Right-wing extremism accusation: BND revokes professor’s security clearance

The BND has banned a professor who trains prospective secret service agents from working in a security-sensitive job. Reason: The Office for the Protection of the Constitution sees evidence of an extremist attitude.

Political scientist Martin Wagener is no longer allowed to train secret service agents. The secret protection officer of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) withdrew the so-called security notice from the professor, who taught at the federal university. This means that Wagener is no longer able to continue his previous teaching activities, and he has also been denied access to classified information. He was informed of this in a letter dated May 10, Wagener said in his podcast.

At the “Center for Intelligence Service Training and Further Education” (ZNAF), a joint institution of the BND and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) in Berlin, Wagener until recently trained young secret service officials in the field of international politics and security policy. The BND had already banned Wagener from entering the building in October last year and temporarily restricted his security clearance – a decision that he has now checked and confirmed again.

The background is according to information from ARD-political magazine contrasts a message from the BfV to the BND, according to which “security-related knowledge” about Wagener is available. These emerged after a review of Wagener’s book “Culture Battle for the People – The Protection of the Constitution and the National Identity of the Germans”. In it, Wagener puts forward the thesis that the aim of the federal government is to transform the traditional German people into a multicultural society.

Argumentative proximity to the Identitarian Movement

To contrastsThe BfV’s examination of the book revealed that the passages in which Wagener writes of “ethnopluralism” in particular are rated as extremist. Wagener’s arguments in his book show similarities to the arguments of the right-wing extremist “Identitarian Movement Germany” (IBD).

The concept of ethnopluralism, which is also used by right-wing extremist organizations such as the IBD, is considered a combat concept by the “New Right”, which strives for culturally homogeneous societies – as free as possible from foreign influences. Social scientists also see ethnopluralism as a form of racist ideology in which the concept of race is deliberately replaced by terms such as “ethnicity” or “culture”.

Wagener himself confirmed in an interview with contrasts, he was accused by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution of having an ethnic-descent-based concept of the people that was incompatible with the basic law’s guarantee of human dignity. However, this was “freely invented in terms of content”. He does not use this popular concept in his book and even rejects it. Apart from that, this concept of the people cannot be regarded as unconstitutional across the board.

It is not the first time that Wagener has attracted attention: as early as 2019, the BND had an earlier publication by Wagener checked for right-wing extremist content. At that time it was about the book “Germany’s insecure border – plea for a new protective wall”. In it, Wagener called for Germany to be completely surrounded by a four-meter-high concrete wall in order to ward off migrants and protect the German people from “foreign infiltration”. Recognized asylum seekers should also only be allowed to be accommodated in camps near the border. However, the examination at the time did not provide sufficient evidence of an anti-constitutional attitude on the part of the author.

Wagener sees himself as the victim of an intrigue

In the current case, the foreign secret service apparently largely relied on the assessment of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Wagener says that the BND referred to the principle “in dubio per securitate” — in case of doubt for security. The professor himself speaks of a “failure by the authorities” and sees himself as the victim of an intrigue by the head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which wants to get rid of an unwelcome critic. In order to avert his exclusion, Wagener says he made an unusual suggestion: he offered to test his loyalty to the constitution with a polygraph test. “Unfortunately, we didn’t go into that,” said Wagener.

The protection of the constitution wanted to contrasts-Request not comment on the matter. In principle, one does not comment on individuals who are not listed in the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The BND also stated that it would not comment on ongoing personnel processes.

Wagener has announced that he will contact the Federal Chancellery and the parliamentary control committee of the Bundestag to have the process investigated. Although he can no longer continue his teaching activities at the ZNAF, the loss of his security clearance has no consequences in terms of civil service law. His professorship will not be revoked either. It is still unclear whether Wagener can or must be offered equivalent work in a non-security-sensitive area.