SPD co-chair Saskia Eskenwho was a guest of the SPÖ boss on May 1st Andreas Babler was, after the rally at Rathausplatz in the ZiB2 for debates when she described the AfD as a “Nazi party” and a comparison to the propaganda minister of the NSDAP Joseph Goebbels pulled.
“Goebbels mocked democracy in 1935 because it gave the Nazis every means to come to power – we won’t make that mistake,” said Esken when asked whether it wasn’t undemocratic to oppose it the AfD’s rule in those eastern German states. Both State elections in the Autumn The right-wing poulists are likely there by far become the strongest force.
Debate about banning parties
This is how Esken heats it debate about one Party or activity ban the AfD or certain AfD politicians again.
SPD leader: “AfD is a Nazi party”
Only weeks ago, Esken declared that a ban on the AfD would have to be considered. “Isn’t it pathetic when a party like the SPD has no other way of dealing with political competition than by banning it?”asked moderator Armin Wolf.
“This is a Nazi party. It is ethnic, excludes and divides,” said Esken in an interview. A party ban is “an instrument that our constitution provides” if there are anti-constitutional efforts in the party landscape and among political actors. “If that is certainly the case with the AfD, we have the task of ensuring that this party can be banned,” said Esken. The AfD is currently not being represented as a party as a whole, but rather individual state associations such as AfD Saxony and the youth organization “Young alternative” (YES) from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution as secured right-wing extremist classified.
In addition to a ban, there are other instruments, says Esken: the disclosure of financial flows and connections to banned organizations or payments from abroad, for example from China and Russia, as the AfD-EU top candidates are currently being accused of.
When asked by Wolf, Esken underlines the Goebbels comparison: “The ethnic thinking, the effort to undermine democracy, misanthropic attitudes against groups, exclusion, division” – all of this is comparable to the NSDAP. The AfD “clearly has anti-constitutional efforts that aim to destroy our democracy.”
Crises are said to be to blame for low surveys
As a reason for the company’s own poor, “painful” survey results SPD – 17 percent According to the Forsa Institute, the Union is at 30 percent – Esken calls the “many multiple crises that unsettle people” – from the consequences of the corona pandemic to the effects of the war in Ukraine. Governments around the world are struggling with similar problems. For many Germans, in view of these crises, the “pseudo answers, the simple answers, the scapegoats that the AfD has to offer” are an escape.
Gerald Grosz responded with a complaint
The ex-FPÖ and BZÖ politician Gerald Grosz should oe24 according to the interview Advertisement against Esken filed with the Vienna Public Prosecutor’s Office for trivializing the crimes of National Socialism. Grosz argues that Esken would use the “Nazi club” to “play down the crimes of the Nazi regime.” “If the German judiciary is not able to stop such otherworldly democratic discourse among competitors, the Austrian judiciary should do it after this scandalous interview,” said Grosz.
