Social democrat Bundestag President Bärbel Bas (SPD) wants to put a stop to the antiglobalist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) recruiting parliamentary staff from the party’s youth wing, Junge Alternative (JA). The reason? Bas is concerned about the security of the parliament, especially perceived threats from “right-wing extremist” employees, Junge Freiheit reports.
According to an investigation by public broadcaster Bayerische Rundfunk, every second AfD parliamentarian has a “right-wing extremist” working for him, employing “individuals who are active in organizations classified by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution [BfV] as right-wing extremist.” The broadcaster claims the majority of the ‘suspicious’ employees are members of Junge Alternative or the AfD state associations in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia.
The fact that those employees would be seen as “right-wing extremists” by the Left is hardly surprising. In May of last year, the entire AfD youth wing was labeled as a ”proven right-wing extremist endeavor” by the BfV. The regional AfD associations mentioned have received the same classification by their respective constitutional protection offices.
“If we want to prevent extremists of any kind, who actively and deliberately work towards the elimination of our liberal-democratic order, from coming in and out of the Bundestag, then we must consider further, including legal regulations, to ensure protection and security within the Parliament,” Bas told Tagesspiegel.
Representatives for AfD have repeatedly fought the accusation that they are “acting against the liberal-democratic basic order.” In an interview with The European Conservative last month, AfD MEP Joachim Kuhs said,
That is the common term in the entire debate around what the AfD is accused of —that we would act against the liberal-democratic basic order. That is not true, but that is what they say.
Activist Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, who has written for a far-left Antifa magazine with links to extremism, has expressed her support for the stricter rules proposed by Bas. “The AfD’s involvement in right-wing extremist networks must be further examined closely. Stronger and stronger connections are becoming apparent,” Faeser said. “Only people who act firmly on the basis of the Basic Law are allowed to work in the government and authorities,” she told the Rheinische Post.
Bayerischer Rundfunk claimed some of the employees in question are “mentioned by name in constitutional protection reports” or “hold leadership positions in monitored organizations,” including the European ‘ethnocultural transnational’ Identitarian Movement and the Reichsbürger scene—the latter an accusation also leveled at former BfV chief Hans-Georg Maaßen by the agency he used to lead.
AfD Co-leader Tino Chrupalla called the accusations “defamatory and discrediting,” pointing out that all employees had first been vetted internally by the party, and then reviewed by the Bundestag. His co-leader Alice Weidel called the Bayerische Rundfunk report a “tax-funded media campaign.”
Thorsten Frei (CDU), deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU (Union) parliamentary group told media that he found the number of individuals “who apparently stand close to enemies of our constitution” simply “shocking,” adding that “If this press report turns out to be true, the President of the Bundestag must act immediately.” Alexander Dobrindt, Chairman of the CSU parliamentary group, on the other hand, seemed unsurprised, and does not believe stricter security rules are called for.
This is only the last in an increasing number of attempts to sideline the political opposition on the Right. From defunding to a proposed ban, German establishment politicians appear ever-more panicked about the meteoric rise of the antiglobalist, anti-migration AfD. The party is currently the second most popular party in Germany with around 20% support on the national level. It will likely become the largest force in three Eastern states—Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia—which are holding state elections this fall.
On Tuesday, March 12th—the same day Bayerischer Rundfunk published its investigation—hearings started in the Münster Higher Administrative Court on an AfD appeal of BfV’s 2021 classification of the party as “suspected right-wing extremist.” If the court rules for the BfV, it would give the domestic spy agency continued right to collect information on Alternative für Deutschland—including planting undercover observers inside the party—information that is then passed on to Nancy Faeser’s Interior Ministry. A date for the verdict has not been released.
