The AfD cannot be monitored and not banned away

The AfD does not just tolerate right -wing extremists in its associations – it even hugs them. It occurs often enough ethnic, racist and reactionary.

If the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies the entire party as “secured right -wing extremist”, the general judgment of the judgment can be argued. Either way, the more the AfD radicalizes, the more it becomes a danger to the Liberal Democracy model of the Federal Republic.

Nevertheless – or because of this – the AfD now provides the second largest parliamentary group in the Bundestag. It is the strongest force in the Thuringian state parliament. In some surveys it was recently ahead nationwide.

This is also why it is required to use the expert opinion of the protection of the constitution as the basis for a ban procedure. After all, democracy must be defensive, especially from the experiences of German history.

Before I reply, I would like to ask three questions. Should a domestic message service monitor parliamentary parties? Are the criteria for a potential ban fulfilled? And what is happening at the end of a procedure?

The protection of the constitution is the authority that once paid leading neo-Nazis as V-people and thus financed the right-wing extremist scene. The first NPD ban proceedings failed above all. The second procedure was initiated after the NSU crimes became known, which were also made possible by the failure of the protection of the constitution.

As regardless of the protection of the constitution is presented: As a subordinate authority of the interior ministries, it is an integral part of the political company. He once monitored the PDS and later the left, including the MP Bodo Ramelow. The party rightly considered this to be scandalous. When Ramelow became prime minister in Thuringia, most V-people were switched off there.

The fact that neither the Federal Council, the Bundestag nor the Federal Government have so far dared to have a procedure was less due to the lack of political will, but of justified doubts as to whether the evidence presented by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is sufficient. The new report should also not change that.

What if they were enough? A prohibition procedure spends itself over the years. In the end there was a failure with devastating effects or a ban whose enforcement could lead to civil war -like scenes. The AfD electorate stayed anyway.

I was an observer in the NSU process, wrote books about the rise of the AfD, and I have been watching in Thuringia since 2014 how Björn Höcke and his parliamentary group show parliament, while the other parties mostly appear overwhelmed. This also applies to the protection of the constitution: Although in 2021 he classified the Thuringian AfD as the first regional association as right -wing extremist, Höcke always entered into new record results.

In the meantime, it has been shown that the AfD, which is oscillating between populism and extremism, can neither be taken away, wireless nor fought away. And it can hardly be banned away.

In order to keep the AfD away from power, the other parties have to redeem the promise of this democracy again: freedom, security, prosperity. This expressly includes fighting the enemies of open society, in the political dispute, with the means of law – and through civil commitment.

The protection of the constitution is not just an authority. He is a social task.