After the Magdeburg party conference: The AfD is radicalizing rapidly – and the content can finally be grasped. Because there are grotesque contradictions in their program.
Anyone who watched the ARD “Tagesthemen” on Monday evening, when the agonizingly long party conference of the AfD in Magdeburg came to an end, could not avoid one finding: The radicalization of this party has a new quality again, no, better: a new dimension reached. What was said at the lectern was not in any way national conservative. It was right-wing extremist. With such statements, this desk from Magdeburg was no longer on the ground of the Basic Law. That is why the President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang, rightly exercised his office in the same program and placed the statements, the worrying developments of the AfD where they belong: in the area of responsibility of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
The leadership can no longer get rid of the self-invoked spirits
From Lucke to Höcke: The AfD has radicalized rapidly over the years in the change of its various leaderships. The pattern was always the same: the respective chairpersons soon all together could no longer control the spirits they summoned. At some point, the wild animal that they bred drove each of their tamers out of the ring. It is only a matter of time before Alice Weidel, who has strong nerves, and Tino Chrupalla, who is chronically overwhelmed, suffer the same fate as their predecessors and Björn Höcke officially takes over. His “hockism” already governs this party.
As disturbing as the sequences that could be seen from this event are: In Magdeburg, the rescue also grew. So far, the AfD has benefited from being a pure opposition party, a kind of bad mood rally movement. However, when elections are approaching, even an opposing party must at least begin to say what it is for. It must mutate from an anti-party to a pro-party.
Obscure top candidate, diffuse program
In the case of the AfD and with a view to the issue of Magdeburg, however, one would have to state that the AfD did not become a pro-party there. But a what-actually? party.
In Magdeburg, the focus was on preparing for the European elections next year. Candidates had to be found and an election program decided. The result was an obscure top candidate and a diffuse program. Maximilian Krah, the top candidate, will not be discussed further here. Much has been written about him. Only so much: Strange what can become of a man who once studied public law, among other things, works as a lawyer in the German legal system and should be at home with its principles.
About the program: Actually, the Höckists of the AfD in Magdeburg wanted to decide on a “Dexit” program. Dissolution of the European Union, otherwise Germany will leave. The remainder of reason could just about turn that around. The result was a soft version of the original lead proposal.
Which could hardly be more confused and contradictory. Based on a very fundamental example that has so far been largely underexposed: In the final compromise paper it says on the subject of European security and defense policy: “We reject any dominance of non-European great powers in European foreign and security policy.” Europe should gradually take its defense capabilities into its own hands.
An unwanted plea for more EU
Anyone who is reasonably willing to help logic to its rights must either get a fit of laughter somewhere at this passage or wave dismissively with both hands. Leaving aside the fact that a joint EU defense system that is self-sufficient from the USA has been demanded for decades and is simply nowhere near in sight: those who demand it in this way are not demanding less integration within the EU, but more.
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And in the most far-reaching place. Common defense means much more than a common currency (which the AfD rejects). Common security means, thought through to the end, a common army, a common armaments policy – and the understanding that joint decisions will be made about which foreign missions we go to together and which we don’t. Under certain circumstances, then no longer according to the unanimity principle, but according to the majority principle. A country cannot give up more national sovereignty than in the field of war and peace. And that doesn’t go well with the concept of an “EU of fatherlands” that the AfD is now propagating in its election program.
