Germany – AfD party

I taught humanities to hundreds of students at two international schools in Germany over a period of several years. My primary subject was history and each time it came to covering World War II, British kids were excited; American kids were broadly well-informed; and the German kids dreaded it. Their heads dropped at the very mention of the unit. I vividly remember Laura, an 8th grader, say, “We’re the bad guys and everyone hates us. We did nothing—our parents weren’t even born.” That is quite a weight to carry before a single class had been taught.

In the aftermath of the European elections last Sunday, the German establishment has been trying to come to terms with radically altered political realities. Despite advance polls predicting a notable shift to the Right, the result still shook the country. Less than a third of voters stuck with the parties of the ruling centre-left coalition, and the Right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) became the second largest political force after the conservative Union. Young people in particular defied expectations, many turning their backs on the Greens and switching to the Right.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, or BfV), Germany’s domestic intelligence service, has argued that the populist far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) is anti-constitutional. It therefore classified the political party as a “suspected case” in 2021.

The party took legal action against this decision at the Cologne Administrative Court, but was unsuccessful. A higher regional court in western Germany has now confirmed that ruling, meaning the AfD may be classified as a “suspected” far-right extremist organization.

The court proceedings have drawn attention to a state organization that acts as an early warning system to detect threats to democracy, and is one of Germany’s most important intelligence agencies. It gathers intelligence while coordinating information gathered by the 16 state-level intelligence agencies.

Police in the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg said two politicians were attacked in the city of Stuttgart on Wednesday evening.

The two, who were identified as state lawmakers from the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), suffered slight injuries, police said.

The incident is the latest attack on politicians in Germany, following days of violence against multiple left-leaning and Greens politicians.

“Far Right”

German federal interior minister Nancy Faeser and the interior ministers of Germany’s sixteen states are debating on the evening of Tuesday, May 7th, whether to increase the police presence at political events in order to protect politicians from physical assaults.

The extraordinary meeting was called after Matthias Ecke, a Social Democrat member of the European Parliament, was brutally attacked by four teenagers on Friday, leaving him hospitalised and in need of surgery. The incident provoked uproar all across the country, and violence against politicians was widely condemned. However, mainstream parties immediately blamed the opposition anti-immigration, anti-globalist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) for the attack—not for actual involvement in any form, but for “sowing discord” within society.

Young people are more likely to vote for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) than previously, a study on Tuesday showed.

Authors of the “Youth in Germany 2024” study said that under-30s were increasingly disgruntled with their social and economic situation, and that fears about future prosperity were driving a shift to the right.

The AfD’s signature issue is a hard-line anti-immigration stance, and the data showed that migration was among young people’s main concerns.

The mother of Loretta, a 16-year-old student recently removed from class and interrogated by police after she allegedly expressed support for Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and posted right-wing content online, has filed a lawsuit to overturn the actions of the school leadership and local police.

The German Union parties (CDU/CSU) are again considering backing an initiative by the left-globalist ‘traffic light’ coalition to amend Germany’s constitution in an attempt to keep the anti-establishment Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party from influencing the Federal Constitutional Court.

Negotiations between the Union and the governing parties concerning the latter’s proposed draft law—framed as necessary to ‘protect’ the court from ‘extremists’—began in late January but concluded shortly thereafter when the CDU and CSU stated that they found no compelling reason for the constitutional amendment.

Former Stasi memorial chief says the case is reminiscent of “East Germany when pacifist patches or a plastic bag from the West led to interrogation.”

In service of Germany’s increasingly anti-pluralistic state apparatus, the country’s mainstream press is striving to justify the state’s political intimidation of Loretta, a 16-year-old student who recently was removed from class and questioned by police for expressing support for Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and posting right-wing content online.

This week, in the wake of widespread indignation sparked by an interview with Loretta and her mother where the two discussed the incident at the 16-year-old’s high school in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Die Welt published an article with the police description of screenshots from social media that instigated the police operation.