German domestic security chief denies advising AfD
July 31, 2018
Critics say the far-right party exhibits anti-constitutional tendencies. Though intelligence agencies have said there is not enough evidence to prove that, others have called for individual members to be observed.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Kappeler
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Hans-Georg Maassen, the president of Germany's Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), has denied accusations that he met several times with Frauke Petry, the former leader of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), to advise her about internal party issues.
In her book Inside AfD, which is scheduled to be released this week, Franziska Schreiber claims the domestic security chief met with Petry to discuss ousting Bernd Höcke after Höcke called the Holocaust Monument in Berlin a "monument of shame." Schreiber also claims that Maassen and Petry talked about how the party could avoid an investigation by his office.
AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks
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.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/J. Wolf
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Schreiber was an AfD member and a leader of its youth wing until she left the party in September 2017. During her time in the AfD she maintained close ties with Petry and AfD leadership.
Meeting yes, advising no
In the face of growing questions over the accusations, Maassen has acknowledged the possibility of having met Petry but denies having ever given such advice. Maassen, speaking with the Funke Media Group, said that he "regularly meets" with parties to discuss threats to individual politicians and their parties. Such meetings, Maassen said, were important, guaranteed by the government and conducted in confidentiality.
The BfV strongly rebutted the claims with a statement as well, denying that the domestic security chief has ever spoken to politicians about internal party issues.
Critics of the AfD have claimed that it exhibits anti-constitutional tendencies and have called for it to be observed by the BfV. Maassen is said to have met with Frauke Petry — who left the party in September 2017 — to advise her as to how the party could avoid scrutiny from his office, something he wished to avoid. Both Maassen and Petry deny Franziska Schreiber's claims.
In Berlin, pressure on Maassen is mounting. A number of politicians have called the accusations serious and have suggested that an intelligence community oversight committee should look into them.
