Margins to NS - Buchenwald memorial site leader sounds alarm over AfD
Buchenwald Memorial Site Leader Jens-Christian Wagner sees increasingly open references to National Socialism from the Thuringian AfD. "The AfD is actually letting the mask slip more and more," Wagner told the news agency in Erfurt. Recently, the Thuringian AfD leader Bjoern Hoecke spread a quote from publisher Arthur Moeller van den Bruck on Telegram. "That's an open NS reference - and approvingly so," said Wagner, historian and holder of the Chair for History in Media and Publicity at the Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena.
Van den Bruck died in 1925 and did not live to see Hitler's seizure of power. However, he is considered a representative of the Conservative Revolution and, according to Wagner, was a precursor to National Socialism. Moreover, he was the namesake of the NS state.
A spokesperson for the Thuringian AfD responded to the allegations: "Mr. Wagner's allegations, as always, are simply grotesque and based on constructed connections and guilt by association."
AfD Slogan reminiscent of SA Slogan
Wagner also pointed out that the Thuringian AfD's electoral program for the state election in the fall has placed the program points before a folk song by Franz Langheinrich. Langheinrich wrote for the art magazine "Das Bild" in the 1930s. The art historian Kirsten Baumann wrote in her 2002 published dissertation "Word Fights. Volksdeutsche and National Socialist Art Criticism 1927–1939," that the magazine was marked by open anti-Semitism.
Wagner said, the text of the song is harmlessly German-praising. But if the AfD electoral program places the text of a hardcore National Socialist and volkish thinker before it, that's "an explicitly positive reference to National Socialism." "That's where Hoecke, that's where the AfD, really stands."
On the cover page of the Thuringian AfD's electoral program, in large letters, stands the slogan "Everything for Thuringia!" The phrase reminds one of an SA slogan, for whose use Hoecke has already been sentenced to fines by two courts. Both judgments are not yet legally binding.
- The leader of Buchenwald Memorial Site, Jens-Christian Wagner, has noticed a growing tendency of the Thuringian AfD making overt references to National Socialism.
- Wagner refers to a quote from publisher Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, shared by the Thuringian AfD leader Björn Höcke on Telegram, as an open reference to National Socialism.
- Van den Bruck, a representative of the Conservative Revolution, is considered by historian and Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena professor Jens-Christian Wagner, to be a precursor to National Socialism.
- The Thuringian AfD's electoral program for the fall state election incorporates a song by Franz Langheinrich, whose 1930s art magazine was characterized by open anti-Semitism, according to Kirsten Baumann's 2002 dissertation.
- Placing the text of a hardcore National Socialist and volkish thinker before their electoral program constitutes, according to Wagner, an explicitly positive reference to National Socialism for the AfD.
- The cover page of the Thuringian AfD's electoral program features a slogan "Everything for Thuringia!", which bears a striking resemblance to an SA slogan, for which Höcke has previously faced fines.
