The German Federal Office for Protection of the Constitution (BfV) has announced it categorised the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as “definitely right-wing extremist”.
The ruling on May 2 was the culmination of a multi-year investigation into the party that began officially in February 2021. That came when the BfV officially placed AfD under “suspicion of right-wing extremism” – allowing it to monitor the party legally.
AfD challenged that decision but the German courts threw out the party’s appeals in 2022 and 2024.
News that the Constitution watchdog was planning to categorise the entire AfD as “definitely right-wing extremist” first came out in February 2024. Previously, the BfV had labelled the AfD regional organisations in the states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia as well as the party’s youth organisation as right-wing extremist.
The BfV reports to the German interior ministry, led since 2021 by Nancy Faeser, a Social Democratic Party (SPD) politician under a coalition government spearheaded by SPD and the Greens party.
The latest categorisation came out just days before Faeser and her colleagues leave office on May 6 to make way for the incoming Christian Democratic Union (CDU)-SPD government.
Faeser claimed that the Constitution watchdog had come to its conclusion independently. “There has not been any political influence on the new report,” she said.
The AfD received 21 per cent of the vote in the February 2025 general election – making it the second-biggest faction in parliament after the CDU. The categorisation as right-wing extremist may serve as a basis for other parties to achieve a total ban of AfD as a party.
The new decision was based on a 1,100-page investigative report, stating AfD’s “ethnic understanding of the German people” and its “systematic agitation against migrants and refugees” contradicted the “free and democratic basic order”.
The BfV also said the party would not present Germans with an unbiased history of migration, particularly those from Muslim countries, as equal citizens.
The report itself, though, will not be officially published as it is “reserved for internal use”, according to the BfV.
German newspaper “Welt” published three examples for supposed “right-wing extremism” from the confidential report. They include quotes from AfD representatives such as
- “We have to be able to decude who may even belong to this people and who does not. Being German is about more than just having a certificate of citizenship. We are linked by much more than just a commong language. […] Each of you [addressing the audience] is much more connected with me than some Syrian or Afghan and I do not have to explain it, it is a law of nature.”
- “Diversity means multiculturalism. And what does multiculturalism mean? Multiculturalism means loss of traditions, loss of identity, loss of homeland, murder, manslaughter, and gang rape.”
- “Misguided migration policy and abuse of asylum have caused the import of 100,000s of people from deeply backwards and misogynistic culture.”
The report’s findings were applauded on the Left.
Gert Wöllmann, a Liberal politician, wrote that “anybody with eyes and ears” could have known that AfD was right-wing extremist.
Katrin Göring-Eckhart, a Greens party politician and vice-president of the German Bundestag or parliament, urged the Constitutional Court to investigate banning AfD as a party.
AfD representatives have attributed the BfV’s decision to their own party’s success.
AfD MEP Alexander Sell posted a recent voter survey on X that showed the AfD topping the polls. “The greatest threat to democracy in are politicians who have been voted out of office and their accomplices in the authorities and public broadcasting,” he stated.
Andreas Winhardt, a State MP for AfD in Bavaria, called the BfV a “shield and sword of the establishment parties”.
Beatrix von Storch, deputy chairman of AfD in the Bundestag criticised that the confidential report was apparently being passed on to journalists, while her party had to sue the government to even see the document. She accused the BfV of “deliberately stirring up public opinion” by leaking bits of information to the press.
