Ableism | Disability with a system

Wheelchair ramps are still not a must. Photo: IMAGO/HalfPoint Images The Baden-Württemberg AfD politician Markus Frohnmeier advertised on Facebook in 2018 for the reintroduction of the “performance principle” instead of “inclusion and cuddly lessons” in schools. As the AfD's top candidate in Thuringia in 2023, Björn Höcke is calling for the education system to be "freed" from "ideological projects" such as inclusion. In 2024, Maximilian Krah, then the AfD's top candidate for the European elections, described the news from the "Tagesschau" in so-called simple language as reports "for idiots."

The partially right-wing extremist AfD has been paving the way for exclusive sentiment and practice for a long time. These are not, as she so often portrays, derailments, but rather conscious provocations and a shift in what can be said. For the last two years at the latest, the Union has increasingly adopted anti-disability rhetoric. The cuts are now having an impact on legislative initiatives from the black-red federal government.

June 2025. Four weeks after taking office, Chancellor Friedrich Merz caused unrest at the municipal congress of the German Association of Cities and Municipalities. He believes that the “rates of youth and integration assistance that have been rising over the years” are “no longer acceptable.” Integration assistance is intended to enable self-determined and equal participation.

November. The federal government's drug commissioner, Hendrik Streek (Union), caused a stir in a debate on world TV. He questioned whether 100-year-olds should still be given cancer drugs.

"Anyone who translates human rights into a cost-benefit logic is resorting to an argumentation pattern whose historical consequences are well known."

December. Just a month later, his party colleague Kristina Schröder, former family minister, followed up. She explains in a "Welt" commentary that the state can no longer afford to care for people with disabilities, especially integration assistance. One of the measures that would be too expensive for municipalities was care assistance. Schröder contrasts underserved older people with supposedly lavishly cared for people with disabilities.

January 2026. At the local level, Stuttgart's mayor Frank Nopper (CDU) criticizes the "all-round care" provided by the welfare state. The rhetoric has officially reached the local level.

“You notice: Increasingly, different groups of ‘poor’ – the old, the sick, recipients of community benefit, youth welfare recipients, single parents and people with disabilities – are being played off against each other,” said historian Dagmar Herzog in an interview with “nd”.

In fact, according to the Federal Statistical Office, the number of integration assistance for young people with mental disabilities has more than doubled within ten years. The number of people entitled to benefits is increasing because the number of mental illnesses in the general population is increasing, because of demographic change and because of changing family structures. Personnel and material costs are increasing, also due to fairer wages and increasing collective bargaining agreements. Nursing care insurance no longer covers certain costs. Administrative costs are exploding. What the Union does not mention: Participation is about universal fundamental rights, which it repeatedly attacks.

“What alarms us is a specific rhetorical pattern: the offsetting of individual human lives against public budgets,” criticizes Adina Hermann from the Social Heroes, an NGO for inclusion and accessibility. "Anyone who converts human rights into a cost-benefit logic is resorting to an argumentation pattern whose historical consequences are known." The Nazi state reduced people with disabilities to a cost factor and as unworthy of life. This culminated in what is known as eugenics. The social heroes do not want to assume this intention to individuals. Nevertheless: "The rhetorical proximity between the AfD and the government line in the cost framing is striking."

This logic is becoming established step by step in the politics of the federal government and thus also in the political actions of the SPD. In the coalition agreement, Black-Red committed to maintaining workshops. The traffic light coalition had set itself the goal of abolishing these.

People with disabilities currently work there in an “employee-like legal relationship”. This means they receive no minimum wage and no unemployment insurance. On average, the approximately 300,000 workers earn 233 euros per month. Less than one percent of people in workshops enter the regular labor market.

Instead, companies save money through the system, as “Ask den Staat” researched together with the inclusive magazine “andererwärts” and the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” in 2025. In 2022, companies in Germany are said to have saved almost 84 million euros. The special system of workshops has already earned the Federal Republic two reprimands from the UN Committee of Experts on the Rights of People with Disabilities.

The expansion of the Disability Equality Act was originally intended to oblige the private sector to ensure accessibility. In the current draft reform, however, structural changes are considered a “disproportionate and unreasonable burden”. Even wheelchair ramps are still not a must. Inclusion associations and unions criticized the law as a free pass for the private sector.

The reform of child and youth welfare goes in a similar direction. From January 2027, children with mental disabilities will no longer receive their own educational assistance and will instead be looked after in standard groups in daycare centers and schools.

The draft for the care reorganization, in turn, planned to reduce pension contributions for caring relatives by around 30 percent. In August, Health Minister Carsten Linnemann (CDU) announced that this point would be deleted after public pressure.

In the spring, the Paritätische Wohlfahrtsverband published an internal cutback paper from the federal, state and municipal umbrella associations. At least 8.6 billion euros should be saved through “efficient use of resources in performance laws”. The biggest items: educational participation and integration assistance. The leak showed that the federal government had been dealing with the issue of social cuts for some time. According to Herzog, a “kind of Trojan horse” that is intended to prepare the public for further cuts in the social budget.

The cost-benefit logic in capitalism was already described in the “Air Pump,” a newspaper for the emancipation of disabled and non-disabled people that was published nationwide from 1978 to 1986. »The unscrupulous ideal of performance, the glorification of flawless beauty and athleticism, the unconditional demand for optimal work ability is based on the principles of a profit-oriented society. These are the causes that not only make us disabled." If this were understood and acted against, the world would become a more humane one, argued the "air pump" at the time.

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