Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has classified the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as an extremist group, citing its xenophobic and anti-democratic ideology, Deutsche Welle reported on Friday.
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) said the party’s “ethnicity- and ancestry-based conception of the people” was incompatible with Germany’s democratic order.
The BfV cited “xenophobic, anti-minority and Islamophobic” rhetoric as key factors in its designation. It warned that the AfD seeks “to exclude certain population groups from equal participation in society, to subject them to treatment that violates the constitution, and thereby assign them a legally subordinate status.”
The classification allows authorities expanded surveillance powers, including the use of wiretaps and undercover agents.
In the most recent federal election in February, the AfD secured 20.8% of the vote, finishing second behind the conservative CDU/CSU bloc, which won 28.6% under incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
AfD co-leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla denounced the agency’s decision as a politically motivated attack on democracy.
“The AfD as an opposition party is now being publicly discredited and criminalized,” they said in a joint statement, vowing to launch a legal challenge against the designation.
Founded in 2013, the AfD has drawn criticism for downplaying Germany’s Nazi past and engaging in antisemitic rhetoric. Senior officials have made controversial remarks—such as co-founder Alexander Gauland’s 2018 claim that “Hitler and the Nazis are just a speck of bird poop in more than 1,000 years of successful German history.”
In 2017, Gauland also said Germans should be “proud of the achievements of German soldiers in two world wars.”
While a nationalist hardline faction—rooted largely in the eastern states of the former East Germany—continues to wield significant influence within the party, a more moderate wing, led by Weidel, has sought to distance the AfD from antisemitic elements and adopt a pro-Israel stance. The internal divide echoes similar shifts seen in Europe’s right, such as Marine Le Pen’s efforts to rebrand France’s National Rally.
Despite the repositioning, Israel continues to enforce a policy of non-engagement with the AfD, even as it formalizes ties with other far-right parties in France, Spain and Sweden. Austria’s Freedom Party is also excluded under the same policy.
Originally published by the European Jewish Press.
