The AfD's deportation policy: Arming for “remigration”

dpa | Saxony-Anhalt's AfD leading candidate Ulrich Siegmund has linked the production of military equipment with a planned deportation offensive, triggering strong criticism. "Ulrich Siegmund's statements mark a new quality," said the leader of the SPD parliamentary group, Katja Pähle. “Anyone who brings military equipment into play in the announced mass expulsion of people from Saxony-Anhalt is talking about violence as a political tool.”

The Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), which had previously not ruled out project- and topic-related collaboration with the AfD, also reacted indignantly. The AfD supports increased armament and “justifies the establishment of the Israeli arms company Elbit with the use of arms technology for ‘remigration’,” wrote co-federal chairman Fabio De Masi. “This shows that they don’t want to govern at all and are desperately looking for a way out through provocation.”

After the AfD's constitutive parliamentary group meeting in the Magdeburg state parliament, Siegmund responded on Thursday to a journalist's question about the planned settlement of an Israeli arms company: "We are not demonizing the production of armaments across the board, because we of course also need appropriate aids in (the) later remigration and deportation offensive. Of course also in the sense of internal security, our own stability and also national defense."

He emphasized that you have to weigh things up on a case-by-case basis. "We want to take a close look at: What is being produced there, under what conditions, and do we run the risk of becoming involved in foreign conflicts? Then we see this as more than critical."

Pähle said that this was not a misleading formulation, but a political threat. This shows the ugly face of a politics whose language and ideas are once again reminiscent of totalitarian models. She called on the BSW to take a clear position on the statements. The alliance had previously stated that it would not rule out selective cooperation with the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt.