AfD to the German Government: Cease and Desist With the Term “Right-Extremist”

German law prohibits the government from using tendentious or biased characterizations of legally established political parties that hold seats in the Bundestag. The federal government violated that law with its descriptions of the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany). Germans are well-known sticklers for the rules, and a new legal ruling now requires that the government stop characterizing the AfD as “right-extremist”.

JLH, who translated the article below, includes these comments:

Ripe with contradictions irony and glory, the AfD arrives in force at the Bundestag, only to hear Frauke Petry take her leave of them. She won the battle to censure Björn Höcke for his “monument of shame” speech and prevent him from standing for the Bundestag, but spectacularly lost the battle to take the party mainstream. And two old guys, Gauland and Meuthen, and two women, Weidel and von Storch, piloted the party into parliament by “speaking truth to power”, and it looks like they’ve just gotten started.

Meanwhile, here is a maneuver that sets the government on its heels even before the first session begins. The Tea Party needed something like this against the IRS and assorted lefty enemies in Washington. This is what the Rule of Law is all about.

The translated article from the Bavarian daily Münchner Merkur:

Federal Authorities May No Longer Call AfD Right-Extremist

Federal authorities may no longer designate AfD as right-extremist. The party’s national executive board has pushed through a cease-and-desist injunctive order against the Federal Republic.

In ads recruiting employees to work in the area of right-extremism, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) may no longer show an image of the AfD Twitter account. As the Cologne attorney Ralf Höcker said on Thursday, the BKA signed an appropriate cease-and-desist order this week. In a June ad on Twitter for an employee in “internet evaluation in the area of right-extremism,” the BKA had posted a screenshot of — among others — an AfD Twitter account.

The attorney Carsten Brennecke, who had obtained the cease-and-desist order, comments on the order’s consequences as follows: “Contractual obligor is the Federal Republic of Germany. Neither the chancellor, nor her ministers nor the federal authorities may call the AfD right-extremist, whether in help-wanted ads or elsewhere.”

Furthermore, according to Brennecke, the Federal Republic must guarantee that all federal authorities are informed of this, so that there will be no further violation of rights. Otherwise, a contractual penalty will be assessed.

AfD Regional Head Bystron: “Defamation of the AfD as ‘Right-Extremist’ is a Violation of Rights”

“This is a great win for the AfD and an important precedent,” said the Bavarian AfD regional head and Bundestag candidate Per Bystron of his party’s successful implementation of a cease-and-desist order against the Federal Republic of Germany. “The Republic was forced to give in and submit to our demands. This much is clearly established: Defamation of the AfD as ‘right-extremist’ is illegal.”[1]

“When authorities are misused in a partisan fashion to propagandize against an opposition party, the responsible parties must be legally put in their place. We will not waver from this logical, constitutional path.”

The party’s Jörg Meuthen and Frauke Petry had another success at the Hessian Higher Administrative Court, which ordered the removal of a Facebook statement by Peter Feldmann, the mayor of Frankfurt am Main. In March, the SPD politician had written of an event planned by the Economic Club of Rhein-Main with the AfD chair, Petry: “AfD? DISINVITE!” The decision is legally valid.

To be sure, the AfD faced a cease-and-desist order itself. The Amadeu Antonio Foundation took offense at a statement by AfD lead candidate Alice Weidel. Commenting on the riots at the G20 Summit, she said: “It is absurd that a government family ministry directly and indirectly — for instance by way of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation — should co-finance left-extremist terrorism under the rubric, Battle against the Right.” Weidel, however, said: “I am not signing this cease-and-desist order.”

Addressed on the subject of his party’s several lawsuits, AfD spokesperson Christian Lüth said: “We have to defend ourselves constantly against hostility and slander.” Attorney Höcker said: “It is just the fact that AfD annoys a lot of people.”

Note:

1.   German “recht,” as it appears in this short article, is “capable or indicating direction, rights and law”.
 

37 thoughts on “AfD to the German Government: Cease and Desist With the Term “Right-Extremist”

  1. To JLH in particular – much as I have been following AfD, basically through GoV, and favor them, in fact liked them, I couldn’t have voted for them, I wouldn’t have cast a ballot were I in Germany because of Herr Gauland’s statements re: German soldiers, which is a pity in two ways, the fact he is part of the AfD and the fact it would have stopped me from voting. I wish the AfD could to to him what Marine Le Pen and her pals did to her father, kick him out of the party. Someone said this guy Gauland reminds them of Pat Buchanan which seems to me to be on the mark.
    (BTW in case anyone is curious, I would have been in shul – synagogue – at this time were it not for an upset stomach which is why I can get away with writing this content now. Won’t be a problem for tomorrow, I’ll be in synagogue tomorrow, since I won’t be eating anything till tomorrow night). Anyway, best wishes to those who celebrate this holiday and those who don’t.

    Mike from Brooklyn

      • Ludwig, I think there may be two sides to that argument without getting into reminiscences of Nazism. The German people have had 70+ years of being reminded both from within and without that what their parents and grandparents did disqualifies them for membership in the human race. I get the impression that any suggestion of patriotism, beyond the artistic or intellectual, is regarded as a sign of fanaticism.

        But I see what you are saying, and I volunteer herewith to translate the article you suggest.

    • No doubt you have the caricature of the German soldier in mind, that of a Nazi zealot fully informed of every last policy and action of the Einsatzgruppen, the Gestapo, the SS, and H_____ and his inner circle. The vigorous free press kept him informed at all times of political and military developments, the product of which press was distributed like the Stars and Stripes or otherwise available to him by mail from friends and relatives. He never fought out of simple patriotism or to get away from the farm. He never endured -40 F temperatures outside of Moscow. He, a concert pianist before the war, never had some of his fingers blown off in Stalingrad. At Kursk, he never started out the day as part of a regiment and ended up as part of a platoon. He never had his teeth drilled by a sadistic Soviet dentist while he was a POW. He never heard of the British order to execute German POWs at Dunkirk and he never engaged in conduct with respect to civilians or enemy troops that was humane, generous, or stunningly decent and courageous. An automaton. An animal. The first instance in all of human history of men who served a disreputable regime.

      While we’re on the topic of disreputable regimes, name the ones who (1) caused the murder of the Libyan head of state and turned that country into a playground for human jihadi garbage and (2) caused over 400,000 civilian deaths, millions of refugees, and unbelievable destruction in Syria.

      • what exactly do you want to say by your first paragraph?
        the guy implied that German soldiers honourably served Vaterland by invading other countries in aggressive wars.
        just say if you agree with that or not.

        on you second paragraph:

        1) Qaddafi was not “Libyan head of state”, but rather international terrorist, tyrant and one of the worst jihadist cannibals of our times

        2) taking out Qaddafi hasn’t “turned that country into a playground for human jihadi garbage”. it already was, – and will remain like that, probably for many years ahead

        3) deaths, refugees and destruction in Syria are caused by the clash of well known barbaric competing forces –
        – Saudi Arabia and Qatar with their military wings like ISIS and Al-Qaida on one side, and
        – Iran, Assad’s Alawite regime, Hezbollah and Russia on the other side

        to imply that West and USA in particular are responsible for Syrian war, is simply wrong. but it is repeated ad nauseam by anti-American propaganda outlets like RT. that is probably source of your judgement, isn’t it?

    • I hope you feel better Mike from Brooklyn. Hopefully your three stars have appeared
      The crimes of dead Germans should not be used against live Germans. The Holocaust was a horrific crime and should be a lesson to all nations. Never the less German soldier were great warriors. My father fought against them. All armies commit ware crimes, some worse than others, but we are in a new world with new enemies.

  2. Back for a moment. I just read the Baron’s Judean Sponiform Encepholopathy, and Dymphna’s attachment, written yesterday. I agree. Jews, (and obviously everyone else) have to know who our enemies are. So aside from the guy I mentioned which would have kept me from voting, I am happy AfD has so many people who will occupy seats in the new German Parliament.

    BTW I just read an excellent piece on line from the Weekly Standard on the German elections by Christopher Caldwell. It won’t be on the stands they say for another week. But like I did you can see it now on line.

    Mike from Brooklyn

    • Mike from Brooklyn I heartily disagree.I have left a post under the Judean Spongiform Encephalopathy detailing my father’s account of the honourable Wehrmacht soldiers who were his captors in World War 2.

      My father was an Allied spitfire pilot who was shot down strafing the German lines and put in a German Prisoner of War camp.

      And he had nothing but praise for the German soldiers as honourable men doing the best they could under impossible conditions due to a murderous Nazi oligarchy ,to which they themselves did not subscribe..

      • Thank you, Shelagh, for these remarks; it was the generation of my parents and teachers against whom your father fought. Nevertheless, to be a German patriot is more difficult as Gauland seems to think. Would wish you also could read the article which I refered above to Mike. (That article IMHO would really be worth to get translated on GoV; my English is not good enough, alas.)

        • Thanks for pointing out the link ,I have a translate function on my computer so I will certainly read it .It’s sometimes a bit garbled but it should give me a rough overview.

          Now Ludwig what really concerns me is the absolute lies peddled by the left.
          In World War 1 Germany fought on the side of the Ottoman Empire(which included Turkey) with whom they had a treaty.

          So Germany was allied with the Muslims.
          Obviously this was a decision taken by the elite and not the ordinary people .

          In World War 2 Germany received material support from the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem ,a Muslim leader who bonded with Hitler over a desire to kill all the Jews.He sent entire regiments to fight for Hitler against the Allies under the direction of the SS.

          This alliance was once again the decision of one man ,not of the ordinary German people.

          My father died a few years ago.

          But were he with us now he would say that once again the German people have been betrayed by their leaders.Once again German leaders (Mutti/Merkel and her coalition) have allied with Turks and other Islamofascists who wish to kill Jews and indeed all non-Muslims in order to break and enslave the remainder.

          But this time it is more dangerous.

          The Muslims are happy to use the German leaders as “useful idiots’ ,in their rise to power over all Europe.

          But now every country in the world is battling a Muslim insurgency where non-Muslim ,European leaders on the left and center left of politics are allying with the Muslim invaders against their own people.

          There will be a series of civil wars globally .Patriots against left wing traitors and their Muslim masters.
          And the left- wing traitors like their Muslim masters are anti-Israel ,anti-Semitic ,anti- Christian, anti-family ,anti law ,anti-order ,anti-justice and anti-white.

          The current pope is a half witted Judas,a puppet of the globalists and the Islamofascist invaders.He is happy to betray his flock to the Islamic wolves who harry maim and kill them.

          There will indeed be a World War 3.But this time each country must fight the the combined force of the Islamofascist enemy and the left-wing traitors .

      • My guess is that were your father a Lavochkin or Iljushin or Jakovlev pilot, the great German soldiers would not be as kind…

        Czech Spitfire pilots faced immediate execution by the Germans, for treason of course, so they had to wear British badges and in case of inprisonment by the wehrmacht, they had to pretend to be Americans or British or die.

    • I suggest Mike from Brooklyn read more than just quotes given a big haircut by Fake Media with a vested interest in importing millions of Merkel-Muslims into Europe and destined to discredit the AfD. It would be fair (and interesting) to also get the sense of what Mr. Gauland was saying, to whom and in what context.

      I understand that 95% of the German Soldiers were not Nazis, but young men, sons, fathers, brothers who thought they were fighting for their country, and died for it. And yes, they were lied to as you are now, the Goebbels-style of “information” (propaganda) has not stopped with the Nazi Regime, but is florishing and is, obviously, very efficient.

      • Rita – So far you are the most logical and concise of the responders. My judgement has been questioned in the past.

      • Rita, some folk have become heavily indoctrinated into seeing the word ‘Nazi’ and stop reading, not realizing that there were two sides to the German war machine of World War Two.

        A case in point: General Erwin Kurt Rommell and his Afrika Korps bagged quite a number of British Commonwealth troops on his push toward Tobruk in Libya during early 1941.

        When Hitler found out about this ‘success’ he ordered Rommell to execute all the POWs even though Germany was a signatory to the Geneva Convention that forbid the summary execution of prisoners of war.

        Rommell was first and foremost a product of the Prussian/German Officer Corp whose duty was to uphold military law when on the battlefield – he simply refused Hitler’s demand – and Hitler chose to ignore this rebuttal to his authority, later promoting Rommell to Field Marshal.

        • My 93 years old father served in France Holland and Germany during the latter months of wwii – he asks, would Europe be any worse than it is now had Germany not been defeated?

        • @ Bill Throw:

          That’s a first: I have never been accused of being “logical” and “concise” before …. feels good, thanks 😉

        • @ Nemesis

          Thank you. Sometimes I’m hanging on desperately to the reputation of Rommell, so as not to drown in guilt for the sins of my fathers.

          • Well you should add to that hanging on, that Rommell was also implicated in the plot to kill Hitler at the ‘Wolfs Lair’ that saw him, Rommell, take his own life to protect those of his family and his reputation.

            Hitler even gave him a Hero’s funeral.

            And there were many more ‘Rommells’ than what the ‘history books’ record.

  3. Well, AfD is doing now whatever its mandate allows, this case being first on a journey from a virtual political “underground” to Bundestag.

    “It is just the fact that AfD annoys a lot of people.” Get used to it, Germany … your chancellor has annoyed a lot of people around Europe by her blatant disregard for the European law.

    Now it seems to be a payback time …

  4. Thanks for this article, JLH, which lifts my mood a little, after the Dreck they have thrown at the AfD: The German Judiciary however (just like the French one) may not only be subversive, but actually feel above the law – having decreed that a National German Broadcaster has the right to call Dr. Alice Weidel a “Nazi Schlampe” (Nazi Slut).

    And have a look at what counts as political comment among the SPD (Socialist Party of Germany):

    https://littlenotesfromparis.blogspot.com.au/2017/09/the-german-election-aftermath.html

  5. I really don’t know who most to respond to here. So just let me take Rita as the most obvious…..Germans fighting for their country? Their country was the cause of the war invading more than 1/2 of Europe. They weren’t invaded.
    As far as 95% of the soldiers not being Nazis I don’t know where you got the number. All I can say was that there sure were massive crowds of ”ordinary” Germans at all those rallies. Perhaps all of them are the ones that didn’t have any kids who were soldiers.
    Hey Bill Throw – As far as German soldiers being brave I don’t think anyone ever questioned that. Unfortunately they were fighting in a very wrong cause.
    To Ludwig 2718282 – It would be nice if Mr. Gauland were simply being careless. It would have been real nice if he had said something like he has always felt bad that all or so many German soldiers had been portrayed as Nazis, but a certain amount (again I don’t know numbers I am sure there are some good estimates that millions felt Hitler was a-ok) but some were simply scared kids who simply couldn’t resist the culture or the war mongers who ran the country. If he would have said that I for one would not have had any trepidations about the AfD. The problem with Gauland is he opens up the AfD to charges of what the Afd is rightly suing Merkel or rather I take it the papers for, the use of the term the extreme right. I mean what is Gauland’s purpose anyway, to start a fight that he can’t win. Or are his motives really so pure. I don’t know. He ought to just shut his big mouth.
    To Shelegh – I am happy your father happened to be under the control of honorable men during his imprisonment. And you rightly called the regime Nazis.
    Finally Bill Throw again – I don’t have any idea what you mean by 3 stars I am talking about.
    But yeah the crimes of dead Germans should not be used against live Germans. I never do. We agree. And yeah the Holocaust was horrible and nothing like that should be perpetuated ever again against any other group. And finally, yeah we have a supremacist ideology which the GoV does such a fine job informing us about. But sorry that doesn’t let an at best lazy comment go unchallenged. And frankly we don’t know if it was just a poorly stated poorly worded comment. And yes I feel fine thanks for asking. The article just hit a nerve with me and I wanted to address it.
    I argued with friends to support (as much as you can in Brooklyn) for Marine Le Pen. I’m glad she threw her father out of her party. I could not have argued for Le Pen the Elder any more than I could Gauland.

    Take care,
    Mike from Brooklyn

    • Mike, if I may suggest, you come into the Second World war without really knowing what caused it and what gave rise to Hitler during the 1920s which then partly explains why the German people thought Hitler was a Godsend.

      It is now widely acknowledged that the First World War begat the Second World War through the reparations imposed on Germany, particularly by France, after the signing of the Armistice of November 1918- remember too, that Germany had not been defeated, but had acquiesced to an armistice or a truce if you will to be parlayed in an isolated train carriage, the same carriage that Hitler would use just 22 years later, to take the surrender of France and impose the division of France into German occupied France and Vichy France.

      But, prior to WW1, the Central European powers and Great Britain were, in the closing years of the 19th Century, laying plans for a central government, a European Entente if you will. The drivers of this plan were Great Britain and France who also wanted to include Germany which wanted no part of it.

      Also to be included was Russia, but Russia chose to side with Germany in refuting such a plan. So, we have in the closing stages of the 19th Century a plan to impose a central authority on Europe, Great Britain and Russia.

      What could go wrong?

      The First World War is what went wrong, and if one researches the alleged causes of that war one will never find any single or multiple ‘events’ as ‘officially recorded’, that could possibly have been a trigger event to set off such a war that normal diplomacy could have easily rectified.

      The first war was therefore deliberate in its intention to, a: defeat Germany, both militarily and economically, and b: to defeat Russia, both militarily and economically, and to the point where a New Central European government would rise in their place.

      One also needs to take on board that Great Britain during the closing years of the 19th and early years of the 20th Centuries, was an Empire at the height of its power and influence. The kind of power that Edward VII and his backers within the British establishment, were quite willing to advance.

      • continued……

        Germany in the 1920s was fast becoming ungovernable due to outside influences such as the communist unions that had gained a much stronger foothold amongst the German workers following the influence of the Russian revolution of 1917, and the economic sanctions imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles through war reparations.

        Many Germans were out of work and barely surviving day to day.

        Hitler’s answer to this imposed problem was to counter the ideology of Communism with a similar ideology, but with private property and industrial rights under the banner of the German Workers National Socialist Party.

        The rest as they say is history.

        It was Hitler who became aware of how Germany had been ‘betrayed’ by the European powers that set Germany on its path to the second war, and it was Hitler who had taken a demoralized, unemployed and penury people, and gave them pride, work and a booming economy, but it was the covert machinations and intrigue of Great Britain, the United States and the Central European powers, that caused Hitler’s rise and the Second World War.

        One always needs to remember that nothing in history or politics happens by chance.

        • Exactly so Nemisis. The WW1 reparations were so unjust and crippling that every one of France’s allies urged the French to lower them.The French motivated by a deep hatred of the Germans refused and a desire to profit from their defeat, refused to yield.

          As a direct result the Germans suffered soaring hyperinflation ,massive devaluation of their currency and even those who were employed were starving.

          Before the war the Germans would take their money in their pockets and a basket over their arms to the shops to buy food.After World War I the Germans would take money in a basket to buy food and come back with the groceries in their pockets.

          Most historians agree that the cause of World War 2 was the unjust reparations insisted on by the French, at the end of World War 1.

          So the blame for the rise of Hitler and the second World War, lies squarely with the greedy spiteful French and not with the desperate starving Germans.

          • Sorry the last sentence of the first paragraph reads “The French motivated by a deep hatred of the Germans refused and a desire to profit from their defeat refused to yield.”

            It should read” The French motivated by a deep hatred of the Germans and a desire to profit from their defeat ,refused to yield”

        • Hey Nemesis,
          I figured I’d take my last shot here and anyone that wants to say anything about me…..hey you have free reign, but here is what I said and what I have known since like you Nemesis I read history. Of course the Germans got screwed by the Treaty of Versailles. But you know what, that’s not an excuse for Nazis. Not an excuse for killing Jews, gypsies, handicapped people of all persuasions. Yeah I hate Nazis. You don’t have to be a commie pinko liberal to do so. Beside which as I stated and as Rita obviously missed (oh she’ll get me for that one) I already made clear I supported Marine Le Pen so I guess that takes me off the commie pinko list. Where she gets the chutzpah to say I hate Germans I don’t know. No I hate Nazis, and I’m not nuts about Nazi sympathizers, and no I don’t think Rita is one. I don’t think modern day Germans have to go on their hands and knees because of what their forebears supported concerning Jews, and yes I am one, but those that smirked when Jews were being snatched and beaten, etc. etc. yeah Nazis and those smirkers were scum to one degree. Those that didn’t like it but who couldn’t speak out out of fear, they were innocent and I say not a word against them. Got it Rita?
          And yeah Rommel seems to have been a good man who happened to be working for the wrong side. He tried to behead the animal Hitler and lost his life protecting his family. Too bad he and his pals couldn’t get the bastard.
          So I know my history Nemesis. But if Rita or anyone else wants a go at me, have fun. But there isn’t anything I said that wasn’t true. So feel free – you have a free field. I won’t respond.

          Mike from Brooklyn

          • Mike, too bad you weren’t around several weeks ago when the even older wars in Central/Eastern Europe were being re-fought. Wars that predated America’s Civil War by hundreds of years. Cultural damage is NEVER, EVER forgotten. The French still hate the Germans even as they play footsie with them for the money.

            America has its own shame: the way we treated Japanese-Americans. After their internments, they went back to California and the West Coast. But they couldn’t get their homes back. We stole from them and then impoverished them. And that was about race and greed.

            From the wiki:

            The internment of Japanese Americans in the United States during World War II was the forced relocation and incarceration in camps in the western interior of the country of between 110,000 and 120,000[5] people of Japanese ancestry, most of whom lived on the Pacific coast. 62 percent of the internees were United States citizens.[6][7] These actions were ordered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt shortly after Imperial Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.[8]

            Japanese Americans were incarcerated based on local population concentrations and regional politics. More than 110,000 Japanese Americans in the mainland U.S., who mostly lived on the West Coast, were forced into interior camps. However, in Hawaii, where 150,000-plus Japanese Americans composed over one-third of the population, only 1,200 to 1,800 were also interned.[9] The internment is considered to have resulted more from racism than from any security risk posed by Japanese Americans.[10][11] Those who were as little as 1/16 Japanese[12] and orphaned infants with “one drop of Japanese blood” were placed in internment camps.[13]
            Roosevelt authorized the deportation and incarceration with Executive Order 9066 […]

            Gotta love those executive orders. According to the wiki, this went on from 1942-46.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans

            Look at the map they have. It’s shuddery to consider what might be planned for you and me, boys and girls.

            Small fires of hatred are springing up everywhere. The hatred/condescension of American Yankees for us rebels has been there from the git-go.

          • Mike, if you happen to look back to any responses to your comment, I would rest my case with what Dympthna has put forward.

            Blame for what has gone before us cannot be simply attributed to any one side, as is so often put forward because there are just too many relevant factors to consider.

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