Merkel's party, far-right AfD punished in German state vote

By Madeline Chambers

 

FILE PHOTO: Top candidate and mayor of Hamburg Peter Tschentscher of the Social Democrats (SPD) poses for the media before a TV debate with his challenger Katharina Fegebank of the Greens (not pictured) in Hamburg, Germany, February 18, 2020. REUTERS/Fabian Bimmer

 

BERLIN (Reuters) - Voters handed Angela Merkel's conservatives their worst ever result in Hamburg on Sunday, punishing them for flirting with the far-right in an eastern state and descending into a messy leadership battle.

 

Projected results also indicated that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) would be ejected from the Hamburg parliament just four days after a racist gunman killed 11 people, including himself, in the western town of Hanau.

 

It would be the first time the party, which has capitalised on anger over Merkel's open-door migrant policy especially in the former Communist East, was kicked out of a state assembly.

 

"Nazis out," chanted supporters of the victorious Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens as they celebrated in Germany's second-biggest city. The two are set to continue ruling together in the northern city-state.

 

The conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) suffered after party leader and Merkel protegee Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said she would stand aside, blowing open the race to succeed the chancellor and throwing the party into turmoil.

 

The CDU slipped into third place, scoring just 11.3%. The AfD were in last place on 4.7%, just short of the 5% threshold needed to get into the state parliament.

 

Kramp-Karrenbauer's move came after an eastern branch of the CDU defied the national party and voted with the AfD to install a state premier from a third party - breaking a post-war consensus among established parties of shunning the far-right.

 

"It is a bitter day for the CDU in Germany and a historically bad result in Hamburg," said CDU Secretary General Paul Ziemiak.

 

The CDU leadership team meets on Monday and Kramp-Karrenbauer is expected to set out a timetable for a decision on the party chair and possibly the chancellor candidate. Four or five candidates are jockeying for the jobs.

 

Merkel, chancellor for almost 15 years, has said she will not run again in the next federal election, due by October 2021.

 

Preliminary results from public broadcaster ZDF put the SPD, who share power with the conservatives at the federal level, down about 7 points from the last vote in 2015 but on 37.8%, still by the far the biggest party.

 

The Greens were the biggest winners, reflecting their national strength driven by growing fears about climate change. They roughly doubled their vote to 25.4% and national co-leader Robert Habeck declared it a "fantastic result".

 

Nationally, the Greens are second, behind the conservative bloc, and many commentators expect them to have a role in the next federal government.

 

(Additional reporting by Tom Sims in Frankfurt; Editing by William Maclean and Giles Elgood)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-02-24

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1 hour ago, webfact said:

"Nazis out,"

As I expected. They still have not evolved since WWII.

2 hours ago, webfact said:

Merkel, chancellor for almost 15 years, has said she will not run again in the next federal election, due by October 2021.

No, she has destroyed Germany enough now

I remember what it was like when I was posted to Germany in the mid-80s.

Far-right sentiments were pretty strong back then as well, before the Wall came down. They were already having problems with immigrants and refugees as their policy was to not turn away anyone for any reason.
I recall one incident where a group of Turkish "refugees" were being housed in an apartment building with everything being paid for by the German government. They were given money for food and clothing. Their healthcare and education were all provided for free. Their accommodations and utilities were paid for as well.

The "refugees" decided that wasn't enough. They threatened to burn down the building unless the German government gave them more money because - get this - the amount they were currently getting wasn't enough for them to go back to Turkey on holidays !!!!!
The same country they "fled" as (supposed) refugees !

The Germans I was with while watching this on the evening news were all for burning the building down - with those "refugees" still inside it and were fairly vocal about it even though we were in a public gasthaus at the time. In private, they were just a nudge (or shot of schnapps) away from snapping off some Hitler salutes despite none of them even being born until years after the war (but were probably heavily influenced by their parents and relatives who had lived through it).

They weren't very impressed with their East German cousins either, or the way the West German's government rewarded any East Germans who made it to the West somehow. (At the time, any East German that made it to the West could claim they owned farms or homes or businesses and the West German government would give them the cash equivalent of what a similar farm/home/business would be worth in West Germany despite knowing that most "farms" were actually government owned "collectives" and most of the East Germans who escaped to the West never owned a home or business in the East.) Of course it was the working West German taxpayers that were footing the bill for all that and they weren't too happy about it.

I can't imagine that they are any more impressed with the way things are now either, which is why the far-right has been able to make a visible resurgence in recent years. When I was in Germany there really wasn't any visible "far-right" movement. There was a lot of far-right sentiment to be found but it was kept pretty low key (at least in the circles I was associating with). Open displays of far-right sentiment would have been suppressed quickly by the government. The war ended 40+ years before but the government was still very nervous about allowing any signs that there may still be "Nazi" sentiments in the country.
Especially with the Soviet threat on one side and still being occupied (and protected) by hundreds of thousands of Allied troops.

These days though it seems the far-right are making a lot of gains, publicly and politically. They may have suffered a minor setback in the election mentioned in the OP but they still benefit from the exposure and publicity.

It's not a problem that's going to go away anytime soon either.
 

Being judgemental - the leader of the Party looks like a radical progressive feminist to me.  The social experiement that is Germany under Merkel's rule and with the EU dissolving, will continue to be a disaster - both economically and socially.  And the big problem with that is obvious - the Germans are not well known for being nice when things get tough.  They danger is that they are likely to elect some left wing radical socialist leader - like they did in the 30s.

Edited February 24, 20206 yr by AussieBob18

5 hours ago, AussieBob18 said:

Being judgemental - the leader of the Party looks like a radical progressive feminist to me.  The social experiement that is Germany under Merkel's rule and with the EU dissolving, will continue to be a disaster - both economically and socially.  And the big problem with that is obvious - the Germans are not well known for being nice when things get tough.  They danger is that they are likely to elect some left wing radical socialist leader - like they did in the 30s.

 

Erm, the fact that the Nazis called themselves the National Socialist Party (or Bocialist if you follow Monty Python) did not make them socialists!! Ask Stalin!

 

However, Hitler was certainly "radical"....

You know the 4th Turkish city ? Berlin-Kreuzberg.

Little Hanau 96.023 inhabitants (31. Dec. 2018). According a Turkish person, living there - just after the right-wing terrorist attack a week ago - , 20.ooo were of Turkish descent. Not completely integrated. There lies the real problem.

2 hours ago, blazes said:

8 hours ago, AussieBob18 said:

Being judgemental - the leader of the Party looks like a radical progressive feminist to me.  The social experiement that is Germany under Merkel's rule and with the EU dissolving, will continue to be a disaster - both economically and socially.  And the big problem with that is obvious - the Germans are not well known for being nice when things get tough.  They danger is that they are likely to elect some left wing radical socialist leader - like they did in the 30s.

 

Erm, the fact that the Nazis called themselves the National Socialist Party (or Bocialist if you follow Monty Python) did not make them socialists ! ! Ask Stalin !

However, Hitler was certainly "radical"....

How can you expect an Aussie yo have the slightest idea about German politics a 80 years ago ? 

There is a HUGE difference between the Nazi party  even for the beginning of the 30's) and the AfD.

 

While refugees catch the headlines, most migrants come from other parts of Europe. Only 15% of the 20.8 million people (= 25% of all Germans with 82 mln) with an immigrant background came as asylum-seekers. see   https://www.dw.com/en/germany-208-million-people-with-immigrant-background/a-50108141

 

And.. EU dissolving… I expect the UK to split a lot earlier, maybe already this year. 

4 hours ago, blazes said:

 

Erm, the fact that the Nazis called themselves the National Socialist Party (or Bocialist if you follow Monty Python) did not make them socialists!! Ask Stalin!

 

However, Hitler was certainly "radical"....

True - they were Nationalist Socialists that became Fascists under Hitler once they gained total power and control over the country.   Socialists believe that society and production should be controlled by the 'collective' for the benefit of all - which in practice always ends up being a select few.  But fascists strongly enforce centralised control over society and production, and use nationalism to control the people and extreme force to remove any opposition,  As shown by Stalin himself, the step from communism to fascism takes a simliar path. 

1 hour ago, AussieBob18 said:

True - they were Nationalist Socialists that became Fascists under Hitler once they gained total power and control over the country.   Socialists believe that society and production should be controlled by the 'collective' for the benefit of all - which in practice always ends up being a select few.  But fascists strongly enforce centralised control over society and production, and use nationalism to control the people and extreme force to remove any opposition,  As shown by Stalin himself, the step from communism to fascism takes a simliar path. 

Just because they called themselves "National Socialists" doesn't mean that they ever were, And in fact, once in power Hitler quickly allied himself with the interests of the major industrialists.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zw6s7p3/revision/3

Well done, Hamburg. Time to get the nazi terrorists out. 

On 2/24/2020 at 7:28 AM, blazes said:

 

Erm, the fact that the Nazis called themselves the National Socialist Party (or Bocialist if you follow Monty Python) did not make them socialists!! Ask Stalin!

 

However, Hitler was certainly "radical"....

Erm, the fact that Hitler called him self a Socialist, said he would die for Socialism and made his country Socialist did make him Socialist. Ask Hitler!

 

However, Hitler was certainly not "Far Right"....

 

 

 

 

"Socialism," said Hitler "is the science of dealing with the common weal. Communism is not Socialism. Marxism is not Socialism. The Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning. I shall take Socialism away from the Socialists.

"Socialism is an ancient Aryan, Germanic institution. Our German ancestors held certain lands in common. They cultivated the idea of the common weal. Marxism has no right to disguise itself as socialism. Socialism, unlike Marxism, does not repudiate private property. Unlike Marxism, it involves no negation of personality, and unlike Marxism, it is patriotic.

"We might have called ourselves the Liberal Party. We chose to call ourselves the National Socialists. We are not internationalists. Our socialism is national. We demand the fulfilment of the just claims of the productive classes by the state on the basis of race solidarity. To us state and race are one."

Edited February 25, 20206 yr by toast1

8 minutes ago, toast1 said:

Erm, the fact that Hitler called him self a Socialist, said he would die for Socialism and made his country Socialist did make him Socialist. Ask Hitler!

No, calling yourself something doesn’t make you that. 

 

8 minutes ago, toast1 said:

 

However, Hitler was certainly not "Far Right"....

You really should think twice before posting nonsense.