AfD secret meeting
“We protect everyone”: Scholz sees right-wing activities as a case for the protection of the constitution
Chancellor Olaf Scholz appeared in Cottbus on Tuesday
© Sean Gallup/Getty Images
After a secret meeting of right-wing figures, which also included entrepreneurs and AfD members, Chancellor Olaf Scholz commented on this for the first time. He sees the people involved’s thoughts of subversion as a “case for the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.”
After reports of a meeting between right-wing activists and politicians from AfD and CDU called for protection and commitment to democracy in Potsdam. “Anyone who goes against our free, democratic basic order is a case for our Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the judiciary,” the SPD politician wrote on Thursday on the X platform (formerly Twitter). “The fact that we learn from history is not just lip service. Democrats must stand together.”
The media company Correctiv first reported on the Potsdam meeting in November. The participants included several AfD politicians, including Roland Hartwig, advisor to party and parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel. According to his own statements, CDU member Ulrich Vosgerau was also there. Correctiv also named several members of the Union of Values.
The topic was, among other things, a concept for so-called remigration by Martin Sellner, long head of the right-wing extremist Identitarian movement in Austria. According to his own statements, he spoke about how more foreigners and even people with a German passport could be allowed to leave Germany, and how people with a history of immigration could be pushed to assimilate.
The meeting was aimed “at a coup.”
Scholz wrote on And he added: “We protect everyone – regardless of origin, skin color or how uncomfortable someone is for fanatics with assimilation fantasies.”
SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich spoke of a “right-wing quagmire” in connection with the Potsdam meeting and said: “I hope that all those who stand up for this democracy will continue to do everything in the future to take action against such networks, against such ideas to proceed.” The meeting was aimed “at a revolution in Germany”.
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Green Party leader Omid Nouripour also said: “Politically, as democrats, we must take a joint stand against this and show the AfD a clear stop sign.” Nouripour also said that the question of criminal prosecution arises and added: “Plans for a coup are a serious crime and must be prosecuted and punished with the full rigor of the rule of law.”
CDU member calls Sellner a “pleasant guy”
After the Correctiv report, the AfD declared that the meeting had no significance for its migration policy. The Berlin AfD parliamentary group leader Kristin Brinker also said that she only found out about the meeting from the media. Sellner’s “positions we do not share,” Brinker added. However, AfD politicians repeatedly publicly call for “remigration”.
CDU member Vosgerau said about his participation in the Potsdam meeting: “I had heard that Martin Sellner personally was a pleasant guy who didn’t seem fanatical. So I was happy to take the opportunity to get to know him personally.” It must be possible “to speak in private with people who appear in the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution report.”
AfD polls high
Despite the debate about the AfD’s possible radical goals, it is receiving strong poll numbers. A YouGov survey published on Thursday among 2,007 eligible voters puts the AfD at 24 percent nationwide. According to a Forsa survey for RTL/ntv, the AfD is even at 36 percent in Thuringia, 34 percent in Brandenburg and 32 percent in Saxony. State elections are coming up in all three countries in September.
In a survey by the Ipsos Institute, 42 percent of participants were in favor of banning the AfD. Just as many argued against it. All survey results were collected in the first days of January.