Jürgen Pohl, December 17, 2020, Labor and Unemployment

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/202, pp. 25428-25429.

Nevertheless, I begin.           

            Claudia Müller (Greens): That all goes from the speaking time, please.

Herr President. Honored colleagues, those who wish to listen. Worthy listeners [Zuhörer] at the sets and at home.

            Ulli Nissen (SPD): Again, not Zuhörerinnen!

The candy manufacturer Haribo is closing its one plant in eastern Germany because it allegedly is no longer economic and it does not have a modern production structure. Around 150 workers are thereby surprisingly out of work at year’s end with harsh consequences for the families. The self-described, to be highly praised economic competence of the Saxon government thus evidently could not save the site near Zwickau, which is not to be wondered at with an Economics Minister with an SPD party book.

            Detlef Müller (SPD-Chemnitz): Dear heavens!

Right honorable ladies and gentlemen, what is happening there in Saxony is an expression of the crisis which brings into question the government’s economic incompetence, as for example, in the automobile industry, the energy industry and ultimately the confusing lockdown policy. The decades-long diligence and willingness to produce of central German employees will be decided upon with a stroke of the pen in the west, far from the affected region. Insultingly, most of the workplaces of the eastern German employees put onto the street will be offered in the old Federal states. This migration of qualified employees from east to west, millions of times since the Wende [unification], and the Treuhand debacle are the death blow for the economy in the new Federal states. The opposite would be required of policy; namely, an increase of the attraction of sites in eastern Germany; for example, by setting up a special economic zone, as I demand as representative of central German interests in our delegation.

Colleagues, Haribo is overall. For my constituency in northern Thüringen, the destructive policy in eastern Germany means the loss of 250 industrial workplaces with the closing of the Eaton firm in Nordhausen. Mulhausen, with the closing of the Continental firm, loses 160 workplaces for qualified employees. At the Erko firm in Beuren, an additional 230 employment positions are going away. We have already today in Eichsfeld, one of the most important regions in my constituency, more than 30 percent more unemployment than in the same period last year. I say to you: Haribo is overall.  

Many mothers and fathers in the approaching Christmastime will be unemployed. Thus many children do not stand joyfully before a richly stocked table of gifts. They already faintly feel the many limitations and reduced possibilities of development which a country indebted across the generations is preparing for them there in the future. The entire scenario recalls a country which, as a consequence of the social coldness and political obstinacy of those who govern, freezes from within. The fault of this development lies primarily in a confused policy, counter to economic reason and – which weighs all the more heavily – a government policy without a social conscience or a regard for the whole.

            Ulli Nissen (SPD): Such nonsense!

Apart from that, nothing new.

            Kai Whittaker (CDU/CSU): Exactly!

As always, the crisis hits the worker first and hardest. My question: In this avoidable tragedy, which role do the trades unions actually play as a representation of the employees’ vital importance? As if like sacrificial lambs at the high office of global Corona capitalism, the trades unions shun every struggle in the interests of domestic labor and surrender without a fight to the winding up of entire branches of the economy in the infrastructure-weak east.

In short: With the year 2020 at the latest, the established trades unions, as counsels to the vital interests of employees, under pressure of events passed into history.

This sad end of once significant organizations allows me as a consequence to demand: Make a place for new trades unions, a place for those which really represent the interests of employees, a place for the AVA and ALARM! The AfD, as a new people’s party, as a party of employees and the small businessmen, stands for our eastern and central German employees.

            Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): A völkische trades union, or what?

Ladies and gentlemen, I am grateful for the attention. I wish you

             Ulli Nissen (SPD): From you, I want no wish!

– thank you – and before all your families blessed and merry Christmas holidays. I am expressly grateful to our co-workers who have here so bravely carried on.

Thank you.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

Anton Friesen, December 17, 2020, Persecution of Christians

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/202, 25344-25345.

Right honorable Herr President. Right honorable members. Dear citizens.

“As they have persecuted me, so shall they also persecute you.” What Jesus prophetically announced has long since become a bitter reality for over 260 million persecuted Christians in over 50 states worldwide. Yet not only in Nigeria and Pakistan are Christians exposed to assaults. Even with us in the middle of Germany, a terrifying anti-Christian hostility is spreading. Though we are far removed from the situation in Pakistan, yet we of the AfD say: Restrain the beginnings.

From 2010 to April 2019 alone, there have been 1,731 cases of attacks on churches, on Christian cemeteries and institutions and damages thereto. In almost 90 percent of the cases, the perpetrator could not be determined. It is difficult to say which is more frightening: These acts of barbaric violence or the spreading intolerance against Christians which prepares the ground for them.

To name only a couple of present cases: The Armenian bishop here in Germany has warned that the Armenian Christians are becoming targets of the Gray Wolves, those of the Turkish-nationalist, Islamist organization. It is a disgrace for Germany that in the middle of Germany something like that is possible.

In Berlin, an investigative procedure was initiated by the state attorney against a believing Christian, Frau Park, on account of alleged homophobia. The basis: She had cited the Bible in the show window of her tavern. This investigative procedure was in fact meanwhile discontinued.

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

Nevertheless, if as a Christian alone, the citation of Holy Scripture thereby comes within the purview of the criminal prosecutorial authorities, then something is rotten in the state of Germany.

            Kai Gehring (Greens): The Basic Law applies overall in Germany!

That applies also and certainly for Christian converts here among us in Germany. Many asylum applicants who have converted to Christianity, who express criticism of Islam, will be threatened with brutal violence, even in my south Thüringen constituency where the initial reception center in Suhl is located. All too often in Germany, there is shelter for the perpetrator but persecution for the victim.

We need a Federal commission for anti-Christian hostility which in a yearly report will observe and analyze the situation, yet also propose preventative measures against anti-Christian hostility,

            Michel Brand (CDU/CSU-Fulda): Markus Grübel, he does that well!

in cooperation with an independent panel of experts as well as human rights organizations.

 

Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all                    manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake

 

With these words of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount, I wish you all a blessed and reflective Christmastime.

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gerold Otten, December 9, 2020, Budget – Defense

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/198, pp. 24989-24990.

Herr President. Right honorable colleagues.

Compared to 2013, the Defense budget for 2021 has been increased around 9 billion euros to almost 47 billion euros. The Grand Coalition’s defense politicians will here praise themselves for that. Yet how does the Bundeswehr stand after seven years of the Grand Coalition, and who bears responsibility for today’s condition of the troops?

The Bundeswehr through the years, under the euphemism of a “peace dividend”, has frankly been economized into ruin [kaputtgespart]. It will take decades to rescind this development and modernize the Bundeswehr so that it can again perform its constitutional duty, the defense of Germany.

The Bundeswehr’s 2018 capability profile sought to take this diagnosis into account and to draw up a recovery plan for the armed forces. Allow me to continue with this medical metaphor. A decade and a half of being doctored-around – rather in this case, Merkeled-around – requires at least a decade and a half of healing. It is thus also not difficult to predict that it is not possible that the body of empty structures becomes what is desired. What is today put off, remains and will thus more heavily burden future budgets.    

Yet that no recovery of Patient Bundeswehr is within sight may also therein lie that the doctors  who dispense the medicine are the same who have made him sick. Since it is so – you cannot shirk this responsibility – : CDU/CSU, SPD, FDP and Greens have to answer for the years of the Bundeswehr’s chronic illness.

The fact is: The Bundeswehr, in this state, is not in condition to defend our country. The troops, with your run-down material, are not at all in condition to smoothly organize crisis missions at the same time as basic operations here at home, despite the model and engaged commitment of our soldiers and civilian co-workers, whom and for which we expressly thank. Presently, basic operations moreover are not to be thought of. The troops at this time perform their mission against Covid-19 splendidly; but they have become a stop-gap which must jump in where other state authorities have been overwhelmed or simply refuse.

Symbolic of the Bundeswehr’s chronic illness are the problems occurring on all sides in regards the large procurement projects. For this review, let them appear in five categories. They are, on one side, the dead – failed projects like Pegasus – , then those in a trance, thus those past due like the tactical air defense system, TLVS. Not to be forgotten is the third category: The non-sellers, as for example, the A400M – actually a very capable military transport aircraft which unfortunately is not for sale on the world market. The number of projects not brought to maturity is also large, as for example, the Puma armored personnel carrier, also happily named “banana projects”, since they ripen just in time for sale. And the best for last: European prestige projects like the FCAS [Future Combat Air System] and MGCS [Main Ground Combat System] – both predominantly German-financed for predominantly French interests, political purpose thereby surmounting financial, economic and military use.  

Ladies and gentlemen, as before, a powerful investments backlog prevails in the Bundeswehr, whether it now be in housing, be it the munitions and spare parts supply, be it the preparations of personnel, be it the re-attainment of lost capabilities or the research of future technologies. All of them yield no accounting in the 2021 budget. With regard to the rapidly increasing state debt, the question moreover arises how much of the future budget increases, if they then will be made, are to be available for investment expenditures.

The result of previous armaments projects can thus be overlooked. Parallel to that, for years one reform of the procurement system follows the next. Yet where remain the efficiency increases in the procurement system? The system is imprisoned in formalism, stuck between an inhibiting over-regulation, time-consuming bureaucracy and a chronic lack of workforce. Yet one impression continues to apply: Either the system cannot reform itself, or it does not want to.

The central question is however: The armed forces are actually for what purpose? The answer to this question separates the souls. The central distinction between us, the AfD delegation, and you, the here already long dealing delegations, is very distinct: The AfD thereby pursues a realistic policy course.              

                Tobias Pflügler (Linke): That was good!

I can only say to the colleagues: The trip to Moscow was concerned with Realpolitik. For the Bundeswehr, that means: The core duty is the defense of the country and the defense of the alliance. To make this credible, a will and a capability are required, ultimately to employ lethal military force. A strong Bundeswehr serves at the same time the defense of Germany as it does that of our allies. It makes clear Germany’s credibility as an alliance partner and underpins the foreign policy capability of our country.

Foreign missions in our view are however only justified if a UN mandate is issued and a national interest has been presented. That is the leitmotiv of every reasonable nation on this planet; only in Germany, emphasis of a national interest up to now is disreputable and politically most highly suspect.  

You know all that, yet out of fear of the left-green publicized opinion, you shrink away from clear words and base the existence of the armed forces on meaningless phrases and empty cant like “Germany’s international responsibility”, “crisis management” and “humanitarian aid” or – especially beloved – a “networked approach” [„vernetzter Ansatz“]. The terms however have nothing to do with the core duty of the armed forces and of a defense alliance. This might be comprehensible in regards the self-renunciation of the pacifist portion of the population in our country; in terms of state policy, it is in no way responsible.

According to Carl von Clausewitz, the great Prussian army reformer, a state needs two things to be able to deal as an individual state with foreign countries: A government of assured management and a – I cite – “spirit of the people which gives life and strength of nerve to this whole” [„Geist des Volkes, welcher diesem Ganzen Leben und Nervenkraft gibt“]. As what concerns the Federal government, there is in this regard nothing to expect and as concerns its mental and moral capability, I see black. The one is the material and financial equipment of the armed forces, the other however is the will to fight [Wehrwille] which even to that whole gives life and strength of nerve, as Clausewitz expressed it.

I thank you for your attention. We reject Section 14.

 

[trans: tem]