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Is freedom under threat in Germany?       

9 4
08.05.2025

TEMPLIN, GERMANY – MAY 01: People, including a woman wearing an AfD-themed shirt, attend a May Day fest of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) on May 01, 2025 in Templin, Germany. Voters in Templin will vote on Sunday to elect a new mayor in a runoff between an AfD and a German Social Democrats (SPD) candidate. The AfD is currently in first place in nationwide polls, slightly ahead of Germany’s Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU). An AfD win on Sunday would be the party’s first mayoral win in the state of Brandenburg. Templin is the home of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Germany’s intelligence service have labelling of the AfD as a “right-wing extremist group” in a classified report that’s had little scrutiny is deeply troubling, says Rainer Zitelmann

Elon Musk and US Foreign Minister Marco Rubio have both voiced concerns about threats to freedom in Germany over the last few months, most recently in response to the German domestic intelligence service’s (Verfassungsschutz) classification of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party as a “right-wing extremist group”.

Marco Wanderwitz, a politician from the CDU (the party led by Friedrich Merz, who was elected as the new Chancellor on Tuesday), believes that the intelligence report has established a stronger basis for a potential ban on the AfD: “I do think that today’s reclassification by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, backed up by a report containing over a thousand pages of evidence, has moved the dial in that direction”.

Referring to the 1,100-page report detailing the AfD’s actions and ideologies, Wanderwitz continued: “As........

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