As Jens Kestner occurs last week Thursday in the Bundestag to the lectern, he is interested in the other members in the room a little. To greet you right at the beginning of his speech, the grey-haired AfD Deputy his real audience: “comrades in the homeland and, above all, in the distance”. The German foreign mission in Afghanistan. The AfD calls for: withdrawal. Kestner announced the names of the Fallen, the all round impact. He attacked the generals in the Bundeswehr, which only the own career is not important. “We need more honest officers than mindless paladins that run every behalf of their incompetent Minister, without a murmur,” he calls.
equipment defects, adviser, affair, bureaucracy: In times, in which the force is unsatisfying, it attempts to position the AfD as the new Bundeswehr party – a role that it has played so far, the CDU and the CSU. Officials with a long military career, such as AfD-Vice-Georg Pazderski serve the right-wing populists as figureheads. Speakers such as the Deputy Kestner, once a Sergeant in the Tank corps, to ensure credibility.
“Extremely dusty” image of the German armed forces
The “image”newspaper recently reported an estimate that 2100 of the 35,000 AfD members are professional soldiers. At the Munich security conference, rumors about party-entry by the military made the rounds. The head of the CSU, Markus Söder explained his concern, “that one or the other soldier was landed in the AfD”, because he appreciated might value and feel supported.
In the Bundestag, the AfD uses its resources to distinguish himself as a soldier party. The 40 questions in connection with the armed forces it has set in the past one and a half years. They wore titles such as “veterans’ policy for the armed forces”, “the procurement of a new assault rifle for the German armed forces or equipment of the Bundeswehr with the protection of the West”. The AfD group informed via press release: “disabled German Bundeswehr soldiers are heroes!” And as a the advisers affair in the defense Ministry publicly called for the AfD Deputy Rüdiger Lucassen a Committee of inquiry. Also he is a former Colonel in the Bundeswehr.
The other groups in the Bundestag this fall as a tactic. “The AfD plays out, as it is the group that is the state of the heart,” says the Green-defense politician Agnieszka Brugger. “But I know enough people in the armed forces, which reject the idea that the AfD marks as your advocate.” From their point of view, the right-wing populists. a “dusty picture” of the Bundeswehr, the have with the life reality of young soldiers have little in common You about the compatibility of career and family was important. From the AfD for the establishment of the Bundeswehr Kitas is ridiculed often.
Connections in the force
a striking number of elected representatives of the AfD used to be a professional or time soldiers. There’s, like, the Ex-paratrooper Andreas Kalbitz, the results of the AfD group in the Brandenburg Landtag. The staff officer Uwe Young, the leader of the Faction in Rheinland-Pfalz. Or the member of the Bundestag Peter Felser, who was earlier officer, and abroad in Bosnia – by the way, together with the right intellectual puppet masters, Götz Kubitschek. The list of officials with poor past could go on and on. Herein, the Compounds of the AfD in the troop are based. And so information from the armed forces to flow again and again to the AfD, which you exploited politically.
Disturbingly, many members find the possible Connections of the AfD to the extreme Right in the army. You’re referring to Maximilian T., a staff member of the AfD in the Bundestag Jan Nolte. T. was suspected to be at the right stop plan of the Ex-German soldiers Franco A. may have been involved. The investigation against T. were finally set. The Bundestag granted him a building pass. Members now fear that he might carry information, for example, from the defence Committee, to the outside.
Due to conscription abolition of the CDU
averted but What of the soldiers drives to the AfD? “With the abolition of conscription, the Union had died for me,” says a 25-year-old officer, the AfD is a member and prefer to be anonymous would like to stay. “In the beginning, the AfD was still a little like a dusty FDP. What was perceived from the outside as a shift to the right, it has to be my political home.“ Many of the mandate holders in the AfD with a military past had piqued his interest. In the army the young officer criticized the rigid management apparatus, and the equipment shortage. “It has occurred in the last few years, there is no improvement – on the contrary.” To give each vehicle it felt “ten rules”. Often you should not repair due to maintenance contracts for the Material. And while Bundeswehr soldiers put their lives in Afghanistan, would move young Afghans abroad. “The need to build, but actually, your country.” With his views he finds in the AfD.
AfD-Vice-Georg Pazderski, who was 41 years in the army, says, for example, sentences like: “Many believe that we should not be fortified, and Germany don’t need a strong armed forces. We see it differently.“ Or: “soldiers have a job that can cost you in the final analysis life. For this, they expect appreciation and recognition.“
AfD sees role models in the Wehrmacht
the right-wing populists tried to make a name for himself as an advocate of the soldiers, don’t use them only in the troops themselves, says the social scientist Jan Schedler of the Ruhr-University of Bochum. He researches the extreme Right. “Within the right spectrum, there is an overall positive attitude to the military.” For this clientele, it was, of course, that a Nation had to be prepared to defend itself militarily. The requirement of the AfD after the re-introduction of conscription and to significantly higher investments in the Bundeswehr to get on well. Also with your criticism of the “traditional adoption” of defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen, the AfD could score points in both army members as well as their followers.
in 2017, had Leyen Military memorabilia from the barracks to remove. Also lockers of soldiers searched. Leyen had deleted songs such as the “tank song” the soldier’s song book, and wanted to have multiple barracks, rename, wearing officers the names of the Wehrmacht. AfD Vice-Pazderski sees the action as a “slap in the face to all the soldiers”. You destroy the Tradition of an army. “Our soldiers are in need of role models.”
social scientists Schedler says a long military models, the Wehrmacht in Germany were not a Problem. The role of the Wehrmacht in the Holocaust was not a big subject of discussion. Meanwhile, the tradition will be illuminated line of the Wehrmacht to the Bundeswehr but very critical. The trust of the AfD, and many of its followers evil. Two years ago, AfD-Chef Gauland had even requested, had to be proud to get his “on the performance of German soldiers in two world”.
“more and More recognition, not only of material”
In the Bundestag to recognize the politicians of other groups for action. The Green party politician Brugger says: “All parties must strive more and more to the people in the security forces.” So the Green would be used over group boundaries to better care for post-traumatic stress disorder – an important issue about the use in Afghanistan. The CSU-defense politicians Florian Hahn, Recently, Deputy Secretary General of his party, says: “The force wants more recognition, not only materially. We must react to it.“ Due to the massive Saving of almost 30 years, the attractiveness of the Bundeswehr, have suffered. That Minister Leyen, the Bundeswehr had an attitude problem, was very unhappy. Hahn says, but also: “For the AfD, it is easy to make pithy claims, because they do not need to implement it.”
