Bettina Schausten, editor-in-chief of the German public broadcaster ZDF, is very unhappy about the AfD’s success in Thuringia and Saxony.
Commenting on the election results, she compared the Alternative for Germany to Hitler’s NSDAP and accused its leaders of being “fascists”.
– On September 1, 1939, the Second World War began with the Wehrmacht’s attack on Poland. Germany covered the whole world with suffering and death, murdering 6 million Jews, she declared.
– On September 1, 2024, 85 years to the day after this, the strongest party in the German state of Thuringia became a political force that, according to the constitutional protection, is demonstrably right-wing extremist, with a candidate at the head who speaks like a fascist and can also be called one, she thundered on.
The head of the civil service said that the result was “hard to bear” and that September 1 was “a milestone and a warning to those who come after us”.
According to Schausten, over 30% of voters in the two states voted for the “extreme right”, which is said to be very alarming.
– Most of them are not neo-Nazis but, and this is no less shocking, they are okay with voting for right-wing extremists, she continued.
Detta är alltså chefredaktören för tysk public service efter valen i söndags. Hårresande! pic.twitter.com/MrGFe3FlDN
— Dan Eriksson (@erikssondan) September 3, 2024
Tweet translation:
(“So this is the editor-in-chief of German public service after the elections on Sunday. Hair-raising” – Dan Eriksson)
“State repression”
The statement has attracted a lot of attention on social media, where many people are critical of the fact that a high-ranking manager of the state-funded, and allegedly independent channel, goes out and condemns a political party and its voters in this very explicit way.
“Talk about state repression against democracy”, comments one user on X and another points out that in Sweden ‘wehear the same thing about SD’ – but that in the long run this has not proven to be a winning strategy.
“Public service in all so-called democratic countries is ‘scam’. Everything is fine and dandy, as long as the sheep walk in their predetermined propaganda direction. Democratic elections in these dysfunctional democracies”, comments a third.
