Voice # 94: Wing fights and affairs - how the AfD spoiled the start in the European election campaign
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The AfD on the defensive: Jörg Meuthen, the top candidate for the European elections, is fighting with a donation scandal. According to SPIEGEL revelations on the influence of Moscow on a Member of the Bundestag, the party must declare its relationship with Russia. And internal wing struggles additionally weaken the right-wing populists.
In the current podcast episode explains SPIEGEL editor Ann-Katrin Müller , what exactly is the allegations and how bumpy the party starts in the European election campaign.
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[00:00:02] Yasemin Yüksel Welcome to "Stimmenfang", the political podcast of SPIEGEL ONLINE. I am Yasemin Yüksel.
[00:00:11] Yasemin Yüksel ADVERTISEMENT: "Stimmenfang" will be presented again today by Vereinigte Lohnsteuerhilfe eV, the VLH. With one million members and around 3,000 counseling centers nationwide, VLH is the market leader and thus Germany's largest income tax assistance association, securing important tax benefits for you. Our listeners are now saving the admission fee. For the keyword "podcast" specify at the consultation. There is also something to win: 2.019 euros for an extra request. Just click on www.dankeVLH.de and join in.
[00:00:47] Einspieler Madam President, dear colleague Baumann, in the light of the reports that can be read today at ZDF and SPIEGEL about the ties between your group, between your party, the AfD, and the Russian government here in a debate on the protection of the Constitution and the issue of counterintelligence so small in hat.
[00:01:08] Yasemin Yüksel The AfD on the defensive. A few days ago, the FDP MP Konstantin Kuhle attacks the right-wing populists in the Bundestag and accuses them of being influenced by Russia. What exactly is the allegations and how bumpy is the party starting the European election campaign? I can talk about that today with my colleague Ann-Katrin Müller. Ann-Katrin, you are writing about the AfD in the head office of SPIEGEL and I am very glad that you are there. Hello Ann-Katrin.
[00:01:34] Ann-Katrin Müller Hello.
[00:01:35] Yasemin Yüksel Ann-Katrin, you wrote this weekend in an article about the AfD on SPIEGEL ONLINE: "It was not a good week for the AFD." Why not?
[00:01:44] Ann-Katrin Müller I think you have to say it that way, because that's how much has come out. There were so many different media reporting things about the AfD. In addition, her candidate for the Bundestag Vizeamt has not come through, even had the worst result of all three ballots.
[00:02:01] Yasemin Yüksel Mariana Harder-Kühnel, we'll talk about that soon.
[00:02:02] Ann-Katrin Müller Exactly. And then it came out that one of the chiefs of the Identitarian Movement, which is being monitored by the constitution protection, now works in the Bundestag office of an AfDler. The donation affair has got another chapter and so on.
[00:02:16] Yasemin Yüksel And also a story in the SPIEGEL, research in SPIEGEL, about which we can certainly talk later. That said, I can stick on that was a week of bad news for the AfD. Let's start with the non-election of Mariana Harder-Kühnel to the Bundestag Vice-President. You have already mentioned that.
[00:02:35] One-on- one yes voted 199 MPs, voted No 423 MPs, abstention 43. Representative Mariana Harder-Kühnel did not reach the required majority and is therefore not elected Deputy President.
[00:02:54] Yasemin Yüksel Quite briefly, the AfD is the office of the Bundestag Vice President. This is what the Bundestag statutes say. The office has been vacant since autumn 2017 and Harder-Kühnel, an AfD MP from Hesse, failed in the third ballot. I read about you in a text about you, you describe it as "the Switzerland of the AfD". Who is she and where is she in the party?
[00:03:16] Ann-Katrin Müller She likes to stage herself in such a way that she can do it with everyone, does not bother anyone, never joins one of those groups that exists in the AfD, such as the wing or the alternative Middle, that she had somehow tendered to them. She also did not sign the Erfurt resolution. That's what she calls everything as an argument why she would be great for this post.
[00:03:35] Mariana Harder-Kühnel I would like to be Bundestag Vice - President for all Members. I want to balance and, of course, I want to mediate between us and the other groups.
[00:03:45] Ann-Katrin Müller Interestingly, almost two weeks ago, I would say that it might not be that easy, and you can not really escape that in the AfD. So this "you can with all", that has yet managed none of them. That's why I thought that was a bit strange and then started to look around and bit by bit, interestingly enough, there was always more in the faction, saying: "Mm, it's too close to our wings."
[00:04:14] Yasemin Yüksel Ann-Katrin, for those who do not deal with the AfD every day. Explain again: What is this wing?
[00:04:20] Ann-Katrin Müller The wing is a group around Björn Höcke, the even more right-wing part of the party.
[00:04:28] Yasemin Yüksel And the wing is classified by the constitutional protection as a suspected case. What does that mean?
[00:04:33] Ann-Katrin Müller This means that the protection of the constitution looks very closely and is already beyond the test case, which he is not allowed to say anymore.
[00:04:41] Yasemin Yüksel On Thursday, that was the day of the vote, you wrote an article for SPIEGEL ONLINE. The was published shortly before the vote in the Bundestag and come in Harder-Kühnel-critical voices from its own fraction. And what happened then?
[00:04:55] Ann-Katrin Müller I have to say, as I said, I've been researching for some time and the AfD people have been thinking back and forth over and over again, whether they want to say something about it or not and then just came that morning with the quotes so to speak. And what happened then? That's a good question. I've heard that in several factions, especially the FDP and the CDU / CSU faction, this article has sparked a few people running back and forth and saying, "Look, we can now do not we really have to abstain? "
[00:05:25] Yasemin Yüksel I think both Christian Lindner of the FDP and Ralph Brinkhaus of the CDU had said: "Yes, we choose them.".
[00:05:32] Ann-Katrin Müller Exactly or in any case, that they could vote for them personally and that the vote is free and they would not mind.
[00:05:39] Yasemin Yüksel Can you really say something about whether your sources are now the outlaws in the AfD?
[00:05:47] Ann-Katrin Müller There are people in the AfD who tell me again that they know who talked to me and that they talked a serious word too. I had no further contact there now.
[00:05:57] Yasemin Yüksel That means the fact that from your own faction came criticism of Harder-Kühnel and you have taken up this criticism in your article, so that the party has a bit of your own candidate actually shot himself. What does that say about the inner turmoil of the AfD? How divided is the party inside?
[00:06:17] Ann-Katrin Müller The last few weeks and months you almost had the feeling that things had calmed down a bit as far as the topic was concerned. In fact, I think it's not that easy, it just does not get worn out as far as I know. And it could well be that this is going to break up again in the future, because it is a fundamental decision. How far to the right do you want to position yourself? Are you bogged down by bourgeois voters, as they call it, or are you just indulging yourself completely?
[00:06:47] Yasemin Yüksel Our colleague Markus Feldenkirchen has published a comment after this failed election. The tenor was something like: "You will not let go." He meant just so, addressed to the other parties in the Bundestag, who wants to fight the AfD, then perhaps not with this means, because ultimately the party may also benefit from the fact that they are just in their victimhood or in this role of the martyr confirmed sees. How do you rate that?
[00:07:16] Ann-Katrin Müller There are these two schools of thought, what Markus described and then the others who say: "Hold on, no matter where we put them in. A) they do not deserve that and they want to fight democracy and that's why we do not want that. " And I find it very difficult to answer that because it has not been tried in certain things yet. But I also do not see, so no matter where they can participate, so I mean, before they were in the Bundestag, they have staged there as a victim. Now they are in the Bundestag, but continue to stage themselves as victims. For populist parties, it is a key feature and they will continue to do so. And they will always find something where they do not feel treated right.
[00:07:53] Alexander Gauland The other parties not only did not vote for our vice-candidate in the polls today, they also had fewer votes than the last time. This is an increase of the undemocratic, so to speak. If such an increase is still possible. It is obviously not possible in this Parliament to work consensually in any way, but we should be marginalized and we do not want to be involved in all democratic processes.
[00:08:32] Ann-Katrin Müller So I do not know if the solution is to dial it in just to dial it in. Of course, they have that to them, but they are not entitled to be elected. This is just a democratic ballot and there you can also remember the Greens, as those who have come to the Bundestag, as they stood theoretically to this post and it took but I think even several years, until they got the then.
[00:08:53] Yasemin Yüksel And in this miserable situation, the European election campaign is beginning now for all parties, but also for the AfD. How well positioned is the AfD in this election campaign?
[00:09:03] Ann-Katrin Müller The AfD has the problem, that just so much pounces on her. Which I tried to enumerate so much at the beginning and they are just doing a bit as if nothing was right. They try to make their campaign debut, keep their speeches.
[00:09:17] Alexander Gauland This election will show if the EU, and with it us Europeans, is going a step further or is correcting the direction.
[00:09:28] Ann-Katrin Müller None of the allegations goes down except for one of three speakers. The only one who then went into it and did not really stick to it, because there was nothing to say, was Guido Reil. He is in second place on the European list and has a donation scandal on his own. And he wanted to say something about it, but also to these allegations about Russia, which has published the SPIEGEL, among others.
[00:09:51] Guido Reil On the radio as I said, I've heard exciting things, except for courage-muscles, I also heard that Putin has dolls. We should be. You have to imagine that. Is that even more blatant? We are the dolls of Putin. All I know is that no other people in the world has suffered as much under National Socialism as Russia. 28 million Russians died there. 28 million. And we stand by this historical responsibility and we in the AfD, we love the Russian people.
[00:10:30] Yasemin Yüksel Can you tell us the basics of what the story is about? This was a joint research by SPIEGEL, ZDF, the British BBC was involved and the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
[00:10:40] Ann-Katrin Müller The story is about how the Russians or Russian politicians try to influence German politics by campaigning in a very targeted manner, apparently trying to plan demonstrations here and just a few deputies apparently raussuchen and then just prepared for how to support them.
[00:11:01] Yasemin Yüksel One of these individual MPs in history, the title of the story is "Moscow's puppets", is the AfD man Markus Frohnmaier. Who is this?
[00:11:11] Ann-Katrin Müller This is someone who has made a pretty steep career in this party. He is only 28 years old and has been playing a prominent role for quite some time, because he was spokesperson for Frauke Petry even before the Bundestag, then speaker of Alice Weidel and also chairman of the Junge Alternative, which is also considered very radical and the again by the protection of the Constitution is observed in parts. And he just managed very quickly to get acquainted with very pithy or even racist slogans and build a network accordingly.
[00:11:48] Markus Frohnmaier I say this left minded terrorist, this party felt very clear: If we come, then tidied up. Then it is mucked out. Then again politics is made for the people and only for the people. Because we are the people, dear friends.
[00:12:07] Yasemin Yüksel How is this supposed influence by Russia to work on a young MP like Mr Frohnmaier? Can you describe in essence what you found out?
[00:12:17] Ann-Katrin Müller According to these documents, the Russians are obviously pretending that they are planning an action plan and providing certain campaign support for Frohnmaier, and that he will then represent Russia-friendly positions and then make foreign policy in the Bundestag should, at least the plan. He was not elected to the Foreign Affairs Committee, but that was because of his own faction. And then there's just this quote in it, that he should then be a completely under control MP from the Russians.
[00:12:44] Yasemin Yüksel And you, Ann-Katrin, have confronted Markus Frohnmaier with these allegations. How did he react?
[00:12:51] Ann-Katrin Müller So I can not quote from this background discussion. He has forbidden this in retrospect. The answers, which are also in the text, are then from his lawyer. But he lets his lawyer know that he believes these documents are fake.
[00:13:04] Yasemin Yüksel I believe how tense the mood in the AfD after these releases is, you could also see well at a scene last week in the Bundestag. The FDP member Konstantin Kuhle expressed himself there or spoke to the AfD there directly.
[00:13:17] Konstantin Kuhle Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear colleagues of the AfD, In view of the European elections we should be very clear when discussing counterintelligence here: they have it together with you Apart from their friends in Moscow, liberal democracy in Europe and Germany. And they are in truth closer to Vladimir Putin than to the Basic Law. And therefore they should be careful not to make the other factions or the German public here on the issues of the protection of the Constitution and the Basic Law. You should be ashamed and screaming around here that shows that there is something in these stories.
[00:13:55] Yasemin Yüksel Where does this proximity of the right-wing populists come from at all to Russia, that is mutual or why is the AfD so interesting for Russia?
[00:14:05] Ann-Katrin Müller That's a good question. In fact, many program points just overlap. For example, regarding homosexuality as far as the example of foreign policy is concerned. There is also a certain form of anti-Americanism in the AfD, which comes quite well to the Russians. In this respect, the AfD politicians are simply the Russians I think very nice. Plus they are still politically often very inexperienced and then perhaps easier to influence.
[00:14:34] Yasemin Yüksel In the last few days you have been on several European election campaigns of the AfD. You were in Offenburg, that was the prelude of the AfD in the European election campaign. You were in Milan a few days ago. There was an alliance, you can call it that, between Jörg Meuthen, who is the European top candidate of the AfD and Matteo Salvini. What is it about?
[00:14:55] Ann-Katrin Müller Salvini attempts to unite the European Right and announced in the presence of Meuthen and a Danish right and a Finnish right that they will form a large group after the European elections in the new European Parliament. And that they are just these whole fragmented groups that are still there, then just become one and try to generate just more power and more influence in the European Parliament and have even announced that many more will join. Of course you do not know if this will happen, but Marine Le Pen and others are supposed to be there. So far, the four people who were sitting in Milan, for example, are divided into three different groups, all right-wing in the European Parliament, and after the European elections they want to join forces with others to become an extremely right-wing group in the European Parliament ,
[00:15:47] Jörg Meuthen Matteo has already made very clear what we want to do differently in this group. We want to reform the European Union, but we do not want to destroy it. We want a radical change in such a way that the European Union should return competences to the member states.
[00:16:07] Ann-Katrin Müller I found it interesting in Milan, above all, that she, I think you can almost call it framing, now always plays with the term reason. Somebody stood behind them on the wall behind them: "For a Europe of reason, the people are coveting." Again and again is now in talks with AfDlern of the reason and "the only reasonable party" and therefore one wants a reasonable immigration, which limit that and so on. I think that could now wait for us in the election campaign.
[00:16:33] Yasemin Yüksel How is it to be understood? The AfD rejects the EU. Gauland also occasionally says that since the EU is not a state, it does not need a parliament.
[00:16:43] Alexander Gauland Our opponents say, "Why do you choose to vote in a parliament they want to abolish?" Yes, because the EU is not a state, it does not need a parliament. But as long as this Parliament exists, we have to bring our interests there.
[00:17:13] Yasemin Yüksel However, one still hopes for posts in this Parliament that are actually rejected. That sounds relatively contradictory to me. Can you break that down?
[00:17:22] Ann-Katrin Müller That's a contradiction. They take a makeshift argument and say, "As long as the EU still exists, we want to get involved somehow, just to make it better somehow, but honestly, one has to say that they have tried a little bit to get the balloon going with a Dexit, so whether Germany could escape from the EU, and have noticed on the one hand, that this does not work so well that there is a lot of resistance and above all, that the Brexit just now not so the shining example Apparently nobody in Germany can explain that this is supposed to be the model of the future, that's why they dropped that again and now say, "No, we do not want the Dexit. Slowly reform, not destroy. "
[00:17:59] Alexander Gauland We are leaving the EU. This is easily said, but what would happen if we Germans leave a pact, the foreign countries look very different than if the Dutch or the Poles would do it and that has to do with our history, because we are not always so good neighbors were. Mistrust would be huge. One would again speak of a German special way. In that sense, we should not try to run into Dexit, but to change the EU from within. And that is why the AfD must be quite successful in the European elections, in order to change the Europe with the other forces so that we all feel comfortable in it.
[00:18:51] Yasemin Yüksel And now it is like that, you mentioned it earlier, that the leading candidate of the AfD, Jörg Meuthen, is also coming under pressure because he, too, is now in the focus of the donation scandal. We had previously discussed the donation scandal in a podcast episode a few weeks ago. It was all about the background to the allegedly illegal donation of 130,000 euros to the AfD district association of Alice Weidel in the year 2017. And these days, this story gets a new chapter: It's about Jörg Meuthen. What is he accused?
[00:19:22] Ann-Katrin Müller It's about campaign support, so it's about posters and the like worth 90,000 euros and the Swiss Goal AG has so to speak advertised for him and he was almost just happy that they did that. He did not understand that, he says, that should be party funding. Mr Meuthen then had to tell the Bundestag administration where this money came from. Then he asked the Swiss Goal AG. She has given him a list of the donors. Then the colleague Sven Röbel has found out that this list just falsified is obvious and that leads the track to a real estate entrepreneur, who comes from Duisburg, but now also living in Switzerland, Mr. Conle, and that quasi have used straw men to to disguise the fact that the money comes from one person, because Mr. Conle seems to prefer supporting election campaigns in the background.
[00:20:18] Yasemin Yüksel And now the AfD, she also likes to say, is the only constitutional state party in Germany. What is your prognosis? How will the party try to shape these last weeks, remaining weeks in the European election campaign?
[00:20:33] Ann-Katrin Müller I believe two things that are honestly a bit contradictory, but good, that's more common with the AfD. One is that they will try to attract media attention through things like Salvini and then Le Pen and so on. And the other will be to say that all this is a kind of huge campaign against them. So every new release, in fact in the last week so many, are then part of a campaign to destroy this truth and to make it worse. They are trying to discredit our work and retain their voters.
[00:21:05] Yasemin Yüksel Thank you for today, thank you for your assessment, Ann-Katrin.
[00:21:11] Ann-Katrin Müller With pleasure.
[00:21:12] Yasemin Yüksel That was "Stimmenfang", the political podcast of SPIEGEL ONLINE.
[00:21:13] Yasemin Yüksel ADVERTISEMENT: Lastly, a reminder from our sponsor, the United Income Tax Service. Do not forget: your tax return must be received by 31.07. or even better, let your tax make the VLH. www.vlh.de.
[00:21:30] Yasemin Yüksel The next episode of "Stimmenfang" will be available on SPIEGEL ONLINE, Spotify and all popular podcast apps starting next Thursday. If you have any feedback, just write us an email to Stimmfang@spiegel.de or use our "Stimmenfang" mailbox on 040 38080400. You can also send us a WhatsApp message to the same number. This episode was produced by Sandra Sperber and myself, Yasemin Yüksel. Thanks for the support this week to Jelena Berner. Johannes Kückens, Wiebke Rasmussen, Thorsten Rejzek, Matthias Streitz and Philipp Wittrock. The "Stimmenfang" music comes from Davide Russo.
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