The AfD also isn't the first party which got the label, the AfD is just the latest reincarnation of the NPD (since the 1960s) and the so-called Republicans ('Die Republikaner') since the 1980s. There's also various smaller splinter-organizations which are more openly right-extremist than the AfD but at best play a minor role in municipal elections).
[1] https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/thueringen/afd-rechtsextremis...
[2] https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/deutschland/afd-sachs...
[3] https://www.rnd.de/politik/wo-gelten-afd-und-junge-alternati...
The AfD is known for their narratives of perpetual victimhood. They conveniently ignore any and all proof, and hope that their followers only get their information from them. It has worked great so far so it'll probably continue to work.
So yeah, regular right wing compared to American standards but I think we can all agree that respecting the trias politica is a good thing in any country.
This would be like declaring the entire American Republican Party extreme-far right because of a few whack jobs like the Proud Boys.
Opposition parties are extremely important to a properly functioning democracy.
What is so extreme and dangerous about the actual current AfD party members other than their anti-immigration stance?
I'll abstain from making any moral judgements about this, I don't feel qualified to do so but I understand that the historical context places a very large role in Germany.
Any association with Nazi's is condemned in the harshest way. The AfD has crossed that line several times in the past.
"The party's prevailing ethnic and descent-based understanding of the people is not compatible with the free democratic basic order. It aims to exclude certain population groups from equal participation in society, to subject them to unequal treatment that does not conform to the constitution and thus to assign them a legally devalued status. Specifically, the AfD does not consider German citizens with a history of migration from Muslim countries, for example, to be equal members of the German people as defined by the party in ethnic terms."
Translated with deepl from https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/SharedDocs/pressemitteilung...
(even if parts of the AfD may not be openly fascists, they still tolerate them in leading positions)
Germany has a wide range of political parties that cover the entire political spectrum. A party of extremists is not needed for a strong opposition. What German politics needs is momentum, and the will to actually get stuff done, even if it'll be unpopular. The fact that the AfD managed to use and abuse that mindset to gain popularity does not make them the right ones to make a positive impact. In fact, even putting their extremism aside, their contrarian and anti-progressive "everything new is woke" mentality is the exact opposite of what the country needs, for all I care.
I've answered your last question in a sibling comment to yours.[1]
Also their retoric: their default stance is the fundamental attribution error (my ingroup failed because we were betrayed/cheated, your outgroup failed because you are lazy/bad/inferior). When your bonapartist (which is cesarism+nationalism basically) ideology is tinted (or tainted I would say, but I'm biased) with that reasoning mistake, you're close to fascism. Some people could call them post-fascists, but to me post-fascism died in Italy in the 80s (not true, I have a post-fascist friend, but they're extremely rare). Because they're too dumb to have real 'thinkers' (and they don't read anyway), they rehash old ideas and dunk everything at the wall to see what stick (which can work l), to me they're closer to proto-fascists (see Balkan nationalists the the late 19th century).
Correct, both have an agenda of subverting the rule of law to violate human rights of immigrants, under a flag of white nationalism. There is a single word for this.
Both the GOP and the AFD are acting extra-constitutionally. Trump's administration has shown to Europeans that needed a reminder how dangerous these politics can be.
(Not German, so I don't know. Honest questions from an incomplete understanding.)
Europeans have been reminded of the dangers of right-wing populism with what's currently happening in America.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - John F. Kennedy
And yet... in the US at least, we have an avenue for that. Change the laws. The Constitution forbids what you want to do? You can change that, too. That's the route that you're supposed to take.
If you won't, and you say so publicly, and the people are willing to vote for you anyway... then the powers that be are in a tough spot. They have (at least somewhat legitimate) grounds for excluding you. And yet, they risk your popular support deciding that the system will not accept them.
What they should be doing is figuring out the reason so many people support those who want to tear down the system, and find a way to give them most of what they want within the system, and campaign on that, to cut the ground out from the outside-the-system party. But that may require more competence and savvy than the powers that be have shown...
They promised they'll do it. They have ideology consistent with doing it. They got caught talking about how they'll do it.
They need to be stopped not only before they are in total control and do it, they need to be stopped before they shift the Overton window.
No, come on, they never wrote this. Someone else wrote:
> Both the GOP and the AFD are acting extra-constitutionally.
And they asked if that was true, as well as for more details about the AFD's real political actions. That's it. It does not even remotely suggest they think the party is not extremist; in fact, they go as far as to say they have no first-hand knowledge of the situation as an explanation for the questions.
The reality is that he feels far right because most of the western world has become extreme-far left. I can think of tons of former Democrats who have been alienated by how far left the Democrats have become on social issues. Besides Donald Trump, there is also Elon Musk (he was a huge supporter of Barack Obama), Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and even Bill Maher (who is no fan of Donald Trump by any stretch of the imagination) frequently criticizes how far left the party has become.
EDIT: I’m talking about social left versus right, not economic. For the record, I think the left versus right distinction doesn’t really work given the complex modern political landscape. For Europeans that may be unaware, gay marriage and LGBT rights were actually a controversial political issue in the 90s and even early 2000s with even many Democrats refusing to back it. Barack Obama famously “evolved” his stance on this issue.
https://time.com/3816952/obama-gay-lesbian-transgender-lgbt-...
https://theconversation.com/same-sex-marriage-is-under-attac...
Trump's administration's opposes feminism, unions, socialized healthcare, welfare programs, university funding, legal abortions, climate change recognition, student debt forgiveness, gay marriage, trans identify...
They also: deport citizens without due process, enforce the "unitary executive theory", defund government institutions, remove health regulations, reduce taxes...
None of these things are left-wing, by any conceivable definition of "left-wing". What the fuck are you even saying about how the rest of the world has been shifting "extreme-far left"? It clearly hasn't.
Tell me again how the weak neoliberal party has gotten far-left? Do you think gay marriage is communism or something? Because I don't see the democrats advocating for socialized ownership of the means of production or other crazy shit. Mostly they hold mild and boring technocratic views on everything, and are sometimes slightly progressive when it's convenient.
This exclusionary understanding of the people is the starting point and ideological basis for continuous agitation against certain people or groups of people, with which they are defamed and disparaged across the board and irrational fears and rejection of them are stirred up. This can be seen in the large number of ongoing anti-foreigner, anti-minority, anti-Islam and anti-Muslim statements made by leading party functionaries.
Translated via deepl from https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/SharedDocs/pressemitteilung...
It would be an extreme view to say a person who immigrated to Germany and recently attained citizenship has more German ancestry than someone who was born in Germany to parents who were born in Germany but I don't think anyone is saying that. The point is just that "unequal German" doesn't make sense because German is referring to citizenship; it's either "German" or "not German", never "German, but lesser".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_democratic_basic_order
There were calls to ban the party when it was reported party members were at a meeting of neo-Nazis where a “master plan” to expel millions of people from Germany was discussed, including asylum seekers, foreigners with residency rights and “unassimilated citizens”.
The AfD were shut out of coalition government by the “firewall”, an agreement by mainstream parties not to work with those deemed too extreme.
JD Vance, the US vice-president, criticised the firewall as anti-democratic.’ [0]
There is plenty more on the subject [1, 2, 3, 4].
> They just seem to be regular right wing by American standards.
This might be a comment on the state of American politics as much as it is on Germany’s.
[0] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/05/02/afd-classi...
[1] https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-jd-vance-is-wrong-about-afd...
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx88nwy934go
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/25/afd-readmits-t...
[4] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-02/german-spy-agency-lab...
Do you really think the Russians would ever support a Neo Nazi party after what happened in WW2?
That's propaganda.
Sorry for the throwaway, but has Europe moved too much to the left that AfD seems like a far-right party or has America moved too much to the right that something like AfD and Trump seem like "regular right"?
The fact you have neo-nazis supporting this "regular right" should tell you that at least some of the talking points fit their views.
Something else that we should keep in mind is that there are politicians in Europe that have views similar to Bush, Nixon, etc, and I don't see anyone calling them "far-right". Conservative? Yes. Not far-right.
The main reason for the classification seems to be their worldview based on "Blood" and what they consider as a "True German", and how they want to deport (or worse) anyone who does not match this view. Their plans are similar to what is happening under Trump now, but some steps further.
And lets not talk about all the other s** around culture and science. But these are not illegal.
I'm not sure why you scare quoted illegals. I refuse to use the Orwellian Newspeak that is "undocumented." They have "documents." Just not ones that give them any right to legally be in our country, hence why illegal is the correct term.
The Biden administration encouraged mass illegal immigration into our country on unprecedented scale and it has resulted in a lot of very serious problems, so yes extreme deportation measures are absolutely justified. There are several cases of people who have been violently assaulted or even murdered by violent gang members and criminals who came here illegally. There are people who have suffered horrifically for this and people who would still be alive today if our immigration laws had been properly enforced. Even many of the illegal immigrants themselves are suffering as victims of sex trafficking, poverty wages, indentured servitude, or dying of heat exhaustion in false panels of vehicles that are smuggling them into the country packed like sardines.
Adding to that, they are a costly strain upon our infrastructure and social support systems. Car insurance premiums rose due to the massive rise in uninsured motorists. They have exacerbated already sky high housing costs because they need to live somewhere. When they get sick they go to the emergency room because they lack health insurance. Some of you will say, well that's why you should just have socialized medicine, but it ignores the point that we do not have socialized medicine, which means that someone has to foot the bill for their ER visits for non-emergency medical care. Many of them turn to crime because their opportunities for legal employment are non-existent. They are also a burden on our already struggling public education system, particularly since so many of them do not speak fluent English. They also depress wages. There is a myth that they perform jobs that Americans don't want to do. The truth is that they perform jobs for cheaper than Americans are willing to do them.
Edit: aaand it's flagged.
Then again, I have the same complaint about reddit (which has flairs, but doesn't let you blacklist them because then you'd be able to filter out all the ragebait)
I wish the Germans the best of luck and reiterate that declaring war on their own energy supply was probably a mistake.
Now, if this should happen and all that, I don't know, but it doesn't seem to be a new thing in Germany (or in other countries like the US where the FBI classifies groups too). In any case and independently of my political views, I can see why a country with Germany's past flags anything that leaves the centre of the political spectrum. I also can see why they're paying attention to this party... their positions about Russia, funding, etc, should raise some red flags.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Office_for_the_Protect...
The ruling clases are blinded by their greed. Throw the starving people more than a few crumbs and the appeal of extremist parties will drain away. Its politics 101.
they want to overthrow the foundations of the constitutions. turn human rights back into birthright citizen rights and then likes.
that's why they are considered right extreme.
the election outcome is much more a success if their campaigning on slander platforms and bubble platforms like X and tiktok.
Musks very actively supported their campaign not just through personal public endorsement but also through active support on X.
incomingpain•13h ago
>The AfD came second in federal elections in February, winning a record 152 seats in the 630-seat parliament with 20.8% of the vote.
What does this give german intelligence the power to do?
The german government is now monitoring the telephone, internet, and intercepting emails of their political opponents?
They MAY also be using informants and undercover agents?
The federal ministry of the interior MAY confiscate all the party's assets and shutdown everything including their websites?
stop50•13h ago
sjsdaiuasgdia•10h ago
https://archive.is/g6ElI
> Following his failed Beer Hall Putsch of November 1923, Hitler had renounced trying to overthrow the Weimar Republic by violent means but not his commitment to destroying the country’s democratic system, a determination he reiterated in a Legalitätseid—“legality oath”—before the Constitutional Court in September 1930. Invoking Article 1 of the Weimar constitution, which stated that the government was an expression of the will of the people, Hitler informed the court that once he had achieved power through legal means, he intended to mold the government as he saw fit. It was an astonishingly brazen statement.
> “So, through constitutional means?” the presiding judge asked.
> “Jawohl!” Hitler replied.
mamonster•12h ago
At a minimum, this will be used as the basis for removing any talk of coalitions/joint votes etc within the CDU, so Merz or anyone after him can't attempt to go around the Brandmauer(mind you, this will be enforced by the parties themselves, not via law or anything). You can expect the same thing as with FN/RN in France before the developments within the last 2 years, i.e any right wing party not voting resolutions that are submitted by AfD even if they are 95% identical to what is in their own programme.
I think the likely action is that they will attempt to "purge" the Flügel part of the party, with or without the help of Weidel.For example, Marine Le Pen purged the problematic elements of the old guard of FN by herself and "normalised" the party within 10 years.
vladvasiliu•11h ago
But I think this contributes to the general distrust of the population towards incumbent politicians.
I don't know about Germany, but in France the situation becomes ridiculous to the point of resembling a bunch of kindergarten kids: "I won't vote for your law 'cause I don't like you".
And now, whenever you don't like somebody, they're helpfully some "extremist", so they obviously can't propose anything good.
If everyone's an extremist, that word soon loses its meaning. See: the boy who cried wolf. People are getting tired of this crap and can see trying to outlaw a growing party for "extremism" as a shameless political tactic. Which means actual extremists may go unnoticed.
MaKey•11h ago
What makes you think that the AfD isn't a right-wing extremist party?
vladvasiliu•10h ago
My point was rather to note that similar things happen in France, with incumbent politicians trying to convince voters that the French RN is the more extreme the more they gain traction. But pretty much everybody who says anything else than "we should abolish borders and allow any and all immigrants who wish to come" or even "maybe we should do something about crime" is labeled "fascist", "extreme right", etc.
This has been confirmed to me when a French party (LR) which is absolutely not "far right" or anything like that and is actually one of the old "governing" parties, was labeled as such by the left when one of their ministers tried to broach the subject of immigration.
So, I'm skeptical when I see some random mainstream politician, who's party is sinking, call this or that party "extreme right", "fascist", or other loaded terms.
To me this just looks like posturing and name-calling. Nobody tries to prove that this or that party's programme sucks big time on concrete metrics (and they'd actually have a point about the RN). They just appeal to voters' sentiment. Which, after a while, gets old.
Tadpole9181•8h ago
Also:
> But pretty much everybody who says anything else than "we should abolish borders and allow any and all immigrants who wish to come" or even "maybe we should do something about crime" is labeled "fascist", "extreme right", etc.
Really lays your hand out.
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF•6h ago
Sure, but that doesn't mean they're not allowed to be skeptical; their skepticism comes from a lack of information, which is wise and healthy. Their comments don't seem to suggest that they are trying to promote "fascist" or "extreme right" ideas, just that they recognize those terms as dog whistles and choose not to respond like a rabid dog. That is especially healthy in outrage politics.
nani8ot•1h ago
Rassemblement National denied being close to the AfD because of how right-extremist the AfD is. The AfD was thrown out of the far-right group in the EU parliament because other EU far-right parties didn't want to get associated with this right-extremist party.
Freak_NL•12h ago
This happened before (it's a been a while though).
Until that happens, they are beholden to the law like any other political party. They do not appear to be singled out because they happen to be the opposition.
incomingpain•12h ago
Firstly I get the nazi thing and the laws are set to prevent another instance.
AFD obviously still exists so a court has not banned them. Innocent until proven guilty.
The flipside problem is that these anti-nazi measures can be abused, false positive type situation. The measures would of course need to be biased toward false-postives to prevent future false negatives.
>Until that happens, they are beholden to the law like any other political party. They do not appear to be singled out because they happen to be the opposition.
I guess that's where i disagree. It looks like to me that the politicians are abusing powers. That the afd growth of doubling their power since last election and AFD is now polling in first place.
So to win the next election they need to essentially remove AFD from being an option; or lose.
danhor•11h ago
A court can only ban them after the parliament has voted to ban them. One of the hurdles on getting the parliament to vote on this topic has been the outstanding decision by this body, if it's really "gesichert rechtsextrem". At least in many previous cases surrounding this question (mostly libel cases), courts have argued that the specific people these cases were about could be seen as "outside of the democratic spectrum".
> The measures would of course need to be biased toward false-postives to prevent future false negatives.
Certainly, that's why both the parliament and the highest court have to decide, with previous instances sometimes not coming through (for example, the NPD for not being relevant even though they were certainly Nazis).
> That the afd growth of doubling their power since last election and AFD is now polling in first place. So to win the next election they need to essentially remove AFD from being an option; or los
There would be no reason to ban a party if they could be ignored (see the NPD), you only need to ban extreme parties if they're popular. If the AfD were at 3% this would be a much smaller topic, since there would be no foreseeable risk. But even with the AfD at much lower than <15%, this was very much an area of concern, with steady (legal, as with this classification and previous ones concerning subgroups) progress towards establishing their extremist status.
vladvasiliu•9h ago
But this is the problem. It means that a party being illegal isn't such a big deal in and of itself. It's only a problem if it challenges the mainstream parties. You can see why people would think it's just a political maneuver if they're trying to ban X party only when many people vote for them. Bonus points for this party portending to "represent the voiceless" or whatever.
If some party is illegal for whatever reason, it should be banned right away. Just because you can ignore it doesn't mean it should be ignored. It would also be much easier to prevent having a sizeable chunk of the population vote for an "illegal" party and the headaches coming from that once it becomes big enough.
ttepasse•7h ago
> ... right away
Apart from the constitutional hurdles there is also the question of "right away": The AfD of the early 2010s is not the same party as today. Back then they were ... well cranky but not extreme. Banning it in 2013 would have been unjust. Over the decade it moved further and further to the right. Pretty much all the founders and bigwigs of the early generation left the party and distanced themselves from it. But radicalisation is a process not a binary switch from one day to the next.
danhor•5h ago
Yes, this is what the constitutional court decided.
> If some party is illegal for whatever reason, it should be banned right away.
It should be hard (and is very hard) to ban a party. Thus if every party illegal should be banned right away, a large amount of effort would need to go into banning by the highest legislative and judicial bodies in the nation. It's furthermore quite hard to definitively establish a party as such, which further makes such things much slower (calls to ban the AfD have been happening for more than a decade now).
aaronbaugher•11h ago