The meltdown by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz after his own globalist-right party was all but annihilated in recent local elections continues apace, but respected German historians warn his claim that the sovereigntist AfD want to commit “ethnic cleansing” is factually incorrect and risks “adding fuel to the fire” of a febrile political scene.
Germany’s sovereigntist, anti-mass-migration Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party pulled off a historic result in state elections in Saxony-Anhalt at the weekend, pushing the country’s longstanding default party of government the Christian Democrats (CDU) into a distant second and leaving all other parties as also-rans. The result has sent shock waves through German politics and brought the leadership of national Chancellor Friedrich Merz into question, which seems to have sent the otherwise mild-mannered lawyer into a tailspin of despair, in which he has made increasingly outlandish threats and comments against the AfD, painting them as an outright threat to the German nation.
On Wednesday, Merz responded to one of the flagship policies of the AfD — that migrants who are in Germany illegally should actually be made to leave, rather than endlessly tolerated — to call it ethnic cleansing. The charge has obvious historic connotations in Germany and caused something of a firestorm. Merz said on Wednesday that the party’s “remigration” policy is “nothing other than ethnic cleansing based on skin color and origin”.
Merz further claimed that if deportations took place, German society would simply collapse. Speaking directly to AfD members in the German Parliament, he went on to say: “You are part of the problem we have in Germany — and we will resist that with everything at our disposal”.
Beyond the outrage of AfD leaders and commentators, who rejected the assertion and in some cases raised the question of how it is that “remigration” is ethnic cleansing, but open borders is not, academic experts also questioned the wisdom of Merz’s attack line.
German newspaper Bild cites the remarks of academics including historian and professor of modern history at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz Andreas Rödder, who is himself a member of Chancellor Merz’s CDU party. He said of the claim: “One may reject what the AfD demands regarding migration policy but it is not ethnic cleansing as we know it from history, which was always associated with violent measures”.
Historian Professor Emeritus Michael Wolffsohn of Bundeswehr University in Munich also asserted there was no evidence to be found of AfD politicians planning violent attacks on particular ethnic groups should they get into power. He told the paper: “Despite all the criticism of the AfD’s remigration plans, there can be no talk of ethnic cleansing”.
Professor Emeritus Wolffsohn added that Chancellor Merz’s rhetoric could be unhelpful as Germany’s national political rhetoric heats up, stating: “We shouldn’t add any more fuel to the fire right now.”
Germany’s newspaper of record Die Welt records the anger of AfD of being accused of advocating for what amounts to a war crime of genocide by the Chancellor, with senior party man Stephan Brandner responding to his speech to say: “The Chancellor was absolutely appalling, coming across like some kind of unhinged left-wing extremist. Completely out of touch, this Chancellor. Hopefully, that was his farewell speech.”
The ethnic cleansing line follows other remarks by Merz on Monday, who addressed the federal executive of the CDU to promise he would use government power to prevent AfD dissidents from taking power. As reported:
Germany has a considerable security state, including political police. These organisations are a legacy of the post-Second World War and Cold War political settlements, when it was thought Germany’s constitution needed inbuilt protections against democracy of a magnitude practically unknown elsewhere in the Western world. Convinced that the public voting against endless open borders is an emergency justifying the use of these powers, Merz is reported to have said on Monday he would use “all the instruments” in Germany’s “strong constitution” to defend the nation against “a right-wing extremist state government”.
To some extent, these powers are already deployed against the AfD. The previous left-wing national government attempted to declare the party politically unacceptable — a step on the road to the AfD, Germany’s highest-polling faction, being banned outright — and the political police in Saxony-Anhalt have already classified the local branch as “confirmed right-wing extremist”. This produces the remarkable situation where it is presently possible that the next government of Saxony-Anhalt could be by a party which the present one has awarded itself the constitutional powers to infiltrate and spy upon.