The populist Alternative for Germany party (AfD) has had a target on its back since it was founded in 2013. For the first few years if their existence, the party was branded “neo-Nazi” for its views on immigration and cultural conservatism.
In 2021, the German domestic intelligence agency BfV began investigating the AfD for “extremism.” This specific crime in Germany could result in AfD, the most popular political party in Germany, being banned from elections.
On Friday, BfV upped the ante. Politico EU:
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has officially classified the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as a “proven right-wing extremist organization,” marking the most serious step yet in Berlin’s efforts to contain the rising political force.
The move, announced Friday by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), means that the AfD is no longer merely under suspicion. The agency says it now has definitive evidence that the party works against Germany’s democratic system.
In truth, the AfD, like the Democrats, have some real nutcases running for office and serving in government. There are some Holocaust minimizers, immigrant bashers, and a handful of party members who miss the old days when the German right ran the country.
Compared to some Democrats who openly call for Trump’s death, a socialist America, and an end to free speech, it’s hard to choose which party members are nuttier.
But most Germans realize that the vast majority of the party are ordinary Germans who want to maintain the nation’s national character. They reject the scheme by elites to import a couple of million immigrants because Germany was in a demographic death spiral.
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Germany’s interior minister, Nancy Faeser, points out that the kind of “extremism” associated with AfD is unconstitutional.
“The AfD advocates an ethnic concept of the people that discriminates against entire population groups and treats citizens with a migrant background as second-class Germans,” she said.
That’s a wild exaggeration, as AfD said in their statement responding to the investigation.
“This decision by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is complete nonsense in terms of substance, has nothing to do with law and justice, and is purely political in the fight between the cartel parties against the AfD,” said Stephan Brandner, an AfD leader.
The domestic intelligence service started intensive monitoring of the AfD in 2021, when it labeled the party “suspected” right-wing extremist. The party tried to block that determination, and the surveillance that comes with it, in court, but a higher court decision upheld an initial ruling allowing the classification last year.
The intelligence agency classified the party’s youth wing as extremist in 2023. The party has since disbanded it.
The new classification gives domestic intelligence more tools to monitor the AfD. It also opens a legal avenue to have the constitutional court ban the party, a step that Germany’s top court has taken only twice in the 76-year history of Germany’s modern Constitution, both times with parties far less popular than the AfD.
The AfD finished second in the recent election but has been shut out of the new government by Friedrich Merz, a conservative Christian Democrat, who will become chancellor. Naturally, the millions of AfD voters feel disenfranchised, while the party has gained support after Merz proved to be less conservative than his campaign suggested he would be.
Some polls show more than a quarter of the country supporting AfD. This is similar to Hungary, where the majority of voters support Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Still, the European Union elites want to punish Hungary for opposing the LGBTQ agenda and “opposing the rule of law.” They want to withhold EU cash and suspend Hungary’s voting rights.
Germany’s suppression of the right will only drive more people to vote for AfD. In the end, the EU may bring about the exact scenario they’re trying to avoid.
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