Germany logs sharp rise in right-wing extremists in 2019
December 16, 2019
German authorities identified over 32,200 right-wing extremists in 2019, according to a report. Much of the rise has to do with authorities counting groups affiliated with the far-right AfD for the first time.
Germany's federal domestic intelligence service (BfV) and the state-level intelligence services identified over 32,200 right-wing extremists this year, the paper reported, citing information gathered from security sources.
That figure is a third higher compared to 2018, when authorities counted 24,100 people involved in right-wing extremist networks.
One of the main reasons for the spike is due to the BfV including groups affiliated with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) for the first time in its count of right-wing extremists.
In January this year, the BfV took aim at the extreme-right faction of the AfD known as "Der Flügel" (The Wing) as well as the party's youth wing "Junge Alternative" (Young Alternative) over suspected extremism.
According to Tagesspiegel, authorities included 7,000 members of the "Der Flügel" in its right-wing extremist count, as well as 1,000 members of the "Junge Alternative."
In January, the BfV declared both AfD-affiliated groups "suspected cases" of right-wing extremism, increasing observation to investigate whether they pose a threat to constitutional order.
The designation means that the BfV can save personal data on members of the AfD groups and use undercover informants and other intelligence methods to collect information.
The anti-immigration AfD has been criticized for fostering an atmosphere of hate in Germany that encourages political violence.
This year also saw several deadly incidents involving suspected right-wing extremists in Germany, including an attack outside a synagogue in the eastern city of Halle that killed two people in October. Pro-immigration politician Walter Lübcke was also shot and killed by a neo-Nazi extremist in June.
Leading members of the far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party have often made provocative, if not outright offensive, remarks — targeting refugees or evoking Nazi terminology.
Image: Britta Pedersen/dpa/picture alliance
Björn Höcke
The head of the AfD in the state of Thuringia first made headlines in 2017 for referring to Berlin's Holocaust memorial as a "monument of shame" and calling on the country to stop atoning for its Nazi past. In July 2023, he echoed Nazi rhetoric by declaring that "This EU must die so that the true Europe may live." In 2019, a court ruled that it was not slanderous to describe Höcke as a fascist.
Image: picture-alliance/Arifoto Ug/Candy Welz
Alice Weidel
One of the best-known public faces of the AfD, party co-chair Alice Weidel rarely shies away from causing a row. Her belligerent rhetoric caused particular controversy in a Bundestag speech in 2018, when she declared, "burqas, headscarf girls, publicly-supported knife men, and other good-for-nothings will not secure our prosperity, economic growth, and the social state."
Image: Sebastian Kahnert/dpa/picture-alliance
Maximilian Krah
Maximilian Krah, the AfD's top candidate in the 2024 European Parliament election, has called the EU a "vassal" of the US and wants to replace it with a "confederacy of fatherlands." He also wants to end support for Ukraine, and has warned on Twitter that immigration will lead to an "Umvolkung" of the German people — a Nazi-era term similar to the far-right's "great replacement" conspiracy theory.
Image: Ronny Hartmann/AFP/Getty Images
Alexander Gauland
Former parliamentary party leader Gauland was roundly criticized for a speech he made to the AfD's youth wing in June 2018. He said Germany had a "glorious history and one that lasted a lot longer than those damned 12 years. Hitler and the Nazis are just a speck of bird shit in over 1,000 years of successful German history."
Christian Lüth
Ex-press officer Christian Lüth had already faced demotion for past contentious comments before being caught on camera talking to a right-wing YouTube video blogger. "The worse things get for Germany, the better they are for the AfD," Lüth allegedly said, before turning his focus to migrants. "We can always shoot them later, that's not an issue. Or gas them, as you wish. It doesn't matter to me."
Image: Soeren Stache/dpa/picture-alliance
Beatrix von Storch
Initially, the AfD campaigned against the euro and bailouts — but that quickly turned into anti-immigrant rhetoric. "People who won't accept STOP at our borders are attackers," the European lawmaker said in 2016. "And we have to defend ourselves against attackers," she said — even if this meant shooting at women and children.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Murat
Harald Weyel
Not all of the AfD's scandals are about racism: Sometimes they are just revealing. Bundestag member Harald Weyel was caught in a scandal in September 2022 when a microphone he clearly didn't know was on caught him expressing his hope that Germany would suffer a "dramatic winter" of high energy prices or else "things will just go on as ever."
Image: Christoph Hardt /Future Image/imago images
Andre Poggenburg
Poggenburg, former head of the AfD in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, has also raised eyebrows with extreme remarks. In February 2017, he urged other lawmakers in the state parliament to join measures against the extreme left-wing in order to "get rid of, once and for all, this rank growth on the German racial corpus" — the latter term clearly derived from Nazi terminology.
