The Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Saxony has been scrutinizing the AfD for years. The authority now sees the regional association as closely networked with all relevant right-wing extremist actors.
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Saxony has classified the state association of the AfD in the Free State as a confirmed right-wing extremist effort. “There are no longer any doubts about the right-wing extremist orientation of the AfD Saxony,” said Dirk-Martin Christian, President of the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution, on Friday in Dresden. After Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt, it is the third state association with such a classification. In Saxony, the AfD was initially a test case and has been a suspected case since February 2021.
“After an extensive legal review process, we came to the conclusion that the Saxony state association of the AfD should be classified as an object of observation. In the four years of intensive review, we have received a large number of statements and political demands, in particular from high-ranking officials and elected representatives of the state party and the district associations “, i.e. from people with a high level of representation. Overall, these prove beyond doubt that the local AfD regional association is pursuing anti-constitutional goals,” Christian summed up.
“The state association of the AfD may have a heterogeneous composition in terms of personnel, but in terms of content and program, the so-called solidarity-patriotic camp that emerged from the former ‘wing’, whose spiritual father and leader is the right-wing extremist Björn Höcke, predominates and which now shapes the character of the entire state association and dominates,” emphasized the head of the authority. Right-wing extremist statements by leading officials and elected officials are noted within the party without the state party publicly distancing themselves or at least criticizing them. The party appears to the outside world like a “monolithic bloc.”
“A politics of so-called ethnopluralism”
According to the report by the LfV Saxony, numerous substantive positions of the AfD state association are directed against the basic principles of the free democratic basic order. “With regard to immigration, the state party pursues a policy of so-called ethnopluralism, a hallmark of right-wing political extremism. According to this, the acquisition of German citizenship would be based exclusively on ethnic-biological or cultural criteria,” it said. However, such a popular understanding is incompatible with the Basic Law.
In the migration debate, the party represents typical ethnic-nationalist positions, it said. In this context, leading representatives of the state party regularly use ideological battle terms of the right-wing extremist scene in public discourse, such as “The Great Exchange”, “Revolkung” or the demand for “remigration”: “These terms also hide their racist core and their origins in National Socialism. “
The Islam and Muslim hostility of the AfD regional association is particularly expressed in the fact that male migrants from the Arab world are publicly defamed and discriminated against using a drastic, frightening choice of words. “In this way, the AfD regional association is constantly stirring up fears and resentment against foreigners among the population,” Christian added.
Anti-Semitic positions
Ultimately, the AfD regional association uses common anti-Semitic, mostly conspiracy-ideological positions that are also regularly used by right-wing extremists and Reich citizens. “Anti-Semitism is not expressed directly by leading representatives of the AfD state association, but is encoded through so-called codes and ciphers, for example via the ‘international financial elite’.”
The report also proves the AfD state association’s agitation against the basic political order of the Federal Republic of Germany, which began during the time of the state anti-corona measures and continues unchanged, the state office said. Both the state institutions and their representatives have been and continue to be publicly defamed and despised. “The AfD regional association is not interested in a factual discussion of the political situation, but rather in the general degradation of our democracy.”
In the 2019 state elections, the Saxon AfD received 27.5 percent of the second votes. In the most recent survey, like the CDU, it achieved 33 percent.
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.
