In the post shared by Musk, the account lamented the presence of humanitarian groups in the Mediterranean Sea that rescue migrants from distressed vessels.
“These NGOs are subsidized by the German government,” the account posted. “Let’s hope AfD wins the elections to stop this European suicide.”
While I’m not convinced the distinction between extreme right wing supporters and Nazis is as significant as you suggest, I do understand that it is possible to object to unchecked mass migration without being a Nazi or even being right-wing.
Refugees and corresponding xenophobia are a pretty standard global topic for obvious reasons, and as much as I wish infrastructure could be instantaneously built, I know it can’t be.
But:
We’re well past discussing the nuances of “what separates Nazis from other far-right ideology” and plausible deniability when someone starts invoking the name of fucking Buchenwald. Even if the rest of that list were somehow acceptable or could be explained away, there’s no mistaking what Buchenwald means.
I’m not surprised by the global rise of the right-wing rhetoric as the situation gets harder for 99% of people. I have been watching that closely for years. Xenophobia is always presented everywhere as the false easy solution. What I am surprised by is that Germany is allowing politicians to advocate specific Nazi atrocities when there are purportedly laws against glorifying Nazis.
Calling for a second holocaust, demanding refugees should be executed, all of this is forbidden in Germany. I don’t know where you got your information from but none of this has happened:
There are Nazis in the AFD, though. They want to stop teaching so much about the Holocaust at schools and they use rhetoric tricks to get people riled up or circumvent the laws around denying the Holocaust.
For example Björn Höcke (who almost certainly is a Nazi) said: “Alles für Deutschland” (All for Germany) and has to go to court for this.
I think we still misunderstand each other on why calling right wing people in general Nazis is a problem. And Björn Höcke is a good example.
The word is used as if you are right wing, then extremely right wing and then you are a Nazi. As if this is somehow worse than being extremely right wing. But “Nazi” is not the superlative of being right wing. And people like Höcke will use this to get people to vote for the AFD.
A Nazi is someone who is, for example, denying the Holocaust. Or believes in Herrenrasse or something like that. Right wing people simply have to deny that they are Nazis (which is easily done, look above) and suddenly your “argument” is gone.
That’s exactly what Björn Höcke did before and will do in court again. It will again be about whether or not he can be called a Nazi which is completely irrelevant if you want to tackle the problem that is people voting for AFD and other politicians being increasingly right wing.
When the court says: “Yes, Björn Höcke used Nazi rhetoric!” The AFD will say: “Oh no what an evil man! With Nazis we don’t want to have anything in common! He is not AFD anymore.” And all the people can continue to vote for AFD, they aren’t Nazis afterall. Great!
Old twitter screenshot of Mirko Welsch’s account apparently calling for Antifa to be deported to Buchenwald
I was unable to determine what other interpretations this might have:
Perhaps there is some nuance I have missed, ‘nach’ is a very versatile word even if the rest are very unambiguous.
This factchecker analysis looked even-handed enough for me to be satisfied it was not just my poor German or inaccurate auto-translation.
For the other incidents, I’ll leave you to check the post I initially replied to for names and accuracy checking.
Literally every single one of these quotes where either proven as false or the people are not part of the AFD and/or they were brought to court and judged for it. That’s all on the site of Faktencheck.
Are you referring to a different Factchecker than the link i posted? Or are you saying they just left up the page with incorrect information? “Proven as false” doesn’t seem to match this quote from the link I posted.
The Link you posted does not match the quotes you claimed have been said. And also you wrote Germany allowed the AFD to say those things, but it is not true.
As I said previously:
For the Buchenwald quote, under heading list item 3: Mirko Welsch from the link I provided that you said proved false most of the claims despite it saying they were “mostly accurate”:
Which directly contradicts what you said:
What I also said:
Were there legal consequences for Welsch saying this that I missed? Was there a trial and investigation?
Mirko Welsch is not in the AFD and of course there was a trial.
He is actually trialed regularly and he always changes his targets. Sometimes he insults groups on Facebook who are against (!) the right as antisemites. Then he insults the major of Hamburg as a “Fascist bitch”. And other cases like this.
In your original post you claimed these are all things the AFD does that are allowed in Germany, but it is not true (that’s why I said none of this has happened).
If the AFD would say this they could have easily be banned! That’s even on the website and the links you posted yourself.
Mirko Welsch left the AFD quite some time ago, ironically, claiming that Björn Höcke is a neo fascist. This is a quote from Mirko Welsch why he left:
(“As much as I stand for a conservative-patriotric awakening in Germany, just as much I oppose the ingradiation towards a right-wing extremist and nationalist milieu.”)
https://www.queer.de/detail.php?article_id=28385
This was around 2017, a few years before the tweet. Which says pretty much everything about these clowns.
The publicity about unimportant people like Welsch, the trials and the way they are thrown out of or leave the AFD with a lot of media attention is a tool to them. This is used by people like Björn Höcke or Alice Weidel to pretend they are centrist. They thrive from the discord in the other parties.
For example they will put “gender” on the agenda on purpose, because they know it will get the others fighting and then they can later pretend in front of their voters that the other parties talk about “unimportant stuff like gender” all the time. They don’t advertise or use Nazi stuff openly, because that’s very complicated in Germany and will easily get you banned or prosecuted.
So they use sneaky tactics to bind actual neo Nazis but also the much bigger group of “centrist” conservatives and right wing people who do not want to associate with Nazis.
Link to trial information, please? I don’t speak German well enough to know my way around your court document systems.
Also, as per the same factchecker article, a few sentences up:
He was the spokesperson for homosexuals in the AfD. Which is just a wild concept in itself, but whatever, self-haters gonna self-hate.
I quoted exactly what I said. I’ll do so again so nobody has to scroll:
You said “none of this happened”. In a language I don’t even speak I found third party evidence of someone advocating for Buchenwald, one of the things in the ‘never happened because ot is forbidden’ list. You told me the factchecker link I posted said the opposite. Then when I showed you it didn’t say the opposite, you said it didn’t address the quote at all. Then when I showed you it did, you now say he isn’t in the AfD. As though quitting cancels all your historical membership too.
All of this, after telling me that even though the AfD has Nazis in it, we shouldn’t call them out as Nazis… because:
Much like you have started a discussion about whether Welsch really is AfD, or if Germany really “allowed” him to say it, or if he ever really said it at all, or if the factchecker really addresses it…
No. To your point about not calling people Nazis because they’re assholes, I will continue to call assholes Nazis when they are Nazi assholes who explicitly call for repeating Nazi history, policy and/or beliefs. If they are assholes who do not call for Nazi repeat history, policy, and the same values, I will not call them a Nazi. Because they are just assholes, not Nazis.
If we stop calling Nazis out as Nazi, we choose to run the euphemism treadmill and give legitimacy to those who claim their grotesque conservative ethno-nationalist populism is somehow “different” from Nazis.
It’s not different. I’m not going to wait until the gun is pointing at me and others before I call out the same dangers and patterns that led to the last time Nazis were allowed to enjoy mainstream popularity, and the last time people like me were tortured, raped, enslaved and ultimately killed.
Feel free to believe things aren’t happening because there are rules against those things happening, I won’t be joining you. I assume pre-WW2 had laws against murder too, which didn’t seem to help much.