IFFW: We should take this very seriously. If stable living conditions collapse for more and more people, they lose trust in the parties and politicians they have voted for so far. Trust in democracy, which is not solving their problems, is also declining. Political knowledge about the economic and global background to the negative economic development for many is not widespread. The privileged who benefit from the current system have no interest in explaining the connections and possible alternative paths. And they have a lot of influence in the media.
As in the Great Depression after 1929, large sections of them could once again support a party or forces that blame a scapegoat for the crisis and manage to convince many people of this. They could help them regain power in order to prevent social changes that would be to their detriment, such as democratic social solutions.
Right-wing groups have started to build up structures and we should not rely on the state to protect us, especially because AFD politicians are gaining more and more influence within it. In many areas, right-wing forces are buying up land and houses and building up networking structures.
We believe that a grassroots democratic structure is necessary, formed by the forces that want to defend the democratic achievements after 1945 and the minorities that are to be driven out of Germany. They should build personal networks with and among each other, organise themselves locally, regionally, nationally and in constituencies and compete for opinion leadership in society and in parliaments. Let us remember the lesson that many learnt from the rise of the NSDAP: Resist the beginnings! Now is the time to stop the avalanche, but only if many people take action now.
At the same time, the necessary network should work productively on alternative solutions to people's problems in order to show that the expulsion of people is not the solution, but will only exacerbate the problems. In the past, many people only realised this when it was too late.
Wolfgang Lieberknecht
Correktiv: A good two dozen people gradually enter the brightly lit dining room of a country hotel near Potsdam. Some are members of the AfD, a leading figure from the Identitarian movement is there. Some are fraternity members, as well as members of the middle classes, lawyers, politicians, entrepreneurs and doctors. There are also two CDU members, members of the Werteunion.
It is the morning of 25 November, shortly before nine o'clock, a gloomy Saturday. Snow is accumulating on the parked cars in the courtyard. What is happening that day at Landhaus Adlon looks like a chamber play - but it is reality. It shows what can happen when far-right ideologues, representatives of the AfD and financially strong supporters of the right-wing scene mingle. Their most important goal: people should be able to be expelled from Germany based on racist criteria - regardless of whether they have a German passport or not.
The only question that brings them together is the question of remigration: "whether or not we will survive as a people in the West".
The majority of the lectures and discussions on this day will revolve around this central point, "remigration".
Sellner takes the floor. He explains the concept during the lecture as follows: there are three target groups of migrants who should leave Germany. Or, as he says, "to reverse the settlement of foreigners". He lists who he means: asylum seekers, foreigners with the right to stay - and "non-assimilated citizens". In his view, the latter are the biggest "problem". In other words, Sellner divides the people into those who should be able to live in Germany unmolested and those to whom this basic right should not apply.
Basically, the mind games on this day all boil down to one thing: people should be able to be expelled from Germany if they have the supposedly wrong skin colour or origin - and are not sufficiently "assimilated" in the view of people like Sellner. Even if they are German citizens.
That would be an attack on the Basic Law - on the right of citizenship and the principle of equality.
In terms of content, there is no fundamental criticism of the idea of the "masterplan" in the round table; there are many supportive questions. There were only doubts about its feasibility.
At least the AfD politicians represented there freely professed their nationalist ideals, unobserved from the outside; there were no significant differences to the positions of extremist right-wing ideologues.
Raising money is a "core task of our group", according to the letters of the "Düsseldorf Forum", as the group calls itself. And it seems to be pursuing this goal: collecting donations from wealthy individuals and entrepreneurs who secretly want to support far-right alliances. "We need patriots who actively do something and personalities who support these activities financially," reads the invitation. At the meeting in the villa, the organisers will announce a "neutral account" and the amount can also be paid in cash.
What is being organised there this weekend is nothing less than an attack on the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany.
The people
AfD
Roland Hartwig, right-hand man of party leader Alice Weidel
Gerrit Huy, member of the Bundestag
Ulrich Siegmund, parliamentary group leader Saxony-Anhalt
Tim Krause, deputy chairman in the Potsdam district
THE MÖRIG CLAN
Gernot Mörig, a retired dentist from Düsseldorf
Arne Friedrich Mörig, son of Gernot Mörig
Astrid Mörig, wife of Gernot Mörig
NEONAZIS
Martin Sellner, a far-right activist from Austria
Mario Müller, a convicted violent offender
A young "identitarian"
GUEST SPEAKER
Wilhelm Wilderink
Mathilda Martina Huss
SURROUNDING ORGANISATIONS
Simone Baum, Werteunion NRW, Board of Directors
Michaela Schneider, Werteunion NRW, deputy board member
Silke Schröder, German Language Association, Board of Directors
Ulrich Vosgerau, former member of the board of trustees of the Desiderius Erasmus Foundation
OTHERS
Alexander von Bismarck
Henning Pless, far-right alternative practitioner and esotericist
An IT entrepreneur and blood-and-soil Nazi
A neurosurgeon from Austria
Two employees of the hotel
Secret plan against Germany (correctiv.org)
Nobody was supposed to know about this meeting: On 25 November last year, some high-ranking AfD politicians - including a member of the Bundestag, a state parliamentary group leader and Roland Hartwig, Alice Weidel's right-hand man - met with neo-Nazis and financially strong entrepreneurs in a hotel near Potsdam. However, CORRECTIV received an invitation. Signed, among others, by entrepreneur Hans-Christian Limmer, who founded the "Backwerk" bakery chain and who has invested in the "Hans im Glück" burger chain, among others. If you would rather listen to the research than read it, you can do so via a link here in the text.
What was discussed at the meeting:
The core topic was the "masterplan" - so named there: Neo-Nazi Sellner spoke about the need to work together to make it uncomfortable for people with a history of immigration in Germany. And explicitly not only for asylum seekers, but also for German citizens with a migration background. Nobody at the meeting disagreed. On the contrary.
According to our research, AfD man Hartwig boasted that he was speaking on behalf of the party's federal executive and that he was able to provide the organisers of the meeting with money from the AfD. Exactly what for is not entirely clear. Hartwig and the AfD did not answer our questions.
What significance this has:
What the "masterplan" envisages is clearly anti-constitutional. It also clearly contradicts what the AfD officially states in its party programme: that it recognises the citizenship of people with a migration background. CDU politician Marco Wanderwitz, who is currently trying to establish a majority in the Bundestag in favour of banning the AfD, told us that the AfD and its "cronies" were "unfortunately consistently pursuing anti-constitutional goals".
Other reactions were also swift: CDU politician Roderich Kiesewetter said that a possible ban procedure should be examined "quickly", and the deputy leader of the Green parliamentary group, Konstantin von Notz, spoke of "inhumane plans" at the meeting.
The restaurant chain "Hans im Glück" was also forced to react. It parted company with its shareholder Hans-Christian Limmer. Limmer had been invited to the meeting, but was not present himself.
What the AfD has to say:
After the federal executive board initially did not respond to our questions at all, but only had the AfD parliamentary group leader Ulrich Siegmund from Saxony-Anhalt write to us via a lawyer that he had a different recollection of the statements made at the meeting (which we know very well from our sources, however), the AfD tried to put a different spin on the resulting public debate on Facebook today. Remigration yes, they wrote there - but only criminal migrants should have their passports revoked. However, according to our research, this is exactly what was described differently at the meeting. The plans there would affect millions of people.
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