Following the release of a new report from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the head of the Greens party, Felix Banaszak, has urgently called for a debate regarding procedures to ban the Alternative for Germany (AfD). Banaszak told various newspapers belonging to the Funke Media Group that the overall picture presented by the report is both extremely clear and alarming.
According to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, one in three members of the AfD are suspected of being right-wing extremists. This suspicion is compounded by the fact that there are five solidly confirmed right-wing regional branches. The party continues to make references to National Socialism, and several of its leading figures have been linked to scandals involving SA slogans and Hitler greetings.
Banaszak stressed that the AfD is not a typical democratic party; rather, it threatens the liberal democratic basic order. He warned that the party intends to “razor the basic rules of our coexistence.” The current findings from the security service, he argued, emphasize how immediately necessary the debate about the next steps toward a potential ban must be. He asserted that anyone who continues to downplay this situation or attempts merely to challenge the AfD’s ideology is willfully ignoring reality.
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution reported that the AfD currently has 70,000 members, suggesting that the potential for right-wing extremism within the party has grown. The security services estimate that 28,000 of the AfD’s members belong to the right-extremist sphere-an increase of 8,000 members compared to the previous year.
