Europe has been and remains more than just the EU. Europe is what all of us make of our vast space, and the future of Europe is fundamentally conditioned: Europe can become a collectively shaped protective space for indigenous Europeans – or, as a transatlantic ‘EU Europe,’ it will experience a gradual decline through the primacy of open borders, open societies, and open markets… consequently, through eternal attachment to ‘Western’ values, says one of the most intriguing and provocative voices of the “New Right” in Germany, a research associate of AfD in the Bundestag, and the author of several books and studies that have captivated readers worldwide, in an interview with our portal.
Dear Mr. Kaiser, your latest book is titled Convergence of Crises. What do you mean by that? What kinds of crises are we talking about?
Germany has never experienced so many crises. In other words, there has never been a time in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany when crises were so noticeable. Of course, crises as special situations that disrupt the usual routine of “normality” have always existed in the Federal Republic; whether it was the economic recession of 1966, the oil crisis of 1973, or later crises after reunification, all the way to the consolidation crisis of 1993. What is new, on the one hand, is the shortening of the time gap between such crises, and on the other hand, the intensity with which these crises unfold and become noticeable in larger parts of society. At the latest, since 2007 and the outbreak of the global financial crisis, “crisis” has been Germany’s program. In 2010, the peak of the financial crisis in the Eurozone followed, in 2015, the failure to close the borders led to a new type of migrant crisis, which continues to this day and is still intensifying. In 2020, the Covid-19 crisis began, and in 2022, the Ukrainian crisis escalated, followed by an energy and supply crisis, garnished with an inflationary crisis that is unprecedented in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany. None of the mentioned crises have been resolved. Each of these crises continues to affect the present and future, although with varying degrees of impact. Individual crises, which could potentially be solvable if isolated, are intensifying, creating new crises (also due to inadequate attempts by the ruling parties of the “traffic light” coalition to resolve them), which are becoming increasingly severe; they intersect and converge.
In this context, what could be the response of the right-wing, conservative, or patriotic forces to the convergence of crises? What would be the first tasks of the right in the current situation?
If the opposition succeeds in “politicizing” the convergence of crises, i.e., linking it with clear positions and approaches to solutions, identifying the opponent as responsible, and presenting it beyond its own echo chamber, the current situation can be used for sustainable organization and mobilization. In this way, the crises can have an activating effect on one’s own patriotic relations, even if they are in a minority position in society. However, the opposite cannot be excluded, the passivizing-demotivating effect; and here, too, the open outcome of a crisis that always exists is present. A turning point in which the conditions begin to work in our favor cannot be “planned” because there are too many variables influencing the situation. But we must certainly work towards it. This is currently the task of the right: education, knowledge transfer, organization.
After World War II, it is said in Germany that conservatism means “politics without desirable images” (Hans Michlenfeld). However, you advocate for a new conservative theory. Why do you think theoretical work is necessary for the right?
Desirable images are essential: no one jumps into the fire for small goals, as Friedrich Naumann knew, unlike Hans Michlenfeld. Of course, ideal images must be integrated into a sustainable strategy that develops and realistically positions short-term and long-term goals. For this, a close connection between theory and practice is necessary. Both influence each other, correct each other, inspire each other, and are equally indispensable. Coherent theory is essential for sustainable political practice as a foundation; from the theoretical basis, concrete practical actions can then be taken. Antonio Gramsci excellently summarized this role in shaping politics related to the “understanding of the world,” as he called it, or “worldview,” as we call it: “The politician in action is a creator; but he does not create from nothing.”
Precisely because of this, with Gramsci in mind, it is necessary to object whenever theory is spoken of as a “supplement” to practice. This does not correspond to its character. If theoretical work is understood not as intellectual self-salvation, escapism, or theory-for-the-sake-of-theory, but as an elementary launch platform for a concrete political movement, it comes closer to an integral understanding of politics that strives for an “organic unity between theory and practice, between intellectual layers and the masses” (Gramsci). The task for intellectually or spiritually active people within the patriotic milieu of the FRG arises automatically. It is necessary to work on developing and making “coherent” the “principles and problems” that “these masses, through their practical activities,” bring forth. Only in this way can individual and group actors form a “cultural and social bloc” (again: Gramsci, of course), which will be necessary for survival in the struggle for hegemony with opposing blocs.
What would be the main characteristics of this new right-wing theory?
The parameters of family, people, and community should be viewed as unassailable foundations of practice-oriented theory, as the pillars supporting the most important reference pair – solidarity and identity. To this is added the state as an idea. According to the true theory of the “New Right,” the state does not act merely as a “wise institution for protecting individuals from each other” (Friedrich Nietzsche), and it surpasses the purpose of “rationally organized self-preservation” (Arnold Gehlen) of a people. In this context, the state is – or should be – the vital guarantor of an order of community based on identity and solidarity if it is to survive in the coming decades. The theory of the New Right must provide the building blocks for idea-based politics in practice, which relates to identity as a political reference point for the idea of “us.” To achieve this, it is necessary to reassess the terrain and organize things: what constitutes identity and solidarity, why do these two axioms of people-oriented politics belong inseparably together? Furthermore: to what extent is the state a potential guarantor of these pillars, and what are the economic and political reasons why it does not fulfill this task today? These are some of the main questions of New Right theory that must be answered in line with the times.
Ultimately, this can be reduced to the following sequence: identity is a prerequisite for solidarity; solidarity among equals is a guarantee of a stable order; a stable order can only be ensured by a state that is capable of action and oriented toward the well-being of the people. A theory (or worldview) that takes these maxims as its core can only be solidarist patriotism. But we will come to that later.
In your opinion, the New Right should not only focus on the national level and the nation-state but should act within European frameworks. However, you are against the EU. What exactly is your position?
“The key to the real and fundamental renewal of our society,” as described by the ancient historian David Engels, “does not lie at the national level, but at the European level.” From a broader perspective, and à la longue, this is true.
The European Union (EU) influences all areas of our lives: around 70 percent of all laws passed in member states are initiated at the EU level. At the latest with the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, the legislative process has been “Europeanized,” and citizens of Budapest must submit to it just as much as those in Berlin, Vienna, or Prague. If a political force – for example, the political right – attacks here in a nationally narrow-minded way without finding its own reliable and ideologically somewhat congruent partners at the European level, it is doomed to real-political ineffectiveness.
However, the metapolitical world must also be taken into account. Cultural developments and changes do not stop at national borders, nor do intellectual and ideologically-political processes. Anyone who values their people and nation and wants to preserve their particularities can only effectively achieve this if they are able to form sustainable alliances with those actors who also work for the people and nation in their own country. To this level of political understanding, an emotional component of positive Europeanism is added. For him, Europe will certainly not be defined by the borders of the EU. On the contrary, positive Europeanism is aware that the heart of Europe beats in Belgrade, Oslo, and Bern, just as much as it does in the capitals of EU member states.
Now, the question of Europe’s borders arises naturally. General De Gaulle thought that Europe extends to Vladivostok. What is your opinion?
I can be brief here: I believe that Russia represents an independent large space with which our large European space shares a belonging to the Eurasian world, and therefore, constructive cooperation is necessary. So, regarding borders, I think a united Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok would exceed the true European dimension.
What could then be the answer of the new European right to the issues of Ukraine, Kosovo, or Republika Srpska?
In an ideal-type (!) Europe, Ukraine would be, for example, some kind of bridge between the European part of Eurasia and the Russian part of Eurasia. A transitional space of understanding, a cultural bridge between both worlds. But we must work with what we have, and that means: Ukraine today is becoming the launching ground for the West to implement its principles even in the far east of Europe. Kosovo is also an EU-US construct, that is, a Western one, and Republika Srpska is a relic of the breakup of the Yugoslav state and the wars.
In an ideal-type Europe (region – nation – Europe, a triple principle of positive Europeanism), the conflicting interests of opposing peoples would have to be taken into account and, in the best case, “moderated” from an arbitration position. However, since national borders should, in the best case, coincide with state borders, for example, there would likely be a merging of Serbian territories.
You also maintain that the social question is once again relevant in Germany. Why?
The German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies understood the social question as “the peaceful coexistence and cooperation between classes, estates, and social strata of people who are far apart from each other in terms of their economic conditions of life, their living habits, and their outlook on life.” Tönnies added that this fundamental question about the nature and constitution of the existence of a community, about “social life,” lies at the core of the economic, but also the political and intellectual life. All of this is connected. The social question is, therefore, a branched and constantly central issue: How do we want to live? And: How is the balance created that is supposed to ensure social peace? No question could be more relevant!
It is a question of how we want to live, under what social circumstances, in what economic and political conditions, and even with what desired state interventions in “individual freedom” – because security in everyday life, with the “end of all security” (Winfried Martini), has become a social issue – is elementary. According to Tönnies’ statement that the social question concerns economic, political, and intellectual matters, it again raises questions in all three fields that can rarely be considered in isolation, but mostly together. Due to the current symbiotic relationship between the economy and politics, these issues are intensifying in the present situation.
Especially in a time like today’s Germany, where the gap between rich and poor has been growing for decades, where half of the population in the Federal Republic of Germany has no net wealth, where the middle class, traditionally strongly rooted and present in this country, is atrophying and experiencing deindustrialization, where “normal employment relations” are being degraded into “inflexible” outdated models, while the explosion of “atypical,” i.e., insecure, unstable employment relations is seen as a quasi-natural development in which the growing inability to plan one’s professional life is spreading, where four out of five Germans fear further division in society – whatever it may be – where existing significant gains in prosperity go to a small number of social classes, while the average citizen notices fewer gains and more expenses and losses, where, as Thomas Piketty shows, the relations of wealth and income are as unequal as they were before the turning point of 1914, and capital rent constantly exceeds growth rates, where the coexistence of all Germans increasingly develops into significantly different realities, especially concerning housing conditions, including the materialized flight from community in gated communities on one side and the decline in the quality of life due to ghettoization and the displacement of low-income strata on the other side, where the true social questions must once again be raised, such as the creation of profit for whom and by whom, as well as the role and distribution of property and assets, where the control of capital (whether financial, industrial, real estate, etc.) more than ever determines whether a nation can act and be independent externally or whether a political group can act internally, where growing social injustices and divisions collide with national and identity issues such as mass migration and the loss of identity… in such a present, I do not think that the social question is once again relevant, it is undoubtedly so.
In this context, you advocate for solidarist patriotism. How would you explain this concept?
As a meaningful pairing of terms, solidarist patriotism contains the two most important pillars of a politically capable right: solidarity as integration into social events for which one takes responsibility as part of the community surrounding the individual, derived from the Latin root of the word “solidus” (solid, whole) in the sense of commitment to the whole. Added to this is patriotism as an attitude oriented toward the common good, loyalty to one’s own, which one wants to defend and preserve. Both forms depend on each other: “Without a sense of community, there is no common good. Without the solidarity of citizens, there can be no guarantee of republican freedom. Without patriotism, there is no fatherland” (Volker Kronenberg).
In detail: one who, as an individual, does not value the broader whole, their homeland, their country, and perhaps the overarching community of European peoples, will not feel any mutual responsibility for their members but will only know the “I” or hybrid partial and substitute identities. However, especially in uncertain decades, no state can be formed in this way, which is necessary to prepare for what lies ahead. Solidarist patriotism is an offer to rational, common-good-oriented forces from all sides of the political spectrum. It removes contradictions and does not get involved in the battles, divisions, and seemingly insurmountable obstacles of yesterday. It integrates as a “right” approach and (alleged and real) “left” elements where it seems necessary and inevitable. For only “the mindset that approves of the synthesis between the two and has carried it out within itself can address those problems that the future will present us, from which the present despaired,” as the conservative revolutionary Hans Zehrer timelessly pointed out in a central key essay.
Ambitiously summarized: solidarist patriotism is an obvious, life-normality-oriented, and consistent response to the social question in Germany, a political theory of homeland bias in times of perpetual crisis. Recently, the liberal magazine Cicero feared the merging of solidarist social and economic policies with right-wing migration and social policies. This was described as the “winning formula” that one hoped the “right” would not activate. Now, solidarist patriotism is precisely that: the winning formula against the juste milieu and its principles.
Do you believe that parties like AfD in Germany can formulate a true alternative?
Back in 2014, what is now a reality was unimaginable: AfD as a brand is established, having activated more than six million voters in the EU elections in June, being the largest popular party in Eastern Germany (in terms of voter approval), and it is a key engine of the patriotic camp!
But as an electoral and gathering party of the political right in Germany, AfD is precisely that: an electoral and gathering party that must fulfill its task – nothing more and nothing less. Excessive hopes are not appropriate. Hans-Dietrich Sander once gave a timeless answer to a timeless question in Staatsbriefen: “What can one truly learn in a right-wing parliamentary party? Self-promotion, how to push competitors out of positions and benefits and knock them down – these are the dominant patterns of action in parties. The better German will be left in the cloakroom.”
This fundamental criticism of the nature of right-wing parties in Germany must be kept in mind, as well as Robert Michels’ iron law of oligarchy. And yet: AfD also gathers many highly capable individuals, it mobilizes youth, offers perspectives, and expands the resonance spaces for patriotic politics. In many regions, it does excellent educational and opposition work.
In short: AfD is the most successful patriotic party project in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany, but its further development remains open. Good forces must be strengthened, and there are many of them. If this succeeds, AfD will be able to play the most important role in the broader patriotic process.
