Scholz believes that “it is worth fighting” and calls for the SPD’s electoral success in Brandenburg to be transferred to the federal level
September 23 () –
Police have launched an investigation into a suspected hate crime following chants in favour of “mass deportation” of immigrants during celebrations after the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) won a presidential election in the German state of Brandenburg on Sunday.
Police have said that the investigation was opened following a complaint about what happened and have already accessed the video in which the chants were recorded, according to German public television ARD.
Green politician Volker Beck has posted on X that he has filed a complaint for incitement to hatred. “Immigrants and refugees are part of the population. They are inciting hatred, violence or arbitrary measures such as millions of deportations. I have filed a complaint against the AfD leaders under Article 130 of the Criminal Code,” Beck explained.
Article 130 penalizes hatred against a national, racial, religious or ethnically defined group or against sectors of the population with between three months and five years in prison.
AfD-Brandenburg chairman René Springer has argued that these chants by the Young Alternative – the party’s youth wing – are “innocuous” compared to the pro-abortion advocacy of the SPD’s youth wing. In fact, the song has been used repeatedly by AfD youth during the election campaign.
AfD supporters celebrated the results of their second-placed party at a restaurant outside Potsdam, chanting songs with phrases such as “We will deport them all, deport them all” and holding banners with slogans such as “Let’s deport millions.” Present at the event were AfD candidate for the regional elections, Hans-Christoph Berndt, and the party’s national leaders, Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla.
The deportation line was inserted into the song ‘Das geht ab. Wir feiern die ganze Nacht’ (‘Move on. Let’s party all night long’) by the group Die Atzen. The band has reacted in an Instagram post, warning that “the only ones who are allowed to rewrite our song are the East Curve of (football club) Hertha Berlin and Spongebob.”
SCHOLZ: “IT’S WORTH FIGHTING”
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the Social Democrat, has hailed his party’s narrow victory in Sunday’s elections in Brandenburg and has appealed to the same spirit at the federal level.
“It is worth fighting,” Scholz said from New York, arguing for the need for mobilisation at the federal level as well “to fight, to act decisively and unitedly and to focus on the problems facing our country.”
At the regional level, the SPD leader in Brandenburg, Dietmar Woidke, has announced his intention to open “exploratory” talks to form a coalition government that includes the Sahra Wagenknecht-For Reason and Justice Alliance (BSW, the fourth political force) and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
“My goal is to form a stable government,” Woidke said from Berlin, playing down the war in Ukraine or the deployment of US missiles in Germany as possible factors in the negotiations. “The negotiations and the possible coalition agreement are about politics in the state of Brandenburg and there is no foreign or defence policy in them,” he stressed.
Woidke has so far governed with the support of the CDU and the Greens, but the environmentalists have been reduced to a token representation in Parliament and the CDU has declared its intention to be in opposition.
“Honestly, I don’t know what we could discuss in these talks,” said Gordon Hoffmann, general secretary of the CDU branch in Brandenburg. “We don’t have the mandate to govern. There is no SPD-CDU majority, so it is clear that exploratory talks must be between the SPD and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW).”
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