Germany’s spy agency BfV has labeled the entirety of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as an extremist entity.
The BfV domestic intelligence agency, which is in charge of safeguarding Germany’s constitutional order, said the announcement comes after an “intense and comprehensive” examination.
“The ethnicity-and ancestry-based conception of the people that predominates within the party is not compatible with the free democratic order,” the BfV said on Friday.
Hopefully this inspires the other parties to to start the process to see the AfD banned. I know the report might not look like much, because of how obvious the findings are. But previous attempts at banning them have failed because such an official report was missing. So maybe our political system starts getting its shit together.
As we say in Germany: Hope dies last
AFD should be banned… Threat to democracy tf
Learn from history and America. No half measures. If you’re going to label them extremists, you also have to break them.
Learn?
The Americans are doing the opposite - they’re complaining that AFD has been labeled an extremist organization.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/02/marco-rubio-germany-afd-00324283
America’s mistake was not putting down the movement when we had the chance. Germany has the chance to quash the AFD, and work on the issues of the nation. That’s the lesson to be learned.
This
As in learn from America when they should have locked Trump up or prevent him running again, rather than declare him a threat but ultimately do nothing and then then fall to fascism.
Greece banned golden dawn as a criminal organisation and while a lot of members splintered into other parties it was overall a success in nearly removing all their influence as a political organisation from Greek politics - so, overall banning the fascist party, at least in one instance, worked.
Wow W Greece 💯🙌🏻
Germany banned the NSDAP in 1923 and it didn’t work out.
Maybe don’t pussy out this time. It’s not like the ban wasn’t effective, it’s that they lifted the ban.
Pretending to know history ass looking MF out here advocating for the continued existence of the Nazi party based on some half knowledge he picked up from a trivia box.
I’m not advocating for not trying. Just saying that “it worked once” is not a good argument. I think the only ideology of a party that was banned in Germany that actually doesn’t matter in today’s political landscape is communism. But there still are nazis even though the NSDAP was banned twice, there still are social democrats even though they were banned for 20 years, etc.
There’s also that more recently, Germany failed to ban the NPD twice and that was this century.
I think the AfD should be banned, but the people voting for them also need to become less stupid, and a ban alone will not do that.
I mean, it political bans usually work. Troskyism died in Stalin’s Russia, and pretty much every late Cold War junta was successful at suppressing their local communist movement, even if large. Germany itself has successfully banned far-right parties in the past.
Sure, the martyr effect exists, but it’s hella overrated, basically just because people are starting with the conclusion that you can’t ban things (which may or may not have merit) and working backwards. I’m not actually aware of any case where a banned movement has succeeded alongside non-incumbent legal movements, and even in autocracies revolutions and coups usually fail.
You raise fair points, but I want to circle back to intent. Because what you’re advocating in your last sentence is hurt by your original comment.
The whole point of “it’s happened once before” is to show that something is actually possible. It’s not theoretically possible, there’s a real world example to show it.
Bringing up counterexamples does not change that.
You can show one counterexample. Ten. A hundred. A thousand examples of when something didn’t work. They don’t negate the one time it did.
And to go even further, you should frame all those counterexamples as simply learning lessons. Examples on how not to do it. Because the framing here matters. If you want someone to be smart and try to find a solution, you frame history that way.
If you’re trying to discourage others from trying, you do it the way you initially did.
IMHO, if you’re discouraged by reality, that’s not my problem. I don’t like it when people just scream “ban” but don’t actually have a plan beyond that to get 30% of the voters to not vote for the next party that uses the nazi talking points.
You say that all the counterexamples don’t negate the one time it worked, but there is no successful example of banning a nazi party in Germany. They keep coming back. Learning some lessons is exactly what is needed here, because so far the NSDAP has been banned twice, the DVFP has been banned once, the SRP has been banned once, the FAP has been banned once, the NL has been banned once, attempts to ban the NPD failed twice before they lost funding in the third attempt, and now here we are and another nazi party is polling close to 30%.
You’re missing my point, though. You pay lip service to wanting something to be done about this, but all your words only spout doom and gloom in a defeatist attitude. Your words actively betray your supposed intentions.
If you actually wanted progress in this matter, you would benefit from changing your messaging. Otherwise, you just look like every other troll that’s actually pro-nazi.
So which is it?
but don’t actually have a plan beyond that to get 30% of the voters to not vote for the next party that uses the nazi talking points.
Last time Germany banned a successful far-right party they tried this, but the new party was also quickly banned. They’re miles ahead of you on this, which makes sense given that the laws were written by people just liberated from the OG Nazis.
Which “successful far-right party” are you referring to that was banned? The only right-wing party banned by Federal Germany is the SRP, and that one was fairly small. All the other attempts ended in a different resolution (i.e. not a party ban).
The NSDAP was banned by the Allied Control Council. Denazification was the Allied Control Council too.
None of this got rid of nazis. The AfD is only the current iteration. For my entire life, there’s always been some right wing extremist party that was big enough to be regularly mentioned on the news. Sometimes they randomly disappear and then another one rises. I even remember cases where one tried to become less extremist and then disappeared as a result of that (e.g. REP).
I’m all for banning them but it’s been 80 years that WWII ended and we still don’t have a real solution that actually works.
So say they ban them……then what? You think that the most popular political party in the country isn’t going to just reform again while complying with whatever rule got them banned in the first place? Of course they will, and they’ll have the same support, if not more due to the perceived anti-democratic banning of the AfD.
Next stop authoritarian dictatorship I guess? Just ban all elections so they can’t take power?
Re-forming with a new name is covered by the ban.
The rules they’d have to comply with to circumvent the ban are antithetical to what they are.
You can play the game, but flipping the table cannot be a legal move.
There’s no way to stop a new party forming that gets all the same voters on board while meeting any rules required.
Yeah there is. The law isn’t run on cartoon logic where you can get around a ban by putting on a fake mustache and a hat.
Crybaby nazis like you crack me the fuck up.
Pray they find a valid legal reason to ban them soon now that they can mass spy on them :)
They won’t ban them. Half the German police are members
They will be banned soon
Yet the neolibs are not good for the working class. We all got a long road ahead of us. Is everybody ready for conscription and ww3.
Keep in mind the agency is run by the Government for the Government of the day with people appointed by the Government.They are far from free of their own political agenda.
“The ethnicity-and ancestry-based conception of the people that predominates within the party is not compatible with the free democratic order,”
Great news, but also ironic considering German uncritical support for Israel.
Also ironic is that banning political parties is not compatible with the free democratic order.
No existing democracy is absolute, and there’s a pretty strong argument it has to be that way.
What if I’m against immigration due to a housing bubble that is destroying the poor and dramatically increasing price to income ratios, am I a racist or a saint?
I think anyone with a brain can see that in many countries mass immigration is being used to depress wages and invert the phillips curve after QE, or to prop up GDP to avoid a technical recession in favor of a per-capita recession, which is for some reason not defined or acknowledged. It also clearly hurts the poor and benefits the rich via asset price inflation and higher rental income.
That would be a real argument, if the immigrants weren’t poor themselves and if they actually were bad for the economy as opposed to good.
The fact that you jumped in here like that in response to a barely-related comment about democracy makes me think racist.
since you asked: ", am I a racist or a saint? "
you seem to acknowledge the functionality of undermining the working class by inviting people who have even less to work for even less. And yet you chose to be vocally against immigration (since that would help with a symptom)- while you could also be pointing out the failures of the regulatory body that allows for the many to be opressed by a parasitic few or even pointing out that the parasitic few are to be taken out of the equation. Kicking down is weak.
If you want systemic change to the economic system there’s definitely an order of operations here to follow, wouldn’t you agree?
If I want to redesign a roller coaster my first step shouldn’t be to start removing the tracks while passengers are on it.
Yeah, thats dumb.
A democracy cannot exist when anti-democratic elements can seize power. In other words, violate the social contract and get your sorry fascist ass banned.
And banning opposition parties is anti-democratic. Can you think of any other German government that banned opposing political parties?
Putting someone in prison violates their freedom.
Putting someone in prison because they murdered someone is still the right thing to do.
Not at all the same thing.
Clearly I don’t agree.
The point is that in our social system we violate the rights of some when they violate the rights of others.
Or rather, your rights nd priveleges are restricted when you start using them to harm others.
The AfD have not violated anyones rights. They have a massive following who vote for them, which is growing larger and larger by the day. Banning them from elections is anti-democratic when they haven’t done anything to harm anyones rights, nor do any of their policies actually harm anyones “rights”.
What policies of theirs do you believe would violate the rights of others?
No. Banning opposition parties BECAUSE THEY ARE OPPOSITION PARTIES would be undemocratic. Banning opposition parties because they are anti democratic is not.
What you are saying is like “killing someone is murder”, while ignoring the fact that self defence is a thing that happens, is legal and is moral and IS NOT MURDER.
What about the parties policies is anti-democratic?
“The ethnicity-and ancestry-based conception of the people that predominates within the party is not compatible with the free democratic order,”
That’s not their policies, that’s what a biased spy agency said lol. It also makes zero sense as a reason to be “not compatible with the free democratic order”.
While you can argue that Individuals in the AfD are antidemocratic, I honestly do not see evidence for that on the general party level.
I read their program. Weird? Yes. Antidemocratic? No.
The Bundesverfassungsschutz has released a 1000 page report detailing their investigation and assessment. I find it unsurprising that the AfDs advertising material for an election hides their anti democratic aspects.
Look I am all for marking extremist, but it really matters on what grounds. And it matters how it is done.
Why is the report Not public? Does Not make any sense.
Why has the report not undergone internal audits as it would be standard procedure? Seems odd at least.
Its really all about „Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence“ - and no it does not matter if you personally think „it is obvious“.
Based on what I have read, hence based on what is known about the content of the report, there is no good evidence (but I could be wrong). Also no legal implications follow from this report, and based on what is known about Nancy Faeser involvment I can not deny a certain „Geschmäckle“ which is undermining the original purpose.
If you wanna do these things, they need to be done with undeniable evidence and transparency.
The report was intended for publication at a later date specifically because it had not passed the full review process yet. That’s why it’s not public. A news magazine with a reputation for investigative reporting (think German NYT but a bit more conservative leaning) has gotten their hands on at least part of the report and chose to write about it.
That is why the report is not public (yet), because it is still undergoing the internal audits you are asking for.
Yes it matters how it’s done. And they are trying to do it right. How the report got to the magazine and the motives of potential leakers are pure speculation at this point.
From what I have read (hence from what is known) it’s a 1000 page document compiled by an organisation that has had it in the past trouble when it came to persecuting right wing extremism (they covered up their involvement with a right wing terror group and a former head of the BfV was kicked out for passing information about the early stages of this investigation into the AfD to the AfD, to name just two recent examples).
If such a report makes it through such an organisation I expect it to hold more than just hear say and speculation.
no legal implications follow from this report,
That is not entirely correct. If the BfV internally accepts the report as factual it can use a wider array of tools to observe and investigate the AfD. It’s content could (again, after the review process has been completed) be published and used as evidence for administrative and legal proceedings of whatever nature. (eg a prospective teacher was prohibited from joining the Bavarian education system because of her left wing extremist political views. If the AfD is classified as a right wing extremist organisation the same could happen to AfD members).
Paradox of tolerance and whatnot… It’s not ironic. Not only is it compatible, it is essential to its existence.
It’s anti-democratic boo matter what paradox you want to try and spin it as.
This is one side who fears losing power trying to eliminate their political opponent who is rapidly gaining followers. It’s authoritarian, it’s anti-democratic, and it’s fascism. It’s LITERALLY WHAT THE NAZIS DID for crying out loud!
Democracy means the will of the people. The government banning the party that has the most supporters is the exact opposite of that.
No it’s not anti-democratic. The parties can’t ban the AFD only initiate the process. Whether the AFD is antidemocratic and a has the ability to undermine democracy is decided by the highest court. Precisely so they can’t just ban the opposition.
Banning political party is anti-democratic. When parties can initiate the process to ban other political parties, that’s anti-democratic.
When the party they’re trying to ban is also the most popular party with the people, that’s especially anti-democratic.
Banning political party is anti-democratic.
Except when it’s a nazi party. Don’t give nazis the time of day.
When the term Nazi has lost all meaning due to the left throwing it around at everything they don’t like, calling a party a “Nazi party” also means nothing and causes most people to just roll their eyes at you, and often actually look into what you’re so angry at. Maybe that’s why the AfD are gaining so many supporters?
Nothing in their policies on their website is even remotely “Nazi” adjacent.
What makes them “Nazis” in your opinion?
That is naive and reduces the entire argument to black and white.
The world is not black and white. Its not even shades of gray. It can not be simplified like that, even less the way you attempt to.
The entire argument is black and white. Democracy is black and white.
Germany supports Israel but they’re also critical of it. They have active arrest warrants for Netanyahu if he ever steps foot in their jurisdiction.
For Germany the ideal outcome would be peaceful continuation of both Israel and Palestine. If protecting one means harming the other, they will take no action. Israel is an important military stronghold against eastern powers and will continue to hold special privileges.
They have active arrest warrants for Netanyahu if he ever steps foot in their jurisdiction.
We do? Last I checked, the arrest warrant only came from the ICC, which Germany technically has to follow, but we haven’t issued our own arrest warrant, haven’t positioned ourselves clearly in support of the ICC’s warrant, and our politicians appear to be working on legal ways to not have to arrest Netanyahu if he actually comes to visit as planned by Friedrich Merz. All parties currently part of the government, with the only possible exception being The Left, seem to be way too much in favor of Israel.
You’re correct that the warrant is the ICC jurisdiction and not any other courts in Germany. As of May of last year Steffen Hebestreit representing the Olaf Scholz administration said they would.
Scholz’s spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit, was asked on Wednesday if the German government would execute an ICC arrest order against Prime Minister Netanyahu for alleged war crimes during Swords of Iron.
Hebestreit said, “Of course. Yes, we abide by the law.”
And that comes after he had been a vocal advocate of Israel up to that point.
What Hebestreit says here is not to be trusted. He is always beating around the bush when he is being asked these questions, and “we will abide by the law” most likely means “we will find every legal loophole to not have to arrest him”. In another press conference held on 2024-11-22, he was asked to clarify the wording on the released statement about the now actually issued arrest warrant, which was actually lacking a statement like the one from May about abiding by the law. When asked about it, he always responded with “I don’t have to answer, I will just refer you to what’s written in the text”, instead of simply stating that “we will abide by the law”. Furthermore, when asked what the federal government had to check before officially acknowledging the arrest warrant, he mentioned that “lawyers had to check if the ICC was even responsible for issuing such an arrest warrant”, even though Wagner, the spokesperson for the State Department, mentioned that “this court [the ICC] is independent and we respect this independence”. Nothing these spokespeople say makes any sense. They respect the independence of the ICC, but have to check if the ICC is actually responsible and has legal authority to issue an arrest warrant in this case? I’m not buying it. They stand behind the ICC and respect its independence, but only when it alligns with the views of the German federal government, which summarizes German politics as a whole quite well.
You can watch the full press conference here (relevant chapter: Haftbefehl gegen Netanjahu (Tilo), ~5:00-16:20, turn on auto-translation if you don’t speak German).
Israel is an important military stronghold against eastern powers and will continue to hold special privileges.
Tell me all the times Israelis have died to protect their Western allies.
Tell it to World Power governments, not me. Iran is in thick with Russia and China and I don’t see any middle eastern nations lining up to join NATO.
“But previous attempts at banning them have failed because such an official report was missing.”
Man, this is peak modern society, and the absurdity makes me laugh. I don’t mean that in a derisive way, more in a "wow, making democracy work is haaard ". Hopefully this will lead to something positive though, even if I’m anxious that banning a party like the AfD may lead to some things worsening.
YOU DON’T SAY
And what will Germany do about it? NOTHING!
They can mass spy on them now and get a valid legal reason to ban them with proof
It’s been led than a day chill.
I’m not super hopeful either, but this is already more than I expected, so we’ll see where things go
Punch left as hard as possible.
This is what we need to do with The Heritage Foundation and MAGA in the US. The extremes are usually bad whether they’re left or right.
The US has an extreme left? the US has a left!?
Saying “the extreme left is also bad”, in the context of the US having a massive Republican/rightwing extremist problem that’s regressing the country and plaguing the entire world, is like the captain of the Titanic going “But sand dunes are also not great!”
I could also add, any extreme view or opinion is likely bad in my opinion, and overcorrecting course from one extreme to the opposite extreme is usually a bad idea.
To keep with your analogy, it’s like if the titanic decided to steer to avoid the iceberg so hard it beached itself on a sand dune.
No, it’s not whether left or right. The right are the ones trying to put people in camps.
When you start eluding towards banning democratic parties, you lose all credibility
What are you even referring to? I assume you talk about the Nazi party AfD, which by no means is a democratic party. As a reminder: democratically elected != democratic party. And why do you think the left is banning them? They are not even in charge… But anyway, I really do hope they ban these fascist assholes before they get into power and replay the third reich.
Better to guillotine people instead, right?
Most of the “left” is also pretty openly supporting Israel’s genocide. No, it’s not just the extreme right that’s bad.
You need to meet the actual left, not right-of-centre parties like the US Democrats. Only in the USA does anyone think the Democratic Party is “the left”. The left itself is very much not supportive of Israel’s genocide.
That’s why I had “left” in quotes
If you see that extremely moderate (aka Democratic, aka not left) position as the “extreme left”, then people who would ban cars are basically ISIS for you?
That’s a good point, the democratic party in usa is basically center these days, not even left.
My point was that there are bad people on both sides, but in general, I consider "extreme’ anything something to be avoided. For example, extreme “communists” (i.e. “tankies”) could be considered left, and I’d certainly avoid that. Other example is, when supporting Palestine turns into real antisemitism by attacking all jews instead of Israel. Anyways, you made a good point.
And now we steer the discussion back to Israel, so everybody stays home and the right wins like they want.
Fucking morons, letting yourself be played like instruments .
assuming this is a reference to people that didn’t vote cause “biden bad” and let trump win, did I ever suggest that was a good idea? of course if was better to vote for the lesser evil, but it doesn’t change the face that the “left” supported israel’s genocide.
It is a good point that others have made, though, that most “extreme” left doesn’t support that
Sure, go have a civil war. Let’s see who is the benefactor of it and who is looking for a reason to implement martial law, and has basically beging for it for years.
Extremists all get played by the same source.
[citation needed]
Well, look at the vast majority of our democrat politicians…
American Democrats =/= political left
I understand, but I think that was the point the first guy was trying to make.
thank you
It was a pretty bad point. They were entering a discussion about extremes and brought up center-right politicians.
AfD are Nazis in all but name. How is it they remain unprosecuted in a nation where swastikas and the Hitler salute are outlawed?
People get really jumpy about going against public political choice in a democracy, which is fair, but I think there’s been error in the other direction.
They’re not just nazis, they’re nazis sponsored and funded by putin.
This is documented, but racists would rather support their literal enemy than dare accept changing their worldview in any way.
Foreign anti-interference laws address your first point. If they arent effective, thats easily resolved in parliment.
Don’t conflate foreign interest with genuine opposition, I would be very surprised if there wasnt any. This is the Democratic system working. The hubris of the left is suicidal.
Foreign anti-interference laws address your first point. If they arent effective, thats easily resolved in parliment.
They’re not, they need to be reviewed and improved.
Especially since it’s hard to legislate out foreign influence as they are, by definition, foreign.
It’s not that there is no genuine opposition, it’s that the amount of effort needed to tip the scales is surprisingly small.
Understand these tools were developed to control totalitarian societies, influencing democracies is trivial in comparison.
Especially since it’s hard to legislate out foreign influence as they are, by definition, foreign.
You punish those in your country who are selling out to foreign influence.
Great, I agree.
But how do you know?
Whats the difference between normal, violent racism of your worthless trash, and right wing hate inspired by Russian trolls to divide the west?
Plausible deniability but they do get in trouble pretty routinely. The last big one iirc was the poster with the two kids saluting each other to form a roofline with a kitchy caption about housing.
https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/afd-accused-nazi-symbolism-election-germany-hm8dv7nql
Holy shit the times is bad on mobile. Image link for those that want it
Sorry it’s reddit. But it’s actually viewable
“In trouble” in this case is bad press. OP was commenting on prosecution given other stuff that’s illegal in Germany. Or did I miss someone getting arrested for the poster?
Iirc they asked how is it and the article goes into it and go figure it’s the Elon “we didn’t know no better” excuse. They just barely skirt what is and isn’t legal and from what I hear they have a legal team that helps them stay just inside the law while still being partl outwardly
One of the main contributors is probably that the last time they tried banned an extremist party on the right (the NPD) it didn’t work because they didn’t present enough evidence according to the courts, that made everyone involved hesitant this time (or at least that is the excuse they used). Or rather, it failed twice, once because they had agents within the party and the other time for lack of evidence. Obviously obtaining that evidence without running into the first problem again is tricky.
Small correction: the NPD was not banned because they were largely irrelevant. They had little to no influence on politics, which is why the court argued that a ban would be inappropriate.
entire AfD ‘extremist’
No shit, sherlock, it doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.
Have you even seen some of the mindblowing excuses people have for why MAGA people in USA are not necessarily extreme?
That it’s for job security, or because of drug trade or all sorts of weird reasons that would absolutely be valid if they weren’t based on falsehoods wrapped in fascism.I’m actually quite surprised that the conclusion is that ALL of AfD are extremists. Maybe if USA had done the same with Trump, and he and his followers were concluded to be extremists, more would have been done to stop him?
To be fair: it’s really hard to notice of you are completely bound in your right eye, which the BfV traditionally tends to be.
But having it said in an official capacity is still important.
Absolutely.
Do centralized social media while you’re at it.
