Germany is waking up – finally!

These days, millions of Germans are taking to the streets: for their liberal democracy, which is threatened by the AfD like never before after the Nazi regime.

102-year-old Holocaust survivor Margot Friedländer says: “It started with the Nazis in the Weimar Republic, just as it is now with the AfD. An alarm signal! Nobody can say in future that we couldn’t have known where this would lead with the AfD.

These days, millions of people are demonstrating against the AfD: In Berlin and Hamburg, in Cologne and Munich, in Frankfurt and Freiburg, in Mannheim, in Heidelberg and in Baden-Baden. Demonstrations have already been registered in over 70 cities. Democracy is alive. The hitherto silent majority is waking up – finally! There should be no dictatorship in Germany like the one threatening the USA under Trump. The AfD is to Germany what Trump is to the USA. That is becoming increasingly clear. Trump has declared democracy to be the enemy. And the Germans never want Auschwitz again. Civil society is now rising up against the far right and neo-fascism. More and more are even calling for the AfD to be banned. Of course, it is questionable whether this will really help.

Almost one and a half million people have signed a petition calling for the Thuringian AfD leader Björn Höcke to be stripped of his right to stand for election. Höcke is a Nazi according to a court ruling. And in three eastern German states, the AfD is – according to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution – “definitely right-wing extremist” and does not stand on the ground of the Basic Law.

The AfD’s previously flaunted civic-mindedness and “loyalty to the constitution” is merely a façade. This party wants to abolish democracy and thus our freedom. Examples of this:

•  On August 29, 2020, a mob with Reich flags tried to storm the Bundestag on the fringes of a coronavirus demonstration.
•  In September 2020, AfD MPs smuggled rabble-rousing right-wing extremist activists into the Bundestag to spy on parliament for an armed coup. Weapons and ammunition were already ready. This is a parallel to the attempted coup in the USA – approved by Trump after his election defeat. The AfD is faithfully ridiculing the German coup attempt.
•  The AfD’s secret meeting with members of the so-called Werteunion, right-wing extremists and business people as well as the personal advisor of AfD leader Alice Weidel in Potsdam at the end of 2023.

This meeting, which the “Correctiv” network uncovered in its thankful research, was primarily about “remigration”. This actually means the deportation of millions of people from Germany: refugees, asylum seekers and all those who do not really correspond to the AfD’s ethnic purity fantasies, a total of 25 million people who live here with a migration background, including millions of people with a German passport. This “remigration” is not a crime, “but a promise”, says one AfD MP. It could hardly be clearer. A monstrosity. So our plea to the “remigrants” in Germany: please don’t leave us alone with these AfD Germans!

All the polls for the 2024 elections (European elections and three state elections in eastern Germany) show that the AfD is becoming ever stronger and a threat to democracy. Not because so many Germans have become Nazis again, but because they don’t know or want to know enough about the AfD’s true intentions or because they are disappointed with the democratic parties. This fact is – to put it mildly – reckless, careless – and above all dangerous for democracy.

In this situation, the state has a duty to at least consider and initiate a ban procedure against the AfD. At the very least, the radical “Junge Alternative” (JA) is ripe for a ban. That is the lesson of the Nazi era: never again fascism, never again Auschwitz, never again xenophobia.

Former Federal President Wulff reminded 35,000 demonstrators in Hanover that the Wannsee Conference took place in Berlin 82 years ago to the day. It had become a symbol of the planned, systematic killing of the Jews of Europe. “That is why we must never again allow the selection of people based on origin, appearance, religion, handicap or any other criterion to be discussed in Germany,” said Wulff.

Of course, it is even better and more democratic than a ban on the AfD that the citizens and voters themselves rise up and draw attention to the danger. It is a good thing that millions of Germans are now taking to the streets in protest against the AfD. It is high time for this. Articles 18 and 20 of the Basic Law stipulate: no freedom for the declared enemies of freedom.

However, the fight against right-wing extremism is a long-term task for all democrats, a marathon, not a sprint. The AfD must not be allowed to become a super disaster for our democracy. Now it is primarily up to our civil society, to us! Also on the friends of this sunny side! Because the AfD also denies man-made climate change. It does so against all scientific evidence. The AfD is not an alternative for Germany, but currently the greatest threat to Germany. But we are currently experiencing that our democracy is a defensive democracy. That’s a good thing! And keep it up. There is more to come!

Source

Franz Alt 2024 | Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)