Germany megathread

[CumbrianLefty]

A recording from December has Björn Höcke (AfD) saying that he wants to deport 20%-30% of the German population, arguing the country could easily handle it provided that ethnic German women would increase their birthrates in the aftermath.

So he has basically outed himself as an actual Nazi. Good.

[President Johnson]

A recording from December has Björn Höcke (AfD) saying that he wants to deport 20%-30% of the German population, arguing the country could easily handle it provided that ethnic German women would increase their birthrates in the aftermath.

So he has basically outed himself as an actual Nazi. Good.

That's why AfD should be banned.

[OSR stands with Israel]

There's this old saying... when the public discourse is about immigration, the AfD wins. When the discourse is about the AfD, the AfD loses.

I'm conflicted on that question.

Some argue the democratic parties should pay less attention to "AfD issues" like immigration because the political discourse around these only increases support for them. There's some truth to that, but on the other hand, people are apparently concerned about that. If SPD, Greens, FDP and CDU/CSU just ignore them, AfD and the media will say the governing parties and democratic opposition blatently refuse to address issues important to voters.

I find the whole idea of not addressing issues because you dont want to legitimize a fringe party as being completely ridiculous. No, what legitimizes fringe parties and politicians is the fact that the mainstream is not addressing issues the public wants addresses which increases the appeal of such fringe parties.

Like AFD's rise is directly the fault of mainstream parties calling anyone who opposed the refugee policy of the Merkel years as racist bigots .

That's a pretty simplified analysis ignoring any other factors as well as the fact that right-wing populist and right-wing extremist movements have been on the rise worldwide in recent years, from Poland to Italy to the U.S. to Brazil to arguably India. Germany is in fact the last one to the party. So it's questionable to what extent domestic policies played a role in any significant manner. "It's Merkel's fault" is merely repeating the AfD's own partyline.

A common theory in political science, I think, is that in the early 21st century political camps don't divide along the old traditional "right"/"left" lines any longer, but rather along the line between the (self-perceived) winners and losers of globalization (or as a Trumpist would say, "globalism").

This is why the gradual rise of both the AfD and the Greens (the latter of which with a temporary? dent in their polling right now) in the past five to ten years had been attributed to that very same phenomenon: The tradtional right/left parties of CDU and SPD being replaced by the more clear-cut pro- or anti-globalization AfD and Greens.

In addition, the rise of social media as a tool for political communication (and to signifcant extent, misinformation) served as facilitator for the rise of more extremist forces, both in Germany and abroad.

Because Mainstream parties across the west acted extremely similar on the immigration issue

[Yeahsayyeah]

A recording from December has Björn Höcke (AfD) saying that he wants to deport 20%-30% of the German population, arguing the country could easily handle it provided that ethnic German women would increase their birthrates in the aftermath.

So he has basically outed himself as an actual Nazi. Good.

Has this ever been in doubt?

[President Johnson]

A recording from December has Björn Höcke (AfD) saying that he wants to deport 20%-30% of the German population, arguing the country could easily handle it provided that ethnic German women would increase their birthrates in the aftermath.

So he has basically outed himself as an actual Nazi. Good.

Has this ever been in doubt?

Anybody who doubted it before should just google "Landolf Ladig".

[Yeahsayyeah]

In other Fascism news:

* The German domestic intelligence service aka Verfassungsschutz - which would translate to something like Federal Agency for defense of the constitution - is observing its former president, Hans Georg Maaßen, for right-wing extremism.

* The vice chair of the AfD's Arbitration Tribunal, Roland Ulbrich, known as someone for whom Björn Höcke is too left wing, has left the Tribunal and the AfD caucus in the state parliament of Saxony and is probably on his way out of the party. It seems that using the Nuremberg race laws as a basis for arguments in an intraparty judicial dispute goes one step too far even for them, at least officially - at least at the moment, as they are under greater scrutiny for their mass deportation plans.

[Middle-aged Europe]

* The German domestic intelligence service aka Verfassungsschutz - which would translate to something like Federal Agency for defense of the constitution - is observing its former president, Hans Georg Maaßen, for right-wing extremism.

The fact that there is still no Bundestag inquiry board to investigate how Maaßen could have become president of the Verfassungsschutz and remained it for so long, is a scandal in itself IMO.

(When he was appointed back in 2012 by interior minister Hans-Peter Friedrich (CSU) this had already been met with criticism due to Maaßen's prior performance as an mid-level official in the interior ministry. When he was fired in 2018, this only happened after a longer conflict within the grand coalition because then-interior minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) had initially refused to dismiss him. Seehofer eventually agreed to remove Maaßen from his position at the Verfassungsschutz under the condition that he would appointed undersecretary at the interior ministry instead. After this caused a further wave of criticism from the SPD as well as opposition parties ranging from the FDP to the Left, Seehofer finally relented and sent Maaßen into early retirement.)

[Yeahsayyeah]

Well, for the CDU and CSU the percieved dangers from left wing extremism and since 2001 islamic extremism has almost ever been of greater importance than right wing extremism. And Maaßen had "credentials" in the latter for throwing Murat Kurnaz under the bus using a vile approach of formal jurisprudential "logic".

The question which damage Maaßen did during this stint to the institution (at least, if one concedes that its task really is "defending the constitution and democracy", would probably be of much greater importance than how Maaßen got there (aka  the CSU and CDU often is part of the problem and not so much the solution of the persistence and rise of authoritarian right-wingism in Germany).

I could go on about former CDU senator Peter Kurth for finance of Berlin sponsoring the Identitarian movement and other far right networks  or the CDU member of the House of Representatives of Berlin, Kurt Wasner, and his tirades that the broad demonstrations of the last weeks are the "parade of left wing radical combat units"..

[Middle-aged Europe]

The Verfassungschutz - and the intelligence agencies in general - having an institutional right-wing bend has always been a bit of a problem. In particular since they had all been initially founded by, in part, by former Abwehr or Gestapo staff from WWII.

Maaßen's successor (and former deputy) Thomas Haldenwang seems to be a breath of fresh air in that regard, despite his CDU membership and all. He usually goes out of his way to make sure that nobody can mistake him for having a right-wing bias, probably being fully aware that part of his job description is to win back trust in the institution after the Maaßen debacle. Given that he must authorized designating his former boss as a right-wing extremist I'm also sensing a bit of a Trump-Pence dynamic here or something.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Fascism news:

Brandenburgian state MP Lars Hünich (AfD) calls for the abolishment of "the party state":
https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/deutschland/afd-brandenburg-parteienstaat-abschaffen-100.html

Funny, Hitler did the same thing back in '33... abolish all political parties except for his own.

Which also happens to be the reason why political parties received a constitutionally protected status in Article 21 of the constitution of 1949, something they did no have in the old Weimar constitution.


Fun fact though: Hünich is a classic horseshoe theory guy, having previously been a member of the Left Party from 2006 to 2014.

[CumbrianLefty]

The true nature of the AfD being starkly revealed does seem to be having some effect on the polls.

[Middle-aged Europe]

The true nature of the AfD being starkly revealed does seem to be having some effect on the polls.

It's quite possible, if not likely, that following the Correctiv report on the "Potsdam Conference" (no, not the one in '45) the AfD is now much more under media scrutiny. And if you lift some rocks, you find some dirty things.

Personally, I've read the Thuringian Verfassungschutz' report on the AfD recently. Apparently, they've got a MP in the state parliament down there who bases his opposition to supporting Ukraine on the argument that Ukraine is supposedly "dominated by Jews" who plan to transform the country into a "Khazar Israel".

Name of that MP is Thomas Rudy, for the record.

[Yeahsayyeah]

Wait until he finds out about the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in Russia. 😉

[Middle-aged Europe]

AfD under 20 again with the third pollster, BSW would replace Left in parliament, SPD and Greens slightly recovering:


Infratest-dimap for ARD

CDU/CSU 30% (-1)
AfD 19% (-3)
SPD 16% (+2)
Greens 14% (+1)
BSW 5%
FDP 4% (-1)
Left 3% (-1)

[President Johnson]

AfD under 20 again with the third pollster, BSW would replace Left in parliament, SPD and Greens slightly recovering:


Infratest-dimap for ARD

CDU/CSU 30% (-1)
AfD 19% (-3)
SPD 16% (+2)
Greens 14% (+1)
BSW 5%
FDP 4% (-1)
Left 3% (-1)

Narrow majority in the poll also against a AfD ban and says the party must be confronted politically. I think it's a mistake to seperate the two, especially since the process that leads to a ban takes years and we need a strategy in the meantime.

Scholz actually had a good run this week, both with his Bundestag speech yesterday, in which he forcefully attacked Merz for being a whiner and today at the EU summit. He forced Orban to drop his opposition to Ukraine aid and demanded others besides Germany to increase their efforts. We need more of this, he can actually be a leader but needs much better messaging.

[Storr]

Speaking of AfD Bundestag members:

"Exclusive: A controversial aide to Bundestag deputy Eugen Schmidt, of Germany's far-right AfD party, is an agent of Russian intelligence. Oh, and his handler raps!

As @InsiderEngand our partner @derspiegel reported in August, Vladimir Sergienko, 52, a Lviv-born German parliamentary aide, had been communicating with a certain suspected FSB operative named "Alexei." Alexei, we've discovered, is Ilya Vechtomov, 36ish, an officer of the FSB.

Vechtomov is attached to the Ninth Division of Operational Information Department (DOI) of the FSB Fifth Service, the unit targeting Ukraine. (Earlier this week, @InsiderEng exposed Latvian MEP Tatiana Zdanoka as an agent of the Fifth Service)

But Vechtomov, Sergienko's case officer, isn't any old spy. He's a self-promoting Russian hip hop star who performs under the stage name, "Fox D’Liss" as part of a trio called OSII.  (I'm not making this up, I swear.)

Offstage, Vechtomov is no less energetic. Under his tasking, Sergienko has tried to slow or stop the delivery of Leopard 2 tanks to Kyiv. The plan was to sue the German government for not consulting the Bundestag on security assistance.

Sergienko wanted $93,000 from Vechtomov for the legal fees, all to be paid to white-shoe German law firms. In fact, the AfD faction filed a suit on exactly these grounds, but extended the complaint well beyond the Leos.

Pretty much all weapons systems and military aid is covered. Even wool blankets and sleeping bags, the faction argued, could not be sent without Bundestag approval.

(The Ukrainian government has blamed delays in delivery of vital kit for the late start of its underwhelming counteroffensive last year.)

Sergienko and Vechtomov also chatted about funneling Russian money to dodgy NGOs in Germany. “Can we transfer money to a German NGO? I would need the bank details,” Vechtomov messaged Sergienko on April 14, 2023.

Sergienko responded: “Yes, we can transfer to a German NGO. I will check with the auditor.” Sergienko even drafted a letter on behalf of several AfD politicos and one such NGO, Vadar, to Pope Francis about the alleged "persecution" of Christians in Ukraine.

(Sergineko's boss, Eugen Schmidt, is on the board of Vadar.) The aide kindly shared the draft missive with Vechtomov in advance of sending it on to the Vatican.

More recently, Sergienko railed against arming Ukraine at a "Peace with Russia" rally sponsored by the German magazine Compact in Magdeburg. He received a rapturous response.

Of course, private communiques with "Alexei" weren't Sergienko's only eyebrow-raising activities. Last April he was caught traveling to and from Russia with 9,000 euros in cash, just under the limit of 10,000 euros that must be declared at German customs.

Sergienko is now facing the revocation of his German citizenship because he lied on his naturalization form, claiming he'd only had Ukrainian citizenship, which he renounced. (Until last month, Germany did not allow dual citizenship.)

In fact, he has a Russian passport, issued in 2022. It was discovered with the cash during a security check in Hamburg upon his return from the Motherland.

As of now, Sergienko has had his unrestricted to the Bundestag access temporarily suspended. He must enter parliamentary grounds under escort now. (It's pretty remarkable he can even do that.)

Sergienko insists to us he's innocent. "The said connections to Russia are fiction and the said contact person, Ilya Vechtomov, does not exist for me," he told @derspiegel.

Even worse: these annoying press inquiries are distracting him from his important new book project on “preventing the Third World War.” /END"

Der Spiegel article

The Insider article

https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1753087360185635063?s=20

[Middle-aged Europe]

Fourth poll with AfD under 20. SPD recovering. BSW overtakes Left again.


Forschungsgruppe Wahlen for ZDF
CDU/CSU 31% (+/-0)
AfD 19% (-3)
SPD 15% (+2)
Greens 13% (-1)
BSW 6% (+2)
FDP 4% (+/-0)
Left 3% (-1)
Free Voters 3% (-1)

[Storr]

Speaking of AfD Bundestag members:

"Exclusive: A controversial aide to Bundestag deputy Eugen Schmidt, of Germany's far-right AfD party, is an agent of Russian intelligence. Oh, and his handler raps!

As @InsiderEngand our partner @derspiegel reported in August, Vladimir Sergienko, 52, a Lviv-born German parliamentary aide, had been communicating with a certain suspected FSB operative named "Alexei." Alexei, we've discovered, is Ilya Vechtomov, 36ish, an officer of the FSB.

Vechtomov is attached to the Ninth Division of Operational Information Department (DOI) of the FSB Fifth Service, the unit targeting Ukraine. (Earlier this week, @InsiderEng exposed Latvian MEP Tatiana Zdanoka as an agent of the Fifth Service)

But Vechtomov, Sergienko's case officer, isn't any old spy. He's a self-promoting Russian hip hop star who performs under the stage name, "Fox D’Liss" as part of a trio called OSII.  (I'm not making this up, I swear.)

Offstage, Vechtomov is no less energetic. Under his tasking, Sergienko has tried to slow or stop the delivery of Leopard 2 tanks to Kyiv. The plan was to sue the German government for not consulting the Bundestag on security assistance.

Sergienko wanted $93,000 from Vechtomov for the legal fees, all to be paid to white-shoe German law firms. In fact, the AfD faction filed a suit on exactly these grounds, but extended the complaint well beyond the Leos.

Pretty much all weapons systems and military aid is covered. Even wool blankets and sleeping bags, the faction argued, could not be sent without Bundestag approval.

(The Ukrainian government has blamed delays in delivery of vital kit for the late start of its underwhelming counteroffensive last year.)

Sergienko and Vechtomov also chatted about funneling Russian money to dodgy NGOs in Germany. “Can we transfer money to a German NGO? I would need the bank details,” Vechtomov messaged Sergienko on April 14, 2023.

Sergienko responded: “Yes, we can transfer to a German NGO. I will check with the auditor.” Sergienko even drafted a letter on behalf of several AfD politicos and one such NGO, Vadar, to Pope Francis about the alleged "persecution" of Christians in Ukraine.

(Sergineko's boss, Eugen Schmidt, is on the board of Vadar.) The aide kindly shared the draft missive with Vechtomov in advance of sending it on to the Vatican.

More recently, Sergienko railed against arming Ukraine at a "Peace with Russia" rally sponsored by the German magazine Compact in Magdeburg. He received a rapturous response.

Of course, private communiques with "Alexei" weren't Sergienko's only eyebrow-raising activities. Last April he was caught traveling to and from Russia with 9,000 euros in cash, just under the limit of 10,000 euros that must be declared at German customs.

Sergienko is now facing the revocation of his German citizenship because he lied on his naturalization form, claiming he'd only had Ukrainian citizenship, which he renounced. (Until last month, Germany did not allow dual citizenship.)

In fact, he has a Russian passport, issued in 2022. It was discovered with the cash during a security check in Hamburg upon his return from the Motherland.

As of now, Sergienko has had his unrestricted to the Bundestag access temporarily suspended. He must enter parliamentary grounds under escort now. (It's pretty remarkable he can even do that.)

Sergienko insists to us he's innocent. "The said connections to Russia are fiction and the said contact person, Ilya Vechtomov, does not exist for me," he told @derspiegel.

Even worse: these annoying press inquiries are distracting him from his important new book project on “preventing the Third World War.” /END"

Der Spiegel article

The Insider article

https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1753087360185635063?s=20

Update:

"Vladimir Sergienko, an aide to Bundestag deputy Eugen Schmidt of the AfD, has "ceased all activity" for the MP after a report by The Insider and @derspiegel exposed him as an FSB asset.

Schmidt announced the development in a press release earlier today."

https://twitter.com/InsiderEng/status/1753538915640733873?s=20

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

We have some details on what the Bundestag's legislative agenda looks like in 2024:

• The vote to legalize recreational marijuana might happen around the 19th, and the law would take effect on April 1st, after two years of political wrangling and coordination with EU law 🚬🌿
• Starting Opportunities Act – agreed by states and federal government on February 1st, 2024. From August 1st, 2024, €2 billion per year will flow to 4.000 schools and vocational instutitions that have a high proportion of disadvantaged students for 10 years. It will be split 50-50 between the states and the feds. The SPD is demanding up to €5 billion per year. The focus will be on improving reading, writing, and mathematics skills, with the goal of reducing the number of struggling students by half by 2034. The program will start with 1.000 schools in 2024-2025 school year, increasing to 4.000 by 2026-2027, of which 2.400 are primary schools.
• Pension Package II – the pension level will be stabilized at 48% of long-run average lifetime wage from 2025 onwards. The FDP's long desired "stock pension", i.e. the German pension funds change from being a purely pay-as-you-go system to one that invests in stocks and bonds to build up so-called "generational capital" to stabilize pension contributions starting in mid-2030s. The package will deliver on the SPD and Green's promise that there will be no increase in retirement age from the current 67. To jumpstart the stock pension, €12 billion in new debt will be issued to contribute to stock pension fund. SPD Labour Minister Hubertus Heil wants to submit a draft in February 2024 and get this passed ASAP
• Rent control extension – the current rent index + rent brake regime is due to expire 31.12.2025; the Scholz government is looking to extend it through end of 2028. They also want to extend its reach, and have it apply to all municipalities with more than 100.000 inhabitants uniformly. The “look back” period which is used to calculate the rent index will increase from 6 years to 7 years. The rent brake is to be tightened to 11% over three years from current 15% (which works out to a maximum of 3.6% per year over 3 years instead of the current 6.5%). They also want to introduce a rent cap, with the maximum rent in a particularly “hot” area to be capped at 10% above median rent. While the FDP agreed to this in the 2021 coalition agreement, they have dragged their feet on this, much to the chargin of the SPD and Greens
• Federal Collective Bargaining Act – this has been a major SPD goal since 2002, when a similar law was blocked by the CDU-dominated Bundesrat that summer. The law would require the federal government to only conduct business with suppliers who provide more than €10.000 per year in goods/services and have signed a collective bargaining agreement. Employers will be required to record working times electronically for compliance. While many states implemented their own laws since 1999, and these laws were a major political football in the early-2000s, with the CDU-FDP government in Sachsen-Anhalt repealing the law passed by the SPD-PDS government after the 2002 state elections, there is no such law a the federal level. This is a major desire of the trade unions and much of the SPD base. Hubertus Heil wants a vote in June.
• Amendments to the Supply Chain Act – the new amendments being discussed will strengthen the position of farmers and producers vis-a-vis processing and food trading companies. Not sure of the timeline of this.
• "Climate Money" debate – the federal cabinet has said they want the payment infrastructure set up by the end of this year, and they could start payments in 2025. Currently, they are discussing one-off direct payments of €139 per person to redistribute the money from environmental taxes. The FDP is demanding equal payments across the board (i.e. will also be paid to higher-income households), while the SPD and Greens want more targeted aid. Polling suggests that direct payments not popular; instead the population would prefer investment in climate protection or reducing VAT. The SPD proposal of payments only to households with gross income below €4.000 per month only moderately approved, as is proposal for targeted payments for particularly burdened households (e.g. those with oil heaters or long commutes by car). With the ongoing recession and escalating environmental taxes, I think they really want to sort this out before the election year.
• Investment Protection Act – the draft law's goal is better control of exports and protection of critical infrastructure regarding foreign ownership and investment. Right now, the Ministry of Economic Affairs has had a busy two years reviewing many cases, with over 50 of those cases relating to Chinese investments in Germany. The law is still in the draft stage, so not exactly sure how it would work or if it could even come up for a vote this year, but it would expand the Ministry's powers.

The Self-Determination Act was passed by the federal council back in August 2023 and submitted to the Bundestag, but not sure what the hold-up is there. There is also no news on the Right-to-Home-Office law, which has not even been drafted, or the reintroduction of nonprofit housing associations, which were abolished by the Kohl government in 1990 after the Neue Heimat scandal.

Despite the constant infighting that spills out into public on an almost-daily manner, the Traffic Light parties still have quite an ambitious agenda. The question is how much trouble the FDP will make, seeing as these items are more SPD and Green policies, which the FDP has been getting flack for supporting, but also the FDP did agree to all of these things back in 2021.

So 2024 will be fun!

[Storr]

Italy is growing faster than Germany

"Official statistics released last week revealed the Italian economy grew by 0.5 percent in the last quarter of 2023, while German growth, for all its manufacturing might, had shrunk by 0.2 percent.

And that might set the pattern for the whole year: the Bank of Italy forecasts 0.6 percent growth this year, while the Deutsche Bundesbank only expects 0.4 percent for Germany."

"Analysts argue that it’s not that Italy is doing especially well. It’s that Germany, for once, is doing worse."

"Franco Bruni, vice president of the Milan-based Institute for International Political Studies, noted that Germany’s position at the top of Europe’s manufacturing food chain has made it particularly vulnerable to China’s ongoing, grinding slowdown. Some 8 percent of German exports went to China in 2020, but last November, they accounted for just over 5 percent and were down 13 percent on the year. By contrast only 2.6 percent of Italian exports went to China in 2022."

[jaichind]

This follows my narrative of three similar-sized blocs

Ruling bloc                    32
Mainstream opposition   30
Anti-system opposition  28

https://twitter.com/Wahlen_DE/status/1754570541426524619

[Middle-aged Europe]

This follows my narrative of three similar-sized blocs

Ruling bloc                    32
Mainstream opposition   30
Anti-system opposition  28

Good for you, I guess.

[jaichind]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-05/even-olaf-scholz-is-admitting-germany-s-government-is-in-trouble

"Even Olaf Scholz Is Admitting Germany’s Government Is in Trouble
Usually upbeat chancellor stunned Germans with moment of doubt
Scholz’s coalition is battling budget woes and leaking support"

[Middle-aged Europe]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-05/even-olaf-scholz-is-admitting-germany-s-government-is-in-trouble

"Even Olaf Scholz Is Admitting Germany’s Government Is in Trouble
Usually upbeat chancellor stunned Germans with moment of doubt
Scholz’s coalition is battling budget woes and leaking support"

"Upbeat" and "Scholz" ain't two words that belong into the same sentence.

[Middle-aged Europe]

AfD drops below 20% in first poll, losing three points compared to previous week:

Verian for Focus:
CDU/CSU 29%
AfD 19%
SPD 16%
Greens 16%
FDP 4%
Left 4%
BSW 3%

Forsa follows suit btw, making it the second pollster with the AfD under 20% now.


CDU/CSU 32%
AfD 19%
SPD 15%
Greens 14%
FDP 3%
Left 3%
BSW 3%
Free Voters 3%

AfD drops another point with Forsa.

CDU/CSU 31% (-1)
AfD 18% (-1)
SPD 15% (+/-0)
Greens 14% (+/-0)
BSW 5% (+2)
FDP 4% (+1)
Left 3% (+/-0)
Free Voters 3% (+/-0)