German Spy Agency Officially Classifies AfD Party as ‘Extremist’

The federal intelligence agency said that the populist political party aims to exclude certain population groups from ‘equal participation in society.’

AfD party congress dated January 11, 2025 in Riesa, Germany. Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has officially classified the right-wing party Alternative for Germany (AfD) as extremist.

Having regarded the AfD as a suspected extremist movement since 2021, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), on May 2 designated the populist party as “right-wing extremist,” following an “intensive and comprehensive expert examination.”

This means that intelligence services now have the right to keep it under surveillance.

BfV said in a statement that AfD’s approach to ethnicity is “not compatible with the free democratic basic order.”

According to BfV’s statement, AfD does not consider German nationals with a migration background from Muslim-origin countries as equal members of the German people.

BfV Vice President Sinan Selen and Vice President Dr. Silke Willems in a joint statement said: “We have come to the conviction that the Alternative for Germany is a definitively right-wing extremist movement.”

Certain factions of the AfD such as its youth wing had already been classified as extremist.

In the party’s first response to the report, the leader of a regional parliamentary group, Anton Baron, said: “It is sad to see the state of democracy in our country when the established parties now resort to the most politically questionable means to act against the strongest opposition party.”

“This is solely about maintaining the power of the old parties,” he said separately in a post on X. “The fight against the AfD has become a fight against democracy itself. We won’t be intimidated!”

AfD Deputy Federal Spokesman Stephan Brandner told The Epoch Times that the classification was “absurd.”

Brandner said that this has “nothing to do with law and order, and is a purely political in the fight of the cartel parties against the AfD.”

The other parties have failed across the board in recent years and driven Germany into the abyss, Brandner said.

“The people know this and therefore vote for us,” he said

AfD’s co-leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla said the decision was a “serious blow to German democracy” in a joint statement on social media platform X.

“In current polls, the AfD is the strongest party,” they said, adding that the “opposition party is now being publicly discredited and criminalized shortly before the change of government.”

“The associated, targeted interference in the democratic decision-making process is therefore clearly politically motivated.”

A survey by Ipsos in March showed that the AfD party topped the polls for the first time.

The Epoch Times has contacted AfD for comment.

The decision comes shortly before conservative leader Friedrich Merz is due to be elected as Germany’s new chancellor.

Merz’s center-right CDU emerged as the winner of the February elections and is now in a coalition with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), which is calling for a party ban.

Merz has vowed never to govern with the AfD, which came in second in the general election, even though doing so would ensure a clear majority.

The deputy leader of the Social Democrat SPD, Serpil Midyatl wrote on the social media platform X: “For me, it’s clear: the AfD ban must come into effect.”

In a statement she said her party has “absolutely rightly led the discussion about a party ban in recent months” and that it will be the subject of a forthcoming country party congress.

“The whole thing must now continue in the necessary care, resilient and continuous without errors. It is clear to me that the ban must come,” she added.

Outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Friday that proceedings to ban the party must not be rushed.

“I am against a quick shot, we have to evaluate the classification carefully,” he said at a church convention in the northern city of Hanover.

Reuters and Erik Rusch contributed to this report