Bremen (Weltexpresso ) – „And now, gentlemen, forward with God!“ shouted Reich President Paul von Hindenburg after he appointed Hitler Chancellor on 30 January 1933. His NSDAP did not have a majority in the Reichstag, but thanks to the support of the German National People’s Party and the Steel Helmet, he did come to power. Now Thomas Kemmerich of the Free Democrats is no Hitler, but it must have come from somewhere that when he was surprisingly elected Minister President of Thuringia, the word „seizure of power“ immediately came up. And one thing has stood the test of time anyway: when it comes to opposing the left, the right always sticks together.
It is one thing to be elected head of government of a federal state with the votes of the AfD when you only have five seats out of a total of 90; it is another to form a government with a majority. The FDP and CDU together have 26 seats in the state parliament. That is a long way from a government majority. In any case, he can only keep his head above water with the AfD. Kemmerich’s laurels are therefore likely to wilt quickly and the CDU’s plot will end with new elections. In any case, the AfD’s howls of triumph that there is no way around it from now on are premature and CDU state leader Mohring’s evasion that his party chose the centrist candidate and is not responsible for the voting behaviour of other parties is pure hypocrisy. There is no political centre, only right and left. Anything else is fooling the people. The Greens will also have to decide which side they are on. And the SPD can only halt its decline if it returns to where it came from.
The CDU’s boundaries with the radical right have always been fluid. This was already evident from the claim of Franz Josef Strauß that there should be no party to the right of the CSU. As far as the FDP was concerned, it never took political loyalty seriously. Depending on the political weather, it sometimes went to bed with the CDU, sometimes with the SPD. She was open to all sides. But if you’re open to all sides, you can’t be completely sealed off.
Josef Schuster from the Central Council of Jews in Germany is right in his comment: „The FDP has abandoned the consensus of the democratic parties not to work with the AfD or to count on the support of the right-wing populists.“ The Chairwoman of the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria, Charlotte Knobloch, described the joint election of the FDP candidate by the CDU, AfD and Free Democrats as an unprecedented breach of taboo in the recent history of our country. A prime minister who only comes to office with the votes of right-wing extremists should not exist in a democracy.
Even within the FDP, doubts are being voiced. Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, co-chair of the federal executive committee, said: „To be elected by someone like Höcke (who can be labelled a fascist with impunity; K.N.)) is unacceptable and intolerable among democrats. This is a bad day for me as a liberal.“ SPD chairwoman Saskia Esken wants to discuss the outcome of the Thuringian state premier election in a coalition committee with the CDU/CSU. The election was a rigged game and must be corrected. Co-chairman Norbert Walter-Borjans spoke of an „unforgivable breach of the dam“. The fact that the Liberals were acting as a straw man for the right-wing extremists‘ grab for power was a scandal of the first order.
In the meantime, both the CDU and the CSU have called for new elections in Thuringia. This is proof that the constitutionally covered coup against the previous Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow, whose Left Party is the strongest force in the state parliament with 29 seats, is damaging to democracy and should not be the last word.
