Only the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is capable of protecting the country’s Jews, its leader Alice Weidel has told Elon Musk.
The AfD has been wrongly labelled as anti-Semitic and is, in fact, the “protector” of Jews in Germany, Weidel told the US tech billionaire in a podcast on his X platform on January 9.
“To be very frank the AfD is the only protector … of the Jewish people in Germany,” Weidel said. Jewish people were “not safe here anymore”, she told Musk from her Berlin office.
As a result of the Israeli conflict, “a Jew could not walk the street anymore”, while all other parties in Germany turned in the “opposite” direction”, she added.
“We stood up for those people, even though the opposite was claimed in mainstream media.”
Weidel made another surprising remark during the 80-minute podcast, which boasted up to 200,000 live listeners. Without hesitancy, she raised the subject of Adolf Hitler and looked to distance the party from claims it had a neo-fascist bent.
“Hitler was a Socialist, Communist guy,” who wanted to nationalise and control industry, whereas the AfD was a “Conservative, Libertarian” party that wanted to empower citizens, Weidel claimed.
“We are the opposite.”
There was, she said, “deeply-vested anti-Semitism within leftist movement“.
During the Third Reich, the Nazi National Socialists “were Socialist”, she pointed out. “Hitler considered himself as a Socialist,” and was in favour of “huge taxes” and “state-funded companies”.
“We are wrongly framed the whole time,” Weidel claimed. “We want to free people of the State”.
The AfD aimed to see “self-confident” Germans in a “minimised State” where citizens were able to “accumulate wealth that will make them independent of the State”, she added.
Musk seemed a little taken aback by the directness of her comments and he only mentioned the word “Hitler” in a barely audible mumble.
He did, though, fully endorse the AfD in Germany’s upcoming elections. “US people [are] demanding change,” he said.
“My recommendation for German people is to do the same. So vote AfD. Nothing outrageous is being proposed, just common sense.
“Only AfD can save Germany. End of story.”
Musk’s statement did not chime with the commonly held view in the European Parliament. For other hard-right parties, including France’s National Rally, the AfD is too extremist and has let itself be governed by its most radical activists.
There have been allegations that some elements within the AfD are not big fans of democracy. Wiedel’s claims of strong support for Jews might also surprise some of her own party’s members.
The podcast participants had a lot of common ground. On immigration, they exchanged stories of illegals destroying passports prior to arrival.
On bureaucracy, they ridiculed Germany’s complicated business permitting system, about which Musk had first-hand experience.
On education, they struck out at “woke” trends and said there was a need to go back towards schools that taught children “useful” skills.
On energy, they agreed that the “maths is simple” and said that only an idiot could fail to see the need for nuclear power in Germany’s energy mix.
Regarding the need for free speech being fundamental, both saw eye-to-eye. One of Hitler’s first moves was to silence the free press, they pointed out.
Only on Covid was Musk silent. Bill Gates, Weidel said, had “tried to sell MRNA vaccination … not mentioning huge side-effects on people’s health”. Wearing face masks during the Covid crisis was “a scam”, she added. Musk did not respond to that.
The participants’ roles changed over the course of the podcast, with Weidel becoming the interviewer in the second half.
She asked Musk if he “believed in God”, to which he gave a long answer effectively saying: “No, but I’m prepared to change my mind.”
Weidel was clearly fascinated by Musk’s stated goal of building a human colony on Mars and asked repeated questions about the timeframe for that.
At this point, Musk was in his element, giving answers regarding his hopes of extending the longevity of human consciousness, which Wiedel said she found “beautiful”.
