Martin Hohmann (born 4 February 1948) is a German lawyer and politician of the AfD party. He was a member of the German Parliament ("

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Common ...

") for the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), from 1998 until 2005. From 2017 to 2021, he was again a member of the German Parliament for the AfD.

Speech on German Unity Day 2003

He attracted public attention with a speech on

German Unity Day German Unity Day (german: Tag der Deutschen Einheit) is the National Day of Germany, celebrated on 3 October as a public holiday. It commemorates German reunification in 1990 when the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) joined the Federal ...

on 3 October 2003. He set out to repudiate the supposed accusation that during the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

, the Germans were considered a "nation of perpetrators" (german: Tätervolk, a term which was later named German Un-Word of the Year by a jury of linguistic scholars). To his end, he alleges involvement of Jews in the 1917 Russian Revolution. Hohmann starts from noting a strong sense of self-contempt among Germans and quotes Hans-Olaf Henkel, the vice president of the Federation of German Industry, who has stated that "Our original sin paralyzes the country". Hohmann thinks that an undue occupation with Germany's past—which he distinguishes from a necessary admission and remembrance of German crimes—lies behind discrimination against fellow-countrymen. Among examples, he mentions the refusal of German government officials to consider demanding compensations by Russia, Poland and the Czech Republic on behalf of forced German labourers in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, in the same way as Germany pays compensation for those they forced to labor camps.

Political consequences

The speech was delivered to 120 people in his constituency on 3 October. It attracted no attention until it was later found on the internet. This led to a lively debate in public and in the CDU, and after Hohmann refused to retract the speech, he was expelled from the

parliamentary group A parliamentary group, parliamentary party, or parliamentary caucus is a group consisting of some members of the same political party or electoral fusion of parties in a legislative assembly such as a parliament or a city council. Parliamenta ...

of the CDU in the

in 2003 and from the party itself in 2004. The former decision, however, came only after almost two weeks, on 15 November, raising some concerns that the party did not share the zeal of his critics."Raus" ''Economist'' 15 November 2003. CDU MPs voted 195 to 28 (16 abstained) to eject him from the party group, that is 81 percent favored ejection. According to ''The Independent'', support for free speech was far higher than expected.Tony Paterson
German politician expelled in storm over Jewish speech
''The Independent'' 15 November 2003. Hohmann appealed the party decision in court, but his expulsion was upheld. The Kammergericht Berlin ruled that the accusation that Hohmann "supported antisemitic tendencies as his own or in any case facilitated them in parts of the audience by providing facts for such appraisal" was in line with the core statements of the speech.Decision 3 U 47/05
KG Berlin 3. Zivilsenat, 27 October 2006 (German) While most of the German elite was unanimous in condemning Hohmann, the public was much less convinced—polls indicated that equally many opposed the expulsion as those who approved of it (a little over 40 percent in each camp). Although party spokesmen were quick to condemn the speech, some party leaders said in private conversations that Hohmann did not deserve to be expelled. The decision to expel him met severe criticism from party rank-and-files. CDU officials in the Ruhr town of Recklinghausen joined the protests by displaying a banner from the local party office. It read: "Nobody in Germany is allowed to tell the truth any more". He kept his seat as an independent

member of parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

until the next Bundestag election of 2005. There, Hohmann ran unsuccessfully for a seat as an independent candidate. He received 21.5% of the votes. Now, Hohmann is deputy of AfD Fraction of German Parliament-Bundestag.

References

External links

*
'Anti-Semitic' MP expelled
BBC News, 14 November 2003.
Martin Hohmann's allegedly anti-Semitic Speech
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hohmann, John 1948 births Living people People from Fulda Independent politicians in Germany Members of the Bundestag 2017–2021 Members of the Bundestag 2002–2005 Members of the Bundestag 1998–2002 Members of the Bundestag for the Alternative for Germany Members of the Bundestag for the Christian Democratic Union of Germany Politicians affected by a party expulsion process