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The Left closing in on the SPD

The hard-line socialist Left party is quickly closing the gap between it and the left-leaning Social Democrats (SPD) as a proposed coalition government between the two in Hesse weighs on the SPD, according to two surveys released Wednesday.

Published: 27 August 2008 12:49 CEST
The Left closing in on the SPD
Andrea Ypsilanti greets the head of the Hesse Left Wednesday Photo: DPA

Fifteen percent of those interviewed for a Forsa study commissioned by Stern magazine and broadcaster RTL would vote for the Left party if elections were held now. That’s the best-ever showing for the new party in the weekly poll.

The SPD has stagnated at 20 percent for weeks while the CDU, which governs the country together with the SPD, remained in the lead with 37 percent.

Former SPD voters have defected in droves to the new Left party after they became disenfranchised with tough labour market reforms introduced under Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. The Left party encompasses the socialist PDS party popular in former East Germany with an association of far-left voters in western Germany.

Most blame the SPD’s latest woes on the party’s chief in the central state of Hesse, Andrea Ypsilanti. Ypsilanti has said she plans to form a coalition government with the Greens and the tacit approval – but not the participation – of the Left party in the central state. Her plans include cutting deals with the Left to allow her to be elected state premier.

She had promised not to work with the Left as she campaigned for a January election that gave no party a clear majority in the state.

“The risks for the political scenarios in Hesse are inacceptable,” said Finance Minister and SPD vice-chairman Peer Steinbrück in a Stern interview. “She’s putting herself in the hands of a party that would be influential without responsibility, without commitment, that eats away at the ability to govern every week.”

In a second Forsa survey commissioned by Stern and daily Frankfurter Rundschau, 59 percent of voters in Hesse opposed Ypsilanti’s coalition plans and 68 percent were against the agreements that will win her the state premier seat.

Sixty-one percent of those interviewed said they favour new elections to clear up the impasse – something the SPD opposes because they would most likely fare far worse than the 39 percent of votes they won early this year.

CRIME

German far-right politician fined €13,000 for using Nazi slogan

A German court has convicted one of the country's most controversial far-right politicians, Björn Höcke, of deliberately using a banned Nazi slogan at a rally.

Published: 15 May 2024 08:43 CEST
German far-right politician fined €13,000 for using Nazi slogan

The court fined Höcke, 52, of the far-right AfD party, €13,000 for using the phrase “Alles fuer Deutschland” (“Everything for Germany”) during a 2021 campaign rally.

Once a motto of the so-called Sturmabteilung paramilitary group that played a key role in Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, the phrase is illegal in modern-day Germany, along with the Nazi salute and other slogans and symbols from that era.

The former high school history teacher claimed not to have been aware that the phrase had been used by the Nazis, telling the court he was “completely not guilty”.

Höcke said he thought the phrase was an “everyday saying”.

But prosecutors argued that Höcke used the phrase in full knowledge of its “origin and meaning”.

They had sought a six-month suspended sentence plus two years’ probation, and a payment of €10,000 to a charitable organisation.

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, after the trial, Höcke said the “ability to dissent is in jeopardy”.

“If this verdict stands, free speech will be dead in Germany,” he added.

Höcke, the leader of the AfD in Thuringia, is gunning to become Germany’s first far-right state premier when the state holds regional elections in September.

With the court ordering only a fine rather than a jail term, the verdict is not thought to threaten his candidacy at the elections.

‘AfD scandals’

The trial is one of several controversies the AfD is battling ahead of European Parliament elections in June and regional elections in the autumn in Thuringia, Brandenburg and Saxony.

Founded in 2013, the anti-Islam and anti-immigration AfD saw a surge in popularity last year – its 10th anniversary – seizing on concerns over rising migration, high inflation and a stumbling economy.

But its support has wavered since the start of 2024, as it contends with scandals including allegations that senior party members were paid to spread pro-Russian views on a Moscow-financed news website.

Considered an extremist by German intelligence services, Höcke is one of the AfD’s most controversial personalities.

He has called Berlin’s Holocaust monument a “memorial of shame” and urged a “180-degree shift” in the country’s culture of remembrance.

Höcke was convicted of using the banned slogan at an election rally in Merseburg in the state of Saxony-Anhalt in the run-up to Germany’s 2021 federal election.

READ ALSO: How worried should Germany be about the far-right AfD after mass deportation scandal?

He had also been due to stand trial on a second charge of shouting “Everything for…” and inciting the audience to reply “Germany” at an AfD meeting in Thuringia in December.

However, the court decided to separate the proceedings for the second charge, announced earlier this month, because the defence had not had enough time to prepare.

Prosecutor Benedikt Bernzen on Friday underlined the reach of Höcke’s statement, saying that a video of it had been clicked on 21,000 times on the Facebook page of AfD Sachsen-Anhalt alone.

Höcke’s defence lawyer Philip Müller argued the rally was an “insignificant campaign event” and that the offending statement was only brought to the public’s notice by the trial.

Germany’s domestic security agency has labelled the AfD in Thuringia a “confirmed” extremist organisation, along with the party’s regional branches in Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt.

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