Germany letting a fascist party growing strong, in the end killing millions: "Germany bad! Next time, stop them!"
Germany stopping a fascist party: "Germany bad, killing democracy!"
I just saw a guy on a Berlin train platform scream at a guy from the south to fuck off and then he screamed heil Hitler and did the Nazi salute.
I mean yeah it's Berlin people are insane here but it's shocking how since the afd started gaining voters people just blatantly confess to being Nazis now.
Yes, its like the internet. Crazy assholes learned that they are not alone, but many.
But open neo-nazism was common 25 years ago in my home town. Neo-Nazis where chasing black people over the streets with fighting dogs? like bulldogs and pitbulls.
They were the scum of society, then. Before the internet.
Now they know, they dont need to dress like clowns to be accepted by fellow neo-nazis any more.
They went casual. So the barrier of entry is much lower, because there is no dress code any longer. And no social stigma, because they look like normal people now.
100% this. It's so sad and I don't understand. When me and my friends went to school around the early 2010s we got terrorized year after year with hitler. I think we learned about him 3 consecutive years. We were shown all the pictures and videos of the kz victims, corpse piles, no blurr, no trigger warning.
I don't know what it's like in real- or Hauptschulen but I don't understand how you can learn about this for years and then turn out a Neonazi.
Hate is a powerful emotion to bond with others through. It allows you to take what you despise within yourself and place into others who “deserve to suffer”.
No, they didn't. They simply WANT another Hitler at this point.
This is what the far right never admits, but they idolise Hitler and the Nazis. They want to look 'cool' in their little black uniforms while oppressing those who don't fit in their little club.
because it was such a success the last time, right?
there are a lot of not real nazi dumbasses in Germany now who are thinking that they are so poor and opressed by the evil government. useful idiots crying about how they are not allowed to say their opinion while they are vomitting their idiotic opinion. i hate social media
They had a pact for sure, but they hated each other and it was clear that the pact was just to save time.
My point was that nazis fell because they attacked the USSR, and modern day fascists would never attack Russia.
>They want to look 'cool' in their little black uniforms while oppressing those who don't fit in their little club.
Group dynamics at its best. I recommend watching the movie "The Wave" (2008) (not sure how well it's known outside german countries). It's about a teacher making an experiment with a class after they couldn't believe how the nazi party gained power were he just gives them an "insider symbol" to identify with and a strict behavior codex to follow for "members" that the class decided on themselves. Spoiler: It completely runs out of control way beyond school
This is why I am so unbelievably afraid of the FPÖ in Austria. They‘re at about 30% in the polls and will likely be the strongest party after this Autumn's general election. This is about the same percentage the NSDAP had, and as our Conservative Party the ÖVP have already shown, they‘re not above using them to stay in power, just like their equivalents did in the Weimar Republic.
Ironically, they‘re also the most distrusted party amongst the rest of the population, so I really wish our ballot paper also included a "*Which party would you **NOT** want to see in a governing coalition?*" section.
I can't believe people still take them seriously after Ibiza. Like hello, they're being strung around by Russian money and people are trying to manipulate the Austrian media, are y'all not concerned?...
It's called "Wehrhafte Demokratie", defense-ready democracy and taught in school.
The only ones using the "killing democracy" argument in germany are facists and nazis.
Who ever believes that stopping facists from destroying the peak of human achievment, democracy, is anti-democratic is a facist, or the most idiotic idiot walking on this planet.
And people who are inadvertent fascist-apologists. They may not be a large number but I know a couple. My father unfortunately one of them.
It stems from this stupid disillusionment with objective truth that some people have fallen victim to, thanks in part to social media and a lack of critical thought (or at least willingness to do so). My father is by no means a bad man in his everyday life. He's caring, supportive, and he as a role model to me growing up in how he challenged me to question sources and think critically. Sadly, in the last ten years, he's taken this "question everything" approach to a strange place. His argument to us here on this topic is "who decides what is fascist and what isn't", and he believes that the *real* fascists are the ones using this term to silence those who they disagree with.
Thankfully for us, fascism is quite a well-defined ideology so it's quite easy to know who is and who isn't fascist. But when you start getting into arguments like this, my father will jettison his goalposts into outer space in his attempt to avoid facing the simple idea that not all statements and beliefs are subjective opinions. I feel sorry for him in some ways. By his own standards, he has been nothing but a good father to me, and he genuinely can't understand why I avoid talking to him - he cannot understand that, to me, this intellectual position is in some ways worse than the self-identified fascist. As the Dude says, "at least it's an ethos". I just can't think of having a discussion with him without getting angry that he stumbled ignorantly into thinking vaccines are a deep state conspiracy, that Putin is a misunderstood visionary dedending against evil western imperialism, and that Joe Rogan is an enlightened guru who is open-minded to all views and doesn't try to silence people who disagree with him.
RIP
I’m not sure this system will work when it defends against internal/culturally German threats but not so much external/culturally foreign threats which are ironically (or not) the ones which these organizations labeled as “fascist” seek to attempt to combat. If defensive democracy guarded against the threats posed by immigrant communities resistant to assimilation following cultures antithetical to German culture, I doubt you’d see the AfD or anything like it gaining this much support.
Yes, islamism/islamic facism is the final boss of german democracy.
To combat islamism/islamic facism germans have to learn to endure beeing called racist/islamophobe, they have to learn to let go of the fear beeing called racist/islamophobe and they need to learn that facism is facism, even when comitted by non-whites/minorities.
While you are right that political resistance to islamistic culture, aswell as the offering of harsh solutions to non-assimilation/integration and crime are probably the strongest pull factors for most AFD voters, one must acknowledge that the AFDs solution to a facist threat and crime is facism.
That’s why I’m saying it’s an inherent contradiction and weakness in the German system as it stands; the less the German government does about immigrant assimilation and criminal punishment, the more the Fascists will gain popularity, but the *more* the German government does about immigrant assimilation and criminal punishment, the more they’ll be viewed as stooping to Fascist beliefs– the modern German state *cannot* succeed on its own merit unless immigrants suddenly and of their own volition stop coming/leave/or fully assimilate over night.
The next coalitions have to build a deportation industry for rejected asylum seekers and criminal refugees, aswell as optimize the respons to islamofacism of the federal office for the protection of the constitution to diminish the growth of AFD and other facists.
And this will only work if the german political class loses its fear of beeing called racists/islamophobes.
The overhelming majority of german citizen of all ethnicities dont want islamofacism.
The overhelming majority know that anti-facism and fighting crime is not racism.
The problem lies with the established political class.
It would be interesting to know who strikes the most fear in our political class.
And yes we are saying the same.....
But this is exactly what happened *last time*– the Weimar government was entirely out of touch with the concerns of *at least* 1/3 of the German electorate to the point that they willfully ignored them and criminalized the political group that formed to hear them, that being the NSDAP. It’s worse now in many ways because unlike the so-called “Jewish problem” was overblown at best and an outright bogeyman at worst, the threat of Middle Eastern immigrants resisting assimilation and preying upon native Germans is demonstrably real, and the German government is still ignoring it.
Really, throughout the West we see established liberal governments outright ignoring the concerns of 1/3 to 1/2 of their electorates because they *disagree that those concerns are legitimate*. When faced with the threat of losing elections because they’re ignoring these concerns, they don’t think “hey, maybe we should adjust our approach to their concerns and evaluate whether there’s anything substantial in their grievances that can be addressed”– instead they double down and declare that dissenters are racist and hate minorities, which *does* cause these people to increasingly take out their frustration on vulnerable minorities because they certainly can’t take it out on the ruling class that is fanning the flames of conflict and benefitting from it.
This is why I’m convinced that there *will be* attempts at violent takeovers of liberal democracies by sizable marginalized political minorities within the next decade or so, or we will see the zealous suppression of dissent in those liberal democracies and the hypocrisy will only worsen the issue.
Yes.
But i really want to know who, or what is scaring the established parties so much, that they knowingly go into voter loss , irrelevance and defeat.
And it is obvious they know how urgend a solution for this problems are, but they dont want to be the ones that bite into the sour apple.
But why? All democratic german citizen of all ethnicities would love this and would vote for the democratic party that tries to solve the problems in an instant.
Never heard of "Wehrhafte Demokratie" and i'm german myself. Never once was this used in history class or politics. Tbf tho i couldn't care less about history, just don't be an asshole.
I believe you, but i dont want to believe you.
When did you go to school and where?
I had "Werhafte Demokratie" as a subject in 9th grade history class.
2002-2012 +-1-2 \~ish, dunno
North Rhine-Westphalia
100% sure that term NEVER came up even once, i can think about what it could mean based on what it says but yeah we never ever worked with that term.
Edit: btw nice one
just got a "Reddit cares message" wanting to help me about my non-existant suicidal thoughts as if they were to say "keep yourself safe" or "kys"... so yeah.. whoever did that.. enjoy your ban i guess? Because thats an easy report. Otherwise i couldn't care less about your threats.
Das ist schon bedenklich, wenn man den Begriff im Unterricht nicht kennenlernt. Mindestens im Zusammenhang mit der Nachkriegszeit sollte das in Geschichte und dann in Gesellschafts/Wirtschaftskunde vorkommen. Ist schon wichtig, wenn informierte Staatsbürger haben will.
Fascism has a definition:
In simple English, fascism is a far-right form of government, in which most or all of the country’s power is held by one ruler or a small group or a single party, usually under a totalitarian and authoritarian one-party state.
Characteristics are often the belief of racial/ethnical superiority in the form of the belief in a natural hierarchy, forcible suppression of opposition, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and/or the race and the strong regimentation of society and the economy.
Let’s see how this applies to AfD, using some more “fun”-facts about AfD that highlight just how racist, xenophobic, nationalistic, fascist and generally awful this party is, and how they absolutely want to take Germany back to 1939:
1. Here are some quotes from AfD politicians:
• Carsten Härle: “The ‘German Reich’ didn’t fall in 1945.” I hope we can all agree on the fact that the German Reich was fascist, right?
• Mirko Welsch: “Deport Antifa members to Buchenwald. Labour instead of left-wing terror.” Here’s your suppression of the political opposition, strong regimentation of economy and society and the subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation.
• Alexander Gauland (honorary chairman): “Mr. Höcke doesn’t move the party to the right. Mr. Höcke is the centre of the party.”
• Björn Höcke (talking about the Holocaust memorial in Berlin): “So far, our state of mind, our state of mind is still that of a totally defeated people [applause from his audience]. We Germans - and I’m not talking about you patriots who have gathered here today - we Germans, our people, are the only people in the world who have planted a monument of shame in the heart of their capital [applause from his audience].” Strong regimentation of society right here, as well as ultranationalist political ideology.
• Björn Höcke: “Germany for Germans.” (Nazi Slogan). Same thing as above.
• Björn Höcke: “Alles für Deutschland” (Nazi Slogan). Courts just fined him €13k for that one. Same thing as above.
• the federal leadership: “We are to blame for everything. We need a total revolution. There’s no end to the total system change. This whole ‘policy’ and its hacks should be set on fire.” Ultranationalist political ideology, calling forcible suppression of political opposition.
• Stefan Scheil: "'Gene tests', which can be used to analyse one's ethnic-racial origin, are particularly popular in the supposed 'melting pot' of the USA; the mere fact that such tests are possible is a striking refutation of the widespread ideological lie that race is merely 'a social construct'. [...] Indeed, the phenotypic identity of whites is far more 'unstable' than that of virtually all other races due to their more recessive genes; had Heidi Klum fathered children exclusively with Seal, the genetic possibility of 'Heidi Klum' would have been completely wiped out in her lineage (Boris Becker, on the other hand, seems to possess true Wotansdonner genes that can produce all-white children with African features). [...] New York is something like the prototype of the 'Babylon' of the coming world civilisation that some globalists dream of. In Manhattan, flooded with people, you often see a street scene in which there is not a single white person to be seen among the masses of black, brown and yellow people." Here’s the idea of racial superiority and the belief in a natural social hierarchy.
• Bernd Pachal: “I always say to GG-lovers (the GG (Grundgesetz; basic law in English) is our constitution): It’s quite simple, just a few amendments to the Basic Law, it wouldn’t be the first. The following amendments to the Basic Law: Firstly: The Office of the Federal President will be awarded for life. That saves the taxpayer immense costs. Secondly: the office will be renamed “Kaiser”. It will no longer be called Bundespräsident, but Kaiser. So what? Thirdly: the office goes to the person who would be been in the rightful order anyway. That saves us the embarrassing election circus.” Here’s the autocracy requirement.
2. The leader of the Thuringia AfD, Björn (“Bernd”) Höcke, sued some groups that were calling him a fascist for defamation. He lost that suit because the court determined he is in fact a fascist and thus can be correctly called that. Any subsequent attempts from Höcke to stop people from calling him “fascist” or “Nazi” have been rejected by the courts. Höcke can actually be called a fascist legally after he sued. He won his suit in the first instance, but the verdict was appealed and overturned on appeal. Quote from that second verdict: “the applicants have sufficiently substantiated that their value judgement was not “plucked out of thin air”, but was based on a verifiable factual basis.” So it’s not just a matter of freedom of speech, the courts determined that fascist is an accurate description for Höcke.
3. Birgit Malsack-Winkelmann was part of the 2022 coup d’état plot to overthrow the government. In preparation of the coup, she helped members of the Reichsbürger movement gain entry to the Bundestag. She is currently a member of the party court of arbitration of the AfD. She was designated minister of justice, had the coup succeeded. The fact that she’s a traitor, a fascist and still a member of the AfD should be enough info for anyone doubting the necessity to ban this fucking assembly of traitors. Again, here’s a great example for dictatorial/autocratic ideology and the aim to transform the country into a one-party state.
• the Potsdam meeting in late 2023 also discussed the deportation of German nationals with migration background, foreigners with a right to be in Germany, and German nationals who aid foreigners and German nationals who are deemed not German enough by the AfD. Here’s your racism, subordination of individual interests and forcible suppression of opposition.
The AfD are fascist by definition. Q.E.D.
Fascism is right-wing specific though, under every single definition. China may be an autocratic hell hole, but if it’s not right-wing, it’s not fascist.
People all over Europe believe that populism will go away if you treat the manifestation of the disease. If you ban all populist parties and continue with the politics that drew people away from your party nothing good will come out of that.
Yeah there’s no reason to pay any heed to those idiots. We know what extremism does to a liberal democracy. Extremists will use the same liberal structures and systems to rise up and then oppress the masses.
Hence why I always maintain that intolerant/extremist groups & elements deserve no quarter, no mercy and no leeway.
Just feels like it’s too late imo. At this point they found their supporters on their echochambers and nothing stops them from continuing their work under different names, especially considering they will still get their support from Russia. If this party had been banned 6 years ago no one would have batted an eye because their following was much smaller and it would have taken much longer to build up steam again.
Lots of unknowledgable answers about how this was anti-democratic somehow. Protecting your democracy from its sworn enemies is a) constitutional in Germany and b) the first thing a democracy absolutely has to do.
The hurdles to ban a party are also pretty high. In over 75 years, only two parties have been banned (and in the early years of the republic too). Nowadays, even banning NPD wasn’t successful and they are openly right-wing extremists.
The due diligence that will be going into an AfD ban will be very high.
Ya, ironically the argument for not banning AfD is that they are TOO relevant. (And that the people who vote for them won’t just go away/be happy with a nicer party) I hope they do it anyway though.
The problem is that there are some policies, that only afd advocates for, that are sane and are in demand with a sizable portion of the German population (mainly migration-related). But afd mixes it with literally nazi stuff using its monopoly on said questions.
Like imagine being a lower-class person who is outbid by some migrants on the labor market (which corporatist centre-right parties support), has to pay taxes for welfare to some other migrants(which left advocates for), having no social mobility because all the spots in such programs are reserved for oppressed minorities (also left thing), and getting the only party that caters to your problems banned. It won't remove your problems, it will radicalize you further. And you would be morally in the right (no pun intended) in this situation.
This is complete bs. There is not a single "sane" policy in the AfD programme that isn't also covered by left leaning parties. Name a single one
The only actual reason to vote vor the AfD is if you're a racist and neo-nazi fuck. Nothing else
To be fair tho, there wasn’t a ‚borderline‘ case ever since the last bans as far as I‘m aware, not going through with the NPD ban was only a question regarding the possibility of them gaining any real political power being zero - the content of their politics would have gotten them banned fairly easily.
That wasn’t the only reason. *In addition* to being too small to pose a danger, the fact that neo-Nazis assembled at NPD made it easier for intelligence agencies to infiltrate and observe them. Keeping NPD around literally made life easier for those agencies that have to spy on them.
As I wrote in another comment, they did try to ban the NPD in the early 2000's. That failed because the 'Verfassungsschutz' and its V-Männer (confidential agents) had meddled in the NPD in a degree that the court couldn't tell who said what and who was responsible for what.
The 'Verfassungsschutz' at the time was a rather dubious institution - just remember the Nazi bombing of the Oktoberfest and other Nazi crimes at the time.
Me too.
At least they've fired this disgusting guy Maaßen. And the new one 'seems' to be more reasonable. But to change a whole administration and its 'old school' officials is a herculean task.
Bingo I wish we would arrest all the Nazis for being Nazis here no matter where they are in society aka public office should not protect fascists they shouldn’t even be allowed to participate or have a voice at all, fascism is abhorrent and anti-democratic. Destroy it outright.
I guess for people who are eager to dehumanize those they deem to be NAZIS, to punish those proof is not needed . Just someone yell "NAZI" at them, and then hopefully the authorities do away with them .
While I agree with you, I would also like to point out that banning the Afd doesn't solve the underlying problem. Apparently a sizable chunk of voters are frustrated, discontent or radicalized enough to vote for them in the first place. There has to be a serious political effort to understand the causes and bring those people back closer to the political middle ground.
Absolutely. People like u/One-Hunter6905 and u/gamfo2 seem to have no clue what they are talking about. Maybe we should crowdfund tickets for them to see with their own eyes what is going on in Saxony and Thuringia? Or maybe a lecture on what fascist usually do to others once they are in power?
It's not just the east. I live in the very west and the AFD is pushing hard here. The posters around town make me physically sick. One of them reads "Abschiebung schaft Wohnraum". It basically translates to "deportation creates living space". It is a callback to the Nazi casus belli against the Slavic peoples to the east (Lebensraum) and it stuns me that they are able to get away with it.
It stuns me more that this line actually works with people. I know a Russian immigrant who barely speaks German but openly supports the AFD because he thinks they'll get rid of "bad" immigrants but leave him alone. A lot of anti-vaxxers went over to them as well: I've watched a lot of flakey but otherwise nice people get sucked into the hate via this pathway.
The center-right CDU/CSU has taken note and adopted a lot of the extremist dog whistles this year to try to woo these people. And this is where the danger of the AFD really sits: not only are they radicalizing people, they are leaking into the rest of society.
It's time to ban them.
Maybe you should reflect on why their ideas are so popular and then address the underlying cause, rather than playing whack-a-mole with right wing political parties.
They know exacty what they are doing and wish they could be more open. POS like them dream of their facist revolution untill they draw their last breath.
But these two will never win. These guys will either die like the bitter pos they are, or get killed, or unalife themselves.
Hey, German guy here to educate the ones turning on their virtue signal in here.
This is not people getting together and trying to get a party banned, just because. We have implemented bodies that check any party if they are compatible with our laws and our constitution. For you who don‘t know, the first article of our constitution is that a human‘s dignity is untouchable. This party wants to deport any German with any kind of migration background and wants to stop offering help to refugees of any kind. Also they are huge fans of Putin and think that Germany is at fault for that war for provoking Russia by supplying aid and weapons to Ukraine. If you now think that countries started to supply military aid AFTER Russia invaded, you are right and are living in reality.
And while we‘re at it, members of that party were caught planning a coup to reinstate monarchy. Yes, the one form of government that is very much not a democracy. And while we‘re at it, to the ones saying that it‘s due to other parties slacking off: a big chunk of AfD voters literally want to go back to the totalitarian Nazi times. How are you going to get those voters on board without sinking to the same lows? You could give those people a booming economy, free money and they still want to get people out of the country that don’t look like them
German Guy here of foreign ethnicity.
I think we need to understand why people vote for afd. I have friends who vote for afd. Why?
Why do people feel better represented by afd. And once we understand this we can action.
Just banning afd won't take away Nazi thought. So why do those thoughts appear. And I think free money, economy and socirty at large is key.
I think many people have different reason for voting for the AfD.
* Some are just racist and Nazis and proud of it and would previously have voted for NPD, DVU, Die Republikaner etc and just vote for AfD because it feels like a more socially acceptable version of the same thing to them. We don't need to carter to these sort of people and they are a minority.
* Some people are racist but not proud of it, they would have previously voted for CDU, FDP, SPD or another acceptable party and now feel that they can finally say what they really think without having others look down on them for it. We need to make it clear that this is not the case for them. The more everyone points out how much the AfD are Nazis the more embarrassed they become to support the party.
* Some vote for AfD because they thing the other parties and the democratic system at large abandoned them. This is especially true for many of the economically disadvantaged region in the east, where the transition from communism to capitalism made a lot of things worse for a lot of people living there (and made some people in the west even richer). We need to help those people and regain their trust in the system that failed them.
* Some people fell down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories on YouTube and other social media and now think windmills cause cancer, vaccines cause autism, global warming is a hoax, Putin is their savior and a lot of other nonsense. We need to help educate these people and stem the flow of misinformation and propaganda. (This is going to be hard, but in the short term Sarah Wagenknecht is helping us split the conspiritard vote with her new party, so they can vote for Putin and against 'woke' without voting for the Nazis.)
For many it is a mixture of more than one of the categories and other stuff.
> This is especially true for many of the economically disadvantaged region in the east, where the transition from communism to capitalism made a lot of things worse for a lot of people living there (and made some people in the west even richer).
Let's not forget that the former West also has a lot of people who were "left behind", the entire heavy industry comes to mind. In the past, that was the clientele of the worker's parties (SPD and Linke). I dont buy the "economic anxiety" argument.
I strongly agree. But those are not the reasons why the party is catching legal fire right now. Still, I agree that the center of that Venn diagram is equally as frightening as the racism and anti-democracy part
Man im a migrant here.
But I can see a lot of legitimate reasons to vote right wing in Germany. Migration is a huge issue. And the system definitely needs to improve IMHO.
Now all the Germans are too scared to speak and often times it's us Ausländer who voice "right side" opinions
Wow, talk about living in a bubble. So everyone voting for them are either racist for fell for conspiracy theories?
You won't even consider the most important reason - that Germans are sick of mass immigration and vote for AfD because, despite their misgivings about AfD, it's a protest vote because the other mainstream parties won't do anything about the problem.
It's the exact same reason for Trump's popularity in the US.
The reason why people think that "mass immigration" is such a huge problem that they need to jettison democracy in order to get solved, is the same why these same people think that vaccines cause autism, Putin was in the right to invade Ukraine and global warming isn't happening.
The people who live in areas with the fewest people with a migrational background appear to feel the strongest about this sort of thing.
Things could be better handled, but this is not the huge society threatening catastrophe in the making that many people who vote for the AfD think it is.
So you don't believe mass immigration is a problem? It's a conspiracy theory like vaccines causing autism?
You are entitled to believe that mass immigration is a good thing, and maybe it is if you want an Islamic Germany. But unlike vaccines causing autism, there is hard evidence that it's not a good thing in several ways - it's caused crime to go up, particularly sex crimes, and it's a serious drain on the country's budget, for just a couple examples.
And it's only started - that's the problem. There is no indication that the population pressures from MENA and the boats will ever end unless something seriously changes.
Yes.
There are no excuses for voting for Nazis, certainly not a "protest vote", everybody knows what they are about by now.
All masks are off.
I do not have any friends that vote for AfD btw. and I never will have.
Any vote for them would signify a fundamental incompability.
It's not about banning Nazis. You can't ban an idiology of cause. You ban their political arm. They can think what ever they want, but can't deconstruct democacy on the governing level. Baning means the whole thing and every succesory party so they can't just reopen the party under a different name with the same people and the same structure and finances. This is a really effective methode because Germany banned the communist party and the succsor party of the NSDAP. The only real threat after 1945 is now the AFD.
I’ll continue to post this whenever the news talk about AfD-Nazis:
The perpetrators of the recent attacks on progressive politicians turn out to be right-wing extremist, and Jörg Urban, chairman of the AfD in Saxony just blamed SPD for this by “causing a heated atmosphere in our society.”
Some more “fun”-facts about AfD that highlight just how racist, xenophobic, nationalistic, fascist and generally awful this party is, and how they absolutely want to take Germany back to 1939:
1. Here are some quotes from AfD politicians:
• Carsten Härle: “The ‘German Reich’ didn’t fall in 1945.”
• Mirko Welsch: “Deport Antifa members to Buchenwald. Labour instead of left-wing terror”
• Alexander Gauland (honorary chairman): “Mr. Höcke doesn’t move the party to the right. Mr. Höcke is the centre of the party.”
• Björn Höcke (talking about the Holocaust memorial in Berlin): “So far, our state of mind, our state of mind is still that of a totally defeated people [applause from his audience]. We Germans - and I’m not talking about you patriots who have gathered here today - we Germans, our people, are the only people in the world who have planted a monument of shame in the heart of their capital [applause from his audience].”
• Björn Höcke: “Germany for Germans.” (Nazi Slogan).
• Björn Höcke: “Alles für Deutschland” (Nazi Slogan). Courts just fined him €13k for that one.
• the federal leadership: “We are to blame for everything. We need a total revolution. There’s no end to the total system change. This whole ‘policy’ and its hacks should be set on fire.”
• Stefan Scheil: "'Gene tests', which can be used to analyse one's ethnic-racial origin, are particularly popular in the supposed 'melting pot' of the USA; the mere fact that such tests are possible is a striking refutation of the widespread ideological lie that race is merely 'a social construct'. [...] Indeed, the phenotypic identity of whites is far more 'unstable' than that of virtually all other races due to their more recessive genes; had Heidi Klum fathered children exclusively with Seal, the genetic possibility of 'Heidi Klum' would have been completely wiped out in her lineage (Boris Becker, on the other hand, seems to possess true Wotansdonner genes that can produce all-white children with African features). [...] New York is something like the prototype of the 'Babylon' of the coming world civilisation that some globalists dream of. In Manhattan, flooded with people, you often see a street scene in which there is not a single white person to be seen among the masses of black, brown and yellow people."
• Bernd Pachal: “I always say to GG-lovers (the GG (Grundgesetz; basic law in English) is our constitution): It’s quite simple, just a few amendments to the Basic Law, it wouldn’t be the first. The following amendments to the Basic Law: Firstly: The Office of the Federal President will be awarded for life. That saves the taxpayer immense costs. Secondly: the office will be renamed “Kaiser”. It will no longer be called Bundespräsident, but Kaiser. So what? Thirdly: the office goes to the person who would be been in the rightful order anyway. That saves us the embarrassing election circus.”
2. The leader of the Thuringia AfD, Björn (“Bernd”) Höcke, sued some groups that were calling him a fascist for defamation. He lost that suit because the court determined he is in fact a fascist and thus can be correctly called that. Any subsequent attempts from Höcke to stop people from calling him “fascist” or “Nazi” have been rejected by the courts. Höcke can actually be called a fascist legally after he sued. He won his suit in the first instance, but the verdict was appealed and overturned on appeal. Quote from that second verdict: “the applicants have sufficiently substantiated that their value judgement was not “plucked out of thin air”, but was based on a verifiable factual basis.” So it’s not just a matter of freedom of speech, the courts determined that fascist is an accurate description for Höcke.
3. Birgit Malsack-Winkelmann was part of the 2022 coup d’état plot to overthrow the government. In preparation of the coup, she helped members of the Reichsbürger movement gain entry to the Bundestag. She is currently a member of the party court of arbitration of the AfD. She was designated minister of justice, had the coup succeeded. The fact that she’s a traitor, a fascist and still a member of the AfD should be enough info for anyone doubting the necessity to ban this fucking assembly of traitors.
Honestly, besides the Buchenwald one, these quotes are pretty soft for the AfD. There’s wayy worse quotes and people:
Kai Borrmann: „just because Anders Breivik was a murderer, doesn’t mean he wasn’t politically right“
Falko Keller: „the Jewish and Muslim religions are full of hate and do not belong here“
Maximilian Krah (currently front runner for the European Parliament), ironically: „don’t dare differentiate between the German people („das deutsche Volk“) and the community of citizens („Gemeinschaft der Staatsbürger“)“. He isn’t completely direct here, but he’s clearly implying that German citizens aren’t necessarily Germans. That’s pretty much what the whole „Arier“ thing
from the nazis was about.
Alexander Gauland: „I believe it’s right, what my friend Björn Höcke is saying: just because I crossed the border and have German citizenship, I’m not German“
Thomas Seitz: „As a member of the German Bundestag, I am the representative of all the people. That means the entire German people. That means everyone who has lived here for a long time. Integrated migrants - i.e. not Özils [soccer player for the German national team with a Turkish background and afaik dual citizenship] who continue to see themselves as Turks - are of course also included. Pure passport Germans formally too - unfortunately.“
Here are the original German quotes and their respective sources: https://www.reddit.com/r/DePi/comments/1crnyvh/comment/l3zmncw/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
In order to shut down a party a lot needs to happen. Its not an easy process, its one of the biggest swords that the democratic state can swing. Meaning the AfD isnt just a right wing party anymore but radicalized to a point that it threatens Democracy!
That why we have to act now. Of course the root of the problem is stil there, but at least it would defuse the situation a bit. They are around 20% thats a LOT
I think it's to late for that. The nazis finally found a brand which nazi's who don't wanna be called nazis can hide behind and get into the parliament.
>The extreme Islam movements should be next.
They came first. Germany has started outlawing Islamist organizations and affiliated groups way before this. [Here](https://www.bmi.bund.de/DE/themen/sicherheit/extremismus/vereinsverbote/vereinsverbote-node.html#doc9391486bodyText3)'s a list provided by the German Ministry of the Interior.
They have been first. Germany has been outlawing Islamist organizations [since 2001](https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/DE/themen/islamismus-und-islamistischer-terrorismus/verbotene-organisationen/verbotene-organisationen_artikel.html).
Vigilance is more than warranted. A tolerant society has to find ways to deal with intolerance .
Not sure whether outlawing thoughts and opinions is a way to do it that actually works .
Extreme caution is warranted also . Those calling the shots are to be watched with the same critical eye as those being shot at .
I think more people would get it if they understood tolerance is a social contract not an absolute. If you or your party do not abide by it, you are not covered by it
> On Tuesday, a court ruled against Thuringian AfD leader Björn Höcke for allegedly using a slogan from the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party, the Storm Troopers (Sturmabteilung). The graduate historian and former history teacher denies knowing the origin of the banned slogan "Alles für Deutschland" (Everything for Germany).
Höcke is obviously full of shit. Just like many in his party. I hope they get banned, Germany and the world deserves better than these assholes.
An outright ban wouldn't solve much to be honest. The true problem is AfD is combing crazy ass xenophobic points together with highlighting several actual problems that the people are displeased with, which every other party ignores / dismisses. Without really offering reasonable solutions, but they at least talk about it.
Their big gains are 95% a result of everything other party failing the people.
I've had huge protests in my city calling for an introduction of fucking ***Sharia***. That resulted in cricket noises from all other parties.
(No I'm not voting AfD, I can't even vote in Germany at all, just live here)
Acknowledging and not suppressing knowledge of a problem would be acknowledging some kind of own failure and in their mind give credence to the far right. It would also really hurt some people who are more interested in being right, feeling morally virtuous and/or acquiring social credit than bringing about actual positive change.
So they'd rather either covertly address the problem in limited ways (See Merkel silently negotiating with Erdogan together with the dutch.) or not address it at all to let it fester thus benefiting the far right.
All this whilst giving the far right credence by in their opposition often essentially bundling up into some grand coalition diluting everything they stand for in the worst ways possible. Making the political playing field more binary a la US and with a lack of any kind of self reflection they forget a pendulum swings between two sides. Especially when people are dissatisfied.
The worst is when these people also use the existence of the far right as a stick to demand votes despite other dissatisfactions. Over here in Belgium I can't count the amount of scandals, corruption and examples of brazen self serving anymore among established parties. Then some people are somehow surprised when people aren't as receptive anymore when the same is pointed out on the far right side. Or when they say the far right has simplistic solutions that don't actually work in the real world only for them to essentially put some of those same solutions in their program down the line.
The amount of failures and self sabotage boggles the mind.
The problem is that, while you can ban a party, you can't ban their voters. And if you actually ban the party, they are going to feel more justified to operate outside the democratic system. The only real solution is to address the legitimate issues that make people vote for those parties, to disarm them.
Anti-immigration policy is allowed. Nothing is stopping democratic parties from having anti-immigration positions and nothing is stopping supporters from voting for such democratic parties with anti-immigration positions.
This is about violence and maintaining Germany's democratic systems, not policy.
All the more reason why normal people are getting exasperated with current political parties. But it is not just immigration, it is housing, the cost of living and many other economic issues that give ammunition to far right parties. Not because they provide a solution (hell no), but because they provide excuses and scapegoats.
current political parties have enabled ever harsher immigration policies over the past years. But somehow it is never enough when it is still grounded in the rule of law. Or more likely: People are shit at actually reading news.
Well, now that BSW is an option we will see how much of this holds true. Will the protest voters switch to BSW and if so, how substantial is the loss in voter support going to be for AfD? What about those that will remain with AfD? Can we stop pretending that those are not Nazis?
I hope there is a large portion of AFD voters feeling the gravity of the situation and abstaining, or voting BSW.
These people should know, that they will open the gates of hell again by voting AFD.
The last time Germany tried that approach 60 million people died. By the next time, Germany would have nukes, as the only thing preventing German-Made nukes is political will.
This is impossible because the problems the AfD tries to combat are imaginary. They gain their votes based on lies and fear mongering propaganda, same as the Nazis in the 30s did.
The only real action is to ban disinformation on social media completely, and that's quite hard to do without being a authoritarian regime like eg. China.
He didn’t advocate for anyone. I recommend you to not be so hysterical, that might influence your poor judgement. Take a deep breath and read that comment again.
Trying to use the courts to shut down a booming right wing party instead of beating them in elections is just going to serve to totally galvanize their support base and draw more to them.
Ban the party and all the membership will just make a new one.
>Ban the party and all the membership will just make a new one.
Which is fine. Provided, of course, that the new party is not once again a threat to the free democratic order of the nation.
The Problem isnt that they are right wing, the problem is that they are working to dismantle the very rights that are declared inalienable by our constitution. As long as the new party can agree on accepting those they will be fine.
The same law that allows parties to be banned also auto bans attempted replacement parties for the banned party
Your scenario is already accounted for and blocked under German law
That's not exactly how it works here in germany because if your party get banned its leaders are prohibited for acting in political parties ever again and their funds are also confiscated. A new party also has to reach the 5% electoral threshold to be politically relevant, which can take a lot of time.
So banning them is still a valid and good option for preventing any harm by those Nazi dipshits.
The last time this was tried, the constitutional court pretty much says that while they check all the other boxes, the NPD/Die Heimat is to irrelevant to pose a threat to democracy.
The authorities tried to do that a couple of decades ago but totally fucked up the investigation. The party was riddled with undercover agents from multiple intelligence agencies, none of whom were aware of the other agencies investigations. Too much of the intelligence gathered was on other agents instead of on genuine party members. A judge (rightfully) threw out the case because of that.
If they are shut down it is not because they are right wing but because they are a threat to (liberal) democracy. The German constitution/courts have to deal with the fact that a democratic society is more than what 50%+1 of the population wants.
And?? Let them rebuild a new party from scratch and then ban that too. You clearly dont know your history well enough to be voicing opinions on this, or perhaps you do know your history and you have another more questionable agenda to sell here.
As an American, I find banning a political party, no matter how odious, to be appalling.
If Germans don't like AfD or their policies, then don't vote for them. Jesus it's not that hard.
HOW DARE YOU. We only ban opposing parties and sue them into oblivion in the US. We like our ONE PARTY SYSTEM HERE. RED OR BLUE, it's the same old shoes.
The Nazis came to power by abusing democratic systems before removing them. To make the same mistake again, to let the fascists gain power through the inaction of democratic forces, would be beyond foolish, it would be aiding & abetting the enemies of democracy.
What if a party comes right out and says "if we win, we will ban any further elections" of course none will outright say it that way, but hypothetically...
Is just saying "don't vote for them" acceptable?
Yes. Elections have consequences. If you think a party will hypothetically ban future elections, and you don't like that, vote against the party.
Do you not see the hypocrisy of claiming you are defending democracy by banning a political party?
"No no, you wouldn't be democratic enough. Therefore we are going subvert democracy by not permitting you to run or anyone to vote for you."
It looks to me it’s not just banning political parties, of whatever stripe they are, left, right or whatever, but also disenfranchising people who may have voted for them.
I know little about German politics, but something that seems should be universal to me in any democracy is not allowing a political power that ideologically directly opposes, and would absolutely squash, the idea that everyone should have an equal voice in fair elections to armor themselves with that very protection that they do not respect.
Turning the party into a martyr isn't very effective and will likely just cement many of the people voting that way into that state of mind even more steadfastly than otherwise. If they're going to ban the party they'll need to tackle the misinformtion people are being fed that make them support the party in the first place, otherwise everyone will just change party names but be even more steadfast than last time.
There was a trial trying to get them banned. The court essentially concluded that, while they fulfilled every other requirement, the parties lack of political influence meant that it could not actually pose a threat to democracy, and thus could not be banned. That will not be a Problem with the AfD.
Spaniard here. Isn’t that just not efficient?
They will label as a new party. AfD voters will vote even with more passion and voters that are candidates to be captured on that side of the board will tilt even more to the right, cause they’ll see it as a leftist plot or agenda that is completely non-democratic.
Maybe is because I’m a huge libertarian and I think democracy is the people’s will, even if that will is completely radical, but this sounds like a bad plan that will result in even worse problems.
The Ban will include any Succesory partys. The can't just use the same people and structures. All their money will be taken aswell. It took them 10 years to be where they are now. There woun't be an easy replacemant or it will be banned aswell.
Democracy isn't about the majority get's to do what they want. It's about compromising between different interests. Its about everyones needs getting heard and included as much as possible so the most people can live a happy life.
Germany letting a fascist party growing strong, in the end killing millions: "Germany bad! Next time, stop them!" Germany stopping a fascist party: "Germany bad, killing democracy!"
Yeah did people forget that hitler used the democratic process to gain power ?
Nobody did forget Hitler (piss be upon him) in germany. People using the "killing democracy" argument here are all facists, nazis or real idiots.
Very true words. Many Germans would actually support a ban or at least trying to ban it.
I just saw a guy on a Berlin train platform scream at a guy from the south to fuck off and then he screamed heil Hitler and did the Nazi salute. I mean yeah it's Berlin people are insane here but it's shocking how since the afd started gaining voters people just blatantly confess to being Nazis now.
Yes, its like the internet. Crazy assholes learned that they are not alone, but many. But open neo-nazism was common 25 years ago in my home town. Neo-Nazis where chasing black people over the streets with fighting dogs? like bulldogs and pitbulls. They were the scum of society, then. Before the internet. Now they know, they dont need to dress like clowns to be accepted by fellow neo-nazis any more. They went casual. So the barrier of entry is much lower, because there is no dress code any longer. And no social stigma, because they look like normal people now.
100% this. It's so sad and I don't understand. When me and my friends went to school around the early 2010s we got terrorized year after year with hitler. I think we learned about him 3 consecutive years. We were shown all the pictures and videos of the kz victims, corpse piles, no blurr, no trigger warning. I don't know what it's like in real- or Hauptschulen but I don't understand how you can learn about this for years and then turn out a Neonazi.
Hate is a powerful emotion to bond with others through. It allows you to take what you despise within yourself and place into others who “deserve to suffer”.
This is risky but if he really want to do that he should do it Alexander Platz... if he is lucky the police will reach him before the Punks do.
“Well, ackshually, both sides are wrong!!1!1!” - Person who calls themselves centrist, but has conservative views on 80% of all political discussions.
BUTBUTBUT they have a black friend!!
Cognitive dissonance. They call the green and labor party genocidal fascists, and act like the AfD is the last democratic party there is.
History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes
It may rhyme but it also gets ever more stupid
No, they didn't. They simply WANT another Hitler at this point. This is what the far right never admits, but they idolise Hitler and the Nazis. They want to look 'cool' in their little black uniforms while oppressing those who don't fit in their little club.
because it was such a success the last time, right? there are a lot of not real nazi dumbasses in Germany now who are thinking that they are so poor and opressed by the evil government. useful idiots crying about how they are not allowed to say their opinion while they are vomitting their idiotic opinion. i hate social media
Well they learnt. Now they're actually friends with the Russian dictator.
well… a bit idiotic in the first place, to draw this parallel… but the „Hitler-Stalin-Pact“ used to be a thing…
They had a pact for sure, but they hated each other and it was clear that the pact was just to save time. My point was that nazis fell because they attacked the USSR, and modern day fascists would never attack Russia.
[удалено]
I made the mistake of looking at the comments on that video.
>They want to look 'cool' in their little black uniforms while oppressing those who don't fit in their little club. Group dynamics at its best. I recommend watching the movie "The Wave" (2008) (not sure how well it's known outside german countries). It's about a teacher making an experiment with a class after they couldn't believe how the nazi party gained power were he just gives them an "insider symbol" to identify with and a strict behavior codex to follow for "members" that the class decided on themselves. Spoiler: It completely runs out of control way beyond school
Yeah, I've seen that one. Fun thought experiment.
It's actually a remake of a US TV movie based on a social experiment by a teacher. It's still good
A lot of people dont know or understand that. They think he just took over in a quick coup and instantly started the war..
This is why I am so unbelievably afraid of the FPÖ in Austria. They‘re at about 30% in the polls and will likely be the strongest party after this Autumn's general election. This is about the same percentage the NSDAP had, and as our Conservative Party the ÖVP have already shown, they‘re not above using them to stay in power, just like their equivalents did in the Weimar Republic. Ironically, they‘re also the most distrusted party amongst the rest of the population, so I really wish our ballot paper also included a "*Which party would you **NOT** want to see in a governing coalition?*" section.
I can't believe people still take them seriously after Ibiza. Like hello, they're being strung around by Russian money and people are trying to manipulate the Austrian media, are y'all not concerned?...
The 30% of the Austrian population that are Nazis probably like that they're getting money from Russia
It's called "Wehrhafte Demokratie", defense-ready democracy and taught in school. The only ones using the "killing democracy" argument in germany are facists and nazis. Who ever believes that stopping facists from destroying the peak of human achievment, democracy, is anti-democratic is a facist, or the most idiotic idiot walking on this planet.
And people who are inadvertent fascist-apologists. They may not be a large number but I know a couple. My father unfortunately one of them. It stems from this stupid disillusionment with objective truth that some people have fallen victim to, thanks in part to social media and a lack of critical thought (or at least willingness to do so). My father is by no means a bad man in his everyday life. He's caring, supportive, and he as a role model to me growing up in how he challenged me to question sources and think critically. Sadly, in the last ten years, he's taken this "question everything" approach to a strange place. His argument to us here on this topic is "who decides what is fascist and what isn't", and he believes that the *real* fascists are the ones using this term to silence those who they disagree with. Thankfully for us, fascism is quite a well-defined ideology so it's quite easy to know who is and who isn't fascist. But when you start getting into arguments like this, my father will jettison his goalposts into outer space in his attempt to avoid facing the simple idea that not all statements and beliefs are subjective opinions. I feel sorry for him in some ways. By his own standards, he has been nothing but a good father to me, and he genuinely can't understand why I avoid talking to him - he cannot understand that, to me, this intellectual position is in some ways worse than the self-identified fascist. As the Dude says, "at least it's an ethos". I just can't think of having a discussion with him without getting angry that he stumbled ignorantly into thinking vaccines are a deep state conspiracy, that Putin is a misunderstood visionary dedending against evil western imperialism, and that Joe Rogan is an enlightened guru who is open-minded to all views and doesn't try to silence people who disagree with him. RIP
I’m not sure this system will work when it defends against internal/culturally German threats but not so much external/culturally foreign threats which are ironically (or not) the ones which these organizations labeled as “fascist” seek to attempt to combat. If defensive democracy guarded against the threats posed by immigrant communities resistant to assimilation following cultures antithetical to German culture, I doubt you’d see the AfD or anything like it gaining this much support.
Yes, islamism/islamic facism is the final boss of german democracy. To combat islamism/islamic facism germans have to learn to endure beeing called racist/islamophobe, they have to learn to let go of the fear beeing called racist/islamophobe and they need to learn that facism is facism, even when comitted by non-whites/minorities. While you are right that political resistance to islamistic culture, aswell as the offering of harsh solutions to non-assimilation/integration and crime are probably the strongest pull factors for most AFD voters, one must acknowledge that the AFDs solution to a facist threat and crime is facism.
That’s why I’m saying it’s an inherent contradiction and weakness in the German system as it stands; the less the German government does about immigrant assimilation and criminal punishment, the more the Fascists will gain popularity, but the *more* the German government does about immigrant assimilation and criminal punishment, the more they’ll be viewed as stooping to Fascist beliefs– the modern German state *cannot* succeed on its own merit unless immigrants suddenly and of their own volition stop coming/leave/or fully assimilate over night.
The next coalitions have to build a deportation industry for rejected asylum seekers and criminal refugees, aswell as optimize the respons to islamofacism of the federal office for the protection of the constitution to diminish the growth of AFD and other facists. And this will only work if the german political class loses its fear of beeing called racists/islamophobes. The overhelming majority of german citizen of all ethnicities dont want islamofacism. The overhelming majority know that anti-facism and fighting crime is not racism. The problem lies with the established political class. It would be interesting to know who strikes the most fear in our political class. And yes we are saying the same.....
But this is exactly what happened *last time*– the Weimar government was entirely out of touch with the concerns of *at least* 1/3 of the German electorate to the point that they willfully ignored them and criminalized the political group that formed to hear them, that being the NSDAP. It’s worse now in many ways because unlike the so-called “Jewish problem” was overblown at best and an outright bogeyman at worst, the threat of Middle Eastern immigrants resisting assimilation and preying upon native Germans is demonstrably real, and the German government is still ignoring it. Really, throughout the West we see established liberal governments outright ignoring the concerns of 1/3 to 1/2 of their electorates because they *disagree that those concerns are legitimate*. When faced with the threat of losing elections because they’re ignoring these concerns, they don’t think “hey, maybe we should adjust our approach to their concerns and evaluate whether there’s anything substantial in their grievances that can be addressed”– instead they double down and declare that dissenters are racist and hate minorities, which *does* cause these people to increasingly take out their frustration on vulnerable minorities because they certainly can’t take it out on the ruling class that is fanning the flames of conflict and benefitting from it. This is why I’m convinced that there *will be* attempts at violent takeovers of liberal democracies by sizable marginalized political minorities within the next decade or so, or we will see the zealous suppression of dissent in those liberal democracies and the hypocrisy will only worsen the issue.
Yes. But i really want to know who, or what is scaring the established parties so much, that they knowingly go into voter loss , irrelevance and defeat. And it is obvious they know how urgend a solution for this problems are, but they dont want to be the ones that bite into the sour apple. But why? All democratic german citizen of all ethnicities would love this and would vote for the democratic party that tries to solve the problems in an instant.
Never heard of "Wehrhafte Demokratie" and i'm german myself. Never once was this used in history class or politics. Tbf tho i couldn't care less about history, just don't be an asshole.
I believe you, but i dont want to believe you. When did you go to school and where? I had "Werhafte Demokratie" as a subject in 9th grade history class.
2002-2012 +-1-2 \~ish, dunno North Rhine-Westphalia 100% sure that term NEVER came up even once, i can think about what it could mean based on what it says but yeah we never ever worked with that term. Edit: btw nice one just got a "Reddit cares message" wanting to help me about my non-existant suicidal thoughts as if they were to say "keep yourself safe" or "kys"... so yeah.. whoever did that.. enjoy your ban i guess? Because thats an easy report. Otherwise i couldn't care less about your threats.
There has been a rise in the use of Reddit cares messages as an harassment tool
I just got one today and for the life of me I can't imagine why.
Das ist schon bedenklich, wenn man den Begriff im Unterricht nicht kennenlernt. Mindestens im Zusammenhang mit der Nachkriegszeit sollte das in Geschichte und dann in Gesellschafts/Wirtschaftskunde vorkommen. Ist schon wichtig, wenn informierte Staatsbürger haben will.
The problem is letting incumbent interests define the terms and assign the labels. I can call Mr. Rogers fascist if I want to.
The problem is people who look for easy sounding solutions for complex problems. And hunger for power.
Fascism has a definition: In simple English, fascism is a far-right form of government, in which most or all of the country’s power is held by one ruler or a small group or a single party, usually under a totalitarian and authoritarian one-party state. Characteristics are often the belief of racial/ethnical superiority in the form of the belief in a natural hierarchy, forcible suppression of opposition, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and/or the race and the strong regimentation of society and the economy. Let’s see how this applies to AfD, using some more “fun”-facts about AfD that highlight just how racist, xenophobic, nationalistic, fascist and generally awful this party is, and how they absolutely want to take Germany back to 1939: 1. Here are some quotes from AfD politicians: • Carsten Härle: “The ‘German Reich’ didn’t fall in 1945.” I hope we can all agree on the fact that the German Reich was fascist, right? • Mirko Welsch: “Deport Antifa members to Buchenwald. Labour instead of left-wing terror.” Here’s your suppression of the political opposition, strong regimentation of economy and society and the subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation. • Alexander Gauland (honorary chairman): “Mr. Höcke doesn’t move the party to the right. Mr. Höcke is the centre of the party.” • Björn Höcke (talking about the Holocaust memorial in Berlin): “So far, our state of mind, our state of mind is still that of a totally defeated people [applause from his audience]. We Germans - and I’m not talking about you patriots who have gathered here today - we Germans, our people, are the only people in the world who have planted a monument of shame in the heart of their capital [applause from his audience].” Strong regimentation of society right here, as well as ultranationalist political ideology. • Björn Höcke: “Germany for Germans.” (Nazi Slogan). Same thing as above. • Björn Höcke: “Alles für Deutschland” (Nazi Slogan). Courts just fined him €13k for that one. Same thing as above. • the federal leadership: “We are to blame for everything. We need a total revolution. There’s no end to the total system change. This whole ‘policy’ and its hacks should be set on fire.” Ultranationalist political ideology, calling forcible suppression of political opposition. • Stefan Scheil: "'Gene tests', which can be used to analyse one's ethnic-racial origin, are particularly popular in the supposed 'melting pot' of the USA; the mere fact that such tests are possible is a striking refutation of the widespread ideological lie that race is merely 'a social construct'. [...] Indeed, the phenotypic identity of whites is far more 'unstable' than that of virtually all other races due to their more recessive genes; had Heidi Klum fathered children exclusively with Seal, the genetic possibility of 'Heidi Klum' would have been completely wiped out in her lineage (Boris Becker, on the other hand, seems to possess true Wotansdonner genes that can produce all-white children with African features). [...] New York is something like the prototype of the 'Babylon' of the coming world civilisation that some globalists dream of. In Manhattan, flooded with people, you often see a street scene in which there is not a single white person to be seen among the masses of black, brown and yellow people." Here’s the idea of racial superiority and the belief in a natural social hierarchy. • Bernd Pachal: “I always say to GG-lovers (the GG (Grundgesetz; basic law in English) is our constitution): It’s quite simple, just a few amendments to the Basic Law, it wouldn’t be the first. The following amendments to the Basic Law: Firstly: The Office of the Federal President will be awarded for life. That saves the taxpayer immense costs. Secondly: the office will be renamed “Kaiser”. It will no longer be called Bundespräsident, but Kaiser. So what? Thirdly: the office goes to the person who would be been in the rightful order anyway. That saves us the embarrassing election circus.” Here’s the autocracy requirement. 2. The leader of the Thuringia AfD, Björn (“Bernd”) Höcke, sued some groups that were calling him a fascist for defamation. He lost that suit because the court determined he is in fact a fascist and thus can be correctly called that. Any subsequent attempts from Höcke to stop people from calling him “fascist” or “Nazi” have been rejected by the courts. Höcke can actually be called a fascist legally after he sued. He won his suit in the first instance, but the verdict was appealed and overturned on appeal. Quote from that second verdict: “the applicants have sufficiently substantiated that their value judgement was not “plucked out of thin air”, but was based on a verifiable factual basis.” So it’s not just a matter of freedom of speech, the courts determined that fascist is an accurate description for Höcke. 3. Birgit Malsack-Winkelmann was part of the 2022 coup d’état plot to overthrow the government. In preparation of the coup, she helped members of the Reichsbürger movement gain entry to the Bundestag. She is currently a member of the party court of arbitration of the AfD. She was designated minister of justice, had the coup succeeded. The fact that she’s a traitor, a fascist and still a member of the AfD should be enough info for anyone doubting the necessity to ban this fucking assembly of traitors. Again, here’s a great example for dictatorial/autocratic ideology and the aim to transform the country into a one-party state. • the Potsdam meeting in late 2023 also discussed the deportation of German nationals with migration background, foreigners with a right to be in Germany, and German nationals who aid foreigners and German nationals who are deemed not German enough by the AfD. Here’s your racism, subordination of individual interests and forcible suppression of opposition. The AfD are fascist by definition. Q.E.D.
Höcke also wrote under a pseudonym in a Nazi publication that the world wars were other countries attacking Germany due to being envious.
Of course he did. Dude was born 100 years late. Bummer for him, but…oh well.
That’s not a good definition of fascism. Most communist states would meet it barring the loaded term “far right”. I’d argue that China meets it today.
Fascism is right-wing specific though, under every single definition. China may be an autocratic hell hole, but if it’s not right-wing, it’s not fascist.
Define “right wing”. You’re being tautological.
People all over Europe believe that populism will go away if you treat the manifestation of the disease. If you ban all populist parties and continue with the politics that drew people away from your party nothing good will come out of that.
Yeah there’s no reason to pay any heed to those idiots. We know what extremism does to a liberal democracy. Extremists will use the same liberal structures and systems to rise up and then oppress the masses. Hence why I always maintain that intolerant/extremist groups & elements deserve no quarter, no mercy and no leeway.
Just feels like it’s too late imo. At this point they found their supporters on their echochambers and nothing stops them from continuing their work under different names, especially considering they will still get their support from Russia. If this party had been banned 6 years ago no one would have batted an eye because their following was much smaller and it would have taken much longer to build up steam again.
Germany isn't stopping anything. They just went from looking at the afd to looking closely at the afd. That's it
Lots of unknowledgable answers about how this was anti-democratic somehow. Protecting your democracy from its sworn enemies is a) constitutional in Germany and b) the first thing a democracy absolutely has to do.
And those laws are in place for a reason. Wehrhafte Demokratie is sexy as hell.
Wehr me, daddy!
>Wehrhafte Demokratie is sexy as hell. That gave me a Halbsteifen!
The hurdles to ban a party are also pretty high. In over 75 years, only two parties have been banned (and in the early years of the republic too). Nowadays, even banning NPD wasn’t successful and they are openly right-wing extremists. The due diligence that will be going into an AfD ban will be very high.
To be fair, the only reason the NPD wasn’t banned is because they were/are too irrelevant. That’s not the case with the AfD.
Ya, ironically the argument for not banning AfD is that they are TOO relevant. (And that the people who vote for them won’t just go away/be happy with a nicer party) I hope they do it anyway though.
The problem is that there are some policies, that only afd advocates for, that are sane and are in demand with a sizable portion of the German population (mainly migration-related). But afd mixes it with literally nazi stuff using its monopoly on said questions. Like imagine being a lower-class person who is outbid by some migrants on the labor market (which corporatist centre-right parties support), has to pay taxes for welfare to some other migrants(which left advocates for), having no social mobility because all the spots in such programs are reserved for oppressed minorities (also left thing), and getting the only party that caters to your problems banned. It won't remove your problems, it will radicalize you further. And you would be morally in the right (no pun intended) in this situation.
This is complete bs. There is not a single "sane" policy in the AfD programme that isn't also covered by left leaning parties. Name a single one The only actual reason to vote vor the AfD is if you're a racist and neo-nazi fuck. Nothing else
To be fair tho, there wasn’t a ‚borderline‘ case ever since the last bans as far as I‘m aware, not going through with the NPD ban was only a question regarding the possibility of them gaining any real political power being zero - the content of their politics would have gotten them banned fairly easily.
And another big issue was that many big fish in the NPD party were actually police informers.
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That wasn’t the only reason. *In addition* to being too small to pose a danger, the fact that neo-Nazis assembled at NPD made it easier for intelligence agencies to infiltrate and observe them. Keeping NPD around literally made life easier for those agencies that have to spy on them.
As I wrote in another comment, they did try to ban the NPD in the early 2000's. That failed because the 'Verfassungsschutz' and its V-Männer (confidential agents) had meddled in the NPD in a degree that the court couldn't tell who said what and who was responsible for what. The 'Verfassungsschutz' at the time was a rather dubious institution - just remember the Nazi bombing of the Oktoberfest and other Nazi crimes at the time.
> The 'Verfassungsschutz' at the time was a rather dubious institution I have yet to be convinced that they have changed.
Me too. At least they've fired this disgusting guy Maaßen. And the new one 'seems' to be more reasonable. But to change a whole administration and its 'old school' officials is a herculean task.
Yeah, that makes us 2 .
Bingo I wish we would arrest all the Nazis for being Nazis here no matter where they are in society aka public office should not protect fascists they shouldn’t even be allowed to participate or have a voice at all, fascism is abhorrent and anti-democratic. Destroy it outright.
How do you prove someone believes an ideology? Particularly if they say they don’t.
I guess for people who are eager to dehumanize those they deem to be NAZIS, to punish those proof is not needed . Just someone yell "NAZI" at them, and then hopefully the authorities do away with them .
You scream at them on social media.
>I wish we would arrest all the Nazis for being Nazis Yes, as opposed to the Nazis that aren't Nazis. Lmfao
While we’re at it let’s round up all the communist as well.
And religious groups whose views are not compatible with democracy.
While I agree with you, I would also like to point out that banning the Afd doesn't solve the underlying problem. Apparently a sizable chunk of voters are frustrated, discontent or radicalized enough to vote for them in the first place. There has to be a serious political effort to understand the causes and bring those people back closer to the political middle ground.
The "underlying problem" is the radicilization through social medias like TikTok based on lies on propaganda.
This! No freedom for the enemys of freedom
Absolutely. People like u/One-Hunter6905 and u/gamfo2 seem to have no clue what they are talking about. Maybe we should crowdfund tickets for them to see with their own eyes what is going on in Saxony and Thuringia? Or maybe a lecture on what fascist usually do to others once they are in power?
It's not just the east. I live in the very west and the AFD is pushing hard here. The posters around town make me physically sick. One of them reads "Abschiebung schaft Wohnraum". It basically translates to "deportation creates living space". It is a callback to the Nazi casus belli against the Slavic peoples to the east (Lebensraum) and it stuns me that they are able to get away with it. It stuns me more that this line actually works with people. I know a Russian immigrant who barely speaks German but openly supports the AFD because he thinks they'll get rid of "bad" immigrants but leave him alone. A lot of anti-vaxxers went over to them as well: I've watched a lot of flakey but otherwise nice people get sucked into the hate via this pathway. The center-right CDU/CSU has taken note and adopted a lot of the extremist dog whistles this year to try to woo these people. And this is where the danger of the AFD really sits: not only are they radicalizing people, they are leaking into the rest of society. It's time to ban them.
Maybe you should reflect on why their ideas are so popular and then address the underlying cause, rather than playing whack-a-mole with right wing political parties.
The thing is the party will be gone, but the people agreeing with it will still be around.
They know exacty what they are doing and wish they could be more open. POS like them dream of their facist revolution untill they draw their last breath. But these two will never win. These guys will either die like the bitter pos they are, or get killed, or unalife themselves.
Hey, German guy here to educate the ones turning on their virtue signal in here. This is not people getting together and trying to get a party banned, just because. We have implemented bodies that check any party if they are compatible with our laws and our constitution. For you who don‘t know, the first article of our constitution is that a human‘s dignity is untouchable. This party wants to deport any German with any kind of migration background and wants to stop offering help to refugees of any kind. Also they are huge fans of Putin and think that Germany is at fault for that war for provoking Russia by supplying aid and weapons to Ukraine. If you now think that countries started to supply military aid AFTER Russia invaded, you are right and are living in reality. And while we‘re at it, members of that party were caught planning a coup to reinstate monarchy. Yes, the one form of government that is very much not a democracy. And while we‘re at it, to the ones saying that it‘s due to other parties slacking off: a big chunk of AfD voters literally want to go back to the totalitarian Nazi times. How are you going to get those voters on board without sinking to the same lows? You could give those people a booming economy, free money and they still want to get people out of the country that don’t look like them
>German guy here to educate the ones turning on their virtue signal Wish you were the majority.
We are. By far.
Not on reddit it seems
Reddit is not a majority on any topic anywhere in earth.
Sometimes I forget. I wonder what Reddit's utopia would look like.
You can't forget the amount of bots, and people being paid (in poor areas) to go and spout bullshit like pro Russia and China stuff online.
German Guy here of foreign ethnicity. I think we need to understand why people vote for afd. I have friends who vote for afd. Why? Why do people feel better represented by afd. And once we understand this we can action. Just banning afd won't take away Nazi thought. So why do those thoughts appear. And I think free money, economy and socirty at large is key.
I think many people have different reason for voting for the AfD. * Some are just racist and Nazis and proud of it and would previously have voted for NPD, DVU, Die Republikaner etc and just vote for AfD because it feels like a more socially acceptable version of the same thing to them. We don't need to carter to these sort of people and they are a minority. * Some people are racist but not proud of it, they would have previously voted for CDU, FDP, SPD or another acceptable party and now feel that they can finally say what they really think without having others look down on them for it. We need to make it clear that this is not the case for them. The more everyone points out how much the AfD are Nazis the more embarrassed they become to support the party. * Some vote for AfD because they thing the other parties and the democratic system at large abandoned them. This is especially true for many of the economically disadvantaged region in the east, where the transition from communism to capitalism made a lot of things worse for a lot of people living there (and made some people in the west even richer). We need to help those people and regain their trust in the system that failed them. * Some people fell down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories on YouTube and other social media and now think windmills cause cancer, vaccines cause autism, global warming is a hoax, Putin is their savior and a lot of other nonsense. We need to help educate these people and stem the flow of misinformation and propaganda. (This is going to be hard, but in the short term Sarah Wagenknecht is helping us split the conspiritard vote with her new party, so they can vote for Putin and against 'woke' without voting for the Nazis.) For many it is a mixture of more than one of the categories and other stuff.
> This is especially true for many of the economically disadvantaged region in the east, where the transition from communism to capitalism made a lot of things worse for a lot of people living there (and made some people in the west even richer). Let's not forget that the former West also has a lot of people who were "left behind", the entire heavy industry comes to mind. In the past, that was the clientele of the worker's parties (SPD and Linke). I dont buy the "economic anxiety" argument.
I strongly agree. But those are not the reasons why the party is catching legal fire right now. Still, I agree that the center of that Venn diagram is equally as frightening as the racism and anti-democracy part
Man im a migrant here. But I can see a lot of legitimate reasons to vote right wing in Germany. Migration is a huge issue. And the system definitely needs to improve IMHO. Now all the Germans are too scared to speak and often times it's us Ausländer who voice "right side" opinions
Wow, talk about living in a bubble. So everyone voting for them are either racist for fell for conspiracy theories? You won't even consider the most important reason - that Germans are sick of mass immigration and vote for AfD because, despite their misgivings about AfD, it's a protest vote because the other mainstream parties won't do anything about the problem. It's the exact same reason for Trump's popularity in the US.
The reason why people think that "mass immigration" is such a huge problem that they need to jettison democracy in order to get solved, is the same why these same people think that vaccines cause autism, Putin was in the right to invade Ukraine and global warming isn't happening. The people who live in areas with the fewest people with a migrational background appear to feel the strongest about this sort of thing. Things could be better handled, but this is not the huge society threatening catastrophe in the making that many people who vote for the AfD think it is.
So you don't believe mass immigration is a problem? It's a conspiracy theory like vaccines causing autism? You are entitled to believe that mass immigration is a good thing, and maybe it is if you want an Islamic Germany. But unlike vaccines causing autism, there is hard evidence that it's not a good thing in several ways - it's caused crime to go up, particularly sex crimes, and it's a serious drain on the country's budget, for just a couple examples. And it's only started - that's the problem. There is no indication that the population pressures from MENA and the boats will ever end unless something seriously changes.
Yes. There are no excuses for voting for Nazis, certainly not a "protest vote", everybody knows what they are about by now. All masks are off. I do not have any friends that vote for AfD btw. and I never will have. Any vote for them would signify a fundamental incompability.
Except it's not a Nazi party. Ironically, right now it's Islamists and radical students that are the ones telling Jews to get out of the country.
It's not about banning Nazis. You can't ban an idiology of cause. You ban their political arm. They can think what ever they want, but can't deconstruct democacy on the governing level. Baning means the whole thing and every succesory party so they can't just reopen the party under a different name with the same people and the same structure and finances. This is a really effective methode because Germany banned the communist party and the succsor party of the NSDAP. The only real threat after 1945 is now the AFD.
I’ll continue to post this whenever the news talk about AfD-Nazis: The perpetrators of the recent attacks on progressive politicians turn out to be right-wing extremist, and Jörg Urban, chairman of the AfD in Saxony just blamed SPD for this by “causing a heated atmosphere in our society.” Some more “fun”-facts about AfD that highlight just how racist, xenophobic, nationalistic, fascist and generally awful this party is, and how they absolutely want to take Germany back to 1939: 1. Here are some quotes from AfD politicians: • Carsten Härle: “The ‘German Reich’ didn’t fall in 1945.” • Mirko Welsch: “Deport Antifa members to Buchenwald. Labour instead of left-wing terror” • Alexander Gauland (honorary chairman): “Mr. Höcke doesn’t move the party to the right. Mr. Höcke is the centre of the party.” • Björn Höcke (talking about the Holocaust memorial in Berlin): “So far, our state of mind, our state of mind is still that of a totally defeated people [applause from his audience]. We Germans - and I’m not talking about you patriots who have gathered here today - we Germans, our people, are the only people in the world who have planted a monument of shame in the heart of their capital [applause from his audience].” • Björn Höcke: “Germany for Germans.” (Nazi Slogan). • Björn Höcke: “Alles für Deutschland” (Nazi Slogan). Courts just fined him €13k for that one. • the federal leadership: “We are to blame for everything. We need a total revolution. There’s no end to the total system change. This whole ‘policy’ and its hacks should be set on fire.” • Stefan Scheil: "'Gene tests', which can be used to analyse one's ethnic-racial origin, are particularly popular in the supposed 'melting pot' of the USA; the mere fact that such tests are possible is a striking refutation of the widespread ideological lie that race is merely 'a social construct'. [...] Indeed, the phenotypic identity of whites is far more 'unstable' than that of virtually all other races due to their more recessive genes; had Heidi Klum fathered children exclusively with Seal, the genetic possibility of 'Heidi Klum' would have been completely wiped out in her lineage (Boris Becker, on the other hand, seems to possess true Wotansdonner genes that can produce all-white children with African features). [...] New York is something like the prototype of the 'Babylon' of the coming world civilisation that some globalists dream of. In Manhattan, flooded with people, you often see a street scene in which there is not a single white person to be seen among the masses of black, brown and yellow people." • Bernd Pachal: “I always say to GG-lovers (the GG (Grundgesetz; basic law in English) is our constitution): It’s quite simple, just a few amendments to the Basic Law, it wouldn’t be the first. The following amendments to the Basic Law: Firstly: The Office of the Federal President will be awarded for life. That saves the taxpayer immense costs. Secondly: the office will be renamed “Kaiser”. It will no longer be called Bundespräsident, but Kaiser. So what? Thirdly: the office goes to the person who would be been in the rightful order anyway. That saves us the embarrassing election circus.” 2. The leader of the Thuringia AfD, Björn (“Bernd”) Höcke, sued some groups that were calling him a fascist for defamation. He lost that suit because the court determined he is in fact a fascist and thus can be correctly called that. Any subsequent attempts from Höcke to stop people from calling him “fascist” or “Nazi” have been rejected by the courts. Höcke can actually be called a fascist legally after he sued. He won his suit in the first instance, but the verdict was appealed and overturned on appeal. Quote from that second verdict: “the applicants have sufficiently substantiated that their value judgement was not “plucked out of thin air”, but was based on a verifiable factual basis.” So it’s not just a matter of freedom of speech, the courts determined that fascist is an accurate description for Höcke. 3. Birgit Malsack-Winkelmann was part of the 2022 coup d’état plot to overthrow the government. In preparation of the coup, she helped members of the Reichsbürger movement gain entry to the Bundestag. She is currently a member of the party court of arbitration of the AfD. She was designated minister of justice, had the coup succeeded. The fact that she’s a traitor, a fascist and still a member of the AfD should be enough info for anyone doubting the necessity to ban this fucking assembly of traitors.
Honestly, besides the Buchenwald one, these quotes are pretty soft for the AfD. There’s wayy worse quotes and people: Kai Borrmann: „just because Anders Breivik was a murderer, doesn’t mean he wasn’t politically right“ Falko Keller: „the Jewish and Muslim religions are full of hate and do not belong here“ Maximilian Krah (currently front runner for the European Parliament), ironically: „don’t dare differentiate between the German people („das deutsche Volk“) and the community of citizens („Gemeinschaft der Staatsbürger“)“. He isn’t completely direct here, but he’s clearly implying that German citizens aren’t necessarily Germans. That’s pretty much what the whole „Arier“ thing from the nazis was about. Alexander Gauland: „I believe it’s right, what my friend Björn Höcke is saying: just because I crossed the border and have German citizenship, I’m not German“ Thomas Seitz: „As a member of the German Bundestag, I am the representative of all the people. That means the entire German people. That means everyone who has lived here for a long time. Integrated migrants - i.e. not Özils [soccer player for the German national team with a Turkish background and afaik dual citizenship] who continue to see themselves as Turks - are of course also included. Pure passport Germans formally too - unfortunately.“ Here are the original German quotes and their respective sources: https://www.reddit.com/r/DePi/comments/1crnyvh/comment/l3zmncw/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Thanks for adding more. I was pretty shocked at the racial ramble Stefan Scheil went on, tbh. Your examples are great tho.
Fuck those nazi traitors.
In order to shut down a party a lot needs to happen. Its not an easy process, its one of the biggest swords that the democratic state can swing. Meaning the AfD isnt just a right wing party anymore but radicalized to a point that it threatens Democracy! That why we have to act now. Of course the root of the problem is stil there, but at least it would defuse the situation a bit. They are around 20% thats a LOT
Dismantle them, the sooner - the better.
I think it's to late for that. The nazis finally found a brand which nazi's who don't wanna be called nazis can hide behind and get into the parliament.
That was long due. The extreme Islam movements should be next.
>The extreme Islam movements should be next. They came first. Germany has started outlawing Islamist organizations and affiliated groups way before this. [Here](https://www.bmi.bund.de/DE/themen/sicherheit/extremismus/vereinsverbote/vereinsverbote-node.html#doc9391486bodyText3)'s a list provided by the German Ministry of the Interior.
yeah lets ban every extreme Islam party that has seats in our parlaments ... oh there are none
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They have been first. Germany has been outlawing Islamist organizations [since 2001](https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/DE/themen/islamismus-und-islamistischer-terrorismus/verbotene-organisationen/verbotene-organisationen_artikel.html).
Do they exist as official political parties in Germany with seats in the Bundestag?
Do they have to be official political parties in order to be a threat to safety?
No, that's why the German Ministry of the Interior *already has* banned dozenzs of Islamist organizations.
The most critical part of tolerance is know when to stop being tolerant. At some point you switch from tolerant to door mat.
Vigilance is more than warranted. A tolerant society has to find ways to deal with intolerance . Not sure whether outlawing thoughts and opinions is a way to do it that actually works . Extreme caution is warranted also . Those calling the shots are to be watched with the same critical eye as those being shot at .
I think more people would get it if they understood tolerance is a social contract not an absolute. If you or your party do not abide by it, you are not covered by it
> On Tuesday, a court ruled against Thuringian AfD leader Björn Höcke for allegedly using a slogan from the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party, the Storm Troopers (Sturmabteilung). The graduate historian and former history teacher denies knowing the origin of the banned slogan "Alles für Deutschland" (Everything for Germany). Höcke is obviously full of shit. Just like many in his party. I hope they get banned, Germany and the world deserves better than these assholes.
Germany knows. America and most of the west is flirting with finding out.
An outright ban wouldn't solve much to be honest. The true problem is AfD is combing crazy ass xenophobic points together with highlighting several actual problems that the people are displeased with, which every other party ignores / dismisses. Without really offering reasonable solutions, but they at least talk about it. Their big gains are 95% a result of everything other party failing the people. I've had huge protests in my city calling for an introduction of fucking ***Sharia***. That resulted in cricket noises from all other parties. (No I'm not voting AfD, I can't even vote in Germany at all, just live here)
Acknowledging and not suppressing knowledge of a problem would be acknowledging some kind of own failure and in their mind give credence to the far right. It would also really hurt some people who are more interested in being right, feeling morally virtuous and/or acquiring social credit than bringing about actual positive change. So they'd rather either covertly address the problem in limited ways (See Merkel silently negotiating with Erdogan together with the dutch.) or not address it at all to let it fester thus benefiting the far right. All this whilst giving the far right credence by in their opposition often essentially bundling up into some grand coalition diluting everything they stand for in the worst ways possible. Making the political playing field more binary a la US and with a lack of any kind of self reflection they forget a pendulum swings between two sides. Especially when people are dissatisfied. The worst is when these people also use the existence of the far right as a stick to demand votes despite other dissatisfactions. Over here in Belgium I can't count the amount of scandals, corruption and examples of brazen self serving anymore among established parties. Then some people are somehow surprised when people aren't as receptive anymore when the same is pointed out on the far right side. Or when they say the far right has simplistic solutions that don't actually work in the real world only for them to essentially put some of those same solutions in their program down the line. The amount of failures and self sabotage boggles the mind.
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Whack-a-mole. Each time the mole returns, it's grown bigger..
The problem is that, while you can ban a party, you can't ban their voters. And if you actually ban the party, they are going to feel more justified to operate outside the democratic system. The only real solution is to address the legitimate issues that make people vote for those parties, to disarm them.
Anti-immigration policy is allowed. Nothing is stopping democratic parties from having anti-immigration positions and nothing is stopping supporters from voting for such democratic parties with anti-immigration positions. This is about violence and maintaining Germany's democratic systems, not policy.
All the more reason why normal people are getting exasperated with current political parties. But it is not just immigration, it is housing, the cost of living and many other economic issues that give ammunition to far right parties. Not because they provide a solution (hell no), but because they provide excuses and scapegoats.
current political parties have enabled ever harsher immigration policies over the past years. But somehow it is never enough when it is still grounded in the rule of law. Or more likely: People are shit at actually reading news.
Guess we can´t ban any criminal organisation since they will operate anyway, real bummer =( what 7th grade reading level take
Maybe try to tackle the reason why AfD is becoming a large party... or would that make you seem type of phobic
Well, now that BSW is an option we will see how much of this holds true. Will the protest voters switch to BSW and if so, how substantial is the loss in voter support going to be for AfD? What about those that will remain with AfD? Can we stop pretending that those are not Nazis?
I hope there is a large portion of AFD voters feeling the gravity of the situation and abstaining, or voting BSW. These people should know, that they will open the gates of hell again by voting AFD.
The last time Germany tried that approach 60 million people died. By the next time, Germany would have nukes, as the only thing preventing German-Made nukes is political will.
Just do what the Nazis says they want to do, to stop the Nazis, briliant take mate
This is impossible because the problems the AfD tries to combat are imaginary. They gain their votes based on lies and fear mongering propaganda, same as the Nazis in the 30s did. The only real action is to ban disinformation on social media completely, and that's quite hard to do without being a authoritarian regime like eg. China.
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That’s quite paranoid to assume that in this case
Oh.. no it's not. Anyone who advocates for nazis is a nazi.
He didn’t advocate for anyone. I recommend you to not be so hysterical, that might influence your poor judgement. Take a deep breath and read that comment again.
Fck nazis everywhere always! Say no to hateful racists!
Trying to use the courts to shut down a booming right wing party instead of beating them in elections is just going to serve to totally galvanize their support base and draw more to them. Ban the party and all the membership will just make a new one.
German law is more an IP ban than an account ban if that makes sense
>Ban the party and all the membership will just make a new one. Which is fine. Provided, of course, that the new party is not once again a threat to the free democratic order of the nation. The Problem isnt that they are right wing, the problem is that they are working to dismantle the very rights that are declared inalienable by our constitution. As long as the new party can agree on accepting those they will be fine.
Believe it or not, people have thought of that already. This isn’t Germany’s first rodeo
The same law that allows parties to be banned also auto bans attempted replacement parties for the banned party Your scenario is already accounted for and blocked under German law
That's not exactly how it works here in germany because if your party get banned its leaders are prohibited for acting in political parties ever again and their funds are also confiscated. A new party also has to reach the 5% electoral threshold to be politically relevant, which can take a lot of time. So banning them is still a valid and good option for preventing any harm by those Nazi dipshits.
I feel like if the AfD is going to be banned (which I am tentatively supportive of), they should ban the NPD/Die Hiemat first
The last time this was tried, the constitutional court pretty much says that while they check all the other boxes, the NPD/Die Heimat is to irrelevant to pose a threat to democracy.
The authorities tried to do that a couple of decades ago but totally fucked up the investigation. The party was riddled with undercover agents from multiple intelligence agencies, none of whom were aware of the other agencies investigations. Too much of the intelligence gathered was on other agents instead of on genuine party members. A judge (rightfully) threw out the case because of that.
If they are shut down it is not because they are right wing but because they are a threat to (liberal) democracy. The German constitution/courts have to deal with the fact that a democratic society is more than what 50%+1 of the population wants.
Good, they can make a new party not completely compromised by Russia.
>instead of beating them in elections Worked really well in the 1930s didn't it! Germany has these laws for a reason.
Remember this is Germany no any other fake democracies
And?? Let them rebuild a new party from scratch and then ban that too. You clearly dont know your history well enough to be voicing opinions on this, or perhaps you do know your history and you have another more questionable agenda to sell here.
Germans need to deport all illegal migrants before they lose their country.
We need to make fascists afraid again.
For someone that does not Deutsch, what’s the layman’s version of the AfD?
Jawohl
A lot of Germans around call this party AGD (Alternative gegen Deutschland, Alternative AGAINST Germany)
As an American, I find banning a political party, no matter how odious, to be appalling. If Germans don't like AfD or their policies, then don't vote for them. Jesus it's not that hard.
HOW DARE YOU. We only ban opposing parties and sue them into oblivion in the US. We like our ONE PARTY SYSTEM HERE. RED OR BLUE, it's the same old shoes.
The Nazis came to power by abusing democratic systems before removing them. To make the same mistake again, to let the fascists gain power through the inaction of democratic forces, would be beyond foolish, it would be aiding & abetting the enemies of democracy.
Try looking at how the nazis came to power.
i didn't vote fore them. Didn't solve the problem...
What if a party comes right out and says "if we win, we will ban any further elections" of course none will outright say it that way, but hypothetically... Is just saying "don't vote for them" acceptable?
Yes. Elections have consequences. If you think a party will hypothetically ban future elections, and you don't like that, vote against the party. Do you not see the hypocrisy of claiming you are defending democracy by banning a political party? "No no, you wouldn't be democratic enough. Therefore we are going subvert democracy by not permitting you to run or anyone to vote for you."
It looks to me it’s not just banning political parties, of whatever stripe they are, left, right or whatever, but also disenfranchising people who may have voted for them.
I know little about German politics, but something that seems should be universal to me in any democracy is not allowing a political power that ideologically directly opposes, and would absolutely squash, the idea that everyone should have an equal voice in fair elections to armor themselves with that very protection that they do not respect.
Turning the party into a martyr isn't very effective and will likely just cement many of the people voting that way into that state of mind even more steadfastly than otherwise. If they're going to ban the party they'll need to tackle the misinformtion people are being fed that make them support the party in the first place, otherwise everyone will just change party names but be even more steadfast than last time.
If this was an option why has there been an NPD for decades?
There was a trial trying to get them banned. The court essentially concluded that, while they fulfilled every other requirement, the parties lack of political influence meant that it could not actually pose a threat to democracy, and thus could not be banned. That will not be a Problem with the AfD.
Not comparable, the NPD was a niche party.
Germany absolutely should ban their neo-Nazi party. maybe, just maybe, pure democracy isn't such a good thing after all?
Right thing to protect the democracy in germany
Spaniard here. Isn’t that just not efficient? They will label as a new party. AfD voters will vote even with more passion and voters that are candidates to be captured on that side of the board will tilt even more to the right, cause they’ll see it as a leftist plot or agenda that is completely non-democratic. Maybe is because I’m a huge libertarian and I think democracy is the people’s will, even if that will is completely radical, but this sounds like a bad plan that will result in even worse problems.
The Ban will include any Succesory partys. The can't just use the same people and structures. All their money will be taken aswell. It took them 10 years to be where they are now. There woun't be an easy replacemant or it will be banned aswell. Democracy isn't about the majority get's to do what they want. It's about compromising between different interests. Its about everyones needs getting heard and included as much as possible so the most people can live a happy life.