References to the Nazis
Buchenwald Memorial Director Raises Alarm About AfD
Jens-Christian Wagner, director of the Buchenwald Memorial: “This is where the AfD shows where it really stands.”
© Hendrik Schmidt / DPA
Thuringia’s AfD leader Björn Höcke shared a quote from an author who was a Nazi thinker. Buchenwald Memorial Director Jens-Christian Wagner is now using clear words.
Buchenwald Memorial Director Jens-Christian Wagner sees the Thuringian AfD increasingly open references to National Socialism. “The AfD is actually dropping its mask more and more,” Wagner told the news agency in Erfurt. The Thuringian AfD leader Björn Höcke recently shared a quote on Telegram from the publicist Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, who wrote the book “The Third Reich” in the 1920s. “That is an open reference to National Socialism – and an approving one at that,” said Wagner, a historian and holder of the chair for history in media and public life at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena.
Van den Bruck died in 1925 and did not live to see Hitler’s rise to power. However, he is considered a representative of the conservative revolution and, according to Wagner, was a pioneer of National Socialism. In addition, his book gave the Nazi state its name.
When asked about the allegations, a spokesman for the Thuringian AfD wrote: “Mr Wagner’s allegations are, as so often, simply grotesque and based on constructed connections and collective guilt.”
AfD slogan reminiscent of SA slogan
Wagner also pointed out that the Thuringian AfD has placed a folk song by Franz Langheinrich at the beginning of its election manifesto for the state elections in the fall. Langheinrich wrote for the art magazine “Das Bild” in the 1930s. The art historian Kirsten Baumann wrote in her dissertation “Wortgefechte. Völkische und nationalsozialistische Kunstkritik 1927–1939”, published in 2002, that the magazine “was characterized by open anti-Semitism.”
Wagner said the lyrics of the song were harmlessly Germanic. But if the AfD’s election manifesto is preceded by the lyrics of a hardcore National Socialist and ethnic thinker, that is “an explicitly positive reference to National Socialism.” “Höcke is showing, the AfD is showing, where they really stand.”
The slogan “Everything for Thuringia!” is written in large letters on the cover of the AfD’s election manifesto. The slogan is reminiscent of an SA slogan, for whose use Höcke has already been fined twice by a court. Both verdicts are not yet final.