EFor the first time, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution lists the AfD as a suspected right-wing extremist in the new annual report. In the report for the year 2022, which Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) and the President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang, presented in Berlin on Tuesday, there is talk of an extremist potential of 10,200 people in the AfD. That is more than a third of the nearly 30,000 party members.
In the report, the constitutional protection officers refer to the election and voting results at the party conference in June 2022 in Riesa, Saxony, and statements by party officials. This includes, for example, the statement by a functionary of the formally dissolved “Flugel”, who said in June 2022 that the network around the “Flugel” leader Björn Höcke made up around 30 to 40 percent of all AfD members.
In the spring, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution classified the ethnic-nationalist “wing” as a secured extremist effort. He is said to have disbanded, although formal membership never existed anyway. On the contrary, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution assumes that the influence of this group on the party as a whole has grown.
Also youth organization in view
The power of the wing also played a role in classifying the party as a whole as a suspect. This was done on the basis of a 1,000-page report in February 2021. The AfD complained about this, so the intelligence officers had to stop monitoring in the meantime. In the judgment of March 8, 2022, the Cologne Administrative Court came to the conclusion that there was sufficient factual evidence of anti-constitutional efforts.
The constitutional protectors, who have since been able to monitor the party as a whole using intelligence tools, are constantly reassessing the situation. Security circles are preparing for the AfD to be upgraded to a secured extremist association. At a symposium held by his authority in May, Haldenwang said about the AfD: “The course there is to the right.” In the thorough observation of the suspected case of the AfD as a party as a whole, one would “have to come to a new assessment at a suitable time”. In Thuringia, where Höcke sits in the state parliament, the local AfD association has been rated as extremist for a year.
The extremist potential of the AfD of 10,000 also includes members of the Junge Alternative (JA), who are also AfD members. In addition, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution estimates 200 members of the youth organization to be right-wing extremists who are not members of the AfD.
The JA has about 2000 members. In April, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution announced that the correctional institution had been upgraded to a secured extremist effort. However, the new report refers to the year 2022. In addition, the Federal Office has given a breastfeeding commitment to a complaint by the AfD youth and is therefore treating the organization as a suspected case until a court decision is made.
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