The biting tone in political struggle is wrecking democracy

^{Germany 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall}

If you want to believe what the CDU (Christlich Demokratische Union) front-runner for the federal state elections in Thuringia Mike Mohring in unison with several Green top-ranking politicians says about Björn Höcke, the lead candidate of the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland),  Germany or at least East Germany is being threatened by a “Nazi”, respectively a “facist”. That is what also some well-known Greens as well called the same person on election eve.
There is no convincing evidence for such judgements known, and they who choose such terms, are do obviously discard what National Socialism actually meant for Germany and the whole world, respectively what fascism actually consisted or consists of. However, that does not matter for those party-politicians. They know that the courts and the mainstream-media side with them and so they rely on the impact of the term.
However, in spite of countless public statements of the sort, 23.7 per cent of the voters did not believe these warnings against the AfD and their lead candidate on 27 October in Thuringia, and neither at the elections in Saxony and Brandenburg on 1st Septmber, when 27.5 respectively 23.5 percent voted for the very party at which such broadsides, namely “right-wing extremist” or “fascist” or “national-socialist” have been fired, for a long time now.
There were commentators who after the Thuringia elections met trouble halfway by drafting a  scenario like the situation at the final stage stage of the Weimar Republic, when KPD (Communist Party of Germany) and NSDAP (German National Socialist Party) had won the majority of parliamentary seats in the “Reichstag” – just like Die Linke (the Left) and the AfD in the new “Landtag” (state parliament) in Thuringia. Simultaneously the CDU is being admonished to abstain from prejudices against Die Linke in Thuringia  – which is allegedly something very special – and form a coalition with this party. This is the new logic of parliamentary debates in Germany.

Decay of political culture

It is very unlikely that the percentage of the votes for the AfD will be reduced by demonising the party. However, the anti-AfD campaign is going to further poison the political atmosphere – and to deepen the fission within Germany as a whole, let alone the politicians‘ loss of credibility. It is alarming and also a result of this campaign that today a majority of the German population hold the view that one can no longer speak one’s mind on certain political issues. On 31st October the Deutschlandfunk broadcast an interview with a CDU-Landrat from Thuringia. Here is what he said about the electors who voted for the AfD: “Here, in this region the CDU at times had about 70 per cent of votes after the turnaround (German reunification). Many who vote for the AfD today came from the conservative party CDU. It is complete nonsense to claim that they are all radicals. They are people who request more transparency and truthfulness in political daily business. I believe what they say is not much different from what I am saying here just now.” Such voices are the exception.

What is it all really about?

Those who conduct this campaign (against the AfD) are not fully disclosing their interests. They attack the AfD – may be that is what the party was especially created for in the  beginning – in order to render any alternative to today’s policies impossible, an alternative aiming at freedom and the equal rights of people and peoples. And what is this ruling policy like? It is de facto hostile towards freedom, the rule of law and sovereignty. It denies the significance of an evolved cultural identity and pursues globalist ideologies and interests.  
There are many – in particular in Eastern Germany – who are convinced that the public dealings with the AfD have nothing whatsoever to do with the party itself, whose members are well-known to them on scene. 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall they feel like the East Germans of 30 years ago. With the ballot they react against a policy that has nothing to do with democracy, however, a lot with totalitarianism. Could they eventually have realised that they are to be a pawn in the game of certain transformation processes? 30 years ago it was not possible to realise such schemings. There was hardly anyone who was familiar with the geo-strategical plans that were conjured up in certain US think tanks, which – very shortly after 1990 – were termed “End of History”, “New World Order” and the alike from the same quarters. Today, however, we should discuss the question, in how much the end of the GDR (German Democratic Republik)  was actually the result of its citizens’  courageous protesting. Another issue must also be discussed, namely that the world is not willing to live through the “End of History” again.     •

1    There are many German courts which do not consider such terms as allegations of fact but as value judgements which are legitimate and therefore not suable within a wide interpretation of the basic freedom of expression right.