2024-03-05 16:09:55
The AfD is already being observed as a “suspected case” by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The authority now apparently wants to go one step further.
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is apparently examining the classification of the entire AfD as a “secure right-wing extremist effort”. This is reported by the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” (SZ), citing internal emails and notes from the domestic intelligence service.
Accordingly, a new report from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is already in the works. The authority is just waiting for a decision from the Münster Higher Administrative Court. From mid-March, the court will hear a lawsuit by the AfD against its classification as a “suspected case”. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution made this in its last report on the party from spring 2021. The AfD has lodged an appeal against this, but has already failed in the first instance.
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The AfD and its “relationship with Russia”
For almost a year, agency employees have repeatedly written about an “AfD follow-up report 2023” in internal emails, reports the “SZ”. There is even already a structure: In addition to the already known allegations from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, this also contains the point “Relationship with Russia” for the first time. According to the schedule, the report should be completed in December 2023, but the negotiations before the Münster Higher Administrative Court were repeatedly postponed.
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According to the “SZ” report, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is still expecting “considerations” from the court, which should then be “taken into account as far as possible” in the new report. In principle, however, the domestic intelligence service seems to expect the first instance judgment to be confirmed. Then the new report would apparently come immediately.
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution does not seem to have any fundamentally new insights into the radicalism of the AfD. The “continuation of the anti-constitutional effort” alone, which the authority had already observed, would be sufficient to “condense” the information necessary for the classification as “certain right-wing extremist effort.”
Three regional associations are already “certainly right-wing extremist”
Nevertheless, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution sees right-wing extremist tendencies within the AfD as strengthened. “Not all party members” are “viewed as supporters of extremist movements,” the “SZ” quotes from an internal note. “Nevertheless, the so-called solidarity-patriotic camp in the party is increasingly gaining influence,” it says. The AfD state and parliamentary group leader in the Thuringian state parliament, Björn Höcke, who according to the court ruling can be described as a fascist, is considered the head of this party camp.
Three state associations of the AfD are already classified as having “secure right-wing extremist efforts”: Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. The Saxon state group received the classification last December. Here you can read more about it. Last year, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution also classified the AfD youth organization Junge Alternative as such, which was confirmed by the court at the beginning of February.