An AfD co-leader has stated the obvious - that pouring money into the Ukraine war is killing the German economy. But will anyone listen?
© Sean Gallup/Getty ImagesAlice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party and AfD candidate for chancellor, speaks at the party congress on January 11, 2025 in Riesa, Germany.
Alice Weidel, co-leader of the AfD (Alternative for Germany) party, has given
a speech to which every observer of Germany should pay close attention. And not simply because of Weidel's inherent political weight.
She is among the country's most important politicians and with serious prospects for very high office: if her New-Right party breaks through to leading a Berlin government, Weidel is the most likely chancellor. Next to her co-chairman Tino Chrupalla, she is the only real opposition that matters inside the current German parliament.
What makes this particular Weidel speech, delivered in the city of Heilbronn while campaigning in state elections in the classically 'West German' Land of Baden-Württemberg, especially noteworthy is its unprecedently outspoken, bracingly combative, and, stirringly logical and honest take on one specific topic, namely
Germany's masochistic relationship to Ukraine.Not that there were no other topics. Indeed, Weidel started what was a gleefully pugnacious '
Rundumschlag' (German for onslaught) where you would expect, the absolutely dismal state of Germany's once proud and now relentlessly tanking national economy. She
reminded her large audience that
Germany's industrial sector is bleeding jobs and companies; national insolvency statistics are a horror and won't stop breaking abysmal records; and the traditional parties have nothing to offer but same-old-same-old.And yet, as most right-wing politicians - whether traditional or insurgent - former business consultant Weidel is not at all original with her own suggestions either. She complains that producing things in Germany is so expensive that the country's economy as a whole has been losing international competitiveness. True enough.
But things get more debatable when Weidel starts explaining the causes of the national malaise.
Costs that are too high include, in her view, taxes in general, payroll taxes, and social security payments. This is a classical conservative position: if anything is wrong with capitalism, it's that those at the bottom of the income and power pyramid still have it too good.
Cut the state down and rely on the market's miraculous powers - pretty much the essence of Weidel's extremely tired recipe for the future.
Comment: Further reading: Progressive liberal values: Tony Podesta's creepy taste in art, the creepy people he hangs out with, and Pizzagate