AfD leader: Nazi era mere “bird s***” in “1,000 years of successful German history"

The other, more “modern,” wing of the party pays less attention to Germany’s past, and is more in line with other populist movements in Europe. This wing is also vehemently anti-Muslim and anti-immigration, but its anti-Semitism is more muted (they don’t like Jews, but express admiration for Israel for the way it keeps Muslims, such as the Palestinians, “in their place”); the AfD modernizers support populist, even socialist, economic policies; they want Germany to weaken its ties, or even leave, the EU, NATO, and other international organizations and treaties; and they are vocally pro-Russia – and, specifically, pro-Putin — and anti-U.S.

Gauland, 77, is the leader of the traditional wing of the AfD.

On Saturday, speaking to a conference of AfD young leaders, Gauland said, among other things:

“Hitler and the Nazis are just bird shit in more than 1,000 years of successful German history” (“Hitler und die Nazis sind nur ein Vogelschiss in über 1000 Jahren erfolgreicher deutscher Geschichte”).

He continued: “Nur wer sich zur Geschichte bekennt, hat die Kraft, die Zukunft zu gestalten” (“Only those who acknowledge history have the strength to shape the future”) adding: “Yes, we accept our responsibility for the twelve years [Hitler’ reign: 1933-1945] … [but] we have a glorious history — and that, dear friends, lasted longer than the damn twelve years” (“Ja, wir bekennen uns zur Verantwortung für die zwölf Jahre… [aber] Wir haben eine ruhmreiche Geschichte - und die, liebe Freunde, dauerte länger als die verdammten zwölf Jahre”).

The reaction from across the German political spectrum was swift and harsh.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the Secretary General of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), told Die Welt: “Fifty million dead in World War II, the Holocaust, total war — and to call it all ‘bird shit’ is such a slap in the face of the victims and such a relativization of what happened in the name of Germany … It is simply stunning that this is said by the leader of a supposedly civic party.”

Secretary General Lars Klingbeil of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SDP) told Deutsche Welle (DW) that Gauland had now dropped all facades. “This is a frightening trivialization of National Socialism. It is a disgrace that such people are sitting in the German Bundestag.”

Marco Buschmann, parliamentary manager of the centrist Free Democratic Party (FDP) told the Funke Media Group: “Any politician who deliberately tries to minimize the Nazi dictatorship and the Holocaust gives an indication of how sinister the visions he has for Germany are.”

“The trajectory of the AfD from euro-critical to xenophobic to nativist is steep and precipitous,” Buschmann, later tweeted: “Gauland again falls below every level.”

The Greens’ Katrin Göring-Eckardt called Gauland’s comments a slap in the face to Holocaust survivors and their descendants and said they highlight the need to push back against a hate-filled minority.

The first parliamentary leader of the Left Party, Jan Korte, called Gaulands utterances “cynical and oblivious to history”. “In these twelve years Germany was responsible for the death of more people than in all eras before. At least now everyone knows what he’s up to in this party, “he said.

“He who plays down the atrocities of the old Nazis, is the stirrup holder of the new Nazis,” wrote former SPD chairman Martin Schulz.

AfD faction spokesman Christian Lüth pushed back, responding on Twitter: “Bird shit is what I think of the Nazi era,” if you take into account the 1,000-year-history of Germany.

AfD politicians have argued in the past that Germany is hobbled by its memory of the Holocaust. In January 2017, Björn Höcke, the party’s Thuringia head, in January 2017 called for “nothing other than a 180-degree reversal on the politics of remembrance.” He took particular issue with Berlin’s vast memorial to murdered Jews, calling it a “monument of shame.” Gauland was one of the few politicians who defended Höcke against charged that he was a Nazi sympathizer.

Alexander Gauland
In the 1970s and 19980s, Gauland was considered as one of the CDU’s leading conservative intellectuals. Between 1987 and 1991 he was the right-hand man of Walter Wallmann, the CDU mayor of Frankfurt at the time. He was – and is — a liberal on economic issues, supporting minimal state intervention.

But he has always been a traditionalist on social and cultural issues, and in a series of books on conservatism and German history, he has been giving expression to increasingly gloomy and pessimistic prognostications about the fate of the Germany, and the West more generally.

Among his books: Zukunft braucht Konservative (Future needs conservatives) (2009); Die Deutschen und ihre Geschichte: Eine nationale Erzählung (The Germans and their history: A national narrative) (2009); Anleitung zum Konservativsein: Zur Geschichte eines Wortes (Conservative Guide: The History of a Word) (2017); and Sorge ums Abendland? Ein Streitgespräch (Concern for the West? A Debate) (2017).

His two books from 2009 signaled his growing dissatisfaction with the CDU, which he viewed as lacking in conviction or principles. The final straw was Merkel’s decision, in March 2010, to join other EU countries in sending economic aid to Greece to rescue that country’s failing economy.

Gauland left the CDU, and in April 2014 helped found the AfD.

DW notes that as the leader of the AfD, he embarked on what critics call a campaign of trivializing, or “relativizing,” Nazi war crimes in order to offer what he described as a more “balanced” view of German history. In his speeches he often insists that the conduct of Germany during the Second World War should not only be a subject of criticism, because the Wehrmacht and other Germans in uniform had many glorious “accomplishments” (his words) during the war.

He also argued that Germany should be proud of its World War Two veterans, regardless of what units they served in, implying that members of the SS should not be singled out for criticism.

He has adopted an extremely critical stance toward Islam — saying there is no room in Germany for Islam and Muslims — and unabashed racist views. He expressed unease with the number of black players on the German national soccer team. During the Euro 2016 football tournament, he famously said that he valued national player Jerome Boateng — whose father is from Ghana - as a sportsman, but “would not want to live next door to someone like him.”

German leaders and commentators slammed Gauland, but even more impressive were the thousands of home-made signs displayed by soccer fans in every stadium in which Boateng’s team, Bayren Munich, played: “Jéôme, zieh neben uns ein!” (Jerome, move in next to us!).

Gauland is, however, less pro-Russian than the rival faction within the AdF, but not only because he supports free-market policies and objects to the more populist tone on economic issue of the AfD “modernizers.” More importantly, he champions the cause of reclaiming the lost German territories in the east, while the modernizers, eager to align German policies with those of Putin’s Russia, see any claim to the lost territories as an obstacle for greater German-Russian cooperation.