German President Compares AfD Supporters to “Rats”
Barely two weeks after a leading member of a party in Germany’s governing coalition compared supporters of the opposition Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to “flies on a pile of shit“, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has now compared them to “rats”. The AfD was the only party represented in the German Bundestag to oppose Covid-measures, including mass vaccination, and it is persistently polling around 20%, and as high as 24%, in the latest public opinion surveys. President Steinmeier’s Social Democratic party (SPD) is polling around 15%.
Alluding to the AfD at a meeting with business and trade-union leaders at the presidential palace, Schloss Bellevue, in Berlin on Monday, President Steinmeier said:
When our democracy is attacked… the democratic centre, the great majority of our society, must take a stand and make clear that we are committed to our democracy, we defend this Germany, and we will not allow this country to be ruined by extremist rat-catchers.
The “attack on democracy” refers to an alleged “secret meeting” in Potsdam last November at which the “deportation” or “expulsion” of migrants was supposedly discussed. The meeting – in fact a kind of symposium with invited speakers at a hotel – was attended by three representatives of the AfD, but also by two members of the Christian Democratic party of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Attendees have denied that any such “deportation” plans were discussed, and in a speech to the German Bundestag on Wednesday, AfD party Chair Alice Weidel described related reports in the German media as “an unprecedent campaign of defamation”.
Steinmeier’s word-choice echoes that of a commentary which was published by Germany’s ARD public television in November 2022 on the occasion of Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter. The commentary warned that by restoring free speech on the platform, as Musk promised, “racist and conspiratorial rats” would be allowed to “crawl out of their holes”, and it concluded that “Twitter can only remain relevant if precisely these rats… are beaten back into their holes”.
The commentary provoked numerous outraged responses in the German-language Twittersphere, including many which pointed to the use of similar “rat” imagery to describe Jews in Nazi propaganda. (For an example, see my contemporaneous report here.)
The controversy was so great that ARD removed the reference to “rats” and explicitly apologised for having used such “dehumanising” language. Just over a year later, there is no indication that the German President has any plans to apologise for having described roughly one-fifth to one-quarter of the German electorate in similar terms.
Translations from the German by the author.
Robert Kogon is the pen name of a widely-published journalist covering European affairs. Subscribe to his Substack and follow him on X.
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These ppl are just so nice, be kind! As the article states another German leader referred to a certain segment of society as rats.
Exactly my thoughts too. It’s not the first time that these types of words have been used.
Didn’t the Nazis compares Jews to rats?
Ironic.
At an LGBT campaign fundraising event in New York City on September 9, Clinton gave a speech and said the following:
“I know there are only 60 days left to make our case – and don’t get complacent; don’t see the latest outrageous, offensive, inappropriate comment and think, “Well, he’s done this time.” We are living in a volatile political environment.
You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. (Laughter/applause) Right? (Laughter/applause) They’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people – now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks – they are irredeemable, but thankfully, they are not America.”
Turned out well for Clinton. Let’s hope the same happens in Germany.
And let’s not forget this snake: “REMAINER Lord Mandelson sparked outrage yesterday when he accused some Brexiteers of hatred of “other countries and foreigners”.”
I don’t hate foreigners. I have been all over Europe to work and holiday. —-I just don’t want governed by foreigners. We struggle to govern ourselves so letting 26 other countries that we have no personal ties of common allegiance with govern us is not a great idea, unless you are the ones doing the governing and for all the wrong reasons.
I am the son of a foreigner and married to one. Both of whom respectively loved and love this country more than a lot of native born Brits.
“We struggle to govern ourselves” – 100%
Late in 2010, my job was moved from Germany to England and thus, I naturally followed. Obviously, I informed myself about the legal aspects of that. According to the home office, I was allowed to move to England and work there provided I wasn’t a burden on public funds. After five years of being legally resident, I’d gain a permanent right of residence. This would have been the case in December 2015. Next month came the Cameron government with its EU referendum and a vicious battle about that until 2016 when it was finally held and – with a majority in the range of measurement error – won by the leave supporters. This uncertainty associated with that was already very unpleasant as I hadn’t done anything wrong, just carelessly trusted in official goverment information. After the vote, this went into overdrive because the Brexels were – in contrast to their statemens from before it – obviously not willing to grant a right of residence to so far legally resident EU citizens but preferred to use them as tool for the negotations instead. This agony went on until 2020 when the issue was sort-of settled: I was now an illegal immigrant… Read more »
I welcome you to the UK ———But the situation you just described above is going to play out all over Europe because of the insane mass immigration that the EU has allowed. What the Progressive Left in the EU with their silly energiewende and immigration that is destroying the national identities of European countries is condemn those who don’t want any of that absurdity as “populists” and other assorted name calling. ——-Europe is sleepwalking and the globalist experiment with the EU as the star pupil is doomed to fail.
You moved to live in a foreign country. It’s a peculiar sense of entitlement that expects the host country to treat you automatically as if you were born here simply because you had resided and worked here for a number of years. I am glad to read that there are procedures and checks. Maybe there should be more of them given recent events.
You seem to have a serious reading comprehension problem. I wrote about information officially published by the home office in December 2010 which – I occasionally checked that – remained published in this way until the actual EU exit of the UK. If you think it’s a peculiar sense of entitlement to assume information the government publishes about laws applicable to a given situation is actually about laws applicable to that situation, you’re probably living in some fictional wild west past where the robber baron with the gun is the one who gets to decided whatever he wants in whichever way he wants. If think the UK works in this way, you may be right about it. But that it isn’t really a civilized country where everyone’s equal in front of the law and published don’t suddenly change overnight in unpredictable ways, that was unfortunately not visible from the outside.
How about putting up some large signs at the border Illegal immigrants from the global south very welcome. Everyone else, FOAD? That would at least be honest.
The terms under which the UK was a member of the EU allowed for a two-year period of notice to quit the block. This is different from Scotland which has a treaty lasting “for all time”. Anyone who did not read and heed this clause has no cause for complaint. It is a simple case of caveat emptor. The conditions prevailing during our membership were as stated, but the overriding factor was that the UK was free to give notice to leave at any time. It was certainly not a solid foundation upon which to base life decisions. I believe, but am not certain, this option to leave is no longer available to member states.
What Steinmeier says pretty much doesn’t matter. The so-called German president is a veteran party soldier nominally elected by a council of parties, ie, not even by parliament. He exists to make a fool of himself by holding silly speeches and to shake hands with leading politicians of other countries.
I don’t know to what extent you’re in touch with what people are thinking in Germany, but is a visceral disdain for AfD supporters quite common or is this something just exaggerated by the media?
I don’t really know this. The about 20% who either support the present government or think it’s really still too fascist certainly do. They’re obviously also not very popular with asylum seekers in all shapes and colours and violent attacks by these (or the still to fascist-crowd) on AfD politicians, members or supporters keep happening.
OTOH, all my German acquaintances who aren’t … well … “in favour of a much more traditional German party” 🙂 … support them. It’s also an open secret that many members and supporters of CDU/CSU and the so-called free voters associations (Freie Wählergemeinschaften) find absolutely nothing wrong with the party. That’s one of the reasons for the “Nazis! Nazis! Nazis! Nazis!” hysteria of the MSM and left-leaning politicians: They know that this dam is about to break, ie, that they likely won’t get another first minister of some state to resign ‘voluntarily’ in favour of a candidate that’s more palatable to them just because the AfD voted for him (this happened a couple of years ago).
Very small sample – 2 friends from the middle of Germany are very guarded what they say; we suspect their expressed exasperation that Germany’s culture and economy are being trashed is indicative of their current political persuasions – they want to get rid of the “Ampel”. I see a similar sentiment also over western europe as well as comments from Steinmeier being echoed by Tusk and others such as Rutte.
They are as cultured, intelligent people not unlike loads we have met in Austria, Holland Germany ….some in France…over the last 30+ years we spent holidays in Europe…as with the btl distaste from people in the UK, dont see this getting a lot of press in the bought off MSM?
“Extremist rat catchers”——–But if the public vote for “rats” isn’t that democracy? Are the real rats not those who cover a beautiful country in 40,000 huge industrial turbines and kill all the Red Kites? ——One man’s rat is another man’s cuddly kitten.
Didn’t Reagan say that the Marxists would emerge, by claiming they are anti-marxist. The level of projection going on from the left is there for all to see..
Rodent Lives Matter.
Well speaking of ”deportation”, ”expulsion” and ”rats”, shall we place bets on this piece of scum terrorist being booted out of Germany? Apparently polygamy is all above board now over there, but only if you’re one of the ‘special’ ones, you hate the West and all the so-called ‘infidels’, you only adhere to your own archaic Sharia law and have a penchant for beheading the men and enslaving the women, when you aren’t burning them alive. ( Other barbaric acts from ISIS are available, lest we forget! ) But this filth cannot be deported for love nor money ( shall we also place bets on that acid attacker from yesterday being kicked out?? ) especially when their country of origin says ”no chuffing way!”, so we get to unwittingly mingle with them in our ( once ) civilized societies instead. I should think that with shit like this on the streets the AfD supporters ( so ‘far-right’ up your arse! ) are the least of your worries. ‘Germany Has Gone To The Dogs: Exhibit 972’; ”He preached hatred, lured young people to ISIS, radicalized Islamists – right in the middle of Germany: Iraqi Ahmad Abdulaziz A. (40), who calls himself… Read more »
This infectious P O S would fit right in around Oldham and Rochdale.
…and would probably be elected to join the dubious wastrels in the local councils.
They’re clearly rattled by the AfD’s popularity. Over the target, I’d say.
I didn’t know you were a comedian Aethelred.
😀
Oddly… Rathaus means town hall.
That’s because Rat is a short form of the German Ratgeber, english advisor. The traditional title of a member of a town council in Germany is Stadtrat and the Rathaus is the house where the Ratsversammlung (council of advisors) meets and where the mayor has his office.
The people who attended this symposium were members of the AfD and not representatives. That’s an important difference. They were their because they privately wanted to go there and bought one of the (rather expensive) tickets, not because the party sent them.
The only thing which needs to be said about the Bundesheulmeier¹ is that he once held a speech in Israel in English because – as he said – he didn’t want to the the “language of the perpetrators” there. If he thinks this rabid anti-German attitude is a “centrist” position in Germany, he’s badly mistaken.
¹ Federal-cry-myer. Preferred occupation: Prostate himself in front of something, eg, a monument of the glorious Red Army which devasted and depopulated basically all of eastern middle Europe and cry about his “German guilt”.
#notmypresident
Prostrate surely, unless you have a physical option in mind?
Yes, thanks.
Rats are very resourceful, practical and intelligent.
And they have strong family units, and strong communities.
Perhaps this chap is trying to make a compliment?
🤔😆
He’s refering to the children following the pied piper, not to rats.
Because the rat-catcher (AfD) wanted revenge for being tricked out of payment (betrayed)? Or because he saved the children from the plague-carrying rats? The President should have referred to followers of the AfD as (choose your adjective) children either way.
Some information about the quote: The Bundeswinselmeier didn’t really liken anyone to a rat, that’s just an artefact of a poor translation. The German title of The Pied Piper of Hamlin is Der Rattenfänger von Hameln, literally, the rat-catcher of Hameln and that’s what was obviously meant here. Which means Steinmeier basically said that our (the SPD’s, presumably, not that of the German people) democracy must be protected against voters who are – like the children of Hameln – mindlessly in thrall with cunning people leading them to their doom. And with this, he obviously doesn’t refer to the Red-Green-Yellow coalition engineering the climate change scam and merrily presiding over de facto population replacment for the ‘region’ called Germany but people who are opposed to that and would want to implement different policies.
Our democracy must be protected from misguided actions of the gullible population! is a German ‘democrat’ nicely showing his true colours.
Germany’s top Neo-Nazi hunter labelled extremist:
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/germany-s-former-top-neo-nazi-hunter-now-being-monitored-as-extremist/ar-BB1hywL7?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=0673edf7a65d4c0295554d84de4eb7c7&ei=16
I thought all the rats were in the rathaus.
Government by the people but not the wrong kind of people is not democracy but dictatorship.
The purpose of democracy is to prevent the tyranny that results from concentration of power, by spreading political power in equal measure to each member of the population.
Government is concentration of power.
Where there is democracy there cannot be Government; where there is Government there cannot be democracy.
Not a lot of people know that… evidently.
Saving Democracy is the new Thing, now that saving the planet has become so every-day.
Perhaps he had sinking ships in mind?
Hang on a minute – he called them ‘rat-catchers’, not rats.
If the DS is going down the route of falsely attributing words, they are no better than those they seek to hold to account.