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Thuringia's Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (left) in the SPIEGEL studio about Björn Höcke: "I'm afraid of what he writes, what he wants to do"
Photo: DER SPIEGEL
Thuringia's Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow has warned urgently about a possible Prime Minister Björn Höcke. The Thuringian AfD leader has been dissembling all his life, and now his outing "as a fascist" is becoming increasingly clear, said the left-wing politician in a top-level SPIEGEL conversation with Markus Feldenkirchen.
"I'm not afraid of him personally," said Ramelow about Höcke, "I'm afraid of what he writes, what he wants to do." Höcke writes clearly in his book how he wants to separate the national community from one another based on language and origin . Much of what became known about the AfD's deportation plans after the Potsdam meeting was written down years ago by Höcke. According to Ramelow, he turned the AfD into a “collective movement for all right-wing extremists” in Thuringia.
Their goal in Thuringia is not government, but rather just the paralysis of democratic institutions. The AfD outlined this itself at its last party conference. It's about "hunting down and denigrating" the other politicians, said Ramelow. "That's the basic substance: lying and cheating as normal."
The Thuringian state parliament will be re-elected on September 1st. The AfD, which the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has classified as definitely right-wing extremist in the Free State, is currently the strongest force in the surveys with more than 30 percent. The Left comes to 15 to 20 percent, the CDU is also around 20 percent.
Minority government is “just crap”
In order to prevent an AfD government, Ramelow can therefore also imagine a coalition with the CDU in the autumn: "I will do everything to ensure that a Björn Höcke does not become prime minister in Thuringia." For him, it is not about being "in the chair himself “to cling to”, but to strengthen democratic conditions in the Free State. “I will support everything that leads to strengthening democracy.”
Ramelow became the first Left Party Prime Minister in Germany in 2014. Since 2020, he has been governing the country - as the successor to short-term Prime Minister Thomas Kemmerich of the FDP - in a minority government with the SPD and the Greens, tolerating the CDU. However, the Christian Democrats have so far stuck to an incompatibility decision that excludes government cooperation with the Left Party. However, there are initial voices among the Christian Democrats who are becoming more open.
Ramelow also wants to prevent a new minority government in Thuringia if possible. He doesn't want to imagine continuing to rule like this. “It’s just crap,” said Ramelow about the current government constellation in the Free State.
more on the subject
State elections in the East: CDU politicians open to cooperation with the LeftBy Rasmus Buchsteiner and Florian Gathmann
Secret meeting in Potsdam: The ethnic visions of the AfD by Ann-Katrin Müller
In addition to coalition plans, many options are currently being discussed nationwide to curb the AfD's growing right-wing extremism. However, Ramelow does not want to comment on the AfD's ban, saying his office requires him to remain neutral. The left also criticizes protests in front of Höcke's private home. “Political debates have to be conducted where they belong, in front of party headquarters and in parliaments.”
Ramelow, however, praised the recent demonstrations against fascism as a clear sign against the AfD. “This demonstration gave me so much strength,” he said specifically about a rally he attended in Weimar. It was organized at very short notice by students from the Bauhaus University and no party was involved. At the time of the National Socialists, Bauhaus was driven out of Weimar, says Ramelow, and now today's students are standing up to prevent history from repeating itself: "The concern that something cosmopolitan will be driven out of Weimar is understood by young people."
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