After the AfD in Thuringia, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution now also classifies the state association in Saxony-Anhalt as definitely right-wing extremist. The head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Saxony-Anhalt, Jochen Hollmann, announced on Tuesday in Magdeburg that his office had evaluated numerous anti-Muslim, racist and anti-Semitic statements from officials and elected officials. “The result is clear: The regional association not only continues to represent anti-constitutional positions that led to it being classified as a suspected case, but has also become so radicalized since the corona pandemic that systematic observation using intelligence means is justified.”
In 2021, the state Office for the Protection of the Constitution had already classified the party as a suspected right-wing extremist case. The AfD is the largest opposition faction in the Magdeburg state parliament; in the last state election in 2021 it received 20.8 percent. The Saxony-Anhalt AfD is now the second state association to be classified as right-wing extremist. In Thuringia, the state Office for the Protection of the Constitution had already classified the AfD and its controversial state party and parliamentary group leader Björn Höcke as definitely right-wing extremist in March 2021. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has classified the AfD as a whole one level below, as a suspected right-wing extremist case.
Demonizing choice of words, anti-Semitic codes
In view of the large number of statements that prove the AfD’s efforts in Saxony-Anhalt against the free democratic basic order, the Constitutional Protection Department of the Interior Ministry is legally obliged to make this assessment, explained Hollmann. “By publicly announcing the decision, we are fulfilling our legally defined information mandate as an early warning system for democracy.” The public should be warned about anti-constitutional efforts “so that no one can say they didn’t know.”
Particularly relevant to the assessment were statements that were incompatible with the preservation of human dignity in accordance with Article 1 of the Basic Law. The AfD Saxony-Anhalt strives for an ethnoculturally homogeneous state and calls for the exclusion of people because of their origin or religion. Leading representatives used a demonizing choice of words, for example by defaming migrants as “invaders”, “intruders” or “culturally alien supply migrants”.
The statements collected come from 2021 and 2022. The party also aims to abolish parliamentary democracy in its current form. It is constantly striving to make democratic institutions and their representatives contemptuous in order to destroy the trust of the population.
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution can now make its findings public
Especially during the Corona pandemic, officials and elected officials of the AfD regional association repeatedly equated the Federal Republic of Germany with autocratic or totalitarian regimes and the measures to contain the pandemic with the persecution of Jews in the Third Reich. Anti-Semitic vocabulary was also used, such as the “Great Reset” conspiracy theory, according to which a global elite exploited or planned the pandemic in order to establish a new world order controlled by it.
The parliamentary group leader of the Left, Eva von Angern, praised the classification as correct, “even if long overdue”https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/.”Everywhere in Saxony-Anhalt we regularly see how this party fundamentally and tramples on human rights.” The Office for the Protection of the Constitution can now make its findings about the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt public in the Office for the Protection of the Constitution report; the party has not yet appeared there. In addition, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution has more discretion in choosing the means of intelligence. Whether AfD members can become civil servants or acquire a weapons license must be further examined on a case-by-case basis.