It will not work like that. Björn Höcke looks tormented in the camera, we are already in the aftermath of the failed ZDF interview with the AfD-leading candidate for the state election in Thuringia, and Höcke sighs. "Right back this ... ... oah ... ... this old Chose, I can not hear it anymore, folks, I can not hear it anymore."
However, this Chose is not that old, just 15 months. The team of "Berlin direkt" has written out two quotes from the Höcke-Talksband published in June 2018 "Never twice in the same river", AfD Bundestag members confronted with it and asked: Is this from "Mein Kampf" or by Mr. Höcke?
An unfortunately absurd game
None of the deputies can answer the question. He has not read one or the other book, says the AfD-man Kay Gottschalk. His group colleague Jens Maier dares a hint: "If, rather from 'Mein Kampf', I would say, but not by Höcke."
"Who said it - X or Hitler?" is, you have to say it unfortunately, a pretty bad games, a naseweises indignation quiz with modest knowledge gain. "Mr. Höcke, your own people can not say whether it is still Höcke or even Hitler, what does that say about your language?", The ZDF journalist wants to know. And Höcke can answer this obvious: "Above all, that they have not read my book."
Thought apparently as a debunking the ZDF interview is until then only another document of the fruitless attempt to approach the rights by language criticism. Look, we found out: Höcke sounds like Hitler! We already knew that.
Höcke does not need to be unmasked
History-conscious democrats, of course, shudder when Höcke formulates totalitarian fantasies of power when he says that "the Germans would not do things by halves," "when the turning point came", then "the rubble heaps of modernity would be eliminated." They find it dangerous when he conjures "the yearning of the Germans for a historical figure," which once again heals the wounds in the people ". But his constituents do not have the slightest problem with that. He formulates what they want. Finally one says it again.
In the column Agitation and Propaganda Stefan Kuzmany writes about the current developments in politics and society. Subscribe to the newsletter directly and for free here:
There is nothing more to expose in Björn Höcke. He is known. The fixation on the linguistic turmoil of the AfD only distracts from what it says in terms of content and intends with this society. Anyone who argues with Höcke about whether his speech resembles that of a National Socialist gives him the opportunity to escape in the competition of verbalization. He uses the term "degenerate," the ZDF journalist tells him. Yes, he is also known from biology lessons, Höcke answers. Not a word about what Höcke now considers "degenerate", what to do with "degenerate" when once "the turning point" has come.
These are the questions that must be asked of the AfD and its constituents. What exactly does Alexander Gauland mean when he distinguishes himself in the ZDF morning magazine from the "ideology of the Greens" who want to "make amends, what our fathers and forefathers have done, so to speak", who "take in strangers, save the climate, help other people "and he, in contrast, positions the AfD as a party advocating for Germany" what we have inherited from our forefathers "?
Unknowingly enlightening
Nevertheless, the ZDF interview with Björn Höcke is a successful, because enlightening piece of journalism - but apparently rather unplanned.
On the one hand there are the reactions of the AfD deputies to the Hitler Höcke test. You can not assign the terrible quotes - as a gift. Much more revealing, however, is that they apparently do not care about it. They are not shocked by the quotes and the comparison with the dictator, but downright amused. Almost everyone has to laugh briefly, as if they were caught and only slightly embarrassed. Oh, look, party friend Höcke talks like Hitler, and you can hardly distinguish it? Is amusing.
Revealing is the failed conversation with Höcke, as it is already finished. His spokesman, the former Springer journalist Günther Lachmann, demands of the ZDF team to reschedule, because the questions would have "greatly emotionalized" his boss - that "should not bring on TV so".
The ZDF reporter rejects this completely unusual request, it develops a discussion about whether the interview had been agreed so or otherwise. The meeting is about to be demolished. "I can tell you that has massive consequences," says Höcke. "We do not know what's coming ... ... then it's clear that there will not be an interview with me anymore." What could come, the ZDF man wants to know? "Maybe I'll become an interesting personal, political person in this country." Could be, "answers Höcke.
It is bitter that we in this country have politicians who think journalists should ask them the same questions over and over again until they are satisfied with their answers - but there are. It is disgusting that in Germany we have politicians who think and talk like Nazis - but unfortunately there were always some.
It is really scary, however, that such people are elected again today. It is unbearable that Björn Höcke sees himself on the way to power. And maybe rightly so.
