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
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
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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
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.
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.
And what will Germany do about it? NOTHING!
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
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…
Do centralized social media while you’re at it.
What does it mean if a democracy bans a party that the voters want to elect? Better to ask what failure of the system made that party popular in the first place. We have a similar situation in the US fwiw.
No need to play one off against the other. Yes, there are many things that need to change systemically. Yes, the AfD is a real danger and needs to be banned. Simple as that.
The paradox of tolerance. Parties that violate the social contract of mutual tolerance deserve to be banned.
The paradox of tolerance isn’t a helpful answer here. Banning the party won’t make the bigots within it become unbigotted, which is the real goal.
In a similar way a straitjacket won’t make the patient less suicidal but it will prevent them from cutting their own wrists. It is not meant as a long-term solution.
We had the dixiecrats whose entire position was wholly unconstitutional.
We have them still, but we had them before too.
That’s a good parallel - AfD like the Dixiecrats and now the GOP MAGA base have a geographical stronghold (in this case the “new states” of former East Germany)
An alternate future without German reunification is interesting to imagine, ditto one without a Aus Civil War where the south just seceded
Basically.
If we’d let the south secede, we’d have a glorious north, but poor Mexico would have to deal with methed-up rednecks attacking every time college-football season ended.
Better to ask what failure of the system made that party popular in the first place.
In the case of the US, it was propaganda by a hostile country, and by malefactors of great wealth whose interests aligned with that hostile country. In the former case, an act of war; in the latter, treason.
https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2766
It’s BRICS, they want to control a new world currency, and they started WW3 for it. They convinced greedy oligarchs here that they would be in charge and important, “corporate monarchy,” and the oligarchs ignored what happened to Jack Ma and all those Russian oligarchs
It does not have to ban it. Simply inspecting its foreign funding is enough.
It buys us time to elect a party capable of making good changes. As long as a conservative or centralist government is in power I would agree with you that the root causes will not change, in fact with Friedrich Merz and the grand coalition things will get worse faster. But if we can buy the population some time not going fully into fascism we can hopefully point to the decline into fascism brought on by the CDU/SPD/FDP and elect politicians that actually care to serve Germans.
I think it’s important to treat the rise of fascism, the growing wealth inequality, the new wave of media, as a flu we have to fight but also get through. We need to build up anti-bodies against these things. That means taxing wealth, strengthening unions, breaking up monopolies, etc.
It buys us time to elect a party capable of making good changes.
That’s a nice thought and obviously you know more about the AfD and German politics than I do, but on the US side I can say that the Democrats have learned absolutely nothing. Even after two terms of G.W. Bush (2000-2008), one of Trump (2016-2020), one lucky escape* (Biden 2020), and Trump now in a 2nd term, the Democrats make the same mistakes that they always have. It’s a safe bet that 2028 in the US won’t be any better.
It would be great to hear what kinds of remedies are under way in Europe to fix the status quo as you describe. If anything like that is happening, it doesn’t make the news over here. I can say that nothing seems to be happening in the US beyond some meaningless posturing.
I think in the US we’ve seen a small rise in characters like Bernie pulling in new blood along the same ideological lines like AOC which didn’t feel present 20 years ago. I also think Obama’s tenure was sold to the public as a period of progress and change and I think in all actuality whatever good it did it wasn’t enough to steer the boat. To me that was the sign that the US was likely too far gone from a political standpoint to recover. BUT if there is a chance, I think the past 25 years have been a clear enough signal to me that things must drastically change for things to get meaningfully better. Trump is the dark side of that “drastic change” coin and we’ve yet to see what the good side looks like but I would argue the US is running out of time to figure out which side of the coin is going to come up the winner.
Britain is seeing a minor rise in Wealth Inequality awareness. I think that knowledge could be the exact anti-bodies the world needs distributed to reverse this course. In Europe wealth taxes, capital gains taxes, etc are higher than in the US but still not enough. Unions are also more prevalent, at least in Germany. I like to compare it by saying both the US and Germany are on the same graph of declining living standards and for the exact same reason, Germany is just a decade or two behind the US. We still have a lot of power in the hands of the people, but it seems to me that the media is still able to whip up 30-40% of the population into being conservative despite their best interests and something like another 30% being too moderate to make a difference.
Right now we have a conservative government, things will only get worse while they’re in power, but if the wealth disparity conversation continues anywhere in the world and billionaires are removed from the population, the entire world benefits. If the next progressive government enacts a tax plan like Die Linke’s or takes step to removing land lords from existence or provides a UBI I think the results will speak for themselves rather quickly.
It’s a big pendulum, right now in Germany and the US it’s swung to the right (yours further than ours) but it all comes down to how effective the left swing can be. Take hold of all the power you can at the local level, form a union, conquer the state level offices, and educate people. That’s the best advice I can give.
Thanks for the good thoughts and it’s interesting (I guess not that surprisng) to hear that Trump and MAGA are, for now, even worse than the AfD if I understand what you’re saying. I’m pessimistic about local activism here being good for anything at the moment. Changes have to made at the federal level, which for me mostly means kicking out the Democrat establishment. The idea of AOC running against Chuck Schumer in a primary would be an example of that, though I don’t know if she would have a good chance of beating him. I’d say she has no serious chance of being elected president in 2028. Of course I’m open to being surprised.
It means that a stopgap is needed before voters do something that they will only regret in hindsight.
Addressing issues is definitely important too, though part of the reason for extremist and populist parties like that becoming popular is that they have hijacked the public political discourse with fake issues (e.g. immigration, stirring up hate towards minorities,…) which essentially serve as a scapegoat for the voter’s actual frustrations with the current system (e.g. wealth distribution, lack of affordable housing, lack of jobs for young people, fears that changes in the world will reduce their standard of living or anger that they already did,…)
We had that situation in 1930s Germany and it was decided to address issues instead of banning Hitler’s Party even when they could.
Ruling out foreign interference like astroturfing, genuine Opposition doesn’t come from no where, it comes from suffering in most cases. Failure of elected governments to reflect on their own failure breeds it.
Our founding fathers envisioned the electoral college as the counterbalance against someone dangerous taking power. The guardrails were always there, they just never really worked as intended.
