hankyoreh

Beatrix von Storch, a lawmaker with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. (courtesy of von Storch)

“We will not be addressing all the world's problems — trying to solve the climate crisis, all the wars, and whatsoever. We will focus on what is in the best interest of the German people.”

In a virtual interview, Beatrix von Storch, 52, deputy leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) parliamentary group at the Deutsche Bundestag, shed light on the key policies of her party. Voicing plans to expel immigrants from the country, von Storch grew impassioned as she said the AfD “will stop all the waste of money, and all those left-wing ideological programs” including those aimed at enhancing gender equality.

A lawyer by training, von Storch joined the Free Democratic Party in 2011 before becoming a founding member of AfD and beginning her career in the German parliament.

Beatrix von Storch: I think it is very easy to explain. People are just fed up with the current government. They realize that reality is not aligning with their plans of changing the economy, the climate, domestic security. People realize that they are about to lose their jobs, houses, common sense.

Hankyoreh: So do you agree with the analysis that many people support the AfD out of disappointment with the ruling party coalition as opposed to pure conviction in the party itself?

Von Storch: No, they agree with the basic bullet points of our program. We do not want to shut down, for example, our nuclear power plants. We want to stick to producing cheap, safe and stable energy, as we did in the past. We are the only ones to promote this idea. Then there’s the migrant crisis. We’re the only ones to address these issues properly and who can be believed on this. No one believes the Christian Democratic Union if they come up with an idea to limit migration. They were the ones to start the whole disaster.

Von Storch: Well, this is our program, and I do very much support our program. It is very clear, and it’s very easy: This European Union as a political union is dysfunctional, and we are not able to reform it. So we have to come up with something new and we are very much in favor of the idea of having a big European common market. To have a free exchange of goods and services, but not without limits, not without reason.

Von Storch: We want to have a positive way of supporting families by reducing the tax burden for taxpaying families in Germany.

Von Storch: They are trying to negatively impact our party and party image by connecting everything we saying with the Nazi past, although it has nothing to do with it. This is a strategy of defamation. With this strategy, they trivialize the Nazi crimes. You know, if all we did is like Nazis then the Nazis can’t have been so bad. Of course, it happens sometimes, but very rarely, that a party member says something wrong or stupid or makes a mistake like those in every other party. 

Von Storch: We’re very clear on the point not only in politics, but foreign policy: We have to do politics in the interest of Germany and the German people. Period. OK, nothing to do with exporting our values to other countries, to other cultures. That’s not our business. We want to run our country. We do not want to run the world.

Von Storch: I think, yes, we could win the election. When you look at the polls at the very moment, there are some who see us at 20%, 21%, 22%. And they see the leading CDU at something like 25%, 26%, 27%. So it’s only a small margin between us and them. It will be difficult, of course, for us to form a government. But I think that the pressure of the people, the pressure of the country, the reality demands that Germany’s policy shift and take a different direction, and this different direction will only be taken when AfD is part of the government. It was once impossible to think that parties linked with ours are now running the governments or part of the government in other European countries.

By Noh Ji-won, Berlin correspondent

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