“The radicalization begins on the net, more and more aggressive, always louder,” said the CDU chairman Armin Laschet on Thursday in the broadcast “final round” of ARD and ZDF.
“And at some point someone will be there and complete this deed. That is why we urgently need to oppose this hatred and stifle it at the very beginning,” said Laschet. The SPD chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz regretted that the so-called defensive democracy law had failed during this electoral period due to the resistance of the Union. “We should try that again in the next legislative period,” he said and also spoke out in favor of “clear measures on the Internet”. Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock criticized that hateful messages on the Internet were not deleted quickly enough, and the criminal investigation was taking too long. And: “We urgently need a tightening of the gun law in Germany.”
The 49-year-old German, who is said to have shot the 20-year-old cashier in Idar-Oberstein, had not previously worn a mask in the gas station. Before the crime, the young man had advised him of the requirement to wear a mask. There are suspicions that he might be close to the lateral thinker movement. The AfD top candidate Alice Weidel turned against the “stigmatization of a protest movement” like the lateral thinker.
The “final round” on ARD and ZDF was the last major TV dispute before the federal election next Sunday. Previously, Chancellor candidate Baerbock and her two competitors Laschet and Scholz had exchanged their arguments in three Triell rounds. In a round of four, the top candidates from the FDP, AfD, Linker and CSU also wrestled with each other.
