{"id":95419,"date":"2025-05-03T04:00:55","date_gmt":"2025-05-03T08:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=95419"},"modified":"2025-05-02T16:18:45","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T20:18:45","slug":"german-democracy-under-threat-from-extremely-extreme-extreme-right-afd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2025\/05\/03\/german-democracy-under-threat-from-extremely-extreme-extreme-right-afd\/","title":{"rendered":"German democracy under threat from extremely<\/em> extreme extreme right AfD<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

That, at least is the judgement of the German domestic intelligence agency assigned responsibility for sniffing out threats to German democracy<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This morning, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV<\/em>) officially reclassified Alternative f\u00fcr Deutschland<\/em> as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” organisation<\/a>. The BfV<\/em> is Germany’s primary domestic intelligence agency; it is subject to the Ministry of the Interior and tasked, among other things, with policing the democratic respectability of ordinary Germans and their political parties. The upgraded AfD<\/em> classification is supported by an extensive and totally secret 1,100-page assessment of AfD<\/em> activities and beliefs, which BfV<\/em> analysts have been preparing since last year. <\/p>\n

Everybody expected the BfV<\/em> to do this. Leading Social Democrats in particular have been urging the BfV<\/em> to release their new assessment for months. They see it as a political justification for initiating ban proceedings against the party. As I wrote last week<\/a>, it is now likely that the new CDU\/SPD government, or the new Bundestag<\/em>, or both, will ask the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe to weigh an AfD<\/em> prohibition. This new assessment matters mostly because it is the first concrete move in that direction.<\/p>\n

The only thing that is really surprising about this news, is the timing: I and everybody else expected the BfV<\/em> to wait until the CDU and the SPD form a new government and appoint a new Interior Minister. Instead, the sitting Interior Minister Nancy Faeser appears to have forced this assessment through in the final four days of her tenure. This, and not AfD<\/em> poll numbers (as some have speculated), is the reason this is happening now. <\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Among other things, the assessment allegedly cites these extremely right-wing remarks from an 11 August 2024 speech by Hannes Gnauck, who sits on the AfD<\/em> federal executive committee:<\/p>\n