{"id":4944,"date":"2025-01-28T14:27:47","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T19:27:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ouleft.org\/?p=4944"},"modified":"2025-01-28T14:31:56","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T19:31:56","slug":"when-oligarchs-go-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ouleft.org\/?p=4944","title":{"rendered":"–When Oligarchs Go Bad – Musk with Germany’s AfD"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Elon Musk and Germany’s Alternative f\u00fcr Deutschland. Part I.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Claire Berlinski<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cosmopolitan Globalist<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jan 24, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Democratic Dilemma and Militant Democracy<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Authoritarians are known for their ability to come to power legally, then destroy the rule of law. Hitler is the best known example.1<\/a> If it is difficult to strike the right balance between preventing this and avoiding undue restrictions on political expression in any democracy, it is all the more difficult in Germany, where at every turn you are blackmailed by history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Germans are highly averse to surveillance, having experienced not only Nazism but also the Stasi, one of the most oppressive intelligence networks the world has known. For the same reason, however, Germans are averse to political figures and parties who seek to undermine the freiheitliche demokratische Grundordnung<\/em>, or free democratic basic order. These are the constitutional principles enshrined in the <\/a>German Basic Law<\/a>,<\/strong> such as human dignity, equality before the law, the separation of powers, the rule of law, and minority rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conflict between these two sensitivities has been called the democratic dilemma. The problem it entails is vexed: How can liberal democracies protect themselves from those who are willing to use their own liberal institutions to subvert it while remaining a liberal democracy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Germany\u2019s answer to this question devolves from the work of the political scientist Karl Loewenstein, who developed his ideas in response to the \u201cseemingly irresistible surge\u201d of interwar fascism. In 1937, he published Militant Democracy And Fundamental Rights<\/a><\/strong> in the American Political Science Review. I\u2019ll quote from it at length, because it\u2019s fascinating:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u2026 Fascism is the true child of the age of technical wonders and of the emotional masses. This technique could be victorious only under the extraordinary conditions offered by democratic institutions. Its success is based on its perfect adjustment to democracy. Democracy and democratic tolerance have been used for their own destruction. Under cover of fundamental rights and the rule of law, the anti-democratic machine could be built up and set in motion legally. Calculating adroitly that democracy could not, without self-abnegation, deny to any body of public opinion the full use of the free institutions of speech, press, assembly, and parliamentary participation, fascist exponents systematically discredit the democratic order and make it unworkable by paralyzing its functions until chaos reigns. They exploit the tolerant confidence of democratic ideology that in the long run truth is stronger than falsehood, that the spirit assert itself against force. Democracy was unable to forbid the enemies of its very existence the use of democratic instrumentalities. Until very recently, democratic fundamentalism and legalistic blindness were unwilling to realize that the mechanism of democracy is the Trojan horse by which the enemy enters the city. To fascism in the guise of a legally recognized political party recorded all the opportunities of democratic institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026 If democracy believes in the superiority of its absolute values over the platitudes of fascism, it must live up to the demands of the hour, and every possible effort must be made to rescue it, even at the risk and cost of violating fundamental principles.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In the second part of the essay<\/a><\/strong>, Loewenstein undertakes a study of the measures European states had taken to defend themselves against the threat. France, Belgium, the Netherlands, England, the Irish free state, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, and Czechoslovakia, he writes, had risen to the occasion. They had (so far) successfully resisted fascism by transforming themselves into militant democracies. How, exactly? The effective measures, he reports, were surprisingly similar:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The most comprehensive and effective measure against fascism consists in prescribing subversive movements altogether. \u2026 [As a rule], such legislation is formulated very carefully in order to avoid discrimination against any particular political movement, thereby maintaining at least nominally the democratic principles of equality before the law and due process under the rule of law. \u2026 The decision as to whether a group is to be declared illegal lies with the discretionary power of the government, subject in some countries to an appeal to the court of the last instance. \u2026 Reconstituting a prescribed party under any pretense whatsoever is a crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026. All democratic states have enacted legislation against the formation of private paramilitary armies of political parties and against the wearing of political uniforms or parts there of (badges, armlets) and the bearing of any other symbol (flags, banners, emblems, streamers, and pennants) which serve to denote the political opinion of the person in public. These provisions\u2014too lightheartedly and facetiously called \u201cbills against indoctrination haberdashery\u201d\u2014strike at the roots of the fascist technique of propaganda, namely, self-advertisement and intimidation of others. \u2026 many states provided rapid remedies for forbidden incitement and agitation against and baiting of particular sections of the people because of their race, political attitude, or religious creed\u2014in particular, because of their allegiance to the existing republican and democratic form of government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026 Perhaps the thornist problem of democratic states still upholding fundamental rights is that of curbing the freedom of public opinion, speech, and press in order to check the unlawful use there of by revolutionary and subversive propaganda, when attack presents itself in the guise of lawful political criticism of existing institutions. Overt acts of incitement to armed sedition can easily be squashed, but the vast armory of fascist technique includes the more subtle weapons of vilifying, defaming, slandering, and last but not least, ridiculing the democratic state itself, its political institutions and leading personalities. \u2026 Democracies which have gone fascist have gravely sinned by their leniency, or by too legalistic concepts of the freedom of public opinion. Slowly, the remaining democracies are remedying the defect. \u2026 All such restrictions on the use of free speech and free press were greeted by fascists with the outcry that the democratic state was violating the very essence of its principles of freedom. But the measures proved effective in curbing the public propaganda of subversive movements and in maintaining the prestige of democratic institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026.Finally, specially selected political police for the discovery, repression, supervision, and control of anti-democratic and anti-constitutional activities and movements should be established in any democratic state at war against fascism. \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fire is fought with fire. Much has been done; still more remains to be done. Not even the maximum defense measures in democracies is equal to the minimum of self-protection which the most lenient authoritarian state teams indispensable. Furthermore, democracy should be on its guard against too much optimism. To overestimate the ultimate efficiency of legislative provisions against fascist emotional technique would be a dangerous self- deception. The statute-book is only a subsidiary expedient of the militant will for self-preservation. The most perfectly drafted and statutes are not worth the paper on which they are written unless supported by indomitable will to survive.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

He concludes on a discordant note, warning that liberal democracy\u2019s time may have passed:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Perhaps the time has come when it is no longer wise to close one\u2019s eyes to the fact that liberal democracy, suitable, in the last analysis, only for the political aristocrats among the nations, is beginning to lose the day to the awakened masses. Salvation of the absolute values of democracy is not to be expected from abdication in favor of emotionalism, used for wonton or selfish purposes by self-appointed leaders, but by deliberate transformation of obsolete forms and rigid concepts into the new instrumentalities of \u201cdisciplined\u201d or even\u2014let us not shy away from the word\u2014\u201cauthoritarian\u201d democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026 In this sense, democracy has to be redefined. It should be\u2014at least for the transitional stage until a better social adjustment to the conditions of the technological age has been accomplished\u2014the application of disciplined authority, by liberal-men, for the ultimate ends of liberal government: human dignity, and freedom.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I hope this introduction to Lowenstein persuades you to read the whole essay. It’s a serious and unsettling argument. It has a powerful logic, yet its conclusions are self-evidently dangerous. It\u2019s an unmistakably German<\/em> argument. I wish I could ask my grandfather what he thinks of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Future generations, I\u2019m sure, will look back at Western democracies and deplore us for doing so little to defend ourselves. But the idea of defending ourselves this<\/em> way would be anathema to our contemporaries. In the first place, we lack an indomitable will to survive: You\u2019ll look in vain for any figure on our political scene who exhibits a passion to defend constitutional democracy equal to the lunatic vigor of those who wish to destroy it. More to the point, the vast majority of our citizens understand liberal democracy to mean, \u201cI have the right to behave in any way I please, with no limiting principle.\u201d If a large cohort holds that being required to vaccinate themselves against communicable disease is an intolerable violation of their rights, imagine telling them that until they adapt to the conditions of our technological age, they require the tutelage of disciplined liberal authoritarians. That would go down a treat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But entertaining this thought is a detour. Suffice to say Loewenstein argued that democracies have not only the right, but the affirmative duty to ban organizations and parties that seek to subvert it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Taxonomy of Extremism<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The democratic dilemma is vexed for every democracy, but particularly for Germany, where it is has hardly been an abstraction. After the fall of the Third Reich, Germany took Loewenstein\u2019s ideas very<\/em> seriously and, under the watchful gaze of the occupying powers, ensured that the Basic Law enabled the banning of parties that seek to undermine or abolish the free democratic basic order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The law is not, however, insensate to the risk these powers pose. Banning a party is extremely hard to do so. The legal hurdles are high. It has been done only twice. In the 1950s, the Socialist Reich Party (the reconstituted Nazi party) was banned, as was the Communist Party of Germany. In 2003, efforts to ban the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party, or NPD failed on procedural grounds; in 2017, they failed because the court ruled that while it was assuredly true the NPD was unconstitutional in its attitudes and its goals, it was too insignificant to pose a threat. They would not ban the party simply for being obscene.2<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Germany gives the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt f\u00fcr Verfassungsschutz<\/em>, or BfV) highly circumscribed powers to monitor parties that threaten Germany\u2019s constitution. In another effort to balance political rights against the obvious, Section 86a of Germany\u2019s Criminal Code prohibits the use of symbols associated with unconstitutional organizations, including (especially) those of the Nazis. But because it is fearful of going too far, it doesn\u2019t prohibit the use of symbols that everyone knows damned well are just a substitute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AfD has long been described as \u201cfar-right\u201d in Germany\u2019s public discourse and media, but only in 2021 did Germany\u2019s domestic intelligence agency classify it as a \u201csuspected extremist\u201d organization, a designation that permits intelligence officers to wiretap party members and employ informants to monitor its activities. It arrived at this judgement from publicly available information, such as the party\u2019s program and statements made by its members, following years of observation. The BfV was unequivocal about the party\u2019s youth wing, the Junge Alternative<\/em>, or JA, and about three of the party\u2019s state branches (Germany has 16 states). These, it said, were \u201cconfirmed right-wing extremist.\u201d3<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under German law, an \u201cextremist\u201d organization is defined as a group whose activities are directed against the free democratic basic order. Such a group seeks to abolish the fundamental principles of a liberal democracy, such as the sovereignty of the people, the separation of powers, and the protection of basic human rights. The BfV has a taxonomy of extremism: right-wing extremism, left-wing extremism, Islamist extremism, und so weiter.<\/em> Right-wing extremism is characterized by nationalism, antisemitism, racism, and xenophobia. The parts of the AfD that were confirmed as extremist organizations, according to the BfV, advocated an authoritarian state, undermined the separation of powers, and rejected pluralism in favor of a homogeneous national identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The German broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk has reported that more than 100 people who work for the AfD lawmakers and members of its parliamentary group belong to organizations classified as \u201cextremist.\u201d (The Fl\u00fcgel<\/em> faction of the party, which was officially disbanded in 2020 but is believed to remain influential, is known for being particularly extreme.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AfD denies that it is neo-Nazi party, and unlike Elon Musk, its leading politicians don\u2019t bust out the Hitlergru\u00df <\/em>with billions of people watching. But this means only that they don\u2019t want their party banned and they don\u2019t want to go to jail. They don\u2019t need to make things explicit: They are very capable of conveying their meaning without violating the letter of the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Germany\u2019s federal elections will take place on February 23. The AfD is currently polling in second place. It expects to take about 20 percent of the vote. It will not govern, because all of Germany\u2019s major parties have stated categorically that they will under no circumstances consider the AfD as a coalition partner. The concern, however, is fourfold. First, unlike many radical parties, the AfD has not mellowed with time. To the contrary, it grows more extreme with every change of leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, this is not the insignificant NPD, but the biggest opposition party in Germany. It took 15.9 percent of the vote on June 9\u2014its best result nationwide since its founding in 2013\u2014and its vote share is growing. Inevitably, its noisy presence on the political scene normalizes views that are antithetical to the free basic democratic order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third, Russia is working assiduously to bring it to power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fourth, so is Elon Musk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Secret Meeting in Potsdam<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In January 2024, the German nonprofit research group Correctiv<\/em> reported that high-ranking AfD politicians, neo-Nazis, members of nationalist student fraternities, and sympathetic businesspeople had met in secret in a hotel near Potsdam to plan the forcible deportation of millions of immigrants and German citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe meeting was meant to remain secret at all costs,\u201d wrote Correctiv:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Communications between the organizers and guests took place strictly via letters. However, copies of these letters were leaked to CORRECTIV, and we took pictures. Our undercover reporter checked into the hotel under a false name and was on site with a camera.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Roland Hartwig, personal aide to the AfD\u2019s leader, Alice Weidel\u2014with whom Elon Musk recently giggled and stammered on a Twitter Space chat\u2014was in attendance, as was the Austrian neo-Nazi Martin Sellner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sellner is a real piece of work. He became involved in Austria\u2019s neo-Nazi seen as a teenager, coming to the attention of the authorities at the age of 17, when he confessed to defacing a synagogue with swastikas to protest the conviction of British Holocaust denier David Irving. Since then, the police have picked him up regularly for such acts of hooliganism as disrupting a performance of Elfriede Jelinek\u2019s Die Schutzbefohlenen\u2014<\/em>which treats the odyssey of African migrants to Europe\u2014by throwing blood on the stage. He is barred from entering the United States and United Kingdom; he was arrested in Switzerland and released on the condition that he leave immediately and never come back. After the meeting in Potsdam, he was also barred from Germany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2012, Sellner founded the Identit\u00e4re Bewegung \u00d6sterreich<\/em>, the Identitarian Movement of Austria, which the BfV categorizes as part of the Neue Rechte, <\/em>or new right, and the Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance classifies as a far-right and neofascist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Neue Rechte <\/em>superficially distances itself from the neo-Nazi scene. The Identitarian Movement of Germany, for example, uses a yellow lambda, not a swastika, as its symbol, and its slogans are carefully phrased. By \u201ccarefully phrased,\u201d I mean, for example, this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Das EIGENE bedingungslos verteidigen! Die WEISSE HAND ist unser Zeichen gegen alle, die unsere IDENTIT\u00c4T zerst\u00f6ren. WIR sagen: Bis hierhin und nicht weiter.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

which may be translated,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Defend what is OURS unconditionally! The WHITE HAND is our symbol against all those who destroy our IDENTITY. WE say: This far and no further.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Note that they do not use words like Rasse<\/em> and Volk <\/em>so as not to immediately recall National Socialist slogans. The intentionally vague \u201cDas Eigene\u201d\u2014\u201cone\u2019s own\u201d\u2014is a favorite on the German far-right. So is \u201cidentity.\u201d The vagueness of these words provides legal deniability. It also. allows the slogan to appeal to a wider audience. Those who hear it are free to interpret it as a call to defend German culture or European values. The symbol of the white hand, however, speaks for itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Identit\u00e4re Bewegung \u00d6sterreich<\/em> is relentlessly hostile to the United States and deplores everything they consider to be an outgrowth of American imperialism. They oppose Austria\u2019s NATO partnership. They oppose international sanctions against Russia. They reject capitalism, communism, and socialism in favor of essentialist Third Position economics<\/a>. <\/strong>They <\/strong>call for an \u201cindependent alliance of sovereign nation-states\u201d with Russia. On their website and Facebook page, they cite Aleksandr Dugin, Dominique Venner, and Alain de Benoist as major influences.4<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The author of the Christchurch mosque massacre, Brenton Tarrant, so admired Sellner that he sent him a considerable amount of money. Austrian investigators suspected that Sellner was Tarrant\u2019s collaborator and raided his apartment in Vienna. After seizing his phone, computer and other devices, they discovered that he had deleted all of his exchanges with Tarrant 40 minutes before the raid, indicating that he had been tipped off.\u00a0<\/sup>Sellner denied any involvement in the attacks. In 2019, a judge ruled that the searches had been unlawfully predicated and the investigation was dropped. (Continued)<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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The Masterplan<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Back to the gathering in Potsdam. The organizer was a retired dentist named Gernot M\u00f6rig with longstanding Nazi links (he\u2019s the son of one, for one thing; his father joined the NSDAP in 1932 and was a member of the SA.) Gernot M\u00f6rig was well-known on the v\u00f6lkisch<\/em> scene, as was his whole family.5<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the invitation to the event, M\u00f6rig wrote proudly that \u201cthe masterplan\u201d would be presented by \u201cnone other\u201d than Martin Sellner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sellner was the first speaker of the day. Correctiv<\/em> set the scene:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Sellner takes the floor. In his speech he details what remigration would mean in Germany. There are three target groups of migrants, he explains, who should be extradited from the country\u2014or, as he puts it, \u201cforeigners\u201d who should undergo \u201creversed settlement.\u201d They are: asylum seekers, non-Germans with residency rights, and \u201cnon-assimilated\u201d German citizens. It is the latter that, in his view, would pose the biggest \u201cchallenge.\u201d In other words, Sellner\u2019s plan would divide German residents into those who would be able to live peacefully in Germany and those for whom this basic human right would no longer apply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scenarios sketched out in this hotel room in Potsdam all essentially boil down to one thing: people in Germany should be forcibly extradited if they have the wrong skin color, the wrong parents, or aren\u2019t sufficiently \u201cassimilated\u201d into German culture, according to the standards of people like Sellner. Even if they have German citizenship.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The majority of the subsequent presentations and discussions, Correctiv<\/em> reported, focused on this concept. The participants also discussed sending people to a \u201cmodel state\u201d in North Africa, an idea with a pedigree no one there could have missed: The Nazis initially planned to deport millions of Jews to Madagascar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was no objection to the masterplan from the AfD politicians in the room, Correctiv<\/em> reported, just questions about how to implement it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Silke Schr\u00f6der, a property developer and board member of the right-leaning Verein Deutsche Sprache<\/em> (German Language Association), wonders how re-migration would work in practice. Surely if a person has the \u201cappropriate\u201d passport it would be \u201cimpossible,\u201d wouldn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Sellner, this is just a detail. A \u201chigh level of pressure\u201d will be exerted on people to adapt, he says, via \u201ccustomized laws.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is certainly no opposition to the idea from the AfD members in the room. On the contrary, MP Gerrit Huy emphasized that she had been pursuing this goal for years. \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AfD parliamentary group leader for Saxony-Anhalt, Ulrich Siegmund, is also in the room. It is he who will, later on in the day\u2019s proceedings, appeal for donations. He has considerable influence within the AfD; the party is currently polling in first place in Saxony-Anhalt. His sales pitch, very much in keeping with the \u201cmasterplan\u201d of Sellner, details his ideas to change the image of German streets. Foreign restaurants would be put under pressure. Living in Saxony-Anhalt should be made \u201cas unattractive as possible for this clientele.\u201d And that could be accomplished very, very easily, he claims. \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discussion now turns to the practical details, the steps that need to be taken. M\u00f6rig wants to select a committee of experts to fine tune the details of this plan for mass deportations. These experts will ensure the masterplan is executed \u201cethically, legally, and efficiently,\u201d so that the racially-motivated forced displacement of people has the guise of a legal migration policy. M\u00f6rig already has a candidate for the committee in mind: Hans-Georg Maa\u00dfen, the former head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesverfassungsschutz<\/em>), Germany\u2019s domestic intelligence agency.6<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026 The group\u2019s focus now turns to how the idea of re-migration can be turned into a political strategy. Sellner says that \u201cmetapolitical and pre-political power\u201d must be built up in order to \u201cchange public opinion.\u201d An active political frontline must be ready to support the incoming right-wing government in Germany after the election. And part of this support, as is made clear during the presentations and speeches, has to be financial. There is talk of influencers, propaganda, campaigns, and university projects. The tools to establish a right-wing anti-establishment climate. And ultimately the tools to weaken Germany\u2019s democracy by questioning elections, discrediting the constitutional court, suppressing opposing views, and censoring public service broadcasting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the afternoon, it\u2019s Ulrich Vosgerau\u2019s turn to speak. He is a lawyer and was a member of the board of trustees of the AfD-affiliated Desiderius Erasmus Foundation, and is currently representing the AfD in the German Constitutional Court in a dispute over the foundation\u2019s funding. He talks about postal votes, legal processes, the secrecy of the ballot, and his concerns about voters of Turkish origin who, he claims, are unable to form an independent opinion. Vosgerau suggests drafting a letter which would cast doubt on the legitimacy of elections. His speech is met with applause.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Correctiv <\/em>saw, in these events, an illustration of way \u201cthe strategies of various far-right actors and organizations intertwine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Sellner provides the ideas, the AfD politicians take them on and bring them to the party. Others in the background take care of the networking and bringing in wealthy sympathizers and supporters from the conservative middle-classes. And the debates always revolve around one question: How can a homogonous ethnic community be achieved in Germany? \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What have we learnt from this meeting? That there is a retired dentist who has a conspiratorial network of fellow far-right extremists. That representatives of the AfD were willing to meet with radical right-wing activists and neo-Nazis. That they have a \u201cmasterplan\u201d to deport German citizens because of their \u201cethnicity\u201d\u2014a plan which would undermine Articles 3, 6 and 21 of the German constitution. And that there are a number of wealthy potential donors for this project. We\u2019ve learnt that there is an expert in German constitutional law who has sketched out legal methods to systematically cast doubt on democratic elections. That there\u2019s an AfD politician who wants to organize election donations that would bypass the party. And that there is a hotel owner in Potsdam who earned some money to cover his costs.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

When news of the conference came to light in January last year, Germans immediately drew comparisons to the 1942 Wannsee Conference, when the Nazis formulated the Final Solution. Nearly a million and a half Germans took to the streets in protest. The plan was \u201can attack on the constitution and the liberal constitutional state,\u201d a group of six organizations, including the German Association of Judges and the German Bar Association, said. \u201cThe legal legitimacy of such fantasies [of mass deportation] must be prevented by all legal and political means.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In November last year, 113 members of the Bundestag, from multiple political factions, submitted a motion to consider banning the party outright.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On their website, the AfD doesn\u2019t discuss things like \u201cthe masterplan.\u201d Instead, there\u2019s anodyne rhetoric: \u201cThe AfD is a political party under the rule of law, and thus pledges its unequivocal allegiance to the German nation which includes all those with German citizenship.\u201d Immigrants with German citizenship, they say, are \u201cjust as German as the descendants of a family that has lived in Germany for centuries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But they don\u2019t mean this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The AfD is a complicated case not just because it is careful not to skirt the formal law, but because it is not entirely<\/em> a neo-Nazi party, and because some of the issues to which it is responding are real, even if the solutions it proposes to rectify them are disgusting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not all AfD voters are neo-Nazis, nor are they necessarily the type who would be keen on the masterplan. In 2019, Jeffrey Gedmin described its voters<\/a><\/strong> <\/a>this way:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The large majority of AfD voters \u2026can be mostly fairly described in my view as disaffected conservatives, as traditionalists struggling with\u2014or outright resisting\u2014rapid social and economic change. As for the AfD leadership, it\u2019s a hodgepodge. There are conservatives, social conservatives, radical rightists, and pure opportunists and demagogues whose actual ideological agenda remains unclear. In some ways, AfD is a Left-Right party. One might say national-socialist. That\u2019s an expression which in Germany generates far more heat than light, of course, but it \ufb01ts to some extent. \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the agenda of those populist politicians who lead, many are indeed demagogues. They tap into and manipulate voter opinions and political narratives. But they also re\ufb02ect something in their respective countries, some of which is problematic and alarming, to be sure. Yet what of those citizens who simply feel unrepresented by mainstream parties, who become politically homeless and seek shelter where shelter is provided? What if Muslims in Europe, suddenly in large numbers, are forcing Europe to grapple with things long in coming? That is, have Europeans themselves evaded their own fundamental questions about identity?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As he suggests obliquely, but does not quite say, there is<\/em> a cohort of unassimilated, radicalized Muslims in Europe. No one is quite sure what to do about it. The problem is not as grave as the far-right believes, but neither is it trivial or nonexistent, as many on the left insist. This cohort is poor, criminogenic, and retrograde in its views of Jews, homosexuals, and women. It produces terrorists. Integrating this community is a genuinely difficult problem. Solving it, if it can be solved, will require the wisdom of Solomon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deporting everyone who is not an ethically pure German is not what Solomon might propose (save as a ruse to discern who among us is a neo-Nazi). It is an appalling and immoral idea. Hitler\u2019s plans to deport Jews were predicated on the very same logic, and the Nazis views of Jews were remarkably similar to the AfD\u2019s views of Muslims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many don\u2019t realize this: Perhaps because the Jews who were admitted to the United States were uncommonly talented, it\u2019s widely believed the Jewish community in Germany was composed entirely of highly-assimilated Martin Bubers and Albert Einsteins. It is true that most Jews in Germany held German citizenship, and many Jewish families were completely assimilated, had been in Germany for centuries, and thought of themselves as German. But there was also a significant community of Jews who had only recently immigrated to Germany from Eastern Europe. They did not hold German citizenship, and while some were well-integrated into German society, many lived in distinct immigrant communities, spoke Yiddish, and struck everyone, including more assimilated German Jews, as superstitious, backward, and distasteful. By 1930, a quarter of the German Jewish community had to be supported through community welfare programs. (The idea that Jews controlled Germany\u2019s economic life was an antisemitic myth.) What is said about Muslim immigrants now\u2014that they are backward, that their culture is too alien for them ever to be assimilated, that they are poor, that it isn\u2019t nice to see them on the streets\u2014is precisely what was said about Jewish immigrants. If the far right is now obsessed with the idea of the Muslim as sexual predator, the Nazis were even more persuaded that Jewish men had nothing better to do than to rape white women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have pointed this out before in conversation. Inevitably, the rejoinder is that the Jews weren\u2019t terrorists. But neither are Muslims, in the vast majority. Jews were, however, significantly overrepresented among Bolsheviks, and this association served exactly the same rhetorical function for the Nazis. Indeed, one could say that the case for expelling the Jews from Germany was stronger than the case for expelling Muslims now: Bolshevism was more<\/em> dangerous than contemporary jihadism, if you measure these things by the corpse. This did not mean the idea of expelling the Jews was anything but an obscenity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea of expelling an entire people from their homes is part of a genocidal logic. Rory Stewart makes just this point in the discussion below. The whole conversation is surprisingly good, but he discusses the idea of expulsion, in particular, at about 39:30. (I think I\u2019ve managed to set it so that it starts at the right place.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/JTtqGSwTLO0?start=2015&rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Remigration<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Let me give you a feeling for what the AfD\u2019s ideology looks like in the wild. Here\u2019s a video:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lyrics:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ich habe dieses Gef\u00fchl. \nDas wird dir heute ein Riesending. \nDas ist die Abschiebeparty. \nJa, das sagt mir mein Instinkt. \nFliegen alle nach Hause? \n\nEs hat sich hier keiner benommen. \nWir sind voll am Feiern. \nSie werden nie wieder kommen. \nRei\u00dft die H\u00e4nde in die Luft und macht die ganze Nacht Krach,\ndamit auch jeder linke Spasti geht, weil er abkackt. \nDiese Nacht ist Deutschlands Nacht. \nDie Remigration geht los. Lass die B\u00e4sse richtig pumpen. \nBis in jeden Zeckenclub. \nDas ist ja Musik bei uns. \nDa brennt jeder Club. \nEs wird gefeiert wie noch nie. \nSchmei\u00dft die H\u00e4nde in die Luft. \n\nHey, jetzt geht\u2019s ab. \nWir schieben sie alle ab. \nSie alle. \nHey, jetzt geht\u2019s ab. \nWir schieben sie alle ab. \nSie alle.\nHey, jetzt geht\u2019s ab. \nWir schieben sie alle ab. \nSie alle! \nHey, jetzt geht\u2019s ab. \nWir schieben sie alle Aller. \nSie alle gehen alle heim. \n\nIn Deutschland wird nur noch im Iran. \nDas ganze Volk ist mit dabei. \nDas ist das absolute Highlight. \nWir sind mehr, \nWir sind mehr, sagen sie und heulen auf. \nDoch ihr k\u00f6nnt hier nichts mehr retten. \nAus Deutschland. \nWie blau. \nDeutschland. \nSommer voller Feiern. \nWir sind richtig laut. \nDie ganze Nacht Party. \nJetzt singt der Thalerhof nach Haus. \nEr hat den Aperol mitgebracht. \nDer Spritzkrieg findet kein Ende. \nWir rasten richtig aus. \nWir schlagen voll \u00fcber die Str\u00e4nge. \nL\u2019amour Touhou wird aufgedreht. \nDie Menge flippt aus. \nWir nehmen uns in den Arm und schreien. \n\nHey, jetzt geht\u2019s ab! \nWir schieben sie alle ab. \nSie alle. \n\nHey, jetzt geht\u2019s ab. \nWir schieben sie alle ab. \nSie alle. \nHey, jetzt geht\u2019s ab. \nWir schieben sie alle ab. \nSie alle. \nHey, jetzt geht\u2019s ab. \nWir schieben sie alle ab. \nSie alle ab!\n\nIn English:<\/em>\n\nI have this feeling. \nToday is going to be a big deal. \nThis is the deportation party. \nYeah, that\u2019s what my instinct tells me. \nIs everyone flying home? \nNobody behaved here. \nWe\u2019re partying hard. \nThey\u2019re never coming back. \nThrow your hands in the air and make noise all night, \nSo every leftist loser leaves because they can\u2019t handle it. \nTonight is Germany\u2019s night. \nRemigration is starting. \nLet the bass pump loud, all the way into every squatters\u2019 club. \nThat\u2019s our music. \nEvery club will be on fire. \nWe\u2019ll party like never before. \nThrow your hands in the air.\n\nHey, here we go! \nWe\u2019re deporting them all. \nAll of them.\nHey, here we go! \nWe\u2019re deporting them all. \nAll of them.\nHey, here we go! \nWe\u2019re deporting them all. \nAll of them!\nHey, here we go! \nWe\u2019re deporting them all. \nAll of them are going home.\n\nIn Germany, only Iranians remain. \nThe entire nation is part of it.\nThis is the absolute highlight. \n\u201cWe are more,\u201d they say, crying out loud. \nBut you can\u2019t save anything here anymore.\nOut of Germany. \nHow blue. \nGermany. \nSummer full of parties. \nWe are really loud.\nThe whole night. Party.\nNow the Thalerhof is singing on the way home. \nHe brought the Aperol. \nThe Spritzkrieg knows no end. \nWe\u2019re completely losing it. \nWe\u2019re going totally wild. \nL\u2019amour toujours is cranked up. \nThe crowd goes crazy. \nWe hug each other and scream:\n\nHey, here we go! \nWe\u2019re deporting them all. \nAll of them.\nHey, here we go! \nWe\u2019re deporting them all. \nAll of them.\nHey, here we go! \nWe\u2019re deporting them all. \nAll of them!\nHey, here we go! \nWe\u2019re deporting them all. \nAll of them!<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSpritzkreig.\u201d Nice touch. Do listen to it: What \u201cSie alle\u201d sounds like is not a coincidence.7<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still not sure? Here\u2019s some more. Put the volume up:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/xWa9BOzY_5o?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Sie sagen wir sollen uns sch\u00e4men die\nK\u00f6pfe senken uns wegdrehen die Fahne\nverstecken die Stimme verschweigen am\nBoden knien und still vergehen doch wir\nsind mehr als nur Geschichte mehr als\nSchatten Staub und Rauch wir sind die\nFeuer die noch brennen wir sind die\nStimme im Bauch \n\nsei stolz auf dein Land\nerhebe die Faust es ist nicht\nverkehrt wenn du darauf baust die\nWurzeln sind tief das Herz schl\u00e4gt laut\nein Sturm zieht auf sei stolz sei stolz\nsei stolz auf dein Land\n\nman schreit von Schuld und Fehlern als\nw\u00e4ren wir nur Dreck doch was ist mit der\nSch\u00f6nheit den W\u00e4ldern den Fluss und dem\nBerg was ist mit der Kunst der Sprache\n\nder Kraft die uns tr\u00e4gt wir sind die\nErben der St\u00e4rke\negal wer uns was\nerz\u00e4hlt \n\ndas Land ist kein Gott keine\nheilige Pflicht doch wir sind sein Herz\nsein Stolz sein Gesicht es lebt in uns\nin jedem Schlag wir tragen es weiter Tag\nf\u00fcr Tag \n\nsei stolz auf dein Land\nerhebe die Faust es ist nicht\nverkehrt wenn du darauf baust die\nWurzeln sind tief das Herz schneckt laut\nein Sturm zieht auf sei stolz sei stolz\nsei stolz auf dein\nLand \n\nnicht blind nicht dumm nicht voller\nHass doch wer aus klein\nredet zerbricht unser was patriotismus\nist kein Gift kein quie keine Frust es\nist Liebe z Heimat die in uns erwacht\nund muss\n\nentschuldigung ich bin zu laut tut mir\nleid vielleicht sollte ich mich hinlegen\n\nnein heute nicht mit jedem Atemzug mit\njeder Tat wir bauen die Zukunft wie es\nuns passt sei stolz auf dein Land schreies\nheraus die Welt soll h\u00f6ren was du daraus\nmachst die Erde vibriert der Himmel\nerbt wir sind das Land das\nweiterlebt \n\nein Lied f\u00fcr die Heimat ein\nSchrei in die Nacht f\u00fcr alle die\nwissen was Liebe\nentfasst kein Schwert kein Schild nur H\u00e4nde und\nMut sei stolz auf dein Land denn hier\nliegt dein\nBlut denn hier liegt.\n\nIn English:<\/em>\n\nThey say we should be ashamed,\nLower our heads, turn away,\nHide the flag, silence the voice,\nKneel on the ground and quietly vanish.\nBut we are more than just history,\nMore than shadows, dust, and smoke.\nWe are the fires still burning,\nWe are the voice in the gut.\n\nBe proud of your country,\nRaise your fist.\nStand tall for your land,\nRaise your fist high.\nIt\u2019s not wrong to believe in its might.\nThe roots are deep, the heart beats loudly.\nA storm is brewing.\nBe proud, be proud,\nBe proud of your land.\n\nThey scream of guilt and mistakes\nAs if we were nothing but dirt.\nBut what about the beauty,\nThe forests, the river, and the mountains?\nWhat about the art, the language,\nThe strength that carries us?\nWe are the heirs of that strength,\nNo matter what anyone says.\n\nThe country is no god, no holy duty,\nBut we are its heart, its pride, its face.\nIt lives in us, in every heartbeat.\nWe carry it forward, day by day.\n\nBe proud of your country,\nRaise your fist.\nIt\u2019s not wrong to rely on it.\nThe roots are deep, the heart beats loudly.\nA storm is brewing.\nBe proud, be proud,\nBe proud of your country.\n\nNot blind, not dumb, not full of hate.\nBut whoever belittles us, breaks what\u2019s ours.\nPatriotism is no poison, no grievance, no frustration.\nIt is love for the homeland that awakens in us.\n\nAnd\u2014excuse me\u2014I\u2019m too loud. I\u2019m sorry,\nMaybe I should lie down.\nNo, not today.\nWith every breath, with every act,\nWe build the future as it suits us.\n\nBe proud of your country, shout it out.\nThe world should hear what you make of it.\nThe earth vibrates, the heavens inherit.\nWe are the country that lives on.\n\nA song for the homeland, a scream into the night,\nFor all who know what love unleashes.\nNo sword, no shield, just hands and courage.\nBe proud of your country,\nFor here lies your blood.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
I had a feeling when I wrote about Rammstein<\/a><\/strong>\u201420 years ago, now\u2014that this was where this form of musical experimentation was headed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But these days, I can feel how much our culture has changed. I\u2019m fairly sure that just 20 years ago, no one would have needed to be told that the image in the video is an homage to the Nazis, or that this is music by which to drive a Panzer division through Poland. But the generation that lived through the rise and fall of the Third Reich is now gone, and with them, a culture with a more instinctive grasp of the Nazi aesthetic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019ve also become illiterate. It is no longer common knowledge that a text can have a meaning beyond the strictly literal. If I were to post that video and the lyrics on Twitter, someone would reply, \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with it? They didn\u2019t say they\u2019re Nazis. They\u2019re just patriotic.\u201d I can\u2019t do anything to cure the deficits in our educational system. I\u2019ll just remark that if Elon Musk doesn\u2019t know enough about the Third Reich to grasp exactly what\u2019s wrong with that video, he doesn\u2019t know enough to be advising Germans how to vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Crazier and Crazier<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
The AfD\u2019s rhetoric has evolved. It has become increasingly provocative and, in some cases, explicitly extremist, particularly under leaders such as Alice Weidel, Alexander Gauland, and Bj\u00f6rn H\u00f6cke. The videos above are especially egregious examples. But they align with broader themes in the AfD\u2019s public messaging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bj\u00f6rn H\u00f6cke, for example, a leading figure in the Fl\u00fcgel<\/em>, called for a \u201c180-degree turn\u201d in Germany\u2019s remembrance culture. He has criticized Germany\u2019s Holocaust memorial in Berlin as \u201cmonument of shame,\u201d which it is, but he does not find that condign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the previous election campaign, Alice Weidel had said that she and H\u00f6cke were \u201ctwo parts of one party.\u201d But after the \u201cmonument to shame\u201d speech, the AfD\u2019s federal executive board initiated expulsion proceedings against him, perceiving him as an electoral liability. In 2017, Correctiv<\/em> obtained and published the 62-page case for his expulsion<\/a><\/strong> assembled by the AfD leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
H\u00f6cke, they wrote, demonstrated a \u201cfundamental rejection of the party system,\u201d peppered his speeches with terms favored by Hitler, and supported in his words and writing the explicitly neo-Nazi NPD (the party deemed utterly noxious but too insignificant to ban).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His monument-of-shame speech, they wrote, resembled in word and meaning speeches by Hitler, which they illustrated over the course of two pages by comparing his speech, side-by-side, with quotes from Hitler. His language indicated a \u201cfundamental rejection of the party system.\u201d He engaged in \u201cegomaniacal outbursts\u201d and embraced the \u201cF\u00fchrer principle.\u201d His calls for a \u201ccomplete victory\u201d were signs of an \u201cexcessive proximity to National Socialism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They rejected H\u00f6cke\u2019s defense that his speech was misunderstood. It is a common strategy among AfD politician to claim that their statements have been misunderstood, so it is notable that internally, they rejected this defense: \u201cIt does not matter how the respondent might have meant certain parts of his speech,\u201d they wrote, but rather how the audience understood it. \u201cAnyone who listens to the speech with the appropriate volume, with eyes closed, feels transported to a time of the Third Reich.\u201d The document detailed his use of pseudonyms to engage with and support explicitly neo-Nazi organisms. All of these are their words, not mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The party\u2019s arbitration tribunal ruled that H\u00f6cke could remain. It was the board members who brought the case against him who left the party, some of them declaring that the party had become too crazy. H\u00f6cke\u2014\u201dexcessive proximity to National Socialism\u201d and all\u2014remains one of the AfD\u2019s most significant figures. He is the leader of the Thuringia branch and its parliamentary group, the AfD\u2019s primary ideologue, and its string-puller. Since the 2022 party congress, he has consolidated his power. In the September 2024 Thuringian state elections, H\u00f6cke led the party to victory with 33 percent of the vote. (Only a few months before, he had been fined \u20ac13,000 by a court in Halle for using a banned Nazi slogan in one of his campaign speeches. Under Germany\u2019s press laws, he may officially be described as \u201cfascist.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He\u2019s not one bad apple. Andr\u00e9 Poggenburg, the Fl\u00fcgel\u2019s<\/em> co-leader until August 2018, called Turks in Germany \u201cstateless vermin\u201d and left-leaning politicians \u201cmalignant growths on the German nation\u2019s body.\u201d Former party leader Alexander Gauland calls the integration of migrants a \u201cgenetic dilution\u201d of the German people. He dismissed the Nazi era as \u201cjust a speck of bird shit in more than 1,000 years of successful Germany history.\u201d Germans, he has said, should be \u201cproud\u201d of their soldiers in both<\/em> world wars. The party hurls one of Hitler’s favorite epithets, L\u00fcgenpresse<\/em>, or \u201clying media,\u201d at journalists. It calls immigrants \u201cparasites.\u201d In the words of Verena Hartmann, who left the party in January 2020, \u201cThose who resist this extreme right-wing movement are mercilessly pushed out of the party.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last November, three party members were arrested when police busted up the Saechsische Separatisten<\/em>, Saxonian separatists, whom police claimed were preparing an attempt to impose \u201cgovernmental and societal structures inspired by National Socialism.\u201d The group is reported to be convinced that Germany is on the edge of collapse, requiring them to seize Saxony and other eastern German states by force and then ethically cleanse them. Police raids uncovered unregistered weapons, Kalashnikov cartridges, silencers, the shell of a mortar grenade. (The embarrassed AfD expelled the frisky Saxons.) Just last week, the AfD chapter in Karlsruhe decided it would be a lark to have its campaign material printed to resemble a one-way plane ticket. These were put in the mailboxes of people who, as one report delicately put it,<\/a><\/strong> \u201cpotentially had a migrant background.\u201d The police placed the party under investigation on charges of inciting racial hatred. At its recent pre-election conference in Saxony, party leader Alice Weidel gave a lusty speech calling for immigration. \u201cAlice f\u00fcr Deutschland!<\/em>\u201d the crowd yelled. (It\u2019s a pun on the Nazi slogan \u201cAlles f\u00fcr Deutschland,<\/em>\u201d which is banned.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"undefined\"<\/a>
Alice Weidel. Via Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
So those videos and their lyrics aren\u2019t aberrations. They\u2019re symptomatic of a deeper shift in political discourse\u2014one hardly limited to Germany. As Rory Stewart points out, what should never be normalized is now normal:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u2026 And of course, what\u2019s happening all the time, and this is why it feels so much more dangerous than people acknowledge\u2014why we are beginning to see elements of the 20s and 30s coming through\u2014is that they [far-right parties<\/em>] all give space to each other. There\u2019s this horrible phrase, \u201cthe Overton window,\u201d of what\u2019s kind of acceptable to say or think. They\u2019re shifting it. Suddenly, Robert Jenricks is saying things no Conservative Cabinet member under Theresa May or David Cameron would ever consider saying.8<\/a> It becomes acceptable. And as that shifts, you get more and more slightly dopey people, voters on the right, beginning to think, \u201cWell, you know, is it such a bad thing?\u201d and \u201cMaybe we can just, um, sort of expel these people peacefully\u2014we don\u2019t need to actually, you know, round them up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And of course, people forget what\u2019s going on here, which is that the early ideologues for the war in the Balkans initially talked about peaceful<\/em> separation between Bosnians and Serbs. Not very long ago. In Europe, you know, during our working lives. That Eichmann was working for Hitler to peaceably<\/em> resettle Jews out of Austria. The idea initially was not to kill them, the idea was just to push them out. I think to Madagascar, initially.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fact that people are not processing [is<\/em>] that liberalism isn\u2019t just\u2014there\u2019s been a flurry of articles in Unherd<\/em>, from Trevor Phillip, for example \u2026 articles in the Times<\/em>, saying, \u201cLiberalism\u2019s dead; the center\u2019s dead; the energy is now on the Right.\u201d But liberalism isn\u2019t just Alistair and Rory with sort of mushy ideas and being too optimistic about Kamala Harris. It\u2019s moral. It\u2019s the idea that humans are equal in dignity. [It\u2019s<\/em>] the lessons of the Second World War, which is that if you give up on the idea that humans are equal, and you start saying there are better people\u2014white Austrians\u2014and less good people\u2014Muslim Austrians\u2014so many things follow from that: the collapse of your democracy. And ultimately, war.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
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The Kremlin Party<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
These aspects of the party\u2019s ideology aside, the AfD is most notable for being a Russian cat\u2019s paw. Its romance with Russia aligns with its broader opposition to the EU and NATO, its nationalism, and its opposition to \u201cglobalism.\u201d (This term is capacious, and if it has any meeting, it means \u201cJews.\u201d) Party figures consistently express admiration for Vladimir Putin\u2019s leadership style and for Russia itself, which they view as a model of strong, nationalist governance. They.regularly praise Putin for his defense of sovereignty, traditional values, and resistance to Western liberalism.9<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before Elon Musk\u2019s intervention, most Americans had never heard of the AfD. The far-right cognoscenti<\/em>, however, are sympathetic to the AfD\u2019s loathing of ethnic minorities and its demands for mass deportations. This is unsurprising, given the mood in the United States, even if it\u2019s odious. But for the life of me, I can cannot make sense of their eagerness to support a party that is at once the devoted foot servant of America\u2019s adversaries and explicitly anti-American. Does Elon Musk grasp what would happen to his investments in Germany if this party came to power?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
AfD leader Alice Weidel hails Russia an ally in the fight against \u201cglobalism.\u201d Her party insistently. calls for lifting EU sanctions on Russia, which it claims are an aspect of a broader Western provocation of Russia. It supports Russia\u2019s position on Ukraine, and blames Russia\u2019s invasion on NATO. It supported its position in Syria. It portrays Russia as the defender of \u201ctraditional European values,\u201d Christianity, and the family, contrasting this nobility with what it holds to be the West\u2019s moral decline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In return, RT and Sputnik give the AfD glowing coverage and spread its messages to German and international audiences. Russian-linked bot networks amplify AfD content. Russia micro-targets voters on social media, particularly Germany\u2019s Russian-German minority. There are excellent grounds to suspect Russia supports the party financially through opaque donations and by making helpful connections between its members and Russian business interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is why the AfD is known, in Germany as the \u201cKremlin party.\u201d It isn\u2019t an accident that the AfD\u2019s support is strongest in eastern Germany, where there is nostalgia for the Soviet days and the old comrade networks can be easily reactivated. (It is interesting that the AfD is strongest in the regions of Germany with the fewest immigrants.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The AfD\u2019s central proposals in advance of the 2024 European elections were decisively hostile to the West. They called for Germany to abandon the euro, seek observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and cooperate with the Eurasian Economic Union.10<\/a> Their manifesto was peppered with Russian nationalist lingo\u2014lots of talk of \u201cEurasia\u201d and the \u201cmultipolar world order.\u201d The preamble argued that \u201cnon-European great powers\u201d\u2014by which they mean the United States\u2014had drawn \u201cthe states of Europe into conflicts\u201d that are \u201cdiametrically opposed to fruitful trade relations in the European-Asian area.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
AfD MPs travel to Moscow so frequently that you\u2019d think miles on Aeroflot got you somewhere other than Siberia. They pitched up in Crimea just after its annexation, then landed showily in occupied Luhansk and Donetsk. They offered no criticism of the lack of press freedom or the Gulag of prisons and torture chambers Russia was swiftly constructing on Ukrainian soil. They\u2019ve taken part in the pretense of monitoring Russia\u2019s presidential elections, with one of their MPs praising the vote as \u201cfree, equal and secret.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2021, Die Welt<\/a><\/strong><\/em> tallied up the AfD\u2019s travels<\/a><\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Welt<\/em> has identified more than 100 travel movements to Russia, to contested areas in eastern Ukraine, to Crimea, to the Caucasus and to Belarus since 2015. The travelers were members of the state parliament, the federal government, the EU parliament, and party officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The leader among the travelers is Gunnar Lindemann, who sits in the Berlin House of Representatives for the AfD. He has traveled to those regions at least 15 times in the past three years. In 2018 alone, Lindemann traveled to Crimea at least three times. He traveled to Donetsk and Luhansk in occupied eastern Ukraine and to the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lindemann calls the killed Ukrainian warlord and separatist leader Alexander Zakharchenko a \u201cfriend.\u201d He also adorns himself with an \u201corder\u201d from the self-proclaimed \u201cDonetsk People\u2019s Republic\u201d for the \u201cdevelopment of international relations.\u201d \u2026 Russian-speaking media cover such visits intensively. As a \u201cGerman MP,\u201d Lindemann is supposed to increase legitimacy. When asked, he described his trips as \u201cprivate\u201d and said he financed them himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stefan Keuter follows in second place, with at least 11 documented trips since 2018. His travel list includes election observation in Russia, Abkhazia, and Azerbaijan. Keuter\u2019s activities even go beyond the trips. Not only did he travel to Crimea several times, but he was also involved in the program committee of an economic forum in Yalta. He was a speaker twice at a forum organized by the Russian parliament.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Correctiv, <\/em>too, <\/em>published an extensive analysis of the party\u2019s Russian contacts<\/a><\/strong>. Some highlights:<\/p>\n\n\n\n