Merkels power crumbles rapidly

I'm not sure they should try to. Leaving the AfD where they are will force them to back off if they want to gain any legitimacy, and the party members will not tolerate years of being in the wilderness politically, just as the old PDS realised that they had to moderate themselves if they wanted to gain the spoils of power.

The AfD also won't be able to use Salvini/Vox-esque tactics in Germany because they simply won't work. That leaves them with rhetoric, but if that rhetoric is failing to translate into results, how long can they keep it up for?

IMO, the CDU should worry most about the Greens, because a Green-Red-Red coalition is tried and tested at the state level.

(PS: Tacitus/BB - is 'state' the correct translation for Land, or not? I've found conflicting opinions on this)

Yeah...state....or federal state... :)

But how should the AfD become moderate if there is such a hysteria build up against them...where everybody and his grandmom swears to never greet any AfD'ler, forget talking and working together...where voters (as just happened in Hamburg) obviously feeling the need to lie to the pollsters about their true choice (hence the failure to calculate the correct outcome at first)?

That is not an atmosphere where the moderate, calm heads will prevail....on all sides!

There are no moderates left in the AfD. Or whom would you consider a "moderate" among the AfD leadership?

See what I mean?

Do you really think all these people are stark raving mad radical fascists? Don't be caught up in this trap!

FFS....a short time back most of them had been CDU, SPD, even LINKE voters...get a grip!

The AfD isn't so much radicalizing itself as it is being radicalized by everybody else....that is not healthy...as if Germany has lost the ability to accept an opposition somewhere during the last 10, 15 years..

You are still making excuses for them. Maybe some of them could have feigned ignorance at the beginning. Anybody who still supports a party who leadership includes Gauland and Höcke knows what he is doing. They support them and their views. Anybody who is cheering for a card-carrying fascist like Höcke can't claim to be a moderate.


Yes, those poor, poor victims. I reserve my pity for those who deserve it. Like the refugees and migrants who ar regulary dehumanized by them.


Well, the Linke is the closest equivalent to the AfD, since it is also a populist party with a very dodgy relationship to history and some questionable plans for the future, And it also consists of Putin fanboys.

Aside from that, just because someone votes for party, does not mean he is really convinced of its' values. The emergence of a far-right party is nothing surprising for political scientists, many surves since the 90s show that a part of the German populace always had those views, but the NPD was just to thuggish for most of them.

Every single refugee in Germany is a fake refugee and should be expelled. Weimarer has already explained why they are fake under the German laws but you are still at it.

@Weimarer,
Don't forget for a moment that the Nazis were quite skillful in their PR. In defending, rationalizing, and justifying their murderous, perfervid policies, they always couched their claims as "Do YOU want YOUR children to become infected by the Jewish bacillus...?

The State is looking to defend OUR Fatherland, OUR interests......" When the Jews were being forcibly and relentlessly rounded up, never once was the ultimate purpose stated point blank, rather, "...Jews are being RELOCATED to other quarters in the East...."

It all sounded very sweet, almost caring, for a moment unless, until, the true, unspeakable purpose became known by smuggled or hear-say information, possibly gleaned through a confidant who heard it through the grapevine.

Just because Hoecke and his followers doesn't say their true purpose, doesn't make it any less toxic!!

That's why I say that they should be left to it. They'll be in the political wilderness until they decide to come out of it like the PDS did, at which point, they end up becoming a minor coalition partner at best, and they'll be forced into dropping much of the untasteful rhetoric in order to break the cordon sanitaire around them.

Having said this, I think it's somewhat proof that creating 5 states out of East Germany wasn't that clever - it would have been much more logical to give the whole of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern to Brandenburg and divide Thuringia between Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony.

@delphiandomine
Thuringia is one of the oldest German states. Why not erase Bavaria which is younger and make it part of saxony?

Its that kind of arrogance that fuels the AfD.

Beside thaf, you have little to no understanding what we want.

The current german system is rotten to the core. There is nothing gained in any coalition now. If AfD would form a coalition with any of the old system parties, the AfD would get infected from that corruption. Right now is the time to destroy the corruption. To show what laughable and pathetic clowns those system politicians are. The parliament is a stage and the AfD as only oppossition party is perfect in playing that game.

In my state Thüringen Höcke showed how pathetic the old system parties are. His coup destroyed the CDU here, made the system laughable.

We might elect Ramelow next. Which means he cant accept the election.

What you call cordon sanitaire, has become one of our strongest weapons.

You should be happy, we make this pathetic system at least far more interesting.

P.s. a red red green german government would be the best gift one could make to AfD. It would shred Germany political system apart.

You have not the slightest idea how hated the greens are in large parts of german population.

May I ask where these ideas comes from?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuringia#History

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecklenburg-Vorpommern#History

"It's that kind of arrogance which fuels the AfD...."

...and will undoubtedly destroy the Federal Republic of Germany in the process!

Weimarer, have you ever heard of leaving well enough alone?? If it's not broken, don't fix it....REPAIR IT!!

Better still, keep things as they are unless an equitable solution is available to all.

He says that Strauss was portrayed in exactly the same manner in Poland as he was in the DDR. The term quoted by Iron comes from the characteristic vocabularly of the commie propaganda in Poland and is hardly 'translatable' into English.

Perhaps not in English, although the term "Revanchismus" is known in German.

Erdogan is opening the flood gates....Merkel's expensive deal has just been binned....the first refugees are on their way....let's see how Berlin reacts this time...


theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/28/tensions-rise-between-turkey-and-russia-after-killing-of-troops-in-syria

At the same time Greece is being closed down as Bulgaria is rising the fences..

bild.de/politik/ausland/politik-ausland/tuerkei-syrien-militaer-eskalation-griechen-schotten-sich-gegen-fluechtlinge-ab-69095116.bild.html

You should be deliriously happy. I hear how migrants are needed for your booming economy, that they are a precious asset, and that you need more people to keep the headcount stable. I recall that it was actually you said it, but I could be wrong.

Almost forgot...Your generosity will make you feel better, too, so what is the problem with another million of desperate people in need?

Migrants have been a part of German society in the Federal Republic since the mid-'50's!
We all are aware of the reasons for this and so the longer they became integrated into (West) German society, the harder it became to speak about "sending them" back to Turkey, respectively, Greece or Spain and so on.

Anti-migrant rhetoric, although perhaps tempting, from a business perspective becomes a lose-lose strategy!

Yes, migrants are needed!

But these people are refugees from a war zone....

And so who would think of sending those Syrians back to be slaughtered by Assad? Therein lies the problem.

From the over a millon migrants who arrived to Germany, less than 50,000 are willing to do any work, once Merkel discovered this her solution to the mounting problem was to introduce the quota system and to distribute the useless parasite ones who's aim is to only want to live on welfare, among other EU member states and to solve the problem by sending them to Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia ect.

If Greece is really closing down then these poor sods will stay stuck on the border....then there is Bulgaria and Macedonia...it won't be easy for them to reach the north...

But I can't help to be gleeful...that "sultan" Erdogan totally miscalulated his power and influence...first kicking NATO and brown nosing Putin with buying his weapons just to learn now the hard way that Putin doesn't have friends, only vasalls! Against Putin he and his army is a nobody!

No, they are not. Germany does not have any refugees and never will. Only country and welfare shoppers.

In Serbia citizen patrols are being formed.

youtu.be/tnM0p-5LsRA

youtu.be/T4P_l6pvUmA

Excellent action & very well done.

Greece has closed the border! (with pic)

zeit.de/politik/ausland/2020-02/eu-grenze-tuerkei-griechenland-fluechtlinge-grenzschutz

The greece police is using pepper spray and tear gas....I doubt they will make it into Europe from there...

The greek president is said to have had a phone call with Merkel...so she should know what the Greeks are doing!

bild.de/politik/ausland/politik-ausland/tuerkei-syrien-militaer-eskalation-griechen-schotten-sich-gegen-fluechtlinge-ab-69095116.bild.html

What if soon there will be masses of people waiting at the border? Another Lesbos camp catastrophe?

What will the EU do then???? Can we really just look on?

Refugees are fighting already for places in the busses from Istanbul to the greek border:

So typical...
One post. Four bellyaching questions. Not one "we should". Always playing it safe.

I like to think things through, view them from different viewpoints....and I readily admit that I don't always have all the answers.

Must be nice to always know what to do....to be absolutely sure of everything.....no error possible!

You are a German version of Lyzko. No, it was not a compliment.

Even if you don't have a plan, there is a time to vent. Like here and now.
I, for one, would volunteer to shoot the border invaders just as I would this very minute shoot to kill anyone trying to enter my house. Zero hesitation. Would you?

With the legal immunity and I would pay my own expenses to go to the border and bring the necessary equipment.

You would shoot at women and children?


Of course not! Not on a border and not if they come knocking on my door...

I'm not a murderer of helpless people! (And frankly I doubt you are! You have just a big mouth:)

No. Germans didn't deliberately shoot women and children in Poland and still won the war in less than a month.


Invaders do not knock on doors. They break doors and overrun what's behind the doors. If in the mood, they rape and kill to leave no witnesses.

No, I am not inclined to interview them first.

You would look such a family in the eye and shoot them???