Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Hanover
AfD members of the state parliament are suspected right-wing extremists
9/2/2023 11:57 am
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies the AfD nationwide as a suspected right-wing extremist. Some members of the Lower Saxony state parliament are also under observation, says the Hanoverian intelligence officer Pejril. He doesn’t name names.
The Lower Saxony Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies some members of the AfD parliamentary group as suspected right-wing extremists. “In the state parliament there are elected members of a party that we are monitoring as a suspected case,” said the President of the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Lower Saxony, Dirk Pejril, of the “Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung”. “Among them are people who could be assigned to the so-called wing, which has since been dissolved and is classified as right-wing extremist.” Pejril did not say which AfD members are suspected.
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies the AfD nationwide as a suspected right-wing extremist and monitors the party. The Thuringian state association is considered to be right-wing extremist. In the 2022 report for the protection of the constitution, which Interior Minister Nancy Faeser and the President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang, presented at the end of June, there is talk of an extremist potential of 10,200 people in the AfD. That is more than a third of the nearly 30,000 party members.
The extremist potential of the AfD also includes members of the Junge Alternative (JA), who are also AfD members. In addition, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies 200 members of the youth organization as right-wing extremists who are not members of the AfD.
“Recognizable Radical”
In Lower Saxony, the AfD appears more moderate, said the Lower Saxony President for the Protection of the Constitution. Nevertheless, the party does not clearly differentiate itself from the political orientation at federal level, from other state associations or from statements by individual officials.
As an example, Pejril cited the AfD federal party conference in Magdeburg in early August. There the party “showed itself very clearly to be radical: through positions and statements that contained racist, folkish-nationalist elements and a choice of words with anti-Semitic connotations in parts”. There was no objection to this from the AfD in Lower Saxony. “We must be concerned that people are following such a trend.”