Debate in the AfD: The slow farewell to conscription

The AfD wants to reintroduce conscription – at least that’s what the basic program says. But enthusiasm for the topic seems to be waning. This is also due to the position on the Russian attack on Ukraine.

It is clearly formulated in the basic program of the AfD: “The AfD advocates the reinstatement of basic military service for all male German citizens between the ages of 18 and 25,” has been there since the first version was decided in 2016. In the federal election program, the party had the Demand strengthened again – with a small caveat: the AfD did not want people with dual citizenship in military service “to avoid conflicts of loyalty”. But this fundamental enthusiasm for conscription is crumbling in the AfD. Ironically, in the party in which a striking number of elected officials are professional or temporary soldiers.

On Friday shortly after 11 a.m., the AfD parliamentary group wanted to make its core demand clear again in the plenum. “Reactivation of compulsory military service” was the title of the application according to the agenda, which was available on the Bundestag’s website until the beginning of the week. If the defense minister, the military commissioner and other members of the governing parties openly flirted with conscription, the AfD could underline that it was always in favor, according to the calculation of those who wrote the application. But suddenly the item on the agenda was gone again. The AfD parliamentary group first wants to discuss the application and the right time for it internally.

Pressure from the party leadership?

All of this should not be overestimated, explains parliamentary manager Bernd Baumann. Although he had indicated the subject of conscription in a preliminary planning by the Bundestag, it was normal to change this again for the final agenda in the respective week of the session. But some AfD deputies do not believe the explanation that everything is purely for organizational reasons.

There is talk of pressure, especially from the parliamentary group leadership. An employee who is familiar with the process explains the reservations among the party’s grass roots that they might want to send the conscripts directly to Ukraine. As usual, many MPs shake their heads at this process, but they do not want to speak openly about the differences of opinion within the AfD.

“A core requirement of our basic program”

The original motion to “reactivate conscription” has already been defused. In the first version, the leading faction working group on defense, headed by Rüdiger Lucassen, added a paragraph that said: “The invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation must also be seen as a threat to the security interests of Germany and its allies.” But the faction working group on foreign policy did not want to let that get away with it.

This includes, among others, Petr Bystron, Stefan Keuter, Steffen Kotré and parliamentary group leader Tino Chrupalla, primarily AfD MPs, who their party friends describe – to put it mildly – as “Russia-friendly”. But the new application, in which the word Russia no longer appears, has now been stopped. To the ARD Capital Studio both versions are available.

“I regret that the application is not in the plenary session, especially since it is a core requirement of our basic program,” says AfD defense politician Rüdiger Lucassen ARD Capital Studio. Anyone who is serious about protecting Germany is conscripted. “There has never been a better time for this,” said Lucassen, referring to the Russian attack on Ukraine. His fellow MP Gerold Otten agrees: “Germany needs conscription better today than tomorrow.”

Chrupalla wants to position AfD as a “peace party”.

But party and parliamentary group leader Chrupalla sees things fundamentally differently: “I think now is not the time to discuss conscription, when citizens are currently afraid that Germany will be drawn into this war,” he said at a press conference. It is also Chrupalla who played a key role in the current positioning of the AfD as an alleged “peace party”. Against any arms deliveries to Ukraine, for peace negotiations – whatever they may look like.

“I can’t post peace doves all the time and then suddenly bring conscription into the Bundestag,” says a member of the parliamentary group leadership, who does not want to be named, understands Chrupalla’s reasoning. But the member also says that “this whole peace number” for the AfD “hangs at an angle”. One of the former professional soldiers among the AfD MPs is clearer: “Create peace without weapons? That’s nonsense,” he says, adding that this was never the attitude of the AfD – “I’m not a hippie!”

Irritation about participation in peace demo

Something else is reported behind closed doors: the fact that many AfD elected representatives euphorically joined the Berlin demonstration around Sahra Wagenknecht led to massive irritation among members of the Bundeswehr, who actually sympathized with the party. “In the Ukraine war, too, we wanted to take the maximum antipole to the mainstream again, so we suddenly took to the streets with communists and questioned basic beliefs such as conscription,” says one member of parliament. “The Soldiers’ Party,” as the AfD always saw itself, is no longer the case.

The reflex to the maximum counter-position towards the other parties, the urge to want to be the radical alternative, seems more important to some in the AfD than their substantive convictions of yesterday. Shortly after the start of the Russian attack, party leader Chrupalla caused irritation in the AfD when he described the Chancellor’s initiative for the 100 billion special fund for the Bundeswehr in the Bundestag as “crazy”. The AfD had been demanding more money for the Bundeswehr for years.

With his stance on conscription, he is again irritating part of the AfD, and his further statements at the press conference also contribute: “It’s not about pure conscription in itself,” he says. In a new position, the parliamentary group will not only address conscription, “but you can also call it a social year, we need nurses, there was community service – these are also things that should be taken into account.”

Pressure from the extreme right camp

So far, there is nothing in the AfD’s basic program about a social year and community service. A convincing commitment to military service sounds different. It is said that Chrupalla was driven, above all by his Saxon state association. There, the AfD is getting pressure from the right-wing extremist camp: The Free Saxons had already started an online signature campaign against the AfD’s application for conscription. “Our children will not die in your war,” it says, grammatically shaky. More than 3,700 people are said to have signed the appeal.

In any case, the right-wing extremist wing of the AfD, which dominates the eastern branches of the AfD, seems to be questioning conscription. “Conscription? No, thanks!”, comments the co-head of the Thuringian AfD, Stefan Möller, in an online post. A professional army is enough for Germany’s security interests. He will initiate a discussion in his state board as to whether the party’s basic program should not be changed, he adds on Twitter. It is hard to imagine that his partner at the Thuringian AfD leadership, Björn Höcke, was not informed about this advance.