Home Politics Germany Goes Full Gestapo as Vance and Rubio Slam “Tyranny in Disguise” – Beatrix von Storch Warns of “Dangerous Precedent for Democracies”
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Germany Goes Full Gestapo as Vance and Rubio Slam “Tyranny in Disguise” – Beatrix von Storch Warns of “Dangerous Precedent for Democracies”

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After the German secret political police labeled the most popular party in Germany, as The Gateway Pundit reported, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) “confirmed far-right”, US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that “That’s not democracy—it’s tyranny in disguise.” YouTuber Naomi Seibt called for US sanctions against European politicians who threaten democracy and free speech. Speaking to Journalist Michael Shellenberger, AfD vice-chair Beatrix von Storch called the threat of secret police surveillance “a dangerous precedent for all other democracies.”

Twitter files Journalist Michael Shellenberger published an article entitled “Germany On Brink Of Tyranny – Government’s labeling of the AfD as “extremist” lays groundwork for it to ban the party and persecute its members“, featuring a lengthy interview with AfD co-chair Beatrix von Storch – which we reprint here in its entirety:

Beatrix von Storch: Lots of us have been victims. They’re burning our cars. They’ve burned my cars. They’re breaking our windows. It’s dangerous. We have to take care where we go. We have to watch out. We have to have police protection.

Michael Shellenberger: Was it possible that they could ban the AFD? Is that seriously being considered?

They’re talking it over and over again. And there were plans to do so in the past. Germany as a constitutional state could never ban opposition party. That should be impossible. They’re talking it over and over again still. And I think what they forget about all this debate is… Just think about it for a second. Germany,

Beatrix von Storch:  Western democracy bans the biggest opposition party, which is number one in the current polls, so likely to win the next election. What a dangerous precedent that would be for all other Western democracies if Germany can do so. And what would be about Trump banning the Democratic Party, banning Democrats? Why not?

If Germany can do so, all others can do so as well. Dictators and other democracies as well. And maybe Marine Le Pen wins the next election in France and then she bans Macron’s party or whatsoever. The precedent which would be set by banning AfD in Germany would be a disaster for all Western democracies.

And it would be a very good excuse for any dictator in the world to ban opposition party in their authoritarian countries. So they should stop even talking about it because it gives ideas to bad people who are really not in favor of democracy systems.

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Michael Shellenberger: And what exactly is it in the German constitution that would allow the government to ban a political party?

Beatrix von Storch:They can apply to the constitutional court and they were the ones, they would be the ones to take that decision. So normally that would take years to undergo such a process. Normally, I’d say if the constitutional court would still stick to the constitution and to the right and to take into mind what they did in the past.

But if they overthrow everything, they might come to a conclusion even earlier. So there is a danger. I don’t take it 100% for real. But I think even debating about it is a danger to our democracy. And what it makes it difficult to explain, for example, to you, it’s not because you’re not understanding.

It’s because you cannot believe what I’m telling you. And this is what we know that in all other Western democracies, there is no such an idea of having the powerful parties in the parliament banning an opposition party. That’s not part of the concept. The concept of democracy is that you have got different parties and they should disagree, even on major topics. This is to give the people a choice. And then people vote for the party they want and then the leading party forms the government by their own majority or it needs a coalition partner. and and in germany there is a different concept the concept says that the government is able to infiltrate and spy on a legal basis on the opposition party by declaring themselves that this opposition party is for example a threat to democracy or to free speech or everything and then then they set a legal process into process and And that might end up in banning the whole party.

This is something we should give up. This idea is not a democratic idea. It’s against the core values of a democracy. And that’s the way we should debate about it.

Michael Shellenberger: At some point, the government put the AFD’s leadership under surveillance. And can you describe the circumstances of that surveillance? And do you think that the motivation for that was precisely to create an air of suspicion around AFD? What we saw in the United States with the Russiagate hoax was the use of surveillance as a way to spread misinformation and create a false perception of the Trump and MAGA movement. Do you think that same tactic was being used in Germany against AFD?

Beatrix von Storch:100%. And the head of this agency, his name is Haldenwang, or used to be Haldenwang, a very, I tried to explain it very polite and politically correct, but very stupid guy. That’s the nice way to say it. He admitted it publicly. He said, I’m in charge of keeping our, our constitutional state of law. Safe, that’s his duty.

And then he said, my duty is to diminish the poll numbers of AFD. He said it publicly.

Michael Shellenberger:  Wow.

Beatrix von Storch:Very stupid, very stupid, but at least very honest. Stupid people and children are very honest people because they’re stupid sometimes to lie. They’re just telling what’s on their mind. And he said it. You do not need to know more about it. They are trying to pursue our party to stop us because the only way to, there will be a very easy way to stop us is by stop mass migration and change our energy supply system so that people can afford electricity again, make it very short, but It’s a general idea and they are not willing to do it. And this is why our numbers go up.

And if you want to stick to your policy, but there is a party who publicly campaigns on stopping this policy, what the people want by majority, they only see one solution to this political problem. And this is to ban our party.

Michael Shellenberger: Can you describe the origins of AFD?

Beatrix von Storch: Sure. The party was founded on the grounds of the euro rescue policy when Greece was in severe trouble because it couldn’t stand the strong euro they had. So the Greece economy was shrinking and was fading away because they couldn’t afford the to have the euro as their currency because they were no longer able to devaluate the currency, which they always had to do to be competitive in the market. And ever since they no longer had the possibility to devaluate their own currency, what they did in the past, they started to have more and more debts and debts and debts after debts. And so in the very end, they had to be rescues.

So it was us starting paying off Greek debts so that they could survive as a country, as an economy. That ended up with basically Germany paying the debts of all other struggling economies and countries in the Eurozone. And in the end, that was something people thought, maybe that’s a stupid idea that Germany is paying off the debts of all the other countries. who couldn’t afford to have such a strong, for their economy, a strong currency. And that was the moment when the IFD was founded in 2013 or 14. And then that was the moment for a new party in Germany, because a lot of people understood that we have to stop this kind of rescue policy, because that’s in the end too expensive for Germany. We don’t want that. And that was the founding ground for our party. That was the Euro rescue policy, which was against the constitution again and so forth, but still.

And ever since the party has also then focused on different other topics, I would say one of the core topics from the very beginning besides Euro rescue policy was direct democracy we wanted to have the possibility for german voters to not own not only vote for a parliament and have a parliamentary democracy but also direct democracy which means that people can vote directly for a law without going through the parliament in addition to the parliament That was one of the core values. And then, of course, in 2015, the Europe crisis, the migrant crisis developed, and we were the only ones opposing the open border policy from the beginning.

So that was ever since 2015, that was one, of course, of our issues, which strengthened the party, because all the other parties would… basically crazy for open model policy and getting in as many illegal migrants as possible some still are some have have a bit given up that idea because they realize it’s not a brilliant idea not for the security not for economy not for anything And so some parties, especially the Christian Democratic Party, they at least changed their soundbites on migration. But that was another issue. And still, while we are the only ones to address this very clearly, without going into any kind of compromise on that topic, we are now, as I just said, number one in the polls in Germany. And when the next government, which will start on next Tuesday, as I just said, if they do not change the direction in this issue, AFD will get stronger and stronger.

We will not stop at 26%. We might end over 30% plus. And the other parties will lose. They will go down because people demand something else. Every other country. Party in Germany has roots in the Third Reich because they were founded after the war and had many members and founding members and important members who were former members of the Nazi parties or took a major role in the Third Reich. accept afd because we were only founded lots of years later that that’s one explanation the next one is as you can see in whole of the western society everyone who’s for secure borders against illegal mass migration is a Nnazi, is a fascist, is the devil, is something really bad. We can see that in all of our Western countries, at least, not the least United States. Even the United States is now called for not being a democracy any longer. Donald Trump is called to be a fascist. And so they are following a track of global, vogue, open border society whatsoever.

And everyone who is not in line with that. is a fascist, and specifically in Germany, of course, that’s a very dangerous attack, because no one wants to be a fascist, no one wants to be Nazi, specifically not in Germany. And as long as you are able to address someone, someone likewise,iIt declares you don’t have to go into argument with that person because he’s a Nazi. So there’s no need to talk to them. And I would say, yeah, you’re right. There is no need to talk to one. If there’s someone who wants to go back to the Third Reich and wants to kill millions of people because of an ethnic background or whatever reason, no need to talk to that person. But that’s not what we are. And then that’s the third point. Of course, there are some in any, you can find in any party, stupid people who make stupid comments on some Facebook websites or on Twitter or whatever, one speech or another, someone made stupid comments, but We’re now up close to 60,000 members. So majority has left, new members are in, and they’re still coming up and say, well, there has been some guy in 2015 or 14, and he said something awful. I said, yeah, he’s long gone, no longer a member of our party.

So just stop blaming us for something in the very past. And neglecting, you can focus on, I would say, 25 or 50 stupid comments on twitter or facebook or anywhere but then take into account that there are something like 50 million posts and speeches and everything we’re just 100 correct they just address politics from a different angel a direction and they have a different opinion we for example we we not think We not believe we know that there are only two genders. They don’t know it. And they think there are hundreds of different genders.

And if you say there are only two of them, they will call you a fascist or a transphobic or homophobic or whatsoever phobic. And. This is why they’re trying to not go into debate with us, I say, because they have no argument. And if you don’t have an argument against someone, you will always go against the person.

Make it personal to say you don’t have to go into argument. They have the right to do so.

Michael Shellenberger: On the one hand, you’re under surveillance by the government. And on the other hand, if I’m remembering correctly, you’ve also been a victim of violence and aggression by people opposed to you and your party. Is that right?

Beatrix von Storch:  Lots of us have been victims. They’re burning our cars. They’ve burned my cars almost 10 years ago. They’re breaking our windows and they’re painting our houses and painting. They’re putting colour, I don’t know how to say it correctly, putting colour on our houses, which we don’t want to have there, and writing awful stuff on our walls and trying to attack us in many different ways. So it’s dangerous. Sometimes it’s dangerous. At least we have to take care where we go, we have to watch out, we have to make sure when we do some kind of activity in the street, we have to have police protection.

If we move in public, we need police to protect us and so forth. Usually when we have got a party convention, we have got thousands of police officers taking care for us and making everything secure. And so it’s huge. It’s huge.

I always know that I’m approaching some kind of area where we have a campaign or something while realizing that there’s more and more police around. I know I’m getting closer because there’s so much police. I must be very close already to the place where I want to go. It’s… It’s very tough. It’s very tough.

I think it’s not only tough in Germany, it’s getting tough for all those political parties in Western Europe or in the Western world to include US and Canada, I don’t know so much, but there’s something changing at the very moment.

And I think what has happened is that for a very long time, policy moved towards the far left the far left, and now it’s moving back again. And some are afraid of losing power, losing control, of losing money, and maybe of losing their ideology or the success of their ideology.

And they want to stick to where they have gone. And this is a huge fight. But I think the positive thing is to realize that we’re, we’re, we’re back again. Trump has been reelected. And (Argentine President Javier) Millei is a huge hope for not only South America, I would say, and others, and in Europe, we can see that those right wing parties, you know, they are, they’re coming in first and second,  in different countries in Europe. They are approaching the government. They’re part of the government. They’re forming the government. And we’re shifting back again, back to normal, I would say, back to common sense. This is our message.

This is our program. And this is what AFD stands for. And this is why we will have success in the end. I’m very sure.

Michael Shellenberger:  How important was it to have the support of Elon Musk and JD Vance? Do you think it had an impact in Germany in terms of how people perceive AFD?

Beatrix von Storch:I think if you have someone like Elon Musk, hopefully Donald Trump soon to talk to us officially, then it makes it much harder to go against us. And because they should also talk to Elon Musk or to Elon, to do Donald Trump and others. And if that would be,

I think that’s the bigger impact that debate or this discussion had on his appearance on our show. is just to show we’re normal people, one can talk to us. You do not have to agree with everything we want, but we have to have a debate on our issues. This is what they’re not trying to have.

And so it’s helpful to force them to talk to us. And I think that was, for that reason, it was helpful. to to have elon musk on our side we do not agree with everything what donald trump does we do not agree with everything elon musk does we don’t think everything they do is in our interest but i always explain to the people we are not in favor of donald trump because he serves german interests no he was elected to serve american interests And what we don’t have is a government which serves German interests. And as long as we don’t have, that’s the problem.

And if we have got a government which is serving German interests, we will then go back to Donald Trump and Elon Musk and whomsoever. And then we have to make a deal. Then we have to come together. And then we’ll find a solution, even though we have got different interests. That’s the way we’re approaching politics. And I think we’re on a good way.

Michael Shellenberger: Is there some risk that the government is going to use censorship, that they’re going to start giving fines or censoring politicians or people in ways that would prevent AFD candidates from running in elections?

Beatrix von Storch: This is what they’re doing already, yes. What we see in France, they’re having that debate in Germany as well. Number one on that list is certainly Björn Höcke, who won the election. So he’s one of our leaders, one of the very controversial figures, yes. But he won the election in his region. He was number one.

He won by 10% ahead of CDU. And so they’re very afraid of the next election. So he might run a majority, win a majority in his region. And so they are starting to have a debate. They’re starting to think about laws. which could prevent some people from running for an election. But I must say, AFD, and that might be the difference to others, AFD, people vote for AFD because of our program. They do not care too much about our personnel, the people running the country, the party. They’re voting for us because they support our program. So we are 100% program-backed party. The program is produced by their members.

It’s not put upon the party from top down. It’s debated from basically all members of the parliament. We’ve got huge party conventions to vote on our program so this is the core the core of AfD:  our program and if even people criticizing AfD very hard they would admit that our program is perfectly fine it’s perfectly in line with democracy, with the rule of law, with a constitutional state and human rights and everything. They can’t find anything because there’s nothing nothing else is wanted by our members. So they are trying to stop our people from running for elections, for example in Thuringia, by creating new laws and by censorship.

Very hard censorship. This is what they are pushing for. And the  next chancellor of Germany, most likely next Tuesday, “conservative” Friedrich Merz, is also very much in favor of censorship and against hate speech, saying that there are only two genders is hate speech – and making jokes about politicians this is always hate speech except if it’s someone attacking us, then it’s is fine. But if someone who makes a joke about a Minister in germany will get sentenced to prison for seven months for making a joke By posting a photo.

So there was a guy who was posting a photo of our interior minister holding up a sign, which was obviously false, saying, I hate freedom of speech. That was on the sign the minister had in his hands. Obvious that she was not posing with such a sign saying, I am against freedom of speech. That’s obvious.

But the one who posted this meme was sentence to prison for seven months (on probation). He didn’t have to go to prison only because he has not been sentenced before to prison. But if something else will happen later on, then he will serve seven months in prison. And just today, minutes before we started this interview, I just read that this decision of the court, which was widely, broadly debated on, not only in Germany, but I would say worldwide, will now go to the next step in the court because the… prosecution did not think seven months is enough sentence of prison. So he’s claiming more. And so now this will have a second.

Michael Shellenberge: Wow.

Beatrix von Storch: Yes. Freedom of speech is in danger.

Michael Shellenberger: When is the next election, Beatrix?

Beatrix von Storch: The next general election should be in four years, but we don’t think that this current government will last four years because they’re not addressing the real problems we have. And so they might be in very deep trouble very soon. So I think the next general election is earlier than four years, but we have got very important regional elections coming up soon. And so we will see what the outcome is there. I am sure that everyone who, even if you’re not interested in German politics, you will hear a lot of German politics in the near future because we are in such a bad shape.

We’re in such a bad position. German economy is collapsing. And even if you’re not interested in politics, you will hear about it soon.

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Michael Shellenberger: Do you think that there is a way in which the government’s actions to suppress AFD have backfired? And that may be because in the United States, it appears as though many people think, including us, that the efforts to incarcerate Trump and prevent Trump from running for president and all of the censorship actually helped Trump because it scared voters. into being concerned about the authoritarianism of the Democrats. Do you think something similar has happened in Germany as well?

Beatrix von Storch: This government-run agency has a duty to keep our constitution and our state safe and so forth. And if they, on a legal basis, they can surveil a party, that’s an issue. That’s something one has to care about. And now people say, you know what?

It’s just ridiculous. It’s so ridiculous. No one takes these agencies serious any longer . Everyone knows they are run by the government and it’s not an independent agency looking after the constitutional state and trying to realize whether there is a threat for people trying to build a caliphate in Germany. That’s a threat or terror, Islam terror threats.

That’s something they should focus on, but they don’t focus on those people. They are focusing on us. And 26% of the people in Germany at the very moment would vote for AFD. And they would all say… What are you doing? You’re losing track. You’re concentrating on a on a Democratic Party rather than on those hundreds and thousands of Islamists, dangerous people running around and killing people and threatening everyone and so forth.

Michael Shellenberger:  And last thing, Beatrix, is it possible when is the next election and is it going to be possible to turn the nuclear plants back on?

Beatrix von Storch:  It is possible. We could do so. There is a majority in the German parliament to vote in favor of this because the Christian Democratic Union campaigned on that. We have that in our program. We both together could do so. We could have that decision in the parliament.

But the Christian Democrats are to do so because the Social Democrats, the other coalition partner, are not willing to do so. Probably lights go out here in Germany soon.

Michael Shellenberger: Beatrix von Storch, thank you so much for speaking with me.

Beatrix von Storch:Very happy to do so

 

Germany On Brink Of Tyranny by Michael Shellenberger

Government’s labeling of the AfD as “extremist” lays groundwork for it to ban the party and persecute its members

Read on Substack

Steven Crowder Slams Fascist Censorship in Germany: “Time to Break Ties”

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The post Germany Goes Full Gestapo as Vance and Rubio Slam “Tyranny in Disguise” – Beatrix von Storch Warns of “Dangerous Precedent for Democracies” appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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