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German protesters say meeting by far-right extremists echoed the Nazis’ notorious ‘Wannsee’ conference
BERLIN (JTA) — As many as 1 million Germans rallied this weekend against far-right extremism after a bombshell report revealed that leaders of a far-right party had secretly discussed plans to deport foreigners, including those who had become German citizens.
The meeting at a lakeside villa, revealed by a public-interest media organization, for many induced painful echoes of the gathering of Nazi leaders at nearby Wannsee in 1942 to devise a plan to deport and then murder Jews. Prominent neo-Nazis attended the November meeting, according to the investigation.
The revelations caused the country’s leading Jewish organization to reiterate its longstanding objections to the party, known as Alternative for Germany or AfD.
“Anyone who has ever wondered why the federal office for constitutional protection classifies AfD as a suspected right-wing extremist group now has an answer,” Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said in a statement. “This meeting shows what a great danger the AfD and its supporters pose to our free, democratic society and our peaceful coexistence.”
According to the report published by Correctiv, which describes itself as a pro-democracy, public interest media company, prominent right-wing extremists and a handful of mainstream right politicians met secretly to strategize over the deportation — or as they put it, “remigration” – of millions of foreigners and dual-citizens.
Alice Weidel (C) and Tino Chrupalla (L), co-leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party, attend a session at the Bundestag in Berlin, Jan. 17, 2024. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
Along with the influential AfD members who met in a 1920s-era hotel near Potsdam were neo-Nazis, among them Martin Sellner, former head of the far-right Identitarian movement in Austria; right-wing-oriented businesspeople, and two members of Germany’s center-right Christian Democratic Party, according to Correctiv.
The gist of the far-right plan, the report concluded, is that “people in Germany should be forcibly extradited if they have the wrong skin color, the wrong parents, or aren’t sufficiently ‘assimilated’ into German culture according to the standards of people like Sellner. Even if they have German citizenship.”
The plans drafted at the meeting amount to a “fierce attack on the German constitution,” providing “a sinister glimpse into what could happen should the AfD ever come to power,” the media organization said in its report.
AfD has tapped into nationalist and anti-immigrant sentiment in Germany to rise in the polls there, sometimes surpassing the popularity of mainstream right-wing parties. Although the party did not win enough votes to gain seats in the country’s parliament during the last national elections in 2020, an AfD candidate won a race for regional office for the first time last summer, in rural eastern Germany, and the party is expected to mount a strong showing there in upcoming regional elections next month.
The rallies, which took place in more than 100 cities and towns over several days, aimed to demonstrate that a significant portion of Germans reject AfD’s attitudes. “Fascism isn’t an alternative,” read signs carried by some rally-goers, who mobilized about a week after the first report of the party’s secret meeting to plot a strategy to combat Germany’s tolerance of immigration.
The meeting took place at a villa alongside Lake Lehnitz, about 30 miles from the villa where the Nazis’ Wannsee Conference to discuss the “final solution” — a euphemism for the genocide of European Jewry — took place in 1942.
“The vocabulary is no different, the place is no different — the only difference is that we have been there before,” said Andrea Römmele, a professor at a private Berlin university, told the New York Times.
Schuster rejected the Holocaust comparison, saying that “the industrial mass murder of European Jews is unique in history in its cold-bloodedness and madness.” But some rally-goers carried signs that directly tied the secret meeting to Germany’s mass murder of European Jews, including ones reading “Never again is now” and “Now we can see what we would have done in our grandparents’ position.”
A participant holds up a placard during a demonstration against racism and far-right politics in front of the Siegestor (Victory Gate) memorial arch in Munich, Germany, Jan. 21, 2024. (Michaela Stache/AFP via Getty Images)
AfD’s co-leader Alice Weidel called the Nazi comparisons “unreflective,” “excessive” and “a scandalous trivialization of Nazi crimes” – using terms that critics have used to describe statements by fellow AfD leaders, such as former party chief Alexander Gauland, who in 2018 called the Nazi-era a mere “bird s–t” in 1,000 years of German history.
Weidel criticized Correctiv’s methods, which reportedly included renting a boat to photograph the meeting from afar and obtaining footage recorded on a digital watch from inside the villa. (The organization also reportedly spoke to people who attended the meeting.)
But she did not deny that a meeting was held; that her personal advisor, former Bundestag member Roland Hartwig, was present alongside prominent right-wing extremists; or that a plan for expulsion of foreigners was discussed. Hartwig has been let go from his position “by mutual agreement.”
AfD draws strength from populist resentment against refugees arriving in Germany over the last decade from conflict zones in the Middle and Far East and Africa, and more recently against those fleeing Ukraine. Far-right activists have traditionally prescribed deportation of so-called foreigners as a solution for socioeconomic problems. And the AfD is known to take a Russia-apologetic, NATO-critical stance.
It is maintaining a second-place hold in national polls, running slightly behind the Christian Democratic Union. The centrist governing coalition has fallen to a distant third. Responding to the Correctiv report, Chancellor Olaf Scholz that any plan to expel immigrants or citizens would be “an attack against our democracy, and in turn, on all of us.”
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The post German protesters say meeting by far-right extremists echoed the Nazis’ notorious ‘Wannsee’ conference appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran and the United States agreed on Saturday to task experts to start drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister said, after a second round of talks following President Donald Trump’s threat of military action.
At their second indirect meeting in a week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi negotiated for almost four hours in Rome with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, through an Omani official who shuttled messages between them.
Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers during his first term in 2018, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, says it is willing to discuss limited curbs to its atomic work in return for lifting international sanctions.
Speaking on state TV after the talks, Araqchi described them as useful and conducted in a constructive atmosphere.
“We were able to make some progress on a number of principles and goals, and ultimately reached a better understanding,” he said.
“It was agreed that negotiations will continue and move into the next phase, in which expert-level meetings will begin on Wednesday in Oman. The experts will have the opportunity to start designing a framework for an agreement.”
The top negotiators would meet again in Oman next Saturday to “review the experts’ work and assess how closely it aligns with the principles of a potential agreement,” he added.
Echoing cautious comments last week from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he added: “We cannot say for certain that we are optimistic. We are acting very cautiously. There is no reason either to be overly pessimistic.”
There was no immediate comment from the US side following the talks. Trump told reporters on Friday: “I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Washington’s ally Israel, which opposed the 2015 agreement with Iran that Trump abandoned in 2018, has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
Since 2019, Iran has breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on its uranium enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy program.
A senior Iranian official, who described Iran’s negotiating position on condition of anonymity on Friday, listed its red lines as never agreeing to dismantle its uranium enriching centrifuges, halt enrichment altogether or reduce its enriched uranium stockpile below levels agreed in the 2015 deal.
The post Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike
Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Edan Alexander, 19, an Israeli army volunteer kidnapped by Hamas, attends a special Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony with families of other hostages, in Herzliya, Israel October 27, 2023 REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Hamas said on Saturday the fate of an Israeli dual national soldier believed to be the last US citizen held alive in Gaza was unknown, after the body of one of the guards who had been holding him was found killed by an Israeli strike.
A month after Israel abandoned the ceasefire with the resumption of intensive strikes across the breadth of Gaza, Israel was intensifying its attacks.
President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said in March that freeing Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old New Jersey native who was serving in the Israeli army when he was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that precipitated the war, was a “top priority.” His release was at the center of talks held between Hamas leaders and US negotiator Adam Boehler last month.
Hamas had said on Tuesday that it had lost contact with the militants holding Alexander after their location was hit in an Israeli attack. On Saturday it said the body of one of the guards had been recovered.
“The fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown,” said Hamas armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Ubaida.
“We are trying to protect all the hostages and preserve their lives … but their lives are in danger because of the criminal bombings by the enemy’s army,” Abu Ubaida said.
The Israeli military did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hamas released 38 hostages under the ceasefire that began on January 19. Fifty-nine are still believed to be held in Gaza, fewer than half of them still alive.
Israel put Gaza under a total blockade in March and restarted its assault on March 18 after talks failed to extend the ceasefire. Hamas says it will free remaining hostages only under an agreement that permanently ends the war; Israel says it will agree only to a temporary pause.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it hit about 40 targets across the enclave over the past day. The military on Saturday announced that a 35-year-old soldier had died in combat in Gaza.
NETANYAHU STATEMENT
Late on Thursday Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
He dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments, but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give a statement later on Saturday.
Hamas on Saturday also released an undated and edited video of Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot. Hamas has released several videos over the course of the war of hostages begging to be released. Israeli officials have dismissed past videos as propaganda.
After the video was released, Bohbot’s family said in a statement that they were “deeply shocked and devastated,” and expressed concern for his mental and physical condition.
“How much longer will he be expected to wait and ‘stay strong’?” the family asked, urging for all of the 59 hostages who are still held in Gaza to be brought home.
The post Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks
FILE PHOTO: Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said gives a speech after being sworn in before the royal family council in Muscat, Oman January 11, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Sultan Al Hasani/File Photo
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is set to visit Moscow on Monday, days after the start of a round of Muscat-mediated nuclear talks between the US and Iran.
The sultan will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Iran and the US started a new round of nuclear talks in Rome on Saturday to resolve their decades-long standoff over Tehran’s atomic aims, under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash military action if diplomacy fails.
Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Following the meeting, Lavrov said Russia was “ready to assist, mediate and play any role that will be beneficial to Iran and the USA.”
Moscow has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and signatory to an earlier deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
The sultan’s meetings in Moscow visit will focus on cooperation on regional and global issues, the Omani state news agency and the Kremlin said, without providing further detail.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade and economic ties, the Kremlin added.
The post Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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