Saxony-Anhalt's AfD leading candidate Ulrich Siegmund has provoked harsh criticism from several parties with a statement in which he linked arms production and deportations. The criticism also comes from the BSW, which is the only party elected to the Magdeburg state parliament and wants to hold talks with the AfD.
"Ulrich Siegmund's statements mark a new quality," said the chairwoman of the SPD parliamentary group, Katja Pähle. "Anyone who brings military equipment into play in the announced mass expulsion of people from Saxony-Anhalt is talking about violence as a political tool." It is not a misleading formulation, but a political threat.
The AfD, “like the establishment,” supports increased armaments and “justifies the settlement of the Israeli arms company Elbit with the commitment to 'remigration,'” said BSW co-chair Fabio De Masi. "That shows that they don't want to govern at all and are desperately looking for a way out through provocation."
“Deportations are not a military task,” said deputy BSW parliamentary group leader Claudia Wittig. "Ulrich Siegmund obviously didn't think it through." The statement seems like a provocation and may show insufficient knowledge of the legal situation.
AfD federal politician supports Siegmund's statement
Specifically, after the AfD's inaugural parliamentary group meeting, Siegmund responded to a journalist's question about the planned settlement of an Israeli arms company: "We are not generally demonizing the production of armaments because we will of course also need appropriate aids in (the) later remigration and deportation offensive. Of course also in the sense of internal security, one’s own stability and also national defense.”
Siegmund received support from his own party - for example from Bundestag member Rüdiger Lucassen. "The fact is: Of course, the Bundeswehr can be used as part of administrative assistance for deportation flights," wrote the defense politician on
There was also protest from the ranks of the Bundestag, for example from the Parliamentary Managing Director of the Green Party Irene Mihalic. Siegmund's statements were "deeply shocking," said the MP. She accused the AfD of wanting to "implement its agenda bypassing the rule of law and using armed force against people who do not fit into its ethnic worldview." Siegmund's statements and similar statements from the AfD "paint a horror picture of an arbitrary state that I don't want to leave behind for us or our children."
Siegmund himself confirmed his statement when asked by the dpa news agency. Arms production includes "not only weapons, but also equipment, vehicles, protective technology and other aids on which the Bundeswehr, police and security authorities depend." This must be strengthened, "also in order to enforce the law, carry out deportations consistently and enable a real remigration offensive." It is a state political duty.
CDU politician takes up accusations of “ethnic cleansing”.
The CDU politician Ruprecht Polenz commented on Siegmund's words with a reference to criticism of the AfD by Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU). “This is called ethnic cleansing,” wrote Polenz on X. Merz had accused the AfD in the general debate in the Bundestag of planning “ethnic cleansing based on skin color and origin.” The AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag then announced that it had filed a criminal complaint against Merz. She accuses him of “defamatory insults.”
