Read the video transcript here
Ulle Schauws, member of the Bundestag, Die Grünen:
»I don't want to say battle arena now, but the plenary is a bit like that!
So I am no longer giving a speech in plenary as I did in the previous legislative period. "
Helge Lindh, member of the Bundestag, SPD:
"There are utterances, comments, heckling, but also speeches that were previously unimaginable."
September 24, 2017, shortly after 6 p.m.
With more than 12 percent, the AfD is the third strongest force in the Bundestag for the first time - and declared war on the other parties.
Alexander Gauland, then AfD top candidate:
"We will hunt them, we will hunt Ms. Merkel or whoever."
Ann-Katrin Müller, DER SPIEGEL:
»Since the AfD has been in the Bundestag, the climate has become much harsher.
It's a lot more aggressive, a lot more racist and also a lot more misogynistic. "
The right-wing populists rely on four methods.
Method 1: The AfD primarily uses the Bundestag as a stage.
Ann-Katrin Müller, DER SPIEGEL:
“You can't tell now that she works a lot in terms of content in committees, at least that's what employees tell me about other parliamentary groups, but she just wants to step up to the desk and have a video, what she can then share on social networks. "
Alice Weidel, AfD parliamentary group leader:
"I can tell you that burqas, headscarf girls and alimented knife men and other good-for-nothing will not secure our prosperity, economic growth and, above all, the welfare state."
Ann-Katrin Müller, DER SPIEGEL:
"There were a lot of attempts to stir up the mood and shift the discourse significantly to the right."
Gottfried Curio, member of the Bundestag, AfD:
»A one-two-way pass that has become a rule undermines the state and democracy.
We don't want that. "
Method 2: The AfD disrupts the speeches of the other MPs.
Ulle Schauws, member of the Bundestag, Die Grünen:
"I always have a very loud noise level and heckling from the right side in the plenary."
Heckling has always been part of the debate in the Bundestag, but the massive taboos are new.
Claudia Roth, Vice President of the Bundestag:
“We have just been informed by the government bank that there was an interjection from the AfD, where they speak of› natural selection ‹.
Quote."
Helge Lindh, member of the Bundestag, SPD:
"Although the heckling, so to speak, which is not logged, is often even worse and so below the belt that it freezes sometimes."
Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, Member of the Bundestag, FDP:
“But if the ladies and gentlemen Ms. von Storch and above all the gentlemen speak in the context of transgender people, of pigs and cows, then I would like to say clearly: I very much regret Madam President.
That’s why I’m coming forward.
You don't hear what's going on here.
Women have an even harder time here than men:
Ulle Schauws, member of the Bundestag, Die Grünen:
»I am an openly lesbian politician, one of the few by the way.
I have no kids.
And that is very often thrown around my ears by the AfD, for example, as an argument, also through heckling.
They package it differently, but in principle: You can't talk about things at all, such as reproduction.
You are simply not the one who is helping our German people not to die out.
And those are things that they tell you. "
The AfD not only pollutes the atmosphere during the debates.
The mood in the whole house has changed.
Ulle Schauws, member of the Bundestag, Die Grünen:
"The openness with which one actually walks through the corridors or the plenary session or simply greets people through the premises in the Bundestag has changed, for example."
Dealing is now more reserved, colder.
Ulle Schauws, member of the Bundestag, Die Grünen:
“And in fact, the situation worsened significantly relatively quickly in the first few weeks and months.
So very clearly on confrontational situations that we have experienced and also in the committee. "
Ultimately, the AfD is also using parliamentary tricks to make democratic work more difficult.
Marco Buschmann, Member of the Bundestag, FDP:
"Your parliamentary group wrote on paper that it wanted to flood this German Bundestag with motions until we are no longer able to work here."
Helge Lindh, member of the Bundestag, SPD:
"From the first minute, even from the first few weeks when the AfD shot out application after application with a fairly clear goal and topic, it became clear to us that this fundamentally changes parliamentary work."
Ulle Schauws, member of the Bundestag, Die Grünen:
»There has always been such a murmur in the plenary.
If, for example, an AfD application comes, then it applies to everyone.
So we're sitting there with the SPD and the Left and the FDP and so on.
And just wait for them to start addressing them now, regardless of the topic, to start linking it with the topic of migration or flight. "
Finding a way to deal with all of these methods has been a major challenge for the rest of the political groups.
The MPs seek direct confrontation when speaking.
Helge Lindh, member of the Bundestag, SPD:
“Germans, buy German lemons.
This is how it shrills, your melody.
To spare the brain from thinking, you are always at the forefront.
AfD.
Oh dear, oh dear! "
In the meantime, however, the parliamentary groups no longer carry out every guerrilla war with the AfD.
Wolfgang Schäuble, President of the Bundestag:
»The colleague von Storch would like to ask a question.
Do you allow it? "
Olaf Scholz, Vice Chancellor, SPD:
"There are interventions, which I believe, will advance our debate and others, about which you can safely say beforehand, will probably not be like that."
After four years it is clear: the AfD has changed parliamentary work.
But the party did not get any further with the voters.
In current surveys, she only comes in fifth.
Probably also because the AfD has radicalized further since the last election.
Ann-Katrin Müller, DER SPIEGEL:
»The AfD is no longer a protest voter party, but everyone who votes it knows where to mark it. And that's an extremely right-wing party. "