The youth organization of the AfD is now being observed by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a secured right-wing extremist effort. As the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) announced on Wednesday, in addition to the Junge Alternative (JA), two other groups of the so-called New Right – the Institute for State Politics (IfS) and the association “One Percent” – are now classified accordingly by the authority . All three associations had previously been processed by the domestic intelligence service as suspected right-wing extremist cases.
“There is no longer any doubt that these three groups of people are pursuing anti-constitutional efforts,” said BfV President Thomas Haldenwang. “They are therefore classified and processed by the BfV as secured right-wing extremist efforts.”
In the communication from his authority it says: “The JA propagates a folkish concept of society that is based on basic biological assumptions”. Migrants of non-European origin are excluded from the Young Alternative as “fundamentally not integrable”. In particular, immigrants with a – supposedly – ??Muslim background are generally said to have negative characteristics, such as cultural backwardness and a strong tendency towards crime and violence. When it comes to defaming and slandering political opponents, the JA is obviously not dealing with a political dispute, “but with a general disparagement of the democratic system in the Federal Republic of Germany”.
Last October, the JA had elected the AfD member of the Bundestag Hannes Gnauck as its federal chairman. He and other JA members maintain contacts with the Institute for State Politics in Saxony-Anhalt, whose best-known representative is the publisher Götz Kubitschek. The idea propagated by the IfS, “that there is a German people beyond the national people defined in the Basic Law as all German nationals, implies a reduction of naturalized nationals to second-class Germans,” according to the statement by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. In addition, according to the intelligence service, “violations of the principles of democracy and the rule of law” can be identified in this association. In the network of the New Right, the IfS occupies a strategically important role from the point of view of the protection of the constitution.
According to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the “One Percent” association propagates positions that are racist, hostile to immigrants, xenophobia and Muslims. In recent years, an increase in anti-constitutional statements has been noted.
The AfD had tried to use legal means to prevent the observation of the JA and the entire party as a suspected case. However, both lawsuits failed before the administrative court in Cologne. The party later appealed the verdicts. The proceedings at the Higher Administrative Court in Münster have not yet been completed.
If there is a suspicion, there are “sufficiently weighty factual indications” of anti-constitutional efforts. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution can then evaluate and store personal data. Even in suspicious cases, the Federal Office can use intelligence resources under strict conditions, i.e. secretly obtain information – for example through observation or recruiting informants. After a certain period of time, the duration of which is not regulated by law at federal level, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution decides whether the suspicion is confirmed or not.
The classification as a proven extremist effort has concrete consequences: The proportionality of the use of intelligence resources is assessed differently. If a security check is carried out on someone who is associated with an extremist movement – for example because he or she is applying for a license to own weapons – what the Office for the Protection of the Constitution delivers is different. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution also reports in more detail on the findings available to it. “It is the task and duty of the BfV to educate the public about such efforts in order to protect the free democratic basic order,” said Haldenwang. The propagation of enemy images and the stoking of resentment in the population are generally suitable “to prepare the ground for unpeaceful behavior towards those affected”.
