If you saw a particular Sunday network-television-news program on Feb. 16, you heard the host say that in Germany, “free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide.”

Yes, you read that correctly: “free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide.”

Let’s think that one through. Do you believe that?

Does the host have anything to back that up?

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One week later, in the Feb. 23 German federal election, the center-right Christian Democratic Union and its sister party in Bavaria, the Christian Social Union–together called the Union–were the top vote getter. They received just under 30 percent, up somewhat from the previous federal election, in 2021.

The Social Democratic Party of Germany, or SPD, received just over 15 percent, down significantly from 2021.

Other parties–some up and some down from 2021–received fewer votes.

The greatest change in percent of votes was for the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, which doubled its 2021 showing and surpassed 20 percent.

In fact, the AfD won almost every election district in what Germans call the new states, those from the former East Germany.

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The Union needs a coalition partner or coalition partners with which to attain a majority of seats in the Bundestag, the federal parliament.

One might think the AfD would be a place to turn, yet the Union doesn’t want to coalesce with the AfD. It wants to reach out to the SPD instead.

This wouldn’t be the first Union-SPD coalition. Previously, though, such a coalition followed elections with the Union and the SPD in first and second places, and thus having the most and second-most votes in the Bundestag. This time, they’re first and third, respectively.

With the AfD having the second-most votes in the Bundestag, the Union may be able to depend less on the SPD: The Union may be able to go to either the AfD, the SPD, or both for support on legislation.

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The 2025 campaign in Germany isn’t the first time in recent elections that a political party–such as the AfD–has challenged the establishment in Europe.

There may be more to come on a continent where at least some in the establishment may not–shall we say–fully appreciate effective challenges or effective challengers.

Including those from a party, such as the AfD, espousing a message that unites people who didn’t used to be on the same side.

In the AfD’s case, the message includes opposing open borders through which however many have poured. This burdens the country, including with crime.

Does that sound familiar? Does that ring any bell at all?

Open-borders advocates have responded, as they have in the United States, with name calling.

Drawing on American history, some open-borders advocates in the United States accuse those opposing open borders of racism. Never mind that opposing open borders has nothing to do with race.

Drawing on German history, some open-borders advocates in Germany accuse those opposing open borders of being national socialists.

This column has no expertise on the AfD and can’t evaluate what’s on the minds or in the hearts of its members or its voters.

What’s apparent, however, is that the AfD has a conservative platform. Moreover, German conservatives, like American conservatives, have extensive experience with some opponents’ making defamatory accusations against them.

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With that in mind, let’s pick up where we left off four days before the 2024 American presidential election.

National socialists, who rose to power first in Germany, are similar to, not opposites of, international socialists, who rose to power first in Russia. In short, both are socialist atheist totalitarians.

Some on both sides of the Atlantic overlook that reality, partly because statists perpetuate their self-serving falsehood that national socialists are extreme versions of nonstatists, such as Western conservatives. Instead, national socialists–like international socialists–are extreme versions of statists. Nonstatists can’t, by becoming more nonstatist, become fascist any more than skinny people, by losing weight, can become obese.

It not only isn’t true. It can’t be true.

Simply put, nazis and communists are similar, not opposites. They’re both cut from socialist-atheist-totalitarian cloth.

That should be one of nonstatists’, including Western conservatives’, responses when defamatory name calling against them includes accusations of being nazis.

Here’s another response regardless of what defamatory name calling includes: Demand proof. After all, accusers have the burden of proof. It’s not up to the accused to prove the negative.

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Although the guest on the Feb. 16 Sunday network-television-news program ably refuted the host’s “free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide” statement, it wasn’t up to the guest to prove the negative. An even better response would have been–either instead or additionally–to challenge the host to provide even one bit of proof.

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One goal behind false–including defamatory–accusations can be to intimidate opponents. Such accusers’ motto could be: “If you can’t beat them, smear them,” or “To beat them, smear them.” Assuming accusers can distinguish truth from falsehoods: At best, truth is either

— an insufficiently compelling point on their compasses, or

— a point they insufficiently follow.

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Dr. Randy Elf was once a teacher at a Bavarian boarding school in Germany and an assistant to Dr. Russell Kirk and his wife, Annette Kirk in Mecosta, Michigan.

COPYRIGHT 2025 BY RANDY ELF