German spy agency declares far-right AfD 'extremist' entity

Germany’s internal spy agency, BfV, has declared the far-right, neo-Nazi party Alternative for Germany (AfD) as an “extremist” entity.

In the 2025 German elections, the AfD came second with 20.8 per cent vote and 152 of 630 seats. Polls have shown that the AfD has risen in popularity in the weeks since the elections.

Over the past decade, the AfD has emerged as a leading political force on the back of its anti-immigrant and isolationist platform in reaction to Germany’s migration, economic, and security crises. While even mainstream parties have started addressing these issues in recent years, what sets AfD apart is the party’s association with the neo-Nazi movement in Europe. Some of the leading members of the party have overt affiliation with the movement.

While the extremist designation allows the authorities to keep a track of AfD’s activities more closely, it is also expected to fuel further support for the party as the party is bound to play the victim card and claim suppression at the hand of Germany’s political mainstream.

In 2020, the Der Flugel faction of the AfD was declared extremist. The faction was so extremist that the party formally dissolved it later. In 2021, the AfD was declared as a ‘suspected extremist’ entity and the party’s youth wing, JA, was declared as an extremist entity the next year.

AfD not compatible with democratic order, says BfV

In a statement following the extremist designation, the BfV said that AfD’s categorisation of certain categories of citizens as second-class humans is not compatible with Germany’s democratic order.

“The ethnicity- and ancestry-based conception of the people that predominates within the party is not compatible with the free democratic order. It aims 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,” read the statement, as per DW News.

The AfD considers German citizens from immigrant background as second-class citizens just like the Nazis considered people other than the so-called Aryan people as second-class people.

Such categorisation has led to individuals and groups being “defamed and vilified” and has stirred up “irrational fears and hostility toward them”, as per BfV.

In Germany, the BfV (Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution) has a unique mandate of spying on political parties to ensure that they do not have an extremist character. Such spying is part of BfV’s mandate to safeguard the democratic and constitutional character of Germany.

Now that the AfD has the extremist designation, the authorities can use secret methods to monitor the party, such as the recruitment of confidential informants and interception of communications, according to Reuters.

The AfD is part of far-right parties in Europe that are supportive of Russia and China and are seen as a threat to European security. In February, AfD leader Alice Weidel’s yearslong secret relationship with a senior Chinese diplomat was revealed.

The AfD is one of the far-right parties that the Donald Trump administration of the United States has endorsed in Europe. Vice President JD Vance and Elon Musk have met Weidel. Vance has thrashed Germany’s mainstream parties for keeping AfD out of political power as per their ‘firewall’ — the mainstream parties have mutually decided to keep AfD out of political power owing to its extremist character.

AfD’s many ties to Nazism

Even though AfD rose in popularity in reaction to Germany’s immigration, economic, and security crisis, the party has associations with the revival of Nazism in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. Notably, AfD leader Weidel’s grandfather was a Nazi judge appointed by Nazi tyrant Adolf Hiler himself.

Senior leaders of AfD have repeatedly downplayed the Nazi regime and glorified Hitler.

AfD co-founder Alexander Gauland has dismissed the Nazi regime as a “speck of bird poop” in German history. For context, the Nazis murdered over 6 million Jews in the Holocaust and caused millions of other deaths as a result of World War II that they unleashed.

In 2018, then-AfD youth wing regional leader Lars Seinke declared Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, who unsuccessfully tried to kill Hitler in 1944, a traitor and a coward. He also said that Hitler was forced to invade Poland in 1939 — the invasion triggered the World War II.

Bjorn Hocke, one of the most outspoken leaders of the party, has often praised Hitler and invoked him in the AfD’s affairs.

Last year, Hocke raised a banned Nazi slogan during AfD’s election campaign. He has previously described a Holocaust memorial as a “monument of shame” and said it was wrong to treat Hitler as “absolutely evil”. He has also called for a “180-degree turnaround in the politics of remembrance” of Holocaust.

Maximilian Krah, AfD’s member in the European parliament, has said that a member of Nazi paramilitary organisation SS —which carried out the Holocaust— is “not automatically a criminal”.

Siegbert Droese, a senior figure in the AfD, has openly admired Hitler by posting photographs from Hitler’s headquarters and driving a car with a number plate associated with Hitler.