Germany’s internal information service has sorted the far -right alternative to Germany, which some polls see as the most popular in the country as an extremist party, the German authorities said on Friday.
The classification, which allows the Agency to use more powerful surveillance tools to monitor the party and its leadership, is sure to achieve a long -term debate on whether German legislators must move to ban the party, which is known by the Germans.
“AFD supports an ethnic concept of the people that distinguish entire population groups and treats citizens with a second -class immigration background,” said Nancy Faeser, interior minister of Germany.
The Intelligence Service made its determination after a thorough monitoring and is based on the findings of a 1,100 -page report compiled by the Office to protect the Constitution.
The office was specifically created in 1950 to monitor domestic threats for the democracy of Germany from preventing any acquisition of parliament and government by extremist actors. It was an attempt by the modern founders of Germany to prevent the type of acquisition that took place in 1933, when the Nazis occupied the control of the parliament and the government in a short period of time.
AFD rejected the organization’s classification as a political move to undermine the party.
“This decision of the Office to protect the Constitution is complete nonsense in terms of substance, it has nothing to do with law and justice and is purely politician in the struggle between the Cartel parties against the AfD,” said Stephan Brandner, head of AfD, in DPA, a German News.
AFD leaders have shredded the Holocaust and defamed aliens. Alice Weidel, the most visible leader in the party, once ran against “girls wearing scarves” and “men in the knife for prosperity” in speech to legislators.
Alexander Gauland, who once led the party, described the Holocaust a stigma of “Bird Poop” – used a more vulgar word – in 1,000 years of successful German history. Another legislator, Maximilian Krah, said in an Italian newspaper interview last year that members of the SS, the infamous Nazi paramilitary storm soldiers, who, among other things, ran, ran, were not criminal.
Björn Höcke, head of the Thuringia party, was sentenced twice and fined last year for the use of a forbidden Nazi slogan during a campaign.
Party members are also involved in a plot to overthrow the state by a group that does not recognize the legality of modern German democracy. This case is still passing through the courts.
Despite the party’s extremist views during Germany’s campaign before the elections in February, the party received approval from Elon Musk, a billionaire adviser to President Trump.
The internal information service began intensive follow -up of AfD in 2021, when it described the party as “suspected” right extremist. The party tried to prevent this determination and surveillance that comes with it in court, but a supreme court ruling confirmed an initial ruling that allowed the sort of sorting last year.
The Intelligence Service sorted the party’s youth wing as an extremist in 2023. The party has dissolved it since.
The new sorting gives domestic intelligence more tools to monitor AfD. It also opens a legal way to prohibit the Constitutional Court by the Party, a step that Germany the Supreme Court has only taken twice in the 76 -year history of the modern Constitution of Germany, and twice with parties much less poplar than AfD.
A debate over whether the party will be banned is continuing from the German news area last year, said that some party leaders met with a well -known far -right activist to discuss the deportations of not only immigrants but also Germans from migratory backgrounds.
The new name for the AfD comes just a few days before Friedrich Merz, a conservative Christian, is expected to swear as a chancellor on Tuesday. Although AfD ended the second in the elections in February, Mr Merz and his party have joined the Social Democrats to form a coalition, having committed to blocking the AFD from the government.
This has left many AfD supporters feel frustrated. The party has gained support from the elections because of Mr Merz’s early robbery and his coalition and growing concerns about global affairs. Some polls show more than a quarter of voters who support the party.
