German Intelligence Marks Alternative für Deutschland as Right Wing Extremist Group

Germany’s domestic intelligence BfV designated the political party Alternative für Deutschland as a right wing extremist group antithetical to “free democratic order.”

BfV’s responsibility is not only intelligence, but protection of the German constitution. In its announcement after a three year investigation, the agency wrote, “The ethnicity- and ancestry-based understanding of the people prevailing within the party is incompatible with the free democratic order.”

In February’s elections, AfD placed second. Its 20.8% of the vote won a record 152 seats in the 630-seat parliament, a leap that stunned the country and the world. On maps of the election results, it is glaringly obvious that AfD’s stronghold is in the former East Germany. West Germany undertook extensive education and awareness programs after World War II to deradicalize its population. East Germany, controlled by the Soviet Union, did not.

AfD’s new designation expands the extent to which AfD can be monitored. It also alters what AfD can accomplish with its electoral wins. Ordinarily, the number of seats AfD won could make its members eligible to chair parliamentary committees.

In light of its formal extremist status, Bundestag Vice-President Andrea Lindholz described that possibility as having become “almost unthinkable.”  A designated right-wing extremist group should not have the same standing and treatment as other parties, especially in a lawmaking body.

After the announcement, USA Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio each took to social media to condemn it. Germany was blunt in its response.

Rubio posted:

Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy—it’s tyranny in disguise.

What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD—which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes.

Germany should reverse course.

Germany Foreign Office replied:

This is democracy. This decision is the result of a thorough & independent investigation to protect our Constitution & the rule of law. It is independent courts that will have the final say. We have learnt from our history that rightwing extremism needs to be stopped.

Vance and billionaire White House advisor Elon Musk supported AfD in the February elections. Musk not only openly promoted it, but also gave money to it and appeared at one of its rallies.

Click here for more details.

Click here for news coverage of the February election results including a map showing how AfD support is concentrated in the former East Germany.

Click here for a brief very high level comparison of what happened in East and West Germany in the immediate aftermath of World War II.