Schweinsburg's appeal against Merz's AfD firewall

Martina Schweinsburg is pretty beside herself these days. No wonder. The Thuringian CDU politician clearly won her constituency of Greiz I with 46.7 percent, but the AfD became the strongest party in Thuringia in the state elections with 32.8 percent. But that is not what is bothering Schweinsburg. It is actually her own party leadership. “We are constantly getting instructions from Berlin: Don't do this, don't do that. Firewall here, demarcation there. When we had no idea on the ground. Only those in Berlin know,” complains the 66-year-old in an interview with the “NZZ am Sonntag”.

What gets Schweinsburg riled up is the so-called firewall against the Alternative for Germany (AfD). Introduced by party leader Friedrich Merz. When it came to becoming CDU chairman almost three years ago, Merz told the magazine “Spiegel”: “With me there will be a firewall to the AfD.” The regional associations, especially in the east, get a crystal clear answer from us: If any of us raises our hand to work with the AfD, then the next day we will be expelled from the party.”

Schweinsburg’s comment on this is succinct and clear: “What nonsense.” This patronizing attitude from Berlin must finally stop.

Ungrateful people

One might dismiss this as East German rebelliousness, but Schweinsburg is by no means a dreamer who closes her eyes to reality. On the contrary: for 34 years, since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990, she was involved in local politics as district administrator of Zeulenroda, then Greiz, a district in the southeast corner of Thuringia with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants. She is still president of the district council, a member of the CDU state executive committee – and now, having won a direct mandate, she is a member of the Thuringian state parliament.

Schweinsburg admits that the election result is complicated. “In Berlin, they are now thinking: this ungrateful people are actually voting for those they shouldn't have voted for.” But Schweinsburg is looking for a solution. “There is a clear bourgeois-conservative majority.” They must now be brought together to solve the problems here locally. That is what people expect from us.”

The “bourgeois-conservative majority” that Martina Schweinsburg speaks of is made up of 32.8 percent for the AfD and 23.6 percent for the CDU. The problem is that her calculations run head-on into the firewall erected by Friedrich Merz.

But Schweinsburg, the Landgravine, as she is known at home, is by no means alone in her thoughts. A survey commissioned by the German editorial network shows that 45 percent of CDU members would no longer rule out cooperation with the AfD. Among East German members, 68 percent of those surveyed even consider cooperation on a case-by-case basis to be conceivable.

The outgoing Thuringian CDU member of parliament, Michael Heym, writes in the daily newspaper “Freies Wort”: If the AfD were really anti-constitutional, then it should not have been allowed to stand in the election. The same can be observed in Saxony. There, for example, the Bautzen CDU district administrator Udo Witschas will work with all parties, as all are democratically elected – including the AfD.

CDU state politicians in neighboring Saxony-Anhalt, such as Ulrich Thomas and Lars-Jörn Zimmer, see things similarly. As vice-chairman of the CDU parliamentary group in the state parliament, Zimmer demanded in 2020: “Dear friends, finally come out of your ivory tower in Berlin and Munich and go to the grassroots and see what it looks like.” After that, however, he was called back within the party. At the moment, he will not comment on the matter any further.

The correct way to deal with the AfD is a particularly sensitive issue in Saxony, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt. In all three federal states, the respective Offices for the Protection of the Constitution have classified the AfD as “certainly right-wing extremist”. The Thuringian Office for the Protection of the Constitution is said to have recently classified the AfD regional association as “combative and aggressive” in a secret memo. And AfD top candidate Björn Höcke has been allowed to be publicly described as a right-wing extremist for some time now.

Vain Höcke

But Martina Schweinsburg also urges a more differentiated view. “There are certainly some stubborn people in the AfD,” she says. Schweinsburg has particularly bad things to say about AfD regional leader Höcke. “Höcke is a right-wing self-promoter who is primarily concerned with himself. Not with the problems, and certainly not with the people here. Unbearable.”

But this focus on Höcke is once again “a Berlin thing,” as Schweinsburg calls it. “People here voted for the AfD, but not for Björn Höcke.” Höcke ran in my neighboring district – and clearly lost. “Nobody who has any brains wants this Höcke,” says Schweinsburg. “We in Thuringia don't have 32 percent Nazis.” But people wanted to vote in protest. Now it is important to respect the parliamentary rights of every party. “The exclusionism from Berlin achieves absolutely nothing.” We have seen that again now. That gave the AfD another ten percent more because it was able to present itself in the role of victim.”

But what can we do? In Saxony, the Homeland Union, a conservative group within the Saxon CDU, is now calling for a minority government, led by their party and occasionally tolerated by politicians from the AfD. This is not a recipe for Thuringia, which has had to live with a minority government for years. For many politicians there, the need for such a constellation is met.

Should the AfD, the strongest party, just let it do what it wants? “Absolutely not. “My home state of Thuringia is far too important to me for that,” says Schweinsburg. Many people had a similar thought about the Greens years ago. “And now they are destroying our country from Berlin.” I don't want an experiment like that with the AfD in Thuringia.”

But how should one deal with the AfD? Schweinsburg refers to her experience from more than 30 years of local politics. “I always talk to people, not to parties.” And the CDU politician will continue to do so after the complicated election result. Talk to each other and see where we can come together. The politician herself does not yet have a clear picture of the form of a future government in the country. “I am not talking about fixed coalitions, but about cooperation on specific issues,” says Schweinsburg, adding with a smug undertone: “As far as I know, talking to each other is not a crime.”

In the past, Thuringia's CDU has voted together with the AfD in the state parliament on several occasions: sometimes it was about reducing the property transfer tax, sometimes about the controversial gender, sometimes about making it more difficult to build wind turbines in Thuringia's forests.

The AfD can also find pragmatic solutions to the issue of migration, says Schweinsburg. Her mother was herself a refugee from East Prussia. That is why she has always attached great importance to Greiz doing its part to take in refugees. But with pragmatic solutions to existing problems: Greiz was the first district in Thuringia to introduce the so-called payment card for all of its approximately 750 asylum seekers. The cards can only be used in the region and cannot be transferred. Cash withdrawals or transfers abroad are also not possible.

Another point is to get the newcomers into work. “Those who come must also get involved, commit themselves to our country,” says Schweinsburg. But that also means that those who do not follow the rules must leave the country again. Schweinsburg waxes lyrical at this point. “I'll quote an oriental proverb: It is just as much an art to be a guest as it is to be a host.” But beware when the guest becomes master in his own house.”

The chairman of the Thuringian CDU, Mario Voigt, should not allow himself to be patronized by firewalls and other directives from Berlin in the upcoming negotiations to form a government. Her advice: “I think we need to show those in Berlin once again that we East Germans are very good at tearing down walls.”

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