Who exactly was involved in the right-wing extremist meeting in Potsdam? SPD parliamentary group leader Mützenich wants to discuss this in the Bundestag – and is once again bringing an AfD ban into play. Too early, says the new head of the Conference of Interior Ministers.
The SPD parliamentary group wants to address the secret meeting between right-wing extremists and AfD officials in parliament. They want to know from the AfD “whether active politicians may have also initiated this circle (…) or perhaps even been involved,” said parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich. “I think we have to try to ask the AfD about this question in the next week of the meeting.”
Such a step is “very important,” said Mützenich. “We need a political debate.” He now wants to make a suggestion to the other traffic light factions as to how exactly this question can be discussed in parliament. The next plenary session is scheduled for January 17th.
In November, AfD officials took part in a meeting in Potsdam with the leader of the right-wing extremist Identitarian movement, Martin Sellner. After research by the “Correctiv” editorial team, he presented ideas on how people could be forced to leave the country. Expulsions are trivialized and referred to as “remigration”.
According to his own statements, CDU member Ulrich Vosgerau was also there. Mützenich was “shocked” by this. “Democratic parties must stay away from this brown swamp,” he warned.
Linnemann: “We will react to it hard and consistently”
CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann announced that they would react “hardly and consistently”. The CDU federal executive board will therefore deal with the events at the closed meeting in Heidelberg. “The incidents are inhumane, frightening, they are forgotten by history.” They check whether members of the Values Union were there in Potsdam who were also CDU members. The Union of Values presents itself as conservative, but is not an organization of the Union parties.
According to “Spiegel”, the former Berlin CDU finance senator Peter Kurth is said to have hosted a meeting with right-wing extremists in his private apartment in Berlin in July. Among others, the later AfD leading candidate for the European elections, Maximilian Krah, the right-wing extremist publisher Götz Kubitschek and the Austrian right-wing extremist Sellner took part.
Kurth is now President of the Federal Association of German Waste Management, Water and Raw Materials Industries. According to a spokesman for the Berlin CDU regional association, Kurth has now resigned from his Pankow district association and is no longer a member of the Berlin CDU. It remained unclear whether he was subsequently accepted as a member of the CDU Brandenburg. Kurth told the news magazine “Spiegel” that he was still a party member.
Stübgen: The data necessary for the ban application is not yet available
SPD parliamentary group leader Mützenich also brought a possible ban on the AfD back into play. The possibility of banning parties must be examined, especially in the federal states. “If the authorities there assume clear anti-constitutional tendencies, that must of course have consequences.” The federal government, Bundestag and Bundesrat can submit an application for a ban. The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe would decide on this.
The new chairman of the Conference of Interior Ministers, Brandenburg’s department head Michael Stübgen (CDU), is cautious about the discussion about banning the AfD. “As interior ministers, we view the rapid demands for a ban procedure critically because we know very well that our constitution, our fundamental right, has created enormously high hurdles,” said Stübgen in Potsdam. He pointed out that the AfD is represented in the Bundestag, state and local parliaments.
“I can only tell you from the perspective of my Office for the Protection of the Constitution and my Ministry of the Interior that the data we need to ban the AfD as a state party is not yet available at the moment,” said Stübgen. SPD leader Saskia Esken considers an application for a ban on the party to be an option. Brandenburg’s Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke (SPD) rejects a ban on this.
“Will not let up”
The AfD is classified by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution as definitely right-wing extremist in three East German states (Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia). The Brandenburg Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies the AfD regional association as a suspected right-wing extremist case, and the youth organization Junge Alternative as a proven right-wing extremist endeavor. The party is also considered a suspected case nationwide. The party is legally defending itself against the classification.
“Right-wing extremists in the run-up to the AfD have been dreaming of large-scale remigration for some time and quite openly,” said CDU politician Stübgen. “What these political forces call remigration actually means deportation. First the deportation of those who come from somewhere else, then the deportation of those who look different and finally the deportation of those who think, live and feel differently.”
“We have been warning about these activities for years. You can see this in every intelligence report from the last few years,” said Stübgen. He referred to the Brandenburg Office for the Protection of the Constitution report from last year, which reported in detail about the Identitarian Movement. “We will not let up on this issue to protect our state from such influences.”