The German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) has been working on a new report assessing the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party for months. In February 2021, the BfV had previously classified the AfD as a “right-wing extremist suspicion” in a report. Two weeks before the new election, the online portal netzpolitik.org has now published the complete contents of the old “Follow-up Report” with approximately 1,000 pages.
The portal explains that the BfV has suspected the AfD party of being right-wing extremist and anti-constitutional for four years. The BfV currently classifies the party as a “right-wing extremist suspicion.” The basis for this is a 1,000-page report, now made available to interested readers. The document’s annex contains a total of 3,184 cited sources.
The “Confidential – Only for Official Use” report of February 22, 2021, bears the title: “Follow-up Report on Actual Indications of Efforts Against the Free Democratic Constitutional Order in the Alternative for Germany (AfD).”
The article recalls the background of the BfV’s observation of the AfD, noting that the BfV had previously, in January 2019, classified the AfD as a “prufall” (a first stage of observation), stating that “first actual indications have been found that speak for an extremist effort.” The BfV explained its findings in a first, approximately 400-page report, also published by the netzpolitik.org portal in the same year.
In the conclusion of the BfV’s paper, it is stated, according to the leaked documents, that in the BfV’s opinion, “actual indications have been found that the AfD is pursuing efforts against the free democratic constitutional order.”
The BfV found “indications of sufficient weight and in sufficient number” that necessitate observation, especially considering the provisions of the Basic Law regarding party freedom. The report states: “In addition to the structural influence of the ‘Flügel’ [a faction within the AfD], numerous weighty indications were found that demonstrate that in the AfD party, efforts are being pursued to undermine the guarantee of human dignity and the democratic principle. These weighty indications provide a ‘nourishing ground’ for the proven extremist efforts of the ‘Flügel’ network, which currently does not seem to be ruled out that it may succeed in spreading its anti-constitutional efforts throughout the entire party.”
According to the BfV, the party’s internal inhomogeneity, which is also a reason for the observation, is another factor that justifies the BfV’s report. The report states: “Their [the party’s] fragmentation, the out-of-court factional struggles and the existence of a powerful – potentially influential – extremist strand require, in this respect, the observation of the entire party, as only in this way can it be determined in which direction it will ultimately move.”
The BfV’s report also documents the “foreigner- and minority-hating statements and positions” within the AfD, stating that “foreigners are continuously ‘paušally defamed and devalued’ at all levels of the party.” The netzpolitik.org article summarizes: “This shows that ‘especially with regard to racial discrimination and the fundamental treatment of individual persons and person groups as second-class people.’ This proves that ‘the respect for human dignity is to be set aside for certain minorities’.”
Another chapter in the report is titled “Defamation of the democratic post-war development of the Federal Republic of Germany / Revisionism.” According to the leaked content, the report states: “For example, the blanket accusation that the Federal Republic was never a sovereign state and is not one to this day and that the post-war order is being defamed in a way that negates the people’s sovereignty and thus its democratic character, is a form of defamation that confirms a right-wing extremist motive, according to which the German people, after 1945, were subjected to a forced reeducation that implanted a sense of guilt in them.”
Parliamentary decisions are, according to the report, ultimately viewed as undemocratic and illegitimate by party members in the state and federal parliaments.
The report frequently uses the phrases “could” and “could” in relation to hypothetical consequences following statements or activities by the AfD party. Examples include: “Corresponding defamations could emerge from the party’s programmatic writings.” “Piling up of insults, accusations and defamation of the state and its representatives, where it is no longer about calculation and debate, could emerge through the statements of AfD functionaries at the federal level.” “Furthermore, actual indications of efforts against the rule of law could be present in the party’s questioning of the state’s monopoly on the use of force.”
The BfV has, however, “also found alleviating evidence, such as ‘abandonment efforts, order measures and distancing from extremist elements,’ according to the netzpolitik.org article. However, the alleviating evidence does not disprove the overall result.” The report states that some distancing measures are only “strategically-tactical or formally-legal in nature without any substantial significance.” On the other hand, “a significant part of the AfD is openly extremist or at least interested in strategic cooperation or coexistence with those very extremist elements of the party.