German counter-intelligence says the AfD youth organization is extremist
Reuters reports that the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), German's civil counter-intelligence service, has categorized the youth organization of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as an extremist entity endangering democracy. The youth organization has said it considers the BfV's approach to be suppression of political opposition and intends to defend itself in the courts.
The civil counter-intelligence service started surveilling the AfD’s youth organization on suspicion of extremism in 2019. Two other organizations have also been newly classified as extremist entities, the Institute for State Policy (IfS) and the One Percent association (Ein Prozent).
“There is no doubt that these three groups are making efforts that are unconstitutional,” BfV head Thomas Haldenwang said in a statement. German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser also issued a statement saying “We are doing everything we can to dry up the fertile ground for extreme-right violence.”
“The actors on the so-called ‘new right’ just disseminate hate and discrimination against those who do not share their views, against refugees, and against people of immigrant backgrounds,” Faeser said. The new classification could have an impact on the opportunity for members of these groups to be employed in the public sector or to acquire a firearms license.
The AfD youth organization, according to the counter-intelligence service, wants a society that would be as ethnoculturally homogenous as possible, rejects the integration of immigrants from non-European countries on the basis of their “biological” prerequisites, and promotes a generally negative view of Muslims. In a Facebook post on 22 March, the AfD youth group stated the following: “Germans in our society are now in last place in the hierarchy of victims. Diversity is paramount…and mainly we are not permitted to complain or to defend ourselves against attacks that are ethnically motivated because we will be accused of hate if we do.”
The AfD youth organization said the decision did not surprise them. They consider the civil counter-intelligence service to just be doing its job, and they allege that its work “essentially consists of suppressing the opposition”.
The youth group also said it will take legal action against the decision. The AfD itself is not affected by the decision and according to Manfred Güllner of the Forsa public opinion poll agency, it is unlikely that this step will have any fundamental impact on the party.
Currently the party has between 15 and 17% support in the polls, just a few percentage points behind the governing coalition parties of the Greens and the Social Democrats (SPD). The AfD is currently profiting from voters’ anger over growing energy prices as a consequence of sanctions against Russia.
The AfD was established in 2013 as a party fighting against keeping the euro as the German currency during the debt crisis in the eurozone, but it then moved to the right and became the most successful ultra-right party in Germany since the Second World War. “We have seen that the entire discussion about the extreme-right tendencies of the AfD has not damaged them at all,” Güllner said.
“On the contrary, [the discussion] led to the party bringing together all the potential of the radical right that remained in Germany after the fall of National Socialism,” Güllner said. Counter-intelligence services have called the youth group extremist after Germany reported at the close of 2022 that it had foiled an attempt by other ultra-right groups to launch a violent overthrow of the state and install the descendant of a noble family who was seeking Russian support as the head of the country; two of those arrested in the raid were AfD members.
