Germany First? Are You Kidding Me??

Posted on by

In the following pair of videos, German politicians from all the major parties are asked to give their views on nationalism, in particular German nationalism. Because of the absolute taboo against expressing nationalist sentiments in Germany, the reactions from pols in all the major parties (except for one) vary from mild disdain to outright loathing for the idea of “Germany first”. The exception is the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany), which has managed to reintroduce the idea of nationalism into the Bundestag as well as public discussions.

Many thanks to MissPiggy for the translations, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling.

Video #1:

Video #2:


Video link

Video transcript #1:

00:00   Trump says: “America first”. How does “Germany first” sound to you?
00:05   Tabea Rößner (Greens): “Awful.” —Karl-Heinz Brunner (SPD) “Horrible.”
00:08   Christian Wirth (AfD): “Reasonable.” —M. Rottman (Greens): “Senseless. Absolutely senseless.”
00:11   Leif-Erik Holm (AfD): “A good idea and why we were elected. We represent the German people
00:15   in parliament.” —Marc Biadacz (CDU/CSU): “I think it is pure populism.”
00:18   M. Strack-Zimmermann (FDP): “I think everything with first sounds very egotistical and very selfish.
00:21   Bernd Riexinger(Leftist): “Absolutely awful. No one should be able to say that in Germany.”
00:27   Tabea Rößner (Greens): “The first immediate association is with the Nazis.”
00:32   Karl-Heinz Brunner (SPD): “We’ve left the time of when the law of might is right applies.”
00:36   Katarin Barley (SPD): “Since Trump is criticised
00:39   for the way he handles things and it is obvious how
00:42   damaging it is, then it is certainly by no means a viable way to govern.”
00:48   Alexander Gauland (AfD): “Trump is always being slandered.
00:52   I think what he says is perfectly correct.”
00:55   Maik Beermann (CDU/CSU): “Certainly it’s not necessarily wrong if you develop a certain
00:58   patriotism for your country, or defend and represent that country.”
01:02   Jörn König(AfD): “So, I’d have to say frankly that Germany first is really a logical conclusion.
01:07   If you look at the portal of the Reichstag, it says: ‘for the German people’.”
01:11   Maik Beerman (CDU/CSU): “This isn’t about “Germany first” and “Germany first” won’t work,
01:15   because we form a unit in Europe or we’re part of the European Union unity.”
01:19   Omid Nouripour (Greens): “If everyone declares their countries must be ‘first, first, first’ then
01:24   it ends in war.”

 

Video transcript #2:

00:00   Nationalist or European — for which would you decide?
00:05   Christian Lindner (FDP): “That is in fact an unresolved issue in Germany, concerning the
00:09   European question.” —Robert Habeck (Greens): “So on one side: How national or nationalist,
00:16   authoritarian, how ethnic is politics? On the other: How pro-European, how free,
00:23   how liberal, how democratic is politics? With regard to this question, the political spectrum
00:31   has now become divided.” —Christian Linder (FDP): “I believe, in fact there are only 2 genuinely
00:36   European parties in Germany. Namely the Green party and us, the Liberal Democrats.”
00:46   Anja Karliczek(CDU/CSU): “Well, Christian Lindner isn’t a coalition partner anyway.
00:49   However, we in the coalition between CDU/CSU and SPD agree that we can only be successful
00:53   on the long term by being part of the European Union as well as
00:57   in an international context, and that’s how it is now. I can confirm that.”
01:06   Would you define yourself as pro-European? —Horst Seehofer (CDU/CSU) “Yes. Absolutely.
01:09   Europe is the most brilliant idea of the postwar period. The integration of Europe was
01:16   the answer to the biggest pile of rubble of all time.”
01:20   Katrin Göring-Eckard (Greens): “A party that is constantly being advised by Mr. Orbán about
01:23   what’s good and right, of course, isn’t pro-European.
01:28   You don’t see any nationalist tendencies in the CSU? —Dorothee Bär(CDU/CSU): “No, none at all.”
01:33   Christian Lindner(FDP): “The CSU snuggles up to Orbán at the moment.”
01:36   Horst Seehofer (CDU/CSU): “Hungary is a member of the European Union. I can’t understand
01:40   why this confrontational attitude toward Orbán. If something about his politics disturbs us, then
01:49   that should be discussed. Through dialogue and not disparagement.
01:57   Do you think it is possible to learn something from Viktor Orbán?
02:00   Olaf Scholz (SPD): “Not that I know of.”

6 thoughts on “Germany First? Are You Kidding Me??”

  1. There is a reason why the so-called Greens are known in Germany as “olive greens: their bellicose liberaloid voting record and the actions of their Foreign Minister Fischer before and in the Yugoslav War.

    Prof John Mearsheimer of Chicago U calls this stance liberal delusion, in his new book:

    https://nationalinterest.org/feature/john-mearsheimer-and-future-damaged-liberal-dream-41162

    Just as Fischer invoked Auschwitz to justify German aggression aganst Serbia, so do his followers 20 years on peddle the notion that nationalism leads to war.

    However if the slogan were: “Gay Rights First!” or “Transgender Rights for all Russians” instead of “Germany First” , all Green politicians would eagerly fall in, not being of military age themselves and often childless to boot.

    A US parallel is the recent interview with Tulsi Gabbard on The View, where a propagandised liberal female says to Tulsi that the US “has to intervene to stop atrocities by dictators” . This is a classic trope of the German liberaloid Greens.

  2. The most disturbing fact is, that in European (and especially German) debates the essential distinction between Europe and the EU has been blurred by the liberal media and the political establishment, and deliberately so.
    Countries that managed to stay out of the EU and show a huge success politically and socioeconomically (Switzerland, Norway and Iceland) are ignored.
    The largest country in Europe, Russia, is excluded and regarded as a “threat”, although a Europe without Russia will never succeed to survive in the long run.
    And all the other, weaker non-member countries (Ukraine, Belarus, Serbia, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Macedonia, Albania etc.) are considered to be “in the line” for future membership, without asking if this is what the people there want.
    To add to the absurdity, this “waiting”status is even granted to a huge, latent hostile, and clearly non-European country like Turkey.
    We all know that Europe needs to work together in order to survive, but the EU is a perverted, parasitic structure, which is not at all suitable for that aim.
    To be pro-Europe and anti-EU is the only sane option, but totalitarian brainwashing with a pro-EU discourse has made taking this political stance almost impossible.
    For Germany, the problem arises as well, that the most suitable phrase to state that you want Germany to come first, “Deutschland ueber alles”, has been abused by the Nazis, and cannot be used again for that reason. The fact that it is no one less than Goethe who coined that phrase during the occupation of Germany by the troops of Napoleon, is since 1945 no longer regarded as a valid argument in its favor.
    Using the English translation, aka “Germany first”, is an oxymoron, because it’s not patriotic to use a foreign language. In that way, Germany has an even larger obstacle to overcome that other Western countries, but because of its central position in Europe, every one else is directly affected by what happens there.
    This make the situation even more complicated and urgent.

    • Thanks Sobieski. I voted to leave the EU because it’s fundamentally undemocratic; immigration was related, but not as the only issue.

      My friends on the centre left/hard left, who voted to stay, sometimes say they see themselves as Europeans, and don’t understand why I voted to leave the EU. My reply is that I love being a part of our common culture*, but the EU is not Europe or its people.

      *In autumn 2013, I blew a quarter of my small private pension on a special holiday, seeing ten European cities (with side trips), mainly by rail, over seven weeks: Cologne, Dresden, Prague, Vienna, Munich, Venice, Florence, Rome, Barcelona, Madrid; I saw art galleries, castles, churches and cathedrals, and sites associated with my beloved classical composers. The longest leg was Munich-Venice (6 1/2 hours), through the Brenner Pass, and spectacular scenery (think “The Sound of Music”); my companion (people talk on trains more than ‘planes) was a Dutchman who advised the EU on coordination of scientific research. He knew five languages, and was learning Polish. We shared a common culture, but disagreed over the aims of the EU.

  3. To think that only European Union stands between our times and another war in Europe is ridiculous. For all we know its politics and decision making might be the cause of it.
    ——————–
    We Are Guardians Of Asgard! (c) Amon Amarth (once they were great and didn’t fight local municipal workers over a feeble issue of “gay” “rights”)

  4. As for Video #1, you have just GOT to be kidding me. “No one can be that stupid” is an idea that I must forever banish from my brain.

    These self-satisfied fools wrestle with the phenomenon of National Socialism and the unique circumstances of its birth, life, and death. Still less virulent than the Bolshevik catastrophe, it appeared, flared, and died over 70 years ago. Nothing quite like it existed in the past but these airheads wrestle with it like it was just yesterday and only a thin gossamer thread keeps Pandora’s box from flying open yet again. As for the river of blood and gore that flowed right down the middle of 20th-c. communism? Well, where is the proof of that, exactly?

    Mark Twain’s witticism comes to mind, to wit, that a cat will never sit on a hot stove again but neither will it ever again sit on a cold one. The inability of erstwhile intelligent people to make the most minimal distinctions, or to step even a centimeter off the gleaming railroad track of holy writ, make a mockery of the premises underlying the Enlightenment. Millions of Germans, apparently, have been bred to live lives of denial, servility, cowardice, and surrender. And they have many brothers and sisters all over the West.

Comments are closed.