Björn Höcke apologizes for Holocaust speech; Compact interviews Andreas Wild

L to R: Andreas Wild, Björn Höcke, Hans-Joachim Berg of the Alternative fur Deutschland party in Thuringia.

by Carolyn Yeager

DISAPPOINTINGLY (BUT FOR THE SAKE OF PARTY HEALING OBVIOUSLY), the leader of the AfD in Thuringia state took a step back and, while speaking at a state party meeting today (Saturday) in Arnstadt announced, “"I took a big, important topic and unfortunately turned it into beer hall talk. That was a mistake. For that, I would like to apologize here."

He was referring to a speech in Dresden on January 17 in which he correctly described the grotesque Berlin Holocaust memorial as a “monument to shame” and said Germans should instead be encouraged to look forward to a proud future, not always back to a past of only 12 years length. Those words were well-received by the AfD youth organization to which he was speaking, but naturally brought loud criticism from the center and left political parties and establishment Jews.

Coming in an election year, Hocke's January speech was the reason behind the AfD's National Council suprise vote last week to expel him from the party. National leader Frauke Petry called him a “burden” on the party and his comments as “unauthorized solo actions." Höcke now awaits an arbitration panel of the AfD Thuringia to either approve or disapprove that federal level action. He seems to be confident he will not be expelled, so this may be his way to make peace with the party. Höcke said he has no aspirations to run for the Bundestag in September's federal elections, and also no intention to leave the AfD.

Interview with Andreas Wild

In the meantime, Compact magazine is being sued by Frauke Petry for it's coverage of the dispute. A commenter to my last post has written disparaginly of the magazine, but I found a particular interview it recently published with an AfD deputy from Thuringia, Andreas Wild, to be excellent. Here it is ...

COMPACT: How do you rate the current dispute about Björn Höcke?

Andreas Wild: I have not heard [anything] from Höcke so far which I would criticize. As I understand him in his speech in Dresden of January 17, Höcke wants to make us Germans courageous, self-assured, self-confident, self-determined and free to look forward and not anymore and always only or mainly back - in schools, in universities, in cultural activities, in the leading media. I am convinced that many more people also see it [in that way]. The allegations against Höcke because of his speech lie above all on a wrong and shortened presentation by the German press agency. Trump also had all the leading media and election prognoses against him. Today he is US President. The AfD will also be successful with Trump's strategy, with clear announcements, sometimes politically incorrect, but always with clear commitment for the country and its people.

COMPACT: As an entrepreneur you are a busy man. What were your reasons for entering politics?

Andreas Wild: Well, I think everyone should take responsibility for the society in which we live, for our country. I was a long time a member of the CDU. At the end of 2012 I [no longer felt] the honesty and I stepped out. The ignoring of the demographic disaster, the dissolution of Germany into the EU, the irresponsible "rescue" of the euro, the abolition of conscription, the groundless shutdown of nuclear power plants, the nonsensical construction of then-and-bat electricity by means of windmills and solar cells without functioning storage solutions ... the amount of obvious malfunctions increased exorbitantly during the Merkel era. All this was too much (lived) dishonesty for me, and the members of the CDU had only to turn back Angela Merkel's ideas. After a few interim months at the FDP, I then entered the AfD in summer 2013. In the past three years, I have been building and designing the district council Steglitz-Zehlendorf on an honorary basis.

COMPACT: What exactly do you want to change in politics? And why with the AfD?

Andreas Wild: In the AfD I can say what I think. For example, every upright citizen has the duty to bear his share of responsibility in the country for the community. Just like anyone who can, is fundamentally called to procreate and successfully raise children. It is only then that we have fulfilled our duty to the society which protects and provides for us. I see every living person living today as the result of the efforts of his parents, grandparents, yes, the entire ancestral chain. If this living man says then, "I do not want children, then all the foregoing was in vain. I would have already mentioned the most important problem that I think is worth resolving: the low birth rate of the Germans.

[...] The Germans have been corrupted by the lure of the consumer society. [...] A people who do not produce enough children is like a man who gets too little food. First he takes off, then he dies. This is our main problem, which has simply been ignored by generations of politicians. They have failed to create accompanying circumstances that foster family foundations.

The second problem I see is also a demographic one. It is the legal and illegal immigration of foreigners who are not interested in becoming Germans. People migrate from archaic societies, many are socialized in Islamic cultures, which are not only [disagreeing] with our basic law but whose worldview is simply incompatible with the basic law. This can not go well. We allow ourselves a social experiment which, in the worst case, will end in civil-war-like conditions. We are thus sinning against the next generations, who must then solve the problem. [...]

COMPACT: Recently, public Burka burns have been one of your issues. What's it all about?

Andreas Wild: When I said I wanted to keep an eye on the public burqa burning, I was referring to the Jesi women cruelly persecuted and enslaved in parts of Iraq, Syria and Turkey occupied by IS terrorists. These women burn their burqas as a sign of their liberation from the IS terror as soon as the territories are liberated from it. The women there look forward to the liberation from the IS and the Burka, and here in Germany the wearing of a Burka - and in the street image it is tolerated as a religious freedom! For me, this is almost a mockery of the women, who are suppressed by political, fundamentalist Islam in the Middle East and increasingly oppressed. [...] We must educate our people about this and defy the beginnings. This would be the task of a responsible government ...

COMPACT: You wrote in a Facebook post, you do not want to be governed by "irresponsible barren". What did you mean?

Andreas Wild: Look, we are now prisoners of political correctness in Germany. Hardly anyone is still dying to publicly express opinions diverging politically from "mainstream" in the workplace and even in the family environment. You could land in the "right corner". We must not, however, forbid our speech. I certainly did not want to hurt or exclude anyone, but I believe we have some political protagonists who are deeply irresponsible. This can be connected with their childlessness. Just take the "argument" of Merkel for unlimited, indiscriminate immigration: she asserts that we Germans are 80 million inhabitants and could tolerate a few million migrants without major burdens. That's what I look at [...] The young German men make up just over two-thirds of all young men living in Germany. This is alarming, at least for someone who has children and wants to leave behind a German Germany in which our traditions and values ​​are lived. To the childless this might not be so important.

COMPACT: Thilo Sarazzin wrote, Germany is doing away with itself. You, Mr. Wild, make me feel quite optimistic. Is it still possible to save Germany?

Andreas Wild: Well, after the Brexit came the Trump victory: The citizens in the USA and Europe turn away from the political establishment and form new movements. At the end of April (first election) and at the beginning of May (election) 2017 in France. Would the new French President be Marine Le Pen, I would not be surprised. I see the time of a not only liberal and conservative but also patriotic movement like the AfD, also come in Germany. We must again take our fate into our own hands! [...] At present, we have only a narrow corridor of influence. The alternative for Germany leads here and has already achieved a lot in the setting of public topics.

COMPACT: Mr. Wild, thank you for the interview.

Interview conducted by Lars Günther

Biography Andreas Wild: Born in 1963 in Duisburg, he grew up in Swabia, he moved to (West) Berlin in 1985. He is a practicing Catholic, married and a family father, his eldest son is 30. Wild is a graduate social pedagogue and since 2004 a medium-sized entrepreneur. He does almost every kind of work in the house and company himself. He likes to spend his time privately in the caravan, on the hunt or choiring.