The website Frag den Staat on April 7th published a 17-page excerpt from the report by the Verfassungsschutz (Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, BfV) on the AfD. This document includes unpublished quotes from the party and its federal leadership, which supposedly demonstrate attitudes of xenophobia, Islamophobia, and contempt for democratic principles. What immediately stands out is the extent to which statements have been searched and compiled to build a case that could justify measures against the party.
Among the cited examples is a campaign speech from September 2024 in Werder (Havel), where the party leader, Alice Weidel, spoke about group rapes. According to the BfV, her words would constitute a form of “anti-Muslim agitation” and an accusation that an aggressive jihad is being waged against non-Muslims in Germany. Therefore, the report labels this as evidence of Islamophobia. However, Weidel was simply quoting official data:
Last year there were, in total, 761— just to give figures—761 group rapes in our country. That means more than two of these abominable crimes per day. These are phenomena, like stabbings and rapes, that are completely new in our country.
And she concluded with a phrase that, though harsh, reflects her political diagnosis:
What we are experiencing on German streets is jihad. A religious war is already being waged here against the German population.
In June 2024, during an interview with the portal Auf1, Weidel criticized the new citizenship law, calling it an “attack on our country” because she believed it would encourage immigration of unqualified people. The report also includes a message from the AfD federal committee on Facebook, published in April 2024:
Caliphate Germany: if we don’t act now, there will be no turning back!
What is revealing is that the report even includes memes, social media statements, and graphic montages as supposed evidence of extremism. For example, a message from September 2024 states:
The ‘infernal summer’ we are currently experiencing in Germany has nothing to do with the weather. Public pools have become fear zones, knife attacks are an everyday occurrence, while the established parties look the other way.
This text was accompanied by an image showing the arm of a non-white man holding a bloody knife. They also compile posts featuring the term Messermigration (knife migration), such as an image from October 2023 that warned:
Knife attacks are increasing: security instead of knife migration.
Even relatively old statements, like the one from March 2023 by then-Vice President Stephan Brandner, are used as evidence:
Before 2015, the knife as an instrument of crime, as it’s called in official statistics, hardly played a role.
Finally, the report brings up a statement by Brandenburg MP Dennis Hohloch:
Diversity means … multiculturalism, and what does multiculturalism mean? It means loss of traditions, loss of identity, loss of homeland, murder, homicide, robbery, and group rapes.
The level of detail and the nature of the selected statements suggest that the state’s surveillance apparatus is being used to construct a political, rather than legal, case against the AfD. None of these quotes constitute an attack against the constitution; rather, they are statements protected by freedom of expression in a political debate.
