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The decision to label a political party surging in popularity as “extremist” and “anti-democratic” and order increased surveillance of its members shows that the German government doesn’t believe its citizens should be allowed to choose their own leaders — or their own fate.
Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) has declared Alternative for Germany (AfD) a “right-wing extremist group” and “opposed to the basic democratic order,” allowing the country’s intelligence apparatus to intensify surveillance efforts against the nation’s second-largest political party.
Late last week BfV delivered its 1,100-page report (which is not publicly available) to the Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser, who is leaving office after her party, the Social Democratic Party, finished third in Germany’s February elections.
Allegedly the report states, “Central to our assessment is the ethnically and ancestrally defined concept of the people that shapes the AfD, which devalues entire segments of the population in Germany and violates their human dignity.”
The report claims that AfD, which campaigned on immigration reform and the assimilation of Muslim migrants, seeks to exclude Muslims from society.
“The party’s prevailing understanding of the people based on ethnicity and descent is incompatible with the free democratic basic order,” the agency claims.
“Specifically, the AfD considers, for example, German citizens with a migration background from predominantly Muslim countries not equal members of the ethnically defined German people.”
AfD was founded in 2013 and has since become the second most popular party in Germany, receiving more than 20 percent of the vote in the most recent election in February. Recent polling shows AfD tied with the new ruling party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), with 24 percent support for each.
The AfD says it is a nationalist party seeking to elevate national sovereignty and minimize the power of the European Union (EU) in the country.
The party has gained a greater following due to concerns about Islamic migration during the last decade, which has led to massive increases in the migrant population and the rise of Islamic enclaves in the country. Many Europeans are opposed to the continual importing of Islamic migrants due to the refusal of many to assimilate, their setting up of alternative justice systems, and the increase in violent crime, particularly sexual assault of European women by Islamic migrants.
In 2021, BfV labeled AfD a “potential extremist threat” and began surveilling it.
Under the new declaration, surveillance of the party will be intensified, to include phone taps, securing informants, and observing AfD meetings.
Members of the AfD could be forced out of elected positions or government jobs.
The party also will likely have state funding cut, a major blow as political parties receive taxpayer funding in Germany.
Officially declaring the AfD as an “extremist threat” has intensified already existing calls to ban the party outright.
Under Article 21 of the German constitution, adopted in 1949 in the wake of the defeat of the Nazis, the Federal Constitutional Court can declare parties — “by reason of their aims or the behavior of their adherents, seek to undermine or abolish the free democratic basic order or to endanger the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany” — to be unconstitutional.
The court has only deemed two political parties to be unconstitutional: the Socialist Reich Party in 1952 and the Communist Party of Germany in 1956.
Now, there is support among some of AfD’s political opposition for outright banning the party.
Manuela Schwesig, a member of the Social Democrats, declared, “Starting today, no one can make excuses anymore: This is not a democratic party.”
However, Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz of the Christian Democratic Union Party, said he doesn’t think banning the party is the “solution.”
After being sworn in earlier this week, Merz stated, “…10 million AfD voters — you can’t ban them. You have to engage with them factually and on substance. And I want to do everything in this federal government to help people regain trust in the political center — so that they no longer feel the need to vote for a party like the AfD.”
Germany’s move against AfD has been criticized by a number of foreign governments, including, most notably, the United States.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated, “Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy — it’s tyranny in disguise…Germany should reverse course.”
Vice President J.D. Vance, who rebuked Germany’s censorship of AfD at the Munich Security Conference earlier this year, wrote,
“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.”
Germany has pushed back on the United States’s claims, with its Foreign Office replying, “This is democracy. This decision is the result of a thorough & independent investigation to protect our Constitution & the rule of law. It is independent courts that will have the final say. We have learnt from our history that rightwing extremism needs to be stopped.”
For its part, AfD has since challenged the government’s labeling of it as “far-right” or an “extremist organization” in court.
The party’s co-leaders, Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, stated,
“The AfD is now being publicly discredited and criminalized as an opposition party shortly before the change of government. The associated, targeted interference in the democratic decision-making process is therefore clearly politically motivated. The AfD will continue to defend itself legally against this defamation that jeopardizes democracy.”
The development occurs as right-leaning parties in other European countries have faced similar efforts to bar them from elections.
France has banned Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally Party, from the 2027 election under suspect charges of embezzlement. Meanwhile in December of last year, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election of right-wing candidate Calin Georgescu after claiming he was elected because of Russian disinformation. Romania has since elected another right-wing candidate, George Simion.
Let’s be clear what is happening in Germany: The AfD is a political party that supports policies the country’s leftist elites and the EU don’t like. And anyone who dissents from state-approved narratives is immediately labeled as “far-right” and “extremist.” This is one more example of how the left and the intelligence organizations will weaponize their authority and the law to not only intimidate and silence political adversaries but to eliminate them altogether.
The country’s other two leading parties refuse to even work with the AfD, which, despite not agreeing on much politically, do agree that it’s in their interest to shun a party that refuses to go along with the status quo.
J.D. Vance was correct when he accused European governments of being a threat to the well-being of their own countries.
In the U.K., France, Germany, Romania, the Netherlands, and others, elitist political leaders are more committed to the EU and its demands of unfettered Islamic migration, suicidal environmental policies, and economic globalism than they are to their own people.
For example, in France, just like in Germany, various political parties joined forces in a desperate attempt to stop Le Pen’s National Rally Party from gaining power. When that didn’t work, they used lawfare and the courts to try to stop it.
There is very little ideological diversity tolerated in Europe: There are leftists and leftists-lite, if you will.
The ruling class — no matter what point they feel most comfortable on the left side of the political spectrum — are all elitists and globalists. They are authoritarian by nature and they will crush any dissent — or dissenters — from the EU’s wishes.
Their unwritten slogan is essentially: “You will live in an impoverished, dark, and crime-ridden cesspool, and you will like it.”
The average European doesn’t want this future for themselves, their families, or their country.
However, they must recognize that their “betters” will not give up easily on their dystopian goals and so the people must be equally resolute in their defiance.
Just as the people of eastern Europe peacefully stood up against their communist overlords four decades ago, the people of western Europe must also take a stand against their own destruction and enslavement by refusing to be silenced.
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