Saxony-Anhalt's AfD leading candidate Ulrich Siegmund has linked the production of military equipment to the deportation offensive pursued by his party - and thus triggered sharp criticism. “Ulrich Siegmund’s statements mark a new quality,” said the leader 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 means of politics.”
The BSW, which had previously stated that it could imagine collaborating with the AfD on a project- and topic-related basis, also made sharp comments. The AfD supports increased armament and “justifies the establishment of the Israeli arms company Elbit with the use of arms technology for “remigration”, wrote the co-federal chairman Fabio De Masi. “This shows that they don’t want to govern at all and are desperately looking for a way out through provocation.”
What Siegmund said
After the AfD's constitutive parliamentary group meeting in the Magdeburg state parliament on Thursday, Siegmund responded to a journalist's question about the planned settlement of an Israeli arms company: "We are not demonizing the production of armaments across the board, because we will of course also need appropriate aids for (the) later remigration and deportation offensive. Of course also in the sense of internal security, one’s own stability and also national defense.”
It has to be weighed up on a case-by-case basis, Siegmund continued. “We want to take a close look at what is being produced there, under what conditions and do we run the risk of becoming involved in foreign conflicts? Then we see it as more critical.”
Possible partner BSW is distancing itself
When asked on Friday, Siegmund said: “Armament production is a broad field. This includes not only weapons, but also equipment, vehicles, protective technology and other aids on which the Bundeswehr, police and security authorities depend.” This is exactly what needs to be strengthened, Siegmund told the German Press Agency, "also in order to enforce the law, carry out deportations consistently and enable a real remigration offensive." This is not a scandal, but rather a political duty.
The statement also met with criticism from the possible AfD cooperation partner, the BSW in Saxony-Anhalt. “Deportations are not a military task,” said Claudia Wittig, deputy parliamentary group leader of the BSW in the state parliament, to the German Press Agency. Military armaments could not be used. “Ulrich Siegmund obviously didn’t think it through.” The statement seems more like a provocation and may show insufficient knowledge of the legal situation.
The BSW once again made it clear that it rejects the possible establishment of an Israeli defense company in the south of Saxony-Anhalt. Especially with a company “whose products are used in a war that is the subject of international proceedings due to the most serious allegations of violations of international humanitarian law.”
SPD speaks of a political threat
Pähle said that this was not a misleading formulation, but a political threat. This shows the ugly face of a politics whose language and ideas are once again reminiscent of totalitarian models.
The AfD politician's statements also sparked outrage in the Bundestag. The parliamentary director of the Green parliamentary group, Irene Mihalic, called Siegmund's statements "deeply shocking". “It makes it abundantly clear that the AfD wants to enforce its agenda bypassing the rule of law and using armed force against people who do not fit into its ethnic worldview,” she added. And it shows that the AfD is not just another political force in the parliamentary struggle.
Do statements influence prohibition procedures?
“The sum of such statements paints a horror picture of an arbitrary state that I do not want to leave behind for us or our children,” said Mihalic. It is not yet clear to what extent Siegmund's statement could possibly play a role in the ongoing legal dispute between the AfD and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. In an expedited procedure, the court came to the conclusion that there was a lack of evidence of “aggressive combative behavior” in the evidence presented by the Federal Office to classify the party as a confirmed right-wing extremist movement.
