As the Zwickauer City Council’s decision to ban military advertising, which only gained a majority due to the votes of the AfD, faces sharp criticism from the AfD’s Bundestag faction, the debate over the role of the military in German society has been reignited.
Rüdiger Lucassen, the AfD’s defense policy spokesperson, told the Welt that the city council’s decision is “nonsense.” He claimed that the AfD stands for a sovereign Germany in a Europe of sovereign fatherlands and that this means having defense-ready armed forces.
In a party survey of AfD members in December last year, 71.5 percent of participants voted in favor of reinstating the draft. Lucassen emphasized that this clear vote obliges every AfD representative to distance themselves from the “peace quagmire” of left-wing parties.
During the city council debate, Sven Itzek, the vice-chief of the Zwickauer AfD faction, said, “If politicians had to send their children to war, this would be over quickly.” Anja Telz, a fellow faction member, added, “The most important thing is to imagine a war where no one goes. Then only those who make a profit from it would have a problem.