Leaked AfD party program sounds too good to be true

Election poster reads "Enough is enough! Saxony-Anhalt votes for AfD", in Magdeburg, Germany on March 11, 2016 (AFP Photo/John MacDougall)

An Alternative für Deutschland party program has been leaked which, if even partly carried out, will be the best thing to happen to Germany since 1933. Here are the main points, according to reports:

• A return to “national” values in Germany. It “sees the traditional family” as the only model which can reverse the country’s declining birth rate. To this end the party pledges to take steps to ban abortion and make divorce more difficult. In addition, German families which produce children should be rewarded with financial incentives.

• End the provision of state benefits for single-parent mothers because they are a burden upon taxpayers and a disincentive to healthy family life. “The AfD is against the state financing the self-chosen single parent life model,” the manifesto says. It also advocates an end to the funding of state-run kindergartens, and favours young children remaining at home to be looked after by a parent.

• “Therapy-resistant alcoholics, drug addicts and psychologically ill perpetrators should not be kept in psychiatric hospitals but be put under lock and key."

• Handicapped children should not be included “at all costs” as pupils in regular schools because their presence can impede other pupils’ progress.

• The age of criminal responsibility to be reduced from 14 to 12.

• Favours dramatically cutting state benefits and introducing a flat 20 per cent tax rate.

• End the “current limitation” of history teaching to “the period of National Socialism.” Encourages a “wider consideration of history” to include more “positive aspects” of Germany’s past.

• Proposes to compel museums and theatres to strengthen their identification with “German” as opposed to “foreign” culture. 

• Put limits on the practice of the Muslim faith. Minarets should be banned along with the wearing of the burka and niqab in public. Muslim organisations should have tax benefits cut. Male circumcision should be outlawed and a ban imposed on the slaughter of animals without anaesthetic.

Social Democrat Party Leader Sigmar Gabriel likened the AfD ideas and language to that used in the 1920's and 30's and said, “The AfD is trying to establish a nationalistic society based on the idea of excluding people.” Yeah, isn't it great? Think about it – if you don't exclude people you don't have anything. That is, you have no identity at all.

Remember, the Social Democrats (SPD) are the oldest political party in Germany. Their great achievement was the Weimar Republic. Is that something to be proud of?