The video below is from a speech by Jörg Meuthen, one of the leaders and a spokesman for the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany). It was given on the occasion of their recent party congress in Cologne.
Many thanks to Egri Nök for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Transcript:
| 00:00 | We have no fear, neither in what we do, nor as a leitmotiv in our political work. | |
| 00:07 | But what we do have is concern. | |
| 00:11 | It is not the same as fear. Concern for our fatherland, Germany. | |
| 00:14 | It goes deep, it is all too justified, and it unites us. | |
| 00:18 | This concern is our core motivation. | |
| 00:21 | It is certainly no coincidence that in our ranks there are | |
| 00:25 | a particularly high number of people with several children. | |
| 00:29 | Different than, for example, within the Greens. Now how did that come about? | |
| 00:35 | Therefore we have what scientists distinguish as a future-oriented approach. | |
| 00:41 | You can express it more simply and say we want to hand over this country | |
| 00:44 | in good condition, a condition that is worth living, a condition | |
| 00:48 | doing justice to our culture, to the future generations — our children and grandchildren. | |
| 00:53 | An Angela Merkel does not need to do that. A Claudia Roth does not, either. | |
| 01:08 | To look at it from a different angle: one may accuse people like Merkel and Schulz | |
| 01:11 | of a lot of things, but certainly not of one thing: | |
| 01:15 | Not pursuing sustainable policies. | |
| 01:18 | Yes. Yes they do, dear friends. | |
| 01:21 | They have been pursuing that for many years. Merkel from Berlin, | |
| 01:26 | Schulz from Brussels, policies | |
| 01:29 | which are quite sustainably damaging the German people. | |
| 01:48 | They do this in the form of an absurd migration policy, | |
| 01:52 | which is not an active and constructive politics | |
| 01:55 | As would be their duty, but the opposite of politics. | |
| 01:59 | In the form of head- and brainless environmental and energy policies. | |
| 02:02 | In the form of policies supposedly saving the euro, which de facto | |
| 02:05 | is a gigantic transfer from hard-working people to people acting irresponsibly. | |
| 02:10 | They do this — | |
| 02:16 | They do this in the form of multiple breaches of the law, unconcerned. | |
| 02:20 | Actually, I do not have to explain this further, you all know it. | |
| 02:23 | It is what unites us, we all know it well enough. | |
| 02:26 | That is what sustainability, courtesy of Merkel and Schulz, looks like in this country. | |
| 02:30 | Dear friends, these are our opponents. These are our opponents whose actions | |
| 02:34 | we must fight as determinedly, as some fights with our own ranks sometimes seem to me. | |
| 02:46 | You know — let me say this in all honesty, | |
| 02:50 | and modesty. I had to learn and understand a few things. | |
| 02:55 | For example the grave danger | |
| 02:58 | into which these completely irresponsible abolishers of Germany put our country, | |
| 03:01 | respectively, have already brought. I did not have it on the radar in the beginning. | |
| 03:05 | I had to grasp it. I admit that at first, I did not realize the full extent. | |
| 03:10 | Lately, I have been walking very consciously through the streets of my country, and of my city. | |
| 03:16 | And when, on a Saturday noon, I am on my way in the center of my town, | |
| 03:20 | with open eyes, and have a look — do you know what I see then? | |
| 03:25 | I say this without exaggeration, but with great shock: | |
| 03:28 | I see a few Germans occasionally. | |
| 03:41 | And when this shocks me, then that is not | |
| 03:44 | due to xenophobia, which is alien to me, but because this incredible number | |
| 03:49 | of migrants, who came into our country, who in the majority visibly come from different cultures, | |
| 03:53 | and inevitably and irrevocably change my country — my country — | |
| 03:56 | into a completely different country, | |
| 03:59 | that has barely anything to do anymore with the country which I grew up in. | |
| 04:02 | And when one — | |
| 04:18 | And when one of my children, one of my sons, who lives in Melbourne, | |
| 04:22 | in Australia, tells me, like he wrote to me this morning, | |
| 04:26 | that, and why, he will never come back to Germany, despite his being very family-oriented, | |
| 04:32 | because, for reasons to which I cannot object, he sees this country on a razor’s edge, | |
| 04:37 | then the people who demonstrate outside, and all our political opponents, | |
| 04:41 | who close their eyes to all of this, or who even propagate it, like the Left and Greens, | |
| 04:46 | and parts of the Social Democrats, deem me a xenophobe, even a racist? | |
| 04:51 | No, my friends, I am certainly not. Not even rudimentarily. | |
| 04:55 | I have never been, will never be, as it is against my convictions, just as no one in this hall is. | |
| 05:16 | All we are is basically reasonable, and that is what we get insulted for. | |
| 05:22 | And if we are basically reasonable, then we see what is happening here. | |
| 05:26 | And I can substantiate my deep concern — not fear — into precise numbers. | |
| 05:32 | We do not want to become a minority in our own country, but we already are in parts of it. | |
| 05:45 | I will briefly make reference to the elections in Turkey, | |
| 05:52 | respectively, also in our country, of the Turks who live here, last Sunday. | |
| 05:57 | The fact that the absolute majority of the Turks who live here — not all; it’s important | |
| 06:02 | to differentiate — but the clear majority, are no friends of a free society, | |
| 06:07 | while at the same time enjoying its privileges, | |
| 06:11 | we have this laid down in writing now since last Sunday. | |
| 06:20 | Almost two thirds of the Turks who live here and who are entitled to vote | |
| 06:25 | voted in favor of the referendum to change the Turkish constitution. | |
| 06:28 | If we assume that all the Alevi and Kurds among them voted “No”, | |
| 06:35 | it is even markedly more than 80 percent. | |
| 06:40 | It is nothing less than our free society as a whole, dear friends, that is at risk here. | |
| 06:48 | And if we do not throw the switch now, and decisively, | |
| 06:51 | then the irrevocable transformation of our home country within not too many years | |
| 06:55 | into a country shaped by Islam is a mathematical certainty. | |
| 07:08 | Sometimes I can’t help being reminded of the sinking of the Titanic. | |
| 07:12 | Everyone is happy, there is a relaxed party atmosphere, on deck, below deck, | |
| 07:18 | but the course correction of the giant ship is already near impossible, | |
| 07:22 | no one can or wants to imagine a collision with an iceberg, | |
| 07:26 | yet it is already unavoidable. If that is too bleak for you — | |
| 07:32 | I do not know for certain if the development is already irrevocable, | |
| 07:35 | none of us knows exactly where the point of no return is. | |
| 07:39 | But for exactly that reason I say, as loud as I can: | |
| 07:42 | This country, Germany, is our country, it is the country of our grandparents and parents, | |
| 07:47 | and it is our duty as citizens to ensure it will be the country of our children and grandchildren. | |
| 08:24 | I won’t be going on for much longer, I promise, but let me add a few things briefly. | |
| 08:29 | It might sound martial, and should not be misunderstood: | |
| 08:32 | By now, we have to reconquer our country. | |
| 08:37 | By that I mean fiercely determined, but peaceful. | |
| 08:40 | Aggressively, but with democratic and constitutional means. | |
| 08:44 | With our hearts, but also with wisdom and intelligence. | |
| 08:48 | I want the people to feel and know that we, the AfD, | |
| 08:51 | we are the ones who do not wish to abolish Germany, | |
| 08:55 | and I want our political opponents to be painfully aware: | |
| 08:58 | we are the ones who will not abandon Germany, ladies and gentlemen. | |
| 09:18 | We have to stand firm on our convictions, no matter how strong the pushback is. | |
| 09:22 | We cannot back down, even when it is difficult and even painful at times. | |
| 09:26 | And please allow me this little aside, not meant to divide: | |
| 09:32 | We must stand in complete unity; | |
| 09:35 | debates over seeming realpolitik and a seemingly fundamentally oppositional wing, | |
| 09:41 | which in my opinion is a deceptive perception, do not help us at all. | |
| 10:05 | Let’s leave this, I ask all of you. | |
| 10:10 | There is so much that unites us. Our enemies are out there, | |
| 10:13 | and they wreck our beloved fatherland — yes, fatherland, as we are patriots — | |
| 10:17 | step by step in a perfidious manner. | |
| 10:21 | Their names are Merkel, Schulz, Maas, Stegner, Roth, Göring-Eckardt, and so on. | |
| 10:26 | They unlawfully open the borders for everyone, as Mrs. Merkel did, | |
| 10:30 | or they tell us that the presumed refugees are “more valuable than gold for our country,” | |
| 10:34 | So said Mr. Schulz, who at the same time squanders our gold on the European altar. | |
| 10:40 | Or that we need migrants who “feel comfortable and at home in our social security,” | |
| 10:44 | so Mrs. Göring-Eckardt of the Greens; just imagine that. | |
| 10:48 | Or, like the vice president in office of the German Bundestag, Claudia Roth, | |
| 10:52 | imagine the disgrace for our country, to march in a protest where “Germany must die!” is chanted. | |
| 10:57 | This is a shame for Germany! | |
| 11:13 | In a word — and I am closing — | |
| 11:17 | It is about time that “those who have been living here for a bit longer” — (laughter) | |
| 11:22 | send off those who have been ruling here for a bit longer from their offices | |
| 11:26 | in the service of the German people — sustainably, dear friends. | |
| 11:45 | Give me just another minute. | |
| 11:51 | Thank you. | |
| 11:54 | (chants: Meuthen! Meuthen!) | |
| 11:58 | You are kind, thank you. Let me briefly specify, and then I will end, I have been talking a long time. | |
| 12:03 | Yes, we cannot bear these characters anymore, and no, this is not fundamental opposition, | |
| 12:08 | but yes, this is the love of our home and of our fatherland, | |
| 12:11 | and no, to leave no doubt: we will not form coalitions with these characters. | |
| 12:18 | (cheering) | |
| 12:34 | Thank you. | |
| 12:38 | And yes, we indeed live up to our responsibilities for our country that way. | |
| 12:44 | As a strapping opposition party in the Bundestag and in the States, | |
| 12:47 | and no, this is not a lack of realpolitik, | |
| 12:50 | it is the intelligent and necessary patient wait until our positions — | |
| 12:55 | and things are moving — will at last win a majority. | |
| 12:58 | Dear friends, this is how we will do it, | |
| 13:01 | and this congress in Cologne is the kickoff. | |
| 13:04 | Glück auf, Germany, Glück auf, AfD! Thank you for your attention. | |
| 13:08 | (applause, chants: Meuthen!) | |
| 13:35 | Now let’s get back to work. |
Nice to see some folks standing up and calling a spade a spade!
Hear! Hear! Good luck, Germany! Good luck, AfD!
anonymous in this case is jlh
Odd that… For a while there Mr. Meuthen sounded just like a French woman!