Elections: Höcke unmasked? TV duel between AfD and CDU politicians

The TV duel was politically charged and a first: Almost five months before the state elections in Thuringia, CDU top candidate Mario Voigt and AfD right winger Björn Höcke took part in the TV duel. In the studio of the TV station Welt, probably the most controversial AfD politician and the CDU politician with ambitions for the prime ministership in Erfurt had a heated exchange of blows.

Theses, facts and figures on European, economic and migration policy swirled around – and sometimes it became rather trivial: Is it now called Mett- or Gehacktesbrötchen in Thuringia? According to some experts – and the CDU leadership – it was right to take the risk of a public dispute with Höcke, who is considered a right-wing extremist by the state Office for the Protection of the Constitution. But there was also criticism.

“A catastrophe for Germany”

“You should seek confrontation with the AfD, confront it. More of it – and not just from the CDU,” says political scientist Oliver Lembcke. The course of the duel refutes “all those who had warned against offering Höcke this podium and making him so socially acceptable,” said political scientist and journalist Albrecht von Lucke of the German Press Agency. “Voigt has provided proof that the AfD can be challenged in terms of content.”

Voigt also justified the duel by saying that the AfD could not be defeated with the previous ostrich policy. After all, it has steadily increased since it first ran in a Thuringian state election: in 2014 it reached 10.6 percent, in 2019 it rose to 23.4 percent, and now the Höcke party is the poll leader. The fact that he offered Höcke a nationwide platform had also caused criticism and skepticism in advance, as had the choice of date on the anniversary of the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar.

What was argued about

The reason for the TV duel between the two top candidates for the Thuringian state elections on September 1st was a dispute about European politics – and that is how the program began, which was moderated by Welt journalists Tatjana Ohm and editor-in-chief Jan Philipp Burgard. Voigt and Höcke reiterated well-known positions: The CDU candidate said that Höcke wanted the European Union to die and that “would be a catastrophe for Germany.” Höcke reiterated that Germany had to leave the EU and that it needed a “loose alliance of European states”. Both accused each other of harming Germany and the German economy.

The topics continued: business location and taxes, migration, the culture of remembrance of Germany’s Nazi past through to Russia’s war against Ukraine. A lot of things were not new; the opponents stuck to their party line. When it came to the classic AfD topic of migration, it was noticeable that CDU politician Voigt formulated it comparatively sharply: He said that illegal migration was a huge problem and that the solution was: “Zero illegal migration in Germany”.

Höcke, however, remained vague on the topic. He used the term “remigration” in a previously rarely used sense: it was about bringing German emigrants back into the country. As a rule, right-wing extremists mean by “remigration” that a large number of people of foreign origin should leave the country – even under duress. Höcke got into trouble when the moderators asked him about his use of the SA slogan “Everything for Germany” in a speech. Höcke, who is a history teacher, said he didn’t know during the speech that “Everything for Germany” was an SA slogan.

How the argument went: It got personal

At times, Voigt and Höcke were personally hard on each other. The CDU politician said: “We will not attract any new companies or new skilled workers when Chancellor Höcke comes to the opening.” The AfD man countered that Voigt was “radically populist” and didn’t understand his arguments.

The two politicians fought almost most bitterly over the correct name for a roll with raw minced meat – symbolically it was about ties to their homeland, because Voigt is Thuringian, while Höcke comes from North Rhine-Westphalia. It’s called minced rolls and not Mettbrötchen, the CDU man told his opponent. Höcke corrected himself. In fact, minced and seasoned pork is not called Mett in Thuringia.

On the other hand, Höcke repeatedly called Voigt a “colleague” – they are chairmen of the two largest opposition factions in the Thuringian state parliament, where the red-red-green coalition of Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (Left) is in the minority. And when it came to possible coalition options after the election, the dispute no longer seemed to matter to Höcke anyway: “My hand is still outstretched,” he offered Voigt a coalition. “We are making a bourgeois-conservative-patriotic turnaround in Thuringia.” Voigt ruled this out again and said: “Mr. Höcke, you are not bourgeois, you are ethnic. I am democratic, you are authoritarian.”

How experts rate the duel

Voigt has shown “that you don’t have to ban the AfD in order to weaken it – because this last resort is not necessary and would also be dangerous,” said political scientist von Lucke. Voigt, whose CDU in Thuringia is, according to surveys, at 20 to 21 percent, well behind the AfD at 29 to 31 percent, took a big risk.

Bochum Professor Lembcke sees Voigt as the winner on points despite some weaknesses in the argument. The duel showed that it was right to enter the ring with the AfD. At certain points he unmasked the right-wing extremist; when it came to key issues such as migration policy, he broke into a sweat, but was able to put the mask back on. Voigt’s shortcoming was that he left open the question of power as to how he wanted to achieve a bourgeois majority.

The Erfurt political scientist André Brodocz criticized that voters had hardly benefited from the duel in their voting decision, as it hardly dealt with state issues. In his opinion, the goal of providing Höcke with content was not achieved. Both candidates would have benefited from the TV duel. “In the long term it may have been a success for both of them because it brought the election in September closer to the decision of Höcke or Voigt,” said Brodocz.

Praise from party friends – Left: freak show

The CDU leadership was satisfied with Voigt’s performance. “His courageous course of confronting the right-wing extremists in terms of content has proven to be absolutely correct,” said CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann to the “Rheinische Post”. Left leader Martin Schirdewan, however, said: “Thuringia does not deserve such a brown-black freak show, and it is a mistake on the part of the Union leadership from Berlin not to have stopped this in advance.”