Germany’s spy agency has backtracked on the “extremist” designation it recently applied to the country’s most popular nationalist party — for now.
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, known as the BfV, made the move Thursday after the Alternative for Germany (AfD) filed an emergency lawsuit. The spy agency will wait for a court decision before moving ahead. It did not provide a reason for this most recent move.
On May 5, the BfV announced that it had classified the AfD as a right-wing extremist movement, largely for its anti-mass migration stance. The agency rolled out an 1,100-page internal assessment saying the AfD seeks to exclude certain population groups from equal participation in society, a stance it deems “incompatible” with the constitution and the principle of human dignity.
The classification would’ve opened up the AfD to unlimited surveillance, infiltration, and a possible outright ban. A commonly held suspicion is that the goal was, and likely continues to be, to fully ban the party.
The AfD has become very popular. It doubled its vote share in February’s federal elections with 22 percent, and has become the largest opposition force in the new parliament. It holds the uncontroversial view that German citizens should govern Germany.
Immigration Crisis
The nation considered the “heart of Europe” has experienced the largest migrant deluge of any European Union member state. Data show that Germany takes nearly double the number of immigrants than the next country.
Germany has been hit especially hard by migrants from majority Muslim countries. It has hosted a number of high-profile crimes committed by foreign nationals. Crime increased by about 6 percent from 2022 to 2023. Foreigners made up 15 percent of the population, but committed 41 percent of all crimes in 2023, according to reports. Stabbings have risen. As Politico reported in 2024:
The number of violent incidents involving a knife rose by nearly 40 percent from 2021 to 2023, hitting 14,000. Many Germans were shocked when radical Islamists celebrated the stabbing of [a] police officer in online posts, leading Berlin to vow to deport those who praise acts of terror and violence.
In response to those crimes, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said at the time, “Islamist agitators stuck in the stone age do not belong in our country.”
The AfD’s platform opposes Muslim influence in Germany. “Islam is not part of Germany,” it declares:
The AfD clearly opposes an Islamic religious practice that is directed against the free democratic basic order, our laws and the Judeo-Christian and humanistic foundations of our culture. Many moderate Muslims live law-abiding and integrated lives and are accepted and valued members of our society. They belong to Germany. But Islam does not belong to Germany.
Germans who support the AfD want a culture dominated by German values and traditions. The party abhors multiculturalism. “The AfD regards the ideology of multiculturalism as a serious threat to social peace and to the continued existence of the nation as a cultural unit. In the face of it, the state and civil society must confidently defend German cultural identity,” it believes.
“Extremist” Designation Criticized
After the BfV leveled its initial “extremist” designation, top-ranking U.S. officials called out the action for what it was.
Vice President J.D. Vance, who in February laid into Europe’s leaders during the Munich Security Conference for the Continent’s tyrannical trajectory, said:
The AfD is the most popular party in Germany, and by far the most representative of East Germany. Now the bureaucrats try to destroy it. The West tore down the Berlin Wall together. And it has been rebuilt — not by the Soviets or the Russians, but by the German establishment.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio also minced no words, tweeting:
Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy — it’s tyranny in disguise. What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD — which took second in the recent election — but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes. Germany should reverse course.
Patriotic Party
While the AfD’s anti-immigration stances receive most of the attention, the party holds several other unapproved views that would threaten the globalist agenda were they to translate into policies:
- It rejects the EU’s influence on German policies;
- It wants all foreign troops, Americans included, out of Germany;
- It demands that NATO remain a defensive alliance; and
- It seeks to have better relations with the Western elites’ designated boogeyman, Russia. “The AfD is therefore campaigning for an end to the sanctions and an improvement in relations with Russia,” it says.
Germany’s AfD is part of the larger movement threatening to upend the globalist order that was ramped up after World War II. It took the people of Western Europe more than half a century to realize that the EU is a threat. The trend has picked up steam in England, France, and other nations.
