The willingness to use violence among extremists in Germany is growing. And the number of right-wing extremists has also increased significantly, according to the new report by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
A high level of violence among extremists in Germany is a major concern for the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. In its annual report, the domestic secret service also issued a clear warning about China’s attempts at espionage and influence. The constitution protection report 2022 was presented on Tuesday in Berlin – almost at the same time as the start of the German-Chinese government consultations.
right-wing extremism
The number of people assigned to the right-wing extremist spectrum rose by around 14.5 percent to 38,800 compared to the previous year. One of the reasons for this is that the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) now also includes members of the AfD: it is now being observed as a suspected case. The Cologne administrative court confirmed the classification as a suspected case in March 2022. The AfD appealed. The procedure is not yet complete.
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution explains its calculations as follows: “According to their own statements, the party had around 28,500 members in July 2022. In view of the continuing heterogeneity within the party in terms of content, however, not all party members can be regarded as supporters of the extremist currents.” The Federal Office estimates that 10,200 members of the AfD and its youth party (Young Alternative) can be attributed to these tendencies.
The domestic secret service is concerned that very young people are often radicalizing themselves in Internet forums of the “assassin fan scene” and inciting each other to commit acts of violence.
New category
In 2021, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution defined the new phenomenon area “delegitimization of the state relevant to the protection of the constitution”. The decision to establish the category was also a consequence of the actions of radical opponents of the state anti-corona measures. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution is now presenting figures on this for the first time. The domestic secret service sees a potential of around 1,400 people nationwide. About 280 people from this spectrum are classified as violent. It is about people who cannot be assigned to classic right-wing or left-wing extremism and who, according to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, are trying to “instrumentalize crisis situations and fears in the population in order to discredit government agencies and political leaders”.
Difficult demarcation: “We find that boundaries within phenomenal areas become blurred and mixed scenes form,” said BfV President Thomas Haldenwang.
Islamism
Haldenwang also reports that the threat from Islamist terrorism remains high. Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) recalled recent arrests: “Our security authorities have already prevented two possible Islamist attacks in Castrop-Rauxel and in Hamburg this year.”
left-wing extremism
According to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the left-wing extremist potential grew by 5.2 percent to 36,500 people last year. A great danger therefore emanates from small groups acting in secret, which act with great brutality, in particular against political opponents, especially right-wing extremists. Left-wing extremist violence is also directed against police forces, some of whom are lured into ambushes. Haldenwang referred to a case in Leipzig where a bottle of flammable liquid was thrown at a police officer. “If the policeman had been hit, you don’t know how it would have ended,” he said.
Violence
More than every fourth left-wing extremist in Germany is regarded as violent by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. After an increase of 3.7 percent, there were also around 14,000 violent right-wing extremists last year.
Most violent crimes (173) committed by left-wing extremists in 2022 were reported from Saxony. In the same period, 58 right-wing extremist acts of violence were recorded in Bavaria. According to statistics, the highest number of acts of violence with a right-wing extremist background (136) occurred in Berlin. “We have to take a close look when there are major regional differences in the recording of certain phenomena such as right-wing extremism and left-wing extremism,” says Marcel Emmerich, chairman of the Greens in the Bundestag’s interior committee. He finds: “The available figures raise question marks”. He also warns with a view to Saxony: “It would be fatal if double standards were used and violent acts from the right in particular were not recorded as such, even though the right-wing extremist scene is strongly represented there, as far as we know.”
Espionage and foreign influence operations
There were more cases of espionage in 2022, not only as a result of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. The Federal Public Prosecutor initiated 28 preliminary investigations, after 25 investigations in the previous year. They were directed, for example, against suspected informers from Russian, Turkish and Moroccan secret services. Russian intelligence services sometimes used drastic methods and, as a result, did not shy away from killing members of the opposition and renegades, said the BfV President. “This very robust way of proceeding, we don’t see anything like that in the Chinese.”
China
Nonetheless, the report contains a very strong warning about China. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution currently considers the People’s Republic to be “the greatest threat in terms of economic and scientific espionage and foreign direct investments in Germany”. Chinese state actors tried to instrumentalize “leading personalities from German business by exploiting the dependence of individual German companies on the Chinese market” to assert the interests of the Chinese Communist Party.
Different conclusions
AfD Chairwoman Alice Weidel complained that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution “does not treat the AfD fairly”. Martina Renner (left) called for “stronger action against the populism of the center and its crude bourgeoisie”. The deputy leader of the Union faction, Andrea Lindholz (CSU), said Faeser lacked concepts, for example to counteract the radicalization of Islamists and left-wing extremists. For example, in order to be able to better investigate the networks of Islamist terrorists, the Federal Criminal Police Office must be given more powers to access stored communications via messenger services such as WhatsApp.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
