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On September 1, 2018, the Thuringian AfD leader Björn Höcke and the Brandenburg frontman of the Alternative for Germany, Andreas Kalbitz, marched together with right-wing extremists and violent hooligans in Chemnitz. The occasion was a "funeral march" for stabbed in Chemnitz by an asylum seeker Daniel H. This was the first time in the German post-war history representatives of a Bundestag party with Nazis together side by side on the street. Björn Höcke wore a white rose on the lapel for the occasion. He deliberately places himself in the tradition line of the resistance group around the siblings Scholl, who fought against the Nazi regime. This is also in the light of his speech held in 2017 Dresdner speech a bold insolence.
The AfD moves there as the NPD had its place
This kind of shameful and disgusting historical nonsense shows what the child of Björn Höcke is. Höcke is a Nazi for me and the AfD with him on the way to NPD 2.0. The Chemnitzer deployment has shown that the AfD builds open and visible bridges to right-wing extremism. The often-formulated relativizing excuse that the AFD is more than a hiding place and more than the "wing" classified as a suspected case by the German intelligence service was refuted by Alexander Gauland on the evening of the Thuringian state election. The party leader underlined that Höcke "did everything right and said everything right". "This is the future People's Party," Gauland certified in Erfurt as a notary's way to the extreme right-wing corner. The AfD moves there to where the NPD once had its place. Blue turns brown.
It is therefore clear to me that in the relationship between the Union and the AfD there can only be a clear edge and sharpest demarcation. Coalitions or any other type of cooperation is excluded for upright Christian Democrats. That would be a betrayal of our Christian Democratic values.
Anyone who argues today about coalitions or cooperation with the AfD must know that the AfD is a party that largely pursues a völkisch-authoritarian political approach and questions fundamental principles of our constitution. She is a party without a value compass, which is mainly defined by rejection. As Secretary General of the CDU Germany, I also add: The AfD is a party that wants the core of the destruction of the Union to replace CDU and CSU. Therefore, the AfD is not our partner, but our determined opponent.
In the mantle of bourgeoisie, we will not allow the AfD to creep into the erosion of democracy in our country and stage itself as a supposed conservative corrective. The AfD is not bourgeois or conservative. She is the opposite. Her leaders lack decorum and respect and she seeks the future in the past.
The AfD delegitimizes our state and our system
The fact that the AfD represents a nationalist and nationalist world view, was repeatedly clear. Höcke conjures up the "Volkstod by population exchange", the deputy Baden-Wuerttemberg state spokesman Marc Jongen fables of the "descent principle" as a prerequisite to being German, and the Saxon State Chairman Jörg Urban calls for the homogeneity of German society. Only then could one preserve unity and freedom. I wonder if in the end all Germans with a migration background would be part of the "large-scale remigration project" that Björn Höcke postulated in his 2018 book "Never twice in the same river". I find it speechless and there is no doubt that the thinking of leading AfD people is based on an ethno-biological worldview. For people like Höcke, Gauland, Urban or Jongen can only be German, who is ethnic German. The AfD is talking to the homogeneity-oriented national community. That's how it started in 1933. For all democrats and for Christian Democrats the dignity of man is inviolable. Anyone who questioned this principle in any way is outside our constitutional order.
The fact that the AfD is at the margins of the constitutional order is also made clear by its cross-border abuse of parliamentarianism and the institutions of our state. When the AfD policy talks about a "political cartel" and thus creates the image of a corrupt political clique, the AfD delegitimizes our state and the parliamentary system. This is neither bourgeois nor conservative. This is an anti-state policy.
The language used by the AfD is reminiscent of the late phase of the Weimar Republic, when Parliament was once denigrated by the Nazis as a "quasselbude". "Liespresse" and "Volksverräter" are the cornerstones of any AfD argumentation. When Björn Höcke then insults journalists as "mentally and morally castrated scribblers," wants to have the Federal Chancellor paid off in the "straitjacket" and equates Angela Merkel with Erich Honecker, thus making the Federal Republic a quasi-dictatorship, a limit has been far exceeded. Konrad-Adenauer was right: "He who truly thinks democratically must have respect for the other, for his honest will and aspiration." The policy approach of the AfD is obviously the opposite. It reads: Incite hatred, envy and resentment so that Germany drifts apart. For me, however, it is clear that true patriots want the cohesion of Germany and do not bring about the division of the country, even to strike cheap political capital.
Rejection is the staple of the AfD policy
Another aspect is important to me. Which Germany really wants the AfD? The AfD is looking for Germany's future in the past. The modern German conservatism is not backward, but provides answers to future questions. The longing of the AfD for what Germany allegedly was supposed to have been 20 or 30 years ago, is difficult to understand. Today can not answer the questions of tomorrow with yesterday's approaches. Especially as our country has become more open, free, relaxed and cheerful.
The AfD is about isolation and nationalism. The anti-European stance, the "D-Mark" nostalgia and the goal of abolishing the euro would economically throw back our country by decades and deprive the young generation of their freedom and their prospects for the future. This policy has absolutely nothing to do with the policies of Konrad Adenauer or Helmut Kohl, which was always shaped by the spirit of Europe and Germany's responsibility for Europe and the world. Anyone who questions the European Union and the euro also questions the European peace project.
In addition, the image of the AfD is the counterpart to a modern society. In Höcke-Biedermeier only the BDM girl and the mother cross have space. But the families in Germany are diverse. A modern Germany supports the classic father-mother-child-family. Nevertheless, we are equally dedicated to patchwork families, single parents or same-sex marriages. As conservatives in the Union, we fight for bonds - not against them.
Ultimately, the AfD lacks a value compass, as we have as Christian Democrats. It borders and makes politics at the expense of minorities. Rejection is the staple of AfD politics; Rejection and devaluation of minorities, refugees and other opinions. Freedom of expression applies to the AfD only if the own point of view finds confirmation. The AfD is therefore a party of negativism. That is the opposite of the Union. We have confidence in the future.
Cooperation with the Union is excluded
The Union must not go under the wing of the AfD. The AfD does not want to enter into a supposedly bourgeois alliance with the Union, but wants to destroy and replace the CDU and CSU in the long term. For the Union, this means that cooperation with the AfD is excluded. Rather, the Union must close the vacuum that drove the Union voters to the AfD.
If the CDU wants to exist as a people's party, it must take care of the mental opinion leadership in the country. This also means that conservative and bourgeois ideas and ideas should not be left to the populists from the right. The claim is that the parties of the modern, conservative bourgeoisie are the CDU and CSU. This means that we do not retell foreign and anti-constitution AfD myths, but take care of the actual fight against causes. Globalization, digitization or migration - all foreign words, which unsettle many people and threaten traditional values and beliefs, while they quickly lead social elites in the mouth. In this context, many citizens ask: Does the People's Party CDU still understand us? Does she take care of our worries and ideas? In this political-social space, we must not leave room as a Union. For in uncertain times it depends on real conservatives and true bourgeois politics.
In order not to be misunderstood: the CDU will succeed only as a People's Party of the middle; Christian-social, liberal and conservative. But: People should not get the impression that only social democrats from different parties work in German politics. Therefore, in the debate with the AfD is not about painting on the party image, but a struggle for the mood in the country, to a substantive sharpening and the filling of terms.
The basic requirement for this is a clear compass. Our Christian Democratic compass shows us that cooperation with the AfD is not responsible and not possible. The AfD is essentially an anti-Germany party. The AfD wants another, a darker, a colder Germany. CDU and CSU want a better Germany.