New Bundestag: Why the SPD does not want to leave the Otto-Wels-Saal to the AfD

After its election victory on Sunday, the strengthened AfD has made a series of demands for future parliamentary work: the faction, which has doubled in size to 152 MPs, is now emphatically demanding a position in the parliamentary presidium, it wants committee chairs and a place in the Parliamentary Control Committee for monitoring the secret services. And it is demanding a larger meeting room. The current one is far too small, says a faction spokesman. The first meetings of the new AfD faction will therefore take place in another Bundestag building, in a room that is otherwise used for hearings.

The SPD, on the other hand, has shrunk from 207 to 120 MPs, the Greens from 117 to 85, and the FDP has been thrown out of parliament altogether. A redistribution of the party meeting rooms therefore seems obvious.

But the Social Democrats do not want to simply give up their space - for symbolic reasons. They named the hall after Otto Wels, SPD party leader from 1919 until his time in exile after the Nazis seized power in 1933. Wels is still known today for his dramatic speech in which he defied the Nazis at a Reichstag session in the Kroll Opera House in March 1933.

This meeting on March 23, 1933 was about the so-called Enabling Act, with which Hitler finally abolished democracy in Germany. The mandates of the communist MPs had already been annulled, communists and social democrats arrested en masse. Uniformed henchmen of the new regime had stationed themselves in the meeting room. "They can take away our freedom and lives, but not our honor," Wels hurled at Hitler.

Courageous democrat: Otto Wels hurled the legendary “You can take our freedom and life, but not our honor” at Adolf Hitler in the Kroll Opera in 1933.

Source: IMAGO/Heritage Images

For the outgoing SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich, his party's parliamentary group hall also has historical significance. "When I walk past the names of those who voted against the Enabling Act in the Kroll Opera House, even though the Nazi henchmen were already standing next to them, it always means something to me," he said at the inaugural meeting of the new SPD parliamentary group on Tuesday. "I don't want to give up the Otto Wels Hall," he said.

In addition to the historical naming, the SPD also cites practical reasons against swapping rooms. The Otto Wels Hall is located next to the Union's parliamentary group meeting room. Adjacent walls have been set up for press statements at parliamentary group meetings. In view of the likely future of a black-red coalition, it would make sense to stick with this arrangement.

But during the time of the traffic light coalition, the Greens and the FDP also held their press statements on the opposite side of the Reichstag building in front of their meeting rooms.

The AfD, meanwhile, is trying to downplay the symbolic significance. It is not about erasing the name of a famous anti-fascist from the Reichstag building, but simply about practical considerations. The right-wing party has named its meeting room "Saal Paulskirche" after the seat of the first German parliament in Frankfurt am Main in 1848. It took this name with it to the current hall when it moved after the 2021 election.

The SPD could also take the name "Otto Wels Hall" with them to another room. For the Social Democrats, however, it would be the first move since the parliament moved to Berlin a quarter of a century ago. And a smaller meeting room would be a daily, painful reminder that the parliamentary group will only be the third largest in the Bundestag for the next four years. "You are picking at a deep wound in me," Mützenich said when asked about clearing out the current Otto Wels Hall.

More pragmatic members of the parliamentary group, however, point out that if the SPD parliamentary group refused to move out, it would give the AfD another opportunity to attack. It is out of the question that the Social Democrats would elect an AfD vice president. Giving up the hall seems like the less painful concession.