That Wasn't Us! Germany Suddenly Drops AfD Surveillance

Just a hair over a week ago (ten days to be exact), an official arm of the German government declared the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party - now polling as Germany's most popular party in the country - a 'right-wing extremist' group.

Actually, it was a big deal. It made the epithet an official label, opening the party and every last one of its members to constant, sanctioned (instead of surreptitious) government surveillance. It was also the first necessary step in the process of banning the party from politics/existence completely.

People on the ground there believe the surging popularity of AfD panicked the government into the authoritarian move to save their own butts.

This morning, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) officially reclassified Alternative für Deutschland as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” organisation. The BfV is Germany’s primary domestic intelligence agency; it is subject to the Ministry of the Interior and tasked, among other things, with policing the democratic respectability of ordinary Germans and their political parties. The upgraded AfD classification is supported by an extensive and totally secret 1,100-page assessment of AfD activities and beliefs, which BfV analysts have been preparing since last year.

Everybody expected the BfV to do this. Leading Social Democrats in particular have been urging the BfV to release their new assessment for months. They see it as a political justification for initiating ban proceedings against the party. As I wrote last week, it is now likely that the new CDU/SPD government, or the new Bundestag, or both, will ask the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe to weigh an AfD prohibition. This new assessment matters mostly because it is the first concrete move in that direction.

The only thing that is really surprising about this news, is the timing: I and everybody else expected the BfV to wait until the CDU and the SPD form a new government and appoint a new Interior Minister. Instead, the sitting Interior Minister Nancy Faeser appears to have forced this assessment through in the final four days of her tenure. This, and not AfD poll numbers (as some have speculated), is the reason this is happening now.

Unsurprisingly, that very same day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President J.D. Vance both brutally tore into the still-as-yet-unformed German government for the move.

Rubio flat-out told them to turn the ship around, and his 'tyranny in disguise' comment really struck a nerve.

The AfD is the most popular party in Germany, and by far the most representative of East Germany. Now the bureaucrats try to destroy it.

The West tore down the Berlin Wall together. And it has been rebuilt—not by the Soviets or the Russians, but by the German establishment.

Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy—it’s tyranny in disguise.

What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD—which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes.

You know Friedrich Merz, Christian Democrat (CDU) leader, was just itching to shoot his mouth off at the US officials, but he was in a bit of a bug tussle himself at that moment as he still hadn't been officially voted in as chancellor. And even that didn't go quite the Old Magoo master's way, after all of the backstabbing he'd done from the election forward.

Europe was literally shocked as Merz became the first designated chancellor in German history to lose their first round coronation vote, with his own party members voting against him.

It was a literal nail-biter whether the slimy toad could pull off a victory in a second round, and he only did so by cozying up to the Communists who pulled him across the finish line.

Whoever shivved the presumptive heir to the chancellor's throne on that first ballot sent a yuge signal to all of Europe that things were not right in Berlin and weren't going to be even after Merz squeaked by on the second attempt.

These events were far more than a passing curiosity. As we’ll see, they almost certainly arise from a conspiracy within Merz’s own coalition – a conspiracy that struck again after Tuesday’s vote and that in the worst-case scenario may persist for the entire government.

The response to these conspirators was moreover highly intriguing. The SPD used the debacle to further humiliate the Union parties, while Alternative für Deutschland extended Merz surprising (and little-noticed) backhanded support, rather than exploiting an obvious opportunity to harm his candidacy.

We can only speculate about their reasons. What we need not speculate about, is the significance of this storm in a teacup. This was an early sign of serious instability within the not-so-grand coalition, and a hint at the forces that will push the Union parties further left and further away from their own voters in the months and years to come.

Obviously with his head on a swivel now, looking constantly behind him, Merz felt it incumbent upon himself to act tough quickly. So he decided to throw a little shade at the United States over their chiding on AfD's behalf.

In an interesting aside on the protestors, there is speculation that, with Rubio and DOGE's gutting of USAID, guess who might not have the funds to pay the street people on weekends for these mass demonstrations anymore?

Yup. The NGOs who organize these things are looking at very lean checkbooks at the moment, as far as money from the States goes, and there is heightened scrutiny on Brussels about who and what they've been funneling billions to NGOs for over the past decade.

HUGE WIN 🏆 🏆🏆 Credit to @SecRubio , @DNIGabbard , @SenTomCotton and others from US statecraft for successfully getting Germany to halt its new domestic spying program on AfD

Germany Halts Surveillance of AfD Amid US Pressure and Legal Challenge Over Extremist Label

US pressure has certainly intimidated the establishment and they have to submit to the legal process.

And AfD head Alice Weidel knows exactly who to thank, with the AfD lawyer noting that the 'complete surrender' of the German domestic intelligence agency was due to one reason.

The developments have also caused a major stir in Germany. Alice Weidel, co-chair of the AfD, said American pressure was behind the BfV’s withdrawal of its designation label on the AfD. In addition, Joachim Steinhöfel, a lawyer defending freedom of speech, told NIUS that the move by the BfV is “a complete surrender by the German domestic intelligence service.” He also noted that U.S. influence was vital.

“We also have to thank the Americans for exerting massive pressure,” he added.

The difference now is that we have an administration chock-full of folks who are unafraid to speak up when they don't see it.

“I didn’t do it, nobody saw me do it, you can’t prove anything.”

2 posted on 05/13/2025 6:17:17 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)

Ya gotta love how the Germans squeal “Stay out of our politics!”....nevermind that they’ve never hesitated for one second to stick their snouts in OUR politics.....

Winning is even better than the smell of napalm in the morning.

4 posted on 05/13/2025 7:05:13 AM PDT by wita (Under oath since May 1966 in defense of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness)

The German Establishment got rattled that for the first time in 80 years they were now getting both Russia and America pissed off at them at the same time....IF you’re Germany this is not a good place to be in and they know it.

Germans going to German

6 posted on 05/13/2025 8:30:35 AM PDT by Hyman Roth

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