable. It has never come to a real reappraisal of those events. 

Much thereof speaks that in regards to what we have seen, only the tip of the iceberg is dealt with. The leftist anti-semitism has more deeply penetrated the culture scene than many want to admit. Were it an anti-semitism coming from the right, ladies and gentlemen, I am sure Heaven and Hell would have long since been set in motion against it. 

We therefore welcome that the new State Minister, as a first act in office, has separated himself from the upper officials and confidants of his predecessor – I now leave the names aside. Their anti-Israel attitude was “known to the scene”, as the Judische Allgemeine recently wrote. 

So as to name one additional positive point: The agreement with the house of Hohenzollern on the storage place of art treasures is a good sign. Since let us look back: Frau Roth and the Greens wanted, as is known, to break up and re-name the Prussian Cultural Foundation. It meant nothing other than to eradicate Prussia. Frau Baerbock even let the Bismarck room in the Foreign Office be re-named. Frau Roth wanted to fade out [überblenden] the Christian inscription on the Berliner Schloss and have the cross on the roof preferably dismantled. 

Ladies and gentlemen, to the Greens, all is a horror which is German. Peoples and cultures they only accept when they are as foreign and exotic as possible. Yet who does not love his own, ladies and gentlemen, he cannot also respect the foreign. 

            Alice Weidel (AfD): Exactly!

 Herr Weimer, you see in Christianity, as you formulated, the opportunity for a “cultural renaissance of the West”. You thus clearly have concepts different from your predecessor and we are therein very curious. Primarily, we are curious as to how you will get along with Frau Nancy Faeser, who now as a kind of revenge of the SPD could possibly overtake the chairmanship of the Culture Committee so as to be able to there continue her fight against so-called disinformation which, ja, principally comes from her house. That will become an exciting show. 

            Filiz Polat (Greens): What then is that for an unashamed imputation?

 Ladies and gentlemen, it is besides no political goal of the AfD to generally abolish the cultural subventions which were here and there maintained. It is merely our goal to end the one-sided political enlistment of theaters and other cultural institutions. We want to no rightist theater. We also want no leftist theater. We want an independent theater. 

Britta Haßelmann (Greens): What you want is nevertheless not to be reconciled                        with artistic and cultural freedom! 

Ladies and gentlemen, the leftist daily newspaper taz fears, following the change of government, a headwind for many leftist cultural projects. We do not fear that. We even hope for it. To stay in the metaphor, ladies and gentlemen: He can really sail who also comes forward with a headwind. In this sense: Herr State Minister, make a steady wind [machen Sie ordentlich Wind]! In this regard, you can count on us. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Irmhild Boßdorf, May 5, 2025, EU Regional Development

EU Parliament, Strasbourg, P10 CRE-REV(2025)05-05(1-0186-0000). 

Herr President. 

Scarce success, billions in German tax money trickling away – that is the mournful balance of REGI [Regional Development] promotion. Less poverty, more jobs, less emigration from rural regions – a nil return, despite a 270 billion euro promotion. Yet what actually happened with so much money? I asked Elisa Ferreira, the last REGI Commissioner about that. She admitted that it’s not about costs and uses, but about peace, freedom and welfare. In the end, these means would also help to check right-populist parties in rural areas. 

In fact, there was in the past year a study of Kiel University which indicated that, without the REGI means in remote regions, rightist parties would have received two to three percent more. 270 billion repurposed to the fight against rightists – that is unheard of. Let us make the rural area livable again. Let’s finally put the REGI means to use for our Heimat.

  

[trans: tem]

Götz Frömming, May 22, 2025, Cultural Goods

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/7, pp. 540-541. 

Herr President. Herr State Minister. Ladies and gentlemen. 

The protection of cultural goods is a concern which we share. Nevertheless, this lofty aim ever again encounters the question: To whom belong culturally significant works of art actually? We in the past years have learned that to each people is due a right to its cultural goods, and these cultural goods if necessary need to be returned. If that however, ladies and gentlemen, applies for African peoples, so it needs also apply for our own people. 

Three years ago, our former Foreign Minister, in common with the then Federal Commissioner for Culture, handed over the so-called Benin Bronzes to the state of Nigeria. The Nigerian President immediately gave by decree the rights of ownership to the official Oba of Benin, and thereby to the private possession of the ruling family. In the U.S.A., there is a group of descendants of former slaves from Benin, who expressly rejected the return of the Bronzes, and indeed with the words – cite: As a result, the descendants of slaveholders receive a second opportunity to profit from the enslavement of people. It is embarrassing that the Federal government had a hand in that. 

Western ethnological museums for long saw therein their mission to preserve such cultural goods, to research and to make them accessible to the public. Today, all of that is colonial robbery art which needs to be given back, and then in the worst case disappears. Protection of culture can be very paradoxical, ladies and gentlemen.   

Let us look at the reverse case. The State Museum of Berlin and the Prussian State Library stored during the Second World War a large part of their inventory in places which today belong to Poland. The most well-known collection is the Berlinka, from the Prussian treasury, which is now to be found in Cracow. Among thousands of valuable, Middle Age manuscripts are writings of Luther, Goethe and Schiller – clearly, German national cultural goods. Ladies and gentlemen, these manuscripts need finally return to Germany. We expect your engagement, Herr State Minister. 

Additional German cultural goods are found in depositories and storerooms in Russia – presently difficult to access – and in the surrounding states, and in the Ukraine. Why actually has the Federal government not demanded, in consideration for our billions in assistance payments to the Ukraine, the return of the art still to be found there, among which are valuable paintings and precious porcelains; for example, from Dresden? These cultural goods also belong to us, and we gladly want it back. 

Ladies and gentlemen, an inquiry of the AfD delegation has yielded that also in Georgia German cultural goods are still to be found. 70,000 books have been found in a cellar of the University of Tiflis. This treasure was offered to the Federal Republic of Germany, yet the gift was rejected. Supposedly, it is too expensive to restore these books. I need be quite astonished. Recently, the Elders Council decided, in compensation for members’ air travel, to pay hundreds of thousands of euros to water swamps and for cooking pots for Rwanda. Ladies and gentlemen, this money should have better been used for the German cultural goods, in this case in Georgia. 

            Rebecca Lenhard (Greens): That is repulsive!

There are still further examples; for example, the Paramentenschatz [liturgical vestments]. Here, we have a cultural good in the hands of the church; the state has not the least access. The Evangelical Church decided to simply give it away. Here unfortunately, the law put forward does not have effect. We see here a need for subsequent improvement. 

Ladies and gentlemen, let me in closing say: We should grant all peoples and nations have the right to the conservation of their respective cultural goods. Yet we have not only the right, but also the obligation to conserve our own culture and all cultural goods which the German people have created. We owe that to our ancestors and to the generations which come after us. 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Tino Chrupalla, May 14, 2025, Politics and Policy

German Bundestag, May 14, 2025, Plenarprotokoll 21/3, pp. 102-104. 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Dear countrymen. 

New Federal governments have one thing in common: They bear the burden of the failed Politik made a half-century before. The bad infrastructure in transport and communication, in health and education, has a pre-history, and this is substantially connected with CDU/CSU, SDP, Green and FDP governments. Chancellors come and go, yet one thing remains: There never was the will for courageous and honest reforms. 

Meanwhile, one thing has become more difficult about the political competition. The inconvenient change from the government to the opposition and back is history, since in this parliament more than three parties make Politik. For Politik means: To make compromises. And yes, it is more strenuous that more parties need to be won. Each delegation thereby represents a number of voters, for my delegation following this Bundestag election, over 10 million who have given their votes to the Alternative für Deutschland. Herr Spahn, it is plainly not just the frustrated who have voted for the AfD. We think it is time to engage with these voters with respect. For you to make general accusations, and to thereby curl yourself up in political Berlin, convinces ever fewer voters. We speak now in the third legislature of vice-presidents, committee chairmen, and meanwhile even over whether we can use a delegation hall which corresponds to the occupational safety and evacuation regulations. Last year, the business and house order was passed, ja polished, so as not to need to designate it strategically changed. There were media campaigns orchestrated which want to deprive my delegation of the parliamentary practices in accord with making Politik in the interest of our country. All of that is long since no longer little games, ladies and gentlemen. 

Now the Social Democrats do not want to make available to us a work room, the delegation hall. In that regard, two points: 

First, the historic Reichstag building belongs to no party, but to country and people.

Second, we all, members and parties, are elected by the sovereign, the German people, as it is out there on the building, to a time in this parliament. This maneuver thus discredits this parliament and thereby also the citizens of Germany who elected all of us to this position. In likely four years are the next Bundestag elections. Until then, make good Politik. Then perhaps with a strong delegation, you have a good chance to enter 22^nd Bundestag, and advance a claim to a larger hall for your delegation meetings. Until then, dear colleagues, defend the dignity of the parliament, and end this little game! 

Frau President Klöckner, I hereby expressly request you support my delegation’s ability to work. You said following your entry into office, “There are clear…rules” Precisely that, I hope, applies for all delegations. I take you at your word. 

Ladies and gentlemen, let me briefly enter into the Constitution Defense theme. The staging of  May 2, 2025, as I unfortunately need to designate it, caused not only a quake in the media world, but also left behind an utterly insipid taste of a political exercise of power against an opposition party. The departing Interior Minister used her next to last day in office to announce to the media an opinion which in fact was not evaluated by the Federal Interior Ministry, yet was apparently leaked exclusively to individual representatives of the press, but not to the affected party which learned of it from the press. That contradicts not only the equality of opportunity, but also squanders the trust in state organs and measures. As we today know, the opinion is supported on public sources, whether even by parliamentary connections is presently being examined. Everything else will be clarified by legal experts and the courts. For our parliamentary work, it will have only so much influence as we take seriously the duty of the largest opposition delegation. We stand for the freedom of opinion and for the Basic Law. We will closely pursue the government’s Politik, and comment, and indeed hard but constructive. 

In this connection, I need today to speak to the role of non-governmental organizations. To their role in political decision making processes and the thereby associated state financing, a stop needs to be ordered; since all parties should, according to German party law, cite: “Take care for an […] active association between […] people and state organs.” Certainly therefore are biases not only unacceptable, but also contradict the equality principle. In this regard is to be mentioned the denied, as before, financing of the party-associated Erasmus Foundation. Also here, new reasons will ever again be gathered to forgo the state finances to the Alternative für Deutschland, and to distribute to the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the Böll, the Luxemburg Foundation, and the Ebert Foundation, etc. It’s gladly kept amongst themselves. 

I want to again expressly point out that on the the day of the Chancellor election, we did not provide for the famous result of two ballots. Those, Herr Chancellor, were clearly your majorities which did not come about, the majorities from CDU/CSU and SPD. Besides, afterwards, the CDU approached my delegation and asked for a vote in favor of a time period waiver so that Herr Merz could still become Chancellor on May 6^th. We besides voted for it. The rest of the story, you all know. We were and are ready for constructive cooperation. All channels of discussion for the sake of the people are for us in all cases open. 

I want at this place to enter into the role and significance of eastern Germany [Ostdeutschland]. In your coalition contract, the word emerges three times. Gratefully, you designate the achievements of the eastern Germans as extraordinary. The five new Federal States were and will still be financially supported, by the billions in debt besides everything else. Only, after 35 years of German unity, most of the citizens in the east have not succeeded to stand there in similar financial independence like those in the territory of the old Federal Republic. Much more, the following generations inherit a debts package which is without equal. Beyond that, you plan nothing to improve the east’s infrastructural basic equipment. To that belongs not only roads which lead in the direction of the east, but also advantageous energy prices so that firms can be founded without years-long subventions, settle in and, before all, survive. 

The Mittelstand was and, in the east, certainly is the backbone of the German economy. Here, training- and work-places are created. Here, taxes are generated and social duties paid. That is value-creating work. Precisely that makes up Germany. Precisely that Germany needs. Instead, we receive ever more state operations which only live from public means. 

Interesting in that regard is the position of the eastern commissioner. Why actually is this again necessary? The CDU in the election campaign regarded the permanent office as superfluous. Do you believe that your new eastern commissioner of the SPD is really representative for the east? 

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): Nein!

It’s now really sporty that an eastern commissioner of a party which in Thüringen, Saxony and Saxon-Anhalt unites behind it between 5 and 7 percent of the voters is clothed with this office. That has nothing to do with acceptance. 

Let alone that: The role of eastern commissioner anyway my party, the Alternative für Deutschland, has overtaken. And here I again invite you: Come along with us into discussion. 

I welcome besides the elimination of commissioners’ posts. You thereby implement an important program point which we also for long demand. A commissioner alone bears no responsibility, makes no laws and, before all things, solves no problems; governments and parliaments do that. 

Still a few words for the foreign policy situation. With interest, I follow your approaches to give to the continent of Europe a perspective. It first required a U.S. President by the name of Trump so as to formulate one’s own goals. And we say that European cooperation is basically right and good. Continual new sanctions and ultimatums nevertheless do not contribute to peace. You work for the most part awkwardly, Herr Merz, when you want to make no statement on weapons deliveries. That unsettles all sides. Your predecessor in office remains on this point with a consistent Nein. You should just so leave it as is. 

Otherwise, I very much hope that with you the Great Forgetting does not become a sustained event. From the firewall word, through securing the borders, to the Bürgergeld, you’ve already left behind some impressions. 

We are besides agreed that we in Germany need investments, yet not only those of the state. Finally make an audit so that unnecessary expenditures can be eliminated, and also private investors may find incentives for investing in Germany. 

For last, yet a glance at the energy supply. The Nord Stream pipelines are, following negotiations with Russia, possibly soon in the possession of the U.S.A. Herr Chancellor, do you then have the power to speak out for advantageous gas? The German business and citizens have deserved it. 

To you and your government remain the famous 100 days – even if Germany does not have 100 days’ time for it – to set the switches for the future. We as the largest opposition party will thereby critically accompany you, hard and honest in tone, and fact-oriented. We as opposition delegation are responsible for control of the government. We need, may and will not say what you want to hear. 

Many hearty thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]