Bernd Baumann, the parliamentary manager of the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag, appeared at the Konrad Adenauer House, the CDU party headquarters in Berlin, on Wednesday accompanied by a video team. In the lobby, he grabbed a copy of the brochure “Decline for Germany. No Alternative” and left the building again. He then published a video on TikTok in which he called the “pamphlet” “full of lies and false reports.”
The CDU had presented the campaign document at its party congress in February. It is intended to provide members and election campaigners with arguments against the AfD and is available online and as a print version at the Adenauer House. The subtitle classifies the AfD as “harmful to democracy, anti-Semitic, and völkisch.” The brochure cites numerous quotes from AfD politicians, including the accusation that the party wants to make Jewish life in Germany impossible.
Baumann indignantly rejected this accusation in his video and referred to his parliamentary group’s motions against anti-Semitism in the Bundestag. The CDU, however, supports its thesis with, among other things, an AfD motion from 2023 that called for a ban on ritual slaughter in Germany – to the detriment of Jews and Muslims. The brochure also quotes the Central Council of Jews as saying: “In the AfD’s program, Jews serve solely to give expression to the party’s anti-Muslim resentments.”
At the Konrad Adenauer House, it was said on Thursday that nothing was known so far about legal steps by the AfD against the CDU. However, the dispute between the two parties in the Bundestag election campaign is likely to become even more heated.
Source: www.faz.net
