AfD and the Left: How an ex-comrade of Björn Höcke helped Bodo Ramelow

For three months now I have been working for the star also works as a journalist in the capital, in that parallel world often referred to as a bubble, for which there is now even a real “playbook”. At least that is the name of the “Politico” newsletter, which, along with many other newsletters, fills my email folder every morning.

In the “Playbook” I can, for example, find out who I might have seen in Invalidenstrasse as a semi-important person if I had known them, or that the Prosecco wasn’t cold enough at the reception to which I was once again not invited.

Now, I don’t want to seem ungrateful, especially as an East German, but a route planner for the Jakob-Kaiser-Haus, or JKH for short, would be more customer-friendly, and please as an app with GPS.

My first conspiracy theory

The JKH is one of those monstrous office buildings around the Bundestag that house members of parliament and their staff. It consists of rooms, but above all of a confusing structure of corridors, floors, elevators, stairs and signs that are incomprehensible. I still have to plan half an hour of navigation time every time to find the office of a member of the Bundestag.

I still have a lot to learn. On the one hand. On the other hand, as someone who lives in Thuringia and has devoted half my life to reporting on state politics, I sometimes have an advantage in terms of experience over my new colleagues in the capital’s glittery politics.

Despite close combat, there was always a household

So I don’t get annoyed just because a bad-tempered three-party coalition is having a hard time working out a budget that complies with the constitution. After all, this was practiced in Erfurt every damn year, although from 2019 onwards it was made even more difficult by the fact that the badly torn red-red-green coalition no longer had a majority in the state parliament. Since then, unless the AfD elected a minister president, every budget negotiation has become a close fight between the minority coalition and the CDU. But there was always a budget, anyway.

I cannot even begin to be outraged about the Green Bundestag member Melis Sekmen, who even became known to proven bubble experts when she switched to the CDU, like my highly esteemed star-Colleague Miriam Hollstein. She said that this step was lacking in character. If the woman is going to change parties, then she should please give up her list mandate.

Of course, she is absolutely right, morally, ethically and in terms of democratic theory. But this comment would be completely wasted, especially in the beautiful state of Thuringia. Because political change has a bad tradition here. In each of the recent legislative periods, MPs have left their parties and joined others.

There is a particularly dazzling example of a change in attitude in the current state parliament. First, the MP was in the AfD, then in a short-lived group of the now defunct small party Citizens for Thuringia, before finally founding the so-called Craftsmen’s Party of Germany exclusively for himself, of which he is now the sole mandate holder.

The inner social democrat of the AfD MP

Do you think that’s astonishing or even crazy? And I haven’t even told you about the bizarre transfer of MPs that happened in the last election period. At that time, a certain Oskar Helmerich left the AfD parliamentary group, only to discover his inner social democrat within weeks.

The SPD was quickly convinced of the honesty of the Erfurt experience. After all, the majority of the red-red-green coalition under the left-wing Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow was based on just one vote. And, in a flash, Helmerich was first accepted into the parliamentary group and a little later into the party of August Bebel, Willy Brandt and, ahem, Gerhard Schröder.

But now, I hope you’re still here, the story is getting really interesting. Because the then Thuringian CDU state chairman Mike Mohring sensed the opportunity and persuaded the SPD MP Marion Rosin to switch to his parliamentary group in return.

The result he wanted: From now on, the only left-wing government in the republic was based on the vote of Helmerich, a man who had built up the Thuringian AfD alongside Björn Höcke. To Mohring’s understandable annoyance, this bizarre constellation received little attention in Berlin, while later the election of Prime Minister Thomas Kemmerich with the help of the AfD was hyped up as the near outbreak of fascism.

The teachings of Vera Lengsfeld

In the end, as karma has it, the social democratic opportunism did not work. The party lost a third of its votes in the state elections, including its member Helmerich, who had thought it was a charming idea to invite Thilo Sarrazin to the election campaign. As a result, he failed to make it into the new state parliament, just like Marion Rosin.

Sometimes it’s not so easy to change politics. Perhaps Melis Sekmen should have consulted Vera Lengsfeld before she decided on her new, Christian Democratic life. The former MP was, how could it be otherwise, born in Thuringia and is the last living example of a Bundestag member who switched from the Greens to the Union. That was in 1996.

Lengsfeld, who was active in the Values ​​Union, has now also left the CDU. Her move was met with noticeable relief.