Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has concluded that right-wing extremism remains the country’s greatest threat to democracy—an unsurprising finding by a highly politicised office that has for years sought to link extremism with the most popular party in Germany, the AfD.
Presenting the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution’s (BfV) 2025 annual report on Tuesday, June 30th, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt and BfV president Sinan Selen said the number of people regarded as part of the country’s right-wing extremist milieu had risen from 51,500 to almost 60,000.
Around 28,000 of those were AfD members, and the BfV said that the increase in its estimate of right-wing extremists was almost entirely accounted for by the party’s expanding membership, which has risen to more than 73,000.
While also describing the rise in left-wing extremist offences as a “serious warning signal” for the rule of law, Dobrindt insisted that right-wing extremism remained the biggest danger to Germany’s democratic order.
The report recorded a steep increase in left-wing politically motivated violence, particularly attacks targeting critical infrastructure, including the arson attack in January in Berlin which left tens of thousands of households without light and heating for days during freezing temperatures outside.
The number of potential left-wing extremists rose from 40,000 to 44,450 people, and the number of Islamist extremists also rose slightly to a total of 28,645. The intelligence agency has also warned that Germany continues to face hybrid threats from Russia, China, and Iran.
The BfV’s assessment of the opposition AfD, however, seems to be politically charged.
Earlier this year, a court in Cologne suspended the agency’s attempt to classify the party as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” organisation, ruling that while there remains a “strong suspicion” that elements within the AfD pursue anti-constitutional aims, the party as a whole is not “shaped” by such efforts.
The party, however, remains classified as a “suspected extremist” organisation by the BfV, which has been accused of targeting the AfD for political purposes with the aim of eventually banning the party, thereby getting rid of the mainstream parties’ biggest rival.
It is no wonder that Dobrindt called for the federal government to equip “our security agencies” with further powers for “effective action” against extremists.
The AfD heavily criticised the intelligence service’s latest findings, with the party’s interior affairs spokesman Gottfried Curio accusing Dobrindt of using the intelligence service for “party-politically motivated disinformation.” He said the increase in the number of right-wing extremists merely reflected the AfD’s growing membership and had been calculated mechanically without any individual assessment.
Curio argued that the real threats to Germany’s internal security came from Islamist extremists and violent left-wing activists responsible for attacks on critical infrastructure and assaults on police.
The report released on Tuesday could also be a warning to the AfD ahead of the regional elections in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt in September, where the party is so popular that it could form its first ever state-level government.
