Der 26. April 2024 war kein besonderer Tag. Auf der Tagesordnung des Bundestages standen eine Änderung des Klimaschutzgesetzes, ein von der AfD beantragter Wiedereinstieg in die Atomkraft und das Freiwilligen-Teilzeitgesetz. Einer dieser Tage also, die Abgeordnete meinen, wenn sie vom alltäglichen Geschäft sprechen. Es standen keine Reden an, die auf Jahre im Gedächtnis bleiben werden, und keine wegweisenden Beschlüsse, die einmal in den Geschichtsbüchern auftauchen werden.
Natürlich gab es Zwischenrufe und Kabbeleien, aber nicht von einer Qualität, dass die ganze Republik davon Notiz genommen hätte. Nichts also von der Anstößigkeit eines Joschka Fischer, der im Bundestag einmal sagte: „Herr Präsident, Sie sind ein Arschloch, mit Verlaub!“, oder eines Herbert Wehners, der rief: „Sie sind ein Schwein. Wissen Sie das?“ Alles war eine Stufe darunter. Manche der insgesamt 55 Zwischenrufe des AfD-Abgeordneten Martin Reichardt waren nicht einmal beleidigend. Sie waren einfach der ganz normale Wahnsinn.
Als ein SPD-Abgeordneter ans Rednerpult ging, um den Vorschlag der AfD abzulehnen, Kernkraftwerke zu bauen, da fing es schon nach wenigen Worten an. Der AfD-Abgeordnete Karsten Hilse rief: „Sie können sich wieder hinsetzen!“ Und Reichardt pflichtete bei: „Sie sind intellektuell überhaupt nicht in der Lage, nur drei Sätze gerade zu erklären!“ So ging es immer weiter, pausenlos.
AfD bekam 2023 die meisten Ordnungsrufe
Als ein Linken-Abgeordneter daran erinnerte, dass die AfD ihren Antrag am Jahrestag des Tschernobyl-Unglücks stellte, rief Reichardt: „Fangen Sie doch an zu heulen!“ Als ein SPD-Abgeordneter sprach, rief Reichardt in die Rede rein: „Machen Sie doch Schluss! Es kommt doch eh nichts raus außer Stuss!“ Und wenig später: „Da fehlt es am Intellekt!“ Als der Abgeordnete fertig war, rief Reichardt: „Ein drittklassiger Schauspieler!“ Als er dafür vom Präsidium ermahnt wurde, rief er: „Das sind doch nur Fakten!“ Später beschimpfte er einen Grünen-Abgeordneten als „Vaterlandsverräter“. Als das problematisiert wurde, versicherte Reichardt mehrfach lauthals, dass er zu dieser Aussage stehe.
Dieser Text stammt aus der Frankfurter Allgemeinen Sonntagszeitung.
In 2023, there were 51 calls to order in the Bundestag, 30 of which were the responsibility of AfD MPs, eight of which went to Beatrix von Storch alone and six to Stephan Brandner. That is more than since the legislative period from 1983 to 1987, when the then wild Greens entered the Bundestag. Just when Parliament President Bärbel Bas wanted to speak out in the autumn of 2023 and admonished all MPs to maintain morals, there were two disruptions – by AfD MPs.
Bas was about to say: “Anyone who uses the speech as a series of provocations, generalizations and platitudes, who insults and abuses” – when AfD MP Bernd Baumann laughed maliciously in the middle of it – “is speaking outside of this argumentative discourse,” Bas finished her sentence. Later she said: “Many surveys show us that trust in political institutions is declining . . .” – Beatrix von Storch interjected: “Above all, trust in the SPD!” – “. . . that is damaging our country and our democracy,” Bas continued.
Brandner, the AfD's other record holder, was already notorious for his heckling during his time as a member of the Thuringian state parliament. He was considered the AfD MP with the most heckling nationwide, namely 32 in three years. He documented each one on his website like a trophy. In the Bundestag he called CDU chairman Friedrich Merz a “traitor to the fatherland”, which led to a reprimand.
When AfD MP Martin Sichert said to Bundestag Vice President Katrin Göring-Eckardt: “I don't know what gender you are today,” he also got one. When his party chairman Tino Chrupalla called FDP politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann a “warmonger,” he also got one. And when Strack-Zimmermann replied that the people from the AfD were the “successors of the National Socialists,” she also got one.
It's not that MPs from other parties don't shout out loud or get reprimanded. The AfD is just the absolute leader in this area.
Beatrix von Storch has to pay 1000 euros
The consequence of such calls to order: zero. If you receive three calls in one session, you are denied the right to speak, nothing more. In particularly serious cases, a fine of 1000 euros can be imposed, but this only happens very rarely. Beatrix von Storch recently received this punishment because she shouted the name “Markus” during a speech by a Green Party MP about the self-determination law on gender reassignment.
Von Storch likes to do this when it comes to this topic. She is alluding to the former first name of another Green MP, the trans woman Tessa Ganserer. Storch had often addressed the MP as “man” and “Mr. Ganserer” to mock her, and had already been reprimanded and called to order several times for this – to no avail.
On Wednesday, SPD MP Johannes Fechner presented plans for new rules of procedure in the Bundestag that are intended to curb insulting heckling – and was appropriately interrupted by heckling. “We will no longer accept that the AfD parliamentary group in particular is receiving a series of reprimands for poor behavior,” said Fechner, and AfD MP Bernd Baumann shouted in: “From your vice presidents, who are very biased!”
Fechner continued, explaining that there should be an automatic system: three reprimands cost 2,000 euros. If repeated, it is 4,000 euros. In addition, the rules of procedure should include a non-binding appeal to decency: “Any insulting or discriminatory, particularly racist or sexist, statements or behavior towards another member or third party should be avoided,” reads the draft. “I think, dear colleagues, we are role models here in the Bundestag,” said Fechner, and AfD MP Reichardt shouted in the middle: “What are you a role model for? You have never been a role model in your entire life!”
After the fines, the committees are also to be reformed, but not until autumn. It should then be clearly regulated how committee chairmen are voted out. This happened for the first time in the history of the Bundestag in November 2019, when Stephan Brandner lost the chairmanship of the Justice Committee. Brandner had shared a reaction to the Halle shooting on Twitter.
That was the rampage in which an armed right-wing extremist tried to break into a synagogue on the highest Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur, and kill everyone inside, but was unsuccessful because the door held firm. The perpetrator fled and shot two people on the way who had nothing to do with the synagogue. Brandner shared a tweet explaining that the victims were “Germans.” “Why do politicians hang around in mosques and synagogues with candles?”
One of the AfD secretaries has a previous conviction for fraud
That and his other comments cost Brandner his office. He filed a lawsuit with the Federal Constitutional Court, and the traffic light coalition is still waiting for the verdict. Then it wants to regulate the dismissal of committee chairmen in the rules of procedure, just like that of secretaries. These are MPs who sit on the podium to the left and right of the President of the Bundestag. The AfD has a secretary named Kay-Uwe Ziegler, who was convicted of fraud in January. He had made false statements in order to receive 12,000 euros in state corona aid. SPD MP Fechner wants to remove him from office. “The office of secretary is too important for a criminal convicted of fraud to be allowed to perform this important task here in the Bundestag,” he said.
The way the AfD is being treated is becoming increasingly cold. The right-wing populists can also see this from the fact that the President of the Bundestag, Bärbel Bas, has commissioned a man like Klaus Gärditz to prepare a report. Gärditz is a constitutional lawyer from the University of Bonn who is publicly considering banning individual regional AfD associations. In his report, he writes that he believes it is possible for the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution to conduct security checks on MPs.
For example, from members of the Parliamentary Control Committee, in which MPs have access to intelligence information. After all, the AfD faction has already had members like Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, who is on trial for allegedly planning a coup with Reich citizens. Or someone like Hannes Gnauck, who sits on the Defense Committee. He is listed as an extremist by the Military Counterintelligence Service.
“You would like that!”
Constitutional lawyer Gärditz believes that MPs' employees could also be investigated by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the future. To do this, house rules and laws would have to be changed. According to research by Bayerischer Rundfunk, more than 100 AfD MPs' employees are members of right-wing extremist organizations. More than half of all AfD MPs have at least one such employee, including the parliamentary group leaders Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel.
For Brandner, the coalition's plans are a nasty conspiracy, nothing more. He believes that the vice presidents of the other parties have it in for the AfD and are protecting each other. “The harassment of the opposition, the exclusion of the opposition, you are now raising to the level of procedural rules,” said Brandner. His idea of bringing calm to parliament is different.
He called on all other parties to leave the Bundestag so that the AfD would be undisturbed there. “Leave this house and the dignity of the house will be completely restored,” shouted Brandner and explained who he meant: “You from the SPD, you from the Greens and you from the FDP and the CDU.” Then the SPD MP Fechner did something that is usually Brandner's speciality, namely an interjection: “You would like that! You would like that!”