Reaction To heute-show Mocks Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) 

We used to laugh about the AfD when they were a small party once (they actually started as an Anti-EU party) but now I think it’s just scary how much support they have… By the way, they haven’t changed their political view over the years. Lots of Germans are just so frustrated with the current political situation, that they think the only solution out is voting for AfD. Also, the AfD politicians use a very simple language to talk, which speaks to a lot of people. But alongside that, there are of course also a lot politically right-wing people in Germany. I am just really concerned about the next Bundestagswahl

The subtitles were so awfully wrong at times that I wonder if it was done on purpose.

Great vid, unfortunately subtitles were rather bad

5:00 actually the AfD has grown more extremist over the years. Some of the people at the leadership of the AfD back then have since left the party, realizing that their brand of extremisim was losing out to the even more extremist far-right camp.

2:30 - "durchkärchern": The company "Kärcher" produces high pressure cleaners, so they became a synonym for any kind of thorough cleansing

The episode is great but I feel like a lot of the subtitles are completely incorrect or not getting the nuances across :/

They got even worse since then, also got more support, a fact that sometimes makes me lose hope in my people. But on the other side, there has never been so much debate about unpleasant topics like latent fascism or vulnerability to populism here in Germany, and that is a silver lining behind that mess of a party.

Subtitles were wrong very often!

Keep in mind that this party is on the way to becoming the second strongest in Germany. Yep, it's that scary.

Atomic power is clean if you could get rid of the atomic wast. You must store it for some hundred million years at a safe place. Please keep in mind, 200 million years ago the highlands of Scotland were part of the North American Appalachian Mountains.

Not only bad subs, also factual errors: the ZDF is NOT a government channel. Public doesn’t mean state-owned. There’s a big difference. 9:10

Sadly the English translation is very poor.... But hey, probably better than nothing

Germany, like much of the world, is sadly experiencing a pronounced "Rechtsruck" (Rightward shift), especially in the poorer former GDR states. It has gone so far as to make the AfD a powerful institution in the East, and this is obviously a deeply worrying development for us Germans to witness. The AfD really began gaining traction during the Migrant refugee crisis in 2015/16 by way of far-right aggitative propaganda and exploiting many of the legitimate grievances of poorer Germans, especially East Germans. East Germany wasn't properly denazified under Soviet Control in the 40 years of Occupation following WW2. When Germany finally officially reunified Oct 3 1990, western companies completely dominated and out-competed eastern industries, resulting in alot of additional hardship and frustration for eastern Germans. It's a well known phenomenon that people are more susceptible to right wing radicalisation under such economic circumstances, and I think much of this carries on until today. The East also tends to be less diverse and have less immigrants than the west, which means many have less interaction with people from different cultures. More diversity of culture, ethnicity, and thought, helps breed tolerance and understanding between different peoples and this is lacking in the east especially, so they are more likely to be upset by Germany's moves towards becoming a "Immagrationsland" (Immigration-country). Of course, Cities tend to be more diverse and thus more left leaning, which is also the case in the East with Berlin. The AfD is emotionally exploiting and manipulating many germans to vote for a party that will objectively work against their interests as studies have shown. The AfD also has very different messaging in the east and west, softer in the west and more openly right-wing in the east. Sadly, the popular and sensible left wing counter-balance that we need in Germany, to counter this right wing shift doesn't really exist. Die Linke is seen as and partially seems to be incompetent and has some self-sabotaging stances, and the Greens are too willing to compromise and have quite the bourgeois image amongst many germans. The SPD isn't really socialist at all but in name, and the FDP and CDU are centre/centre right, and thus aren't the solution. It is a shame that, when we needed a hard move towards the far left, we instead got the far-right. It's a long and complicated topic but I hope this helps provide some context. Prost from Germany

little known fact (as the nuclear lobby works with full power against the knowledge from being spread): Nuclear power is - BY FAR - the most expensive kind of power production on the planet. Even worse so: As the magnitude of harm ANY kind of accident in a nuclear power plant is so extreme, there's not a single insurance on this planet that would even DARE to offer insurance for them. So the only insurance a nuclear power plant ever can have is the money of the people - federal money, to be precise. A nuclear plant does also depend on the fuel source. A lot of the fuel is produced in russian or former soviet states. You can't "switch" the powerplant's source and take something from a different supplier. If you take something from one, you stick with this one for the rest of the plant's life. Then there's the construction cost and duration. The latest nuclear power plant in northern Europe took over 20 years to be built. Its costs were so massive, you could have easily built forty times the amount of power in windmills to produce regenerative energy instead. And those don't require nuclear fuel, don't produce radioactive waste (which we still don't know what we should do with...) and require FAR less maintenance. That's btw. why the number of nuclear power plants worldwide is dropping since 1980. So it's no new trend or a German-exclusive one. Just a pile of facts the Lobby doesn't want to spread...

As a german I have to warn everyone in here, that the subtitles really weren't great. For example at 9:31 Lutz said "What would happen otherwise?" and the AfD person responds with "Sonst kommt sie nicht mehr raus" [= "Otherwise she won't be able to get out anymore"] while the subtitle said the complete opposite ("She would get kicked out").

The clip with the man unintelligably speaking at the AfD conference has to be one of my favourite Heute Show moments ever. But damn, these subtitles are pure madness! xD

I'm an English immigrant living in Germany and I never want to return to the UK so I'm not making any claims for or against immigration here. But people should be aware that extreme views on one side will always result in extreme views on the other; the more extreme one side becomes, then the more extreme the other becomes in return and the middle ground eventually gets pulled apart.

In my opinion getting rid of the nuclear power is a good thing as long we are not compensating it with coal. So renewable energy is on the way in Germany but the transformation gets some criticism (some deserved some not).

oml, those subtitles. bismarck did the thing in the 1870s not the 1970s lul. the kms bismarck from wwii didn‘t get his name without a reason.

the problem with nuclear power still to this day is the waste. i think the argument, that we can find a safe place to store it for thousands of years is a pretty arrogant one. we can't even accurately predict a safe place for the next 50 years. if there was a good way to use nuclear waste or decrease the time that the waste has dangerous levels of radiation dramatically, it would certainly be one of the safest ways to produce electricity.

4:28 At the end of 2015 the support for AFD was about 8-10% in polls. They got 12.2% in the 2017 election and 10.3% in 2021. Now they have 20-22% in polls.

4:30 Überraschungseier caught me completely off guard

ZDF is _not_ a government channel. It recieves public funding (which is mandatory) not tax money. It is a small distinction, but it is not controlled by the government. ARD and ZDF were build on the model of the BBC

The subtitles are quite bad. In some places, the translator injects his own interpretation into the translation or even changes sentences completely which gives them a more extreme or completely different meaning. Whether this is intentional or the translator is not a native speaker, I cannot say.

for your information, german nukeplats are now all decomissioned. and they where fueld with russian uranium.

The real start of the AfD was actually far from an extremist Party, I'm talking about pre Frauke Petry times, where it was still an unknown party, but a lot of right-winged People and Nazis, took the opportunity and basically overtook it and made it what it is today, which is a super extremist right wing political Party that has actual Nazis in it, and is socially much more accepted. They also use republican strategies in creating hate symbols, like against trans people and the scariest part is, how the CDU the "Angela Merkel" party is kind of starting to partner up with them.

Just so you know - the subtitles were not always totally accurate and the things the AfD-people said sometimes were even more horrible than what the translation said. For example at 9:31 the man didn't say "She would be kicked out" he said "She wouldn't be able to get out (or flee) anymore"

Gosh, the translation was rubbish. Sometimes it translated the opposite of what's being said

my best friend of 20 years has turned into an AFD supporter, trumpist and conspiracy theorist in the last few years. I cut all ties to him four months ago. I'm not even sad about it and kinda feel pretty relieved that I did. 👍🏼

By now all nuclear plants have been shut down. We didn't have all that many and some of them were pretty old anyway. The safety aspect is only one concern actually. Ask where the resources come from. Ask what they do with the waste. Until the end they had not even found a safe place to store the nuclear waste and they had thankfully abandoned the practice of simply dumping barrels of nuclear waste into the North Sea. Then ask if they could even be run in the future. Neighbouring France has many nuclear plants. They had to temporarily shut down some because the rivers were running low in the summer. Nuclear plants need water for cooling all the time. Now climate change... It's extremely costly to run those nuclear plants and they cannot get insurance. I say it's better to live without them.

Much to the chagrin of all of us, the AFD is still on the rise and moving further and further to the right. The AFD is already being observed in parts by state security. In my opinion, the AFD has a very anti-constitutional program. Due to the current crises, they can further distinguish themselves among the less educated population and, according to the latest projections, have received around 20% 😭. It's a shame, but the CDU is also on the right-wing march and occasionally collaborates with the AFD. I hope our politics will once again focus on what is essential: humanity. We are all people on the same planet. Nuclear power may be CO2 neutral and safe as long as it is maintained, but we have no final solution to the radioactive waste it produces. From my point of view, it is good that we have taken all nuclear power plants off the grid and are relying on renewable energies. Germany took the last nuclear power plant offline last year 🥳

The translation is very off at some points. That one guy said that Merkel should leave the country while she still can, implying that she would be arrested otherwise.

9:49 Yes. The last 3 nuclear power plants were shut down in March of 2023. The opposition is complaining about the shutdown and mostly the CDU who was responsible for the shutdown (under chancellor Merkel in 2011). They were afraid that a tsunami could hit a German power plant like it happened in Japan the same year.

"Tell me more about AFD." Hell no!

Yes you are right. The nuclear powerplants have been shut down, or at least most of them so far.. In my opinion thats not good, because its a reliable power source, not producing much co2 That would help as a backup, when we also shut down the coal plants (which on the over hand should happen way quicker in my opinion)

2:30 the things the translator didn't understand basically means "to properly clean up the place" 3:45 "we can not allow the sexual inclinations of a loud minority to play ball with our children('s education)" and his comment "You can't even hear yourself because the gays are so loud" 7:15 I wouldn't know how to translate this to English, but he says "no less than", which actually means he's holding Lutz in high regard. 9:32 he actually says "she won't be able to get out" 9:57 actually "you and me as average citizens do not know how many American *Nuclear Weapons* are stored in Bitburg" (probably a US outpost in Germany) (thus his answer 28 is just him BSing, he wouldn't have clearance to know that, much less to share it)

The decision on shutting down the power plants was a little bit troublesome. The decision was made after the events of Fukushima. Only a few months before that the government decided otherwise. Otto von Bismarck was 1870. ^^°

have some nice time watching your videos! Thank you for doing ♥

Really luv ur Reactions. Greets from the Middle of Germany👍😊

The problem with Nuclear power is that we still don't have a storage place/ solution for the Nuclear waste.

Do you know "James Bray"? Also a RU-vidr who deals with German history and the German people in a similar way to you. He also recently completed his second visit to Germany and reports on his experiences. I could imagine that there are one or two videos from him that could have interesting approaches for you.

Since the CDU is in the opposition they have been leaning more right-wing, conservative up to downright problematic. This, paired with constantly fighting progressive (more or less) government parties has basically led to way more open racism, repressive thinking, sexism, etc (e.g. « Layla » being an extremely popular song last year despite the lyrics and now being constantly topped by even dumber songs from the Schlager scene.). It’s really bad. In the next weeks there’s a state election in Bavaria and the government will probably be re-elected despite the vice minister president being in a huge scandal just weeks ago. In general the situation is somewhere between embarrassing and scary.

i think he just can't stop watching german comedy, he loves it to much

Okay wow those captions are quite off.. It's nice they tried translating for non-germans but they obviously don't speak german very well.

Actually the AfD went further right with the years...

the subs you are using are horribly wrong.... autogenerated subs were even better

Good segment. But the English captions are wrong in many places. They are not just slightly off, but some parts are completely wrong.

Really like your channel and your curiosity, but please learn the complete pronunciation of the word "heute". The final "e" is NOT silent: i.e. "hoitä" (or listen to the pronunciation in an online dictionary). But keep on keeping on. Love it 😍

In Germany we shut down the last nuclear power plants in April 2023.

Did I read that correctly? Otto von Bismarck united Germany in the 1970s? Wow, the subtitles are really, really bad. *facepalm* He was born in 1815!

Totally wrong translation in the subtitles at 9:38. It says "She [Angela Merkel] damaged the nuclear reactors. But as an average citizen, I don't know how many nuclear power plants exist in the US.". What he really said was "She TURNED OFF the nuclear power stations. But as an average citizen, I don't know how many NUCLEAR BOMBS the USA have stored in Germany in the Eifel region." - This statement is correct. It is true that several nuclear weapons are stored in US barracks in Germany. There also used to be chemical weapons that have been removed by now. But still, there is no information on how many nuclear weapons are stored in Germany.

First: The AfD is just a classic "populist party" who will always turn to the most important problems of the time and always either promise that they have easy solutions to complex situations or accusing other parties of doing everything wrong and you can bet on that they themselves never will get helpful in the slightest, classic populists. Second: The guy who did the translation did an awful job in translating and also made horrible mistakes like claiming "Otto Von Bismarck unified Germany in 1970" (OUCH). Bismark lived from 1815 to 1898. Didn't know we had been unified by a zombie....

The vid is really good but the subtitles are not that great. There are parts that are translatet completely wrong tbh

Who did these subtitles? Even the most comprehesible parts in the interviewas and stuff were translated wrong or not at all. I could and would like to do better.

Little typo in the explanations: it was the 1870s, not 1970s. Otto von Bismarck was the first "Reichskanzler" after Germany becoming "Kaiserreich" in 1871.

Since that time, many moderate politicians, including the party's founder, have left the AfD. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution has placed the party under observation due to many extremist statements in recent years. Recently, the investigation by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution into suspected anti-constitutional activity was intensified. However, a court had ruled that the tightened surveillance was not appropriate at the moment.

2:35 The subtitles did not know how to translate "Die Drecksbude mal richtig durchkärchern". It means "Pressure washing the dirty shack". "Kärcher" is a pressure washer brand. In germany it is also used as a verb: "kärchern"

the translation is very poor by the way. for example: 3:51 He says: Yes, you can not understand your own word, because the gays are so loud.(before he says the gays are a loud minority) And in the translation it says: Yes, even the word homosexual should not be allowed to be said in schools.

The spontaneous closing of the nuclear powerplants backfired hard, as the Companies sued hard and got 2.4 billion Euros ....

These subtitles are abysmal. They hardly get anything right...

I really like your videos, but especially on this one the subtitles has been incomplete and part of the explanations were just wrong. For example, ZDF is NOT a government channel, you could compare it to the BBC in Britain.

11:58 min Otto von Bismarck, didn't unify Germany in the 1970s, it was in the 1870s.

All my respect to Lutz, especcialy if you think that he is left, gay and still is not afraid to join this kind of 'meeting' !!

btw that Merci song was the advertising jingle for a brand of chocolates in Germany, that still is named "Merci" and sold as convenient gift for when you're invited to acquaintances or family celebrations or whatevert when you need something not too cheap but also not too expensive... Nuclear Power neeeds to solve the long term storage problems first, before returning to mass productions... AND clarify where to get tghe fuel from as at current usage there isn't more than 50-60 years of new ore left to make nuclear fuel from. It's not infinite either and if you count on refreshing the fuel elements, that requires lots of energy to do too. The fairy tale of unproblematic energy generation from nuclear power is no more true than "clean coal" or "electric cars will save us all without any other changes"...

There was a joke that's hard to translate with the man that spoke to unarticulate to understand correctly (at 6:45): He wanted to say "Volksabstimmung" (popular ballot), but it sounded a little like "f*** Abstimmung", which is also a nod to the anti-democratic tendencies of AfD. I think that's the joke that Oliver wanted to make when he said: I only unterstood "popular ballot" 😅 (at least that's what it sounded to me as a german native speaker) *Edit:* Added timestamp

Those subtitles are really dubious; I caught many mistakes just by glancing occasionally

In the today's show, all rhetorical devices are used: sarcasm, cynicism, irony, hyperbole, alliteration, rhetorical questions, absurdities, etc. Glossary_of_rhetorical_terms

12:10 Wenn Bismarck Deutschland 1970 geeinigt hat, mag es tatsächlich der Bismarckhering gewesen sein. Der Blasehase, genial wie immer.

The afd hasn't changed much. They even became the stongest party in some states, and now the CDU(conservatives) is even cooperating with them, which is making waves in german politics. The newest heute show actually has that as a topic.

I wonder if the subtitles were written by a German native speaker. I almost doubt it, because they're really bad often times. And then he probably would've known what the term "durchkärchern" means^^

The heute show is notorious for bashing and ridiculing everything and everyone who is not strictly leftist. Therefore, it's not just a comedy show, but has a distinct political agenda.

this year, Germany already received almost 1,8 mio refugees incl. the Ukranian ones. intererestingly, even US Americans and post Brexit Brits are seeking social and economic refuge in Germany and other EU countries nowadays.

@Who is Mert? The AfD is basicly the ERG group within the Tories, just the German version of it.

On your question of how the AfD has evolved, let's look at the list of the party's chairmen: 1. Bernd Lucke (2013-2015): Lucke was a co-founder of the AfD and is considered a representative of the economic liberal wing. He left the party in 2015. 2. Frauke Petry (2015-2017): Petry was a prominent figure in the AfD's right-wing conservative wing. She resigned from the AfD parliamentary group and left the party in 2017. 3. Jörg Meuthen (2015-2021): Meuthen is a member of the economic liberal wing. He resigned as chairman and left the party in 2021. 4. Tino Chrupalla (2019 present): Chrupalla is a member of the AfD's right-wing conservative wing and was elected party chairman in December 2019. I’m not sure but if all of the previous chairmen left the party itself, something is going on.

Sorry but the subtitles are so bad. Some jokes are not really translated or it says sth completely different

The subs in this vid are terrible. They're often saying the exact opposite of what is being said in the video...

Greetings from Germany

Hi,i think u are very intelligent and also got a lot of humour. Watch your videos the whole night, and especially you can laugh about yourself and your country, im honestly, iwould have my problems. So stay the way or how you say,English is not the best.Greets from northern Germany

i almost feel sorry for you :D english was always my worst grade in school but even i could have made a better translation - and that's a challenge! back to topic: afd is for idiots, was and will but that bismarck joke... the fucked up translation made it even more hilarious oder so ähnlich

Support sadly increased since 2016

The subtitels "arent the yellow from the egg"

The videos and the comment section really turned into a left-liberal political shitshow real quick. Jesus.

Bruh sadly they even got more radical and right and got more %. Any european country is turnin right, its a nightmare

It's not hoit-show, it's hoiteh-show. "Heiter bis völkisch" can hardly be translated properly. It's a pun. In weather forecast, we often get the expression "heiter bis wolkig", meaning "friendly to cloudy". The German word "wolkig" sounds a lot like the Nazi expression "völkisch".

"einfach mal durchkärchern den ganzen haufen" kärcher is a manufacturer of high-pressure-cleaning-tools (for your terrace and stuff)

Too many people think that reading narcisstic nonsense tweets make them intelligent and getting a real grasp of issues. And Friedrich Merz will do everything to be new chancellor. If the AfD will help him, he will gladly accept it.

Well. Havent seen that bad subtitles long time ago. About 1/3 was completely off, in skme party stating the opposite from what was said. And well, in 1970 Bismarck was dead sonce more than 70 years 😅

Unfortunately the subtitles were terrible, sometimes they even said the opposite of what was being said

Yes, it's true, all nuclear power plants have been shut down. Nowadays, we import (nuclear) electricity, for example, from France when the sun and wind aren't producing enough. This is one reason why energy prices in Germany soaring so high that companies are seriously considering relocating their production facilities abroad. Consequently, our current Minister of Economic Affairs, who is a member of the Green Party, is proposing to subsidize electricity costs for large companies - which, of course, is quite expensive. This has placed Germany in a unique economic predicament. And we naturally believe that it makes a difference when we are the only country on Earth to forgo nuclear power.💪🏻

Sofa klingt bei ihm genauso wie so far

A bunch of translation mistakes in this one, unfortunately. It seems like the person who added the subtitles is not a native German speaker. But at least it was nice that they added some background information for some of the jokes. About your question: The AfD has not changed their position regarding Islam, LGBT, and other topics. In fact, a lot of the more moderate members of the party have left the AfD since then, because the party has become more extremist over the years. In the meantime, support for them has been growing, as they successfully managed to establish Islamophobia, antisemitism and homophobia in German society. Or at least they managed to break the taboos regarding these topics, allowing them to openly spread their ideology, pretending it's a valid opinion. It's probably worth mentioning that the other established parties also did their part in promoting the AfD, either directly by copying their viewpoints in an attempt to regain lost voters, as done by the CSU and partly the CDU, or indirectly by refusing to tackle several obvious issues that rose in the past years. Issues following the refugee crisis are not the only ones to mention here, but naturally, they've been the go-to topic when AfD politicians wanted to rant about something.

The song is advertisment for a popular chocolate "Merci" from a German brand ( Yeah).

Let's hope for a good result in the next elections and let AfD be at least >25%.

translation is horrible. He says "the homosexuals are so loud in the classroom you can't even understand your own words" but the translation says "Yes even the word homosexual should not be allowed to be said in schools". So completely wrong I don't even understand who translated it.

I read all the subtitles while listening to it and must say, that there were a lot of mistranslations :/

Unfortunately, the subtitles are very bad and often not at all what was said. Here some things that stick out (won't capture every mistake or inaccuracy): 1. 2:29 "Mal richtig durchkärchern die versiffte Drecksbude, du!" has many vulgar slang words and is ≈ "Cleaning up this dirty hut/pigsty for once!" 2. 2:40 "Wenn Guido Maria Kretschmer das Outfit sieht, der bringt sich um!" = "If Guido Maria Kretschmer sees this outfit, he'll kill himself!" 3. 3:43 "Unsere Kinder dürfen in der Schule nicht zum Spielball der sexuellen Neigung einer lauten Minderheit werden." (literally Spielball = play ball) = "Our children shall not become plaything of the sexual orientation of a loud minority." 4. 3:50 "Ja, man versteht in der Schule sein eigenes Wort nicht, so laut sind die Schwulen!" is a sarcastic answer to 3. = "Yeah, in school, you don't understand your own word, that's how loud the gays are!" 5. 9:31 "Was passiert sonst?" - "Ja, sonst kommt sie nicht mehr raus!" = "What would happen otherwise?" - "Well, she couldn't get out!" (as in "she couldn't leave the country. In the subtitles, the opposite was said. 6. 9:34 "Sie (Merkel) schaltet die Atommeiler ab, aber ich als Bürger und auch Sie wissen nicht, wie viel(e) amerikanische Atombomben in Bitburg oben lagern." = "She turns off the nuclear power plants, but I as a citizen and also you don't know, how many American nuclear bombs are stored in Bitburg." That should be most of the most severe mistakes, was fun.

Greetings to the algorithm ✌️

The AfD started out with 2 general fractions: The more moderate fraction and the ... well ... fascists. Over time the moderate people have left the group and now it's almost all fascists. And they are gaining more and more support. Their leader is Björn Höcke (who can legally be called a fascist and in some contexts a nazi) who is very likely to gain a very powerful position next year if we go by current poll results.

Little advice, put a lamp with warm light behind the camera :)

These subtitles are horrendous. At 9:30 he doesn't say "She would be kicked out.", he says "She won't be able to get out anymore", which is way worse as he is implying that she will be incarcerated. And the next person is talking about US Nuclear Bombs being stored here in Germany, not power plants in the US. These subtitles are complete garbage.