Germany’s February election produced an unprecedented result. The center-right Christian Democratic Union, led by Friedrich Merz, won the most votes and the largest number of seats in the Bundestag. But a strong second place went to the populist, nationalist, anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland, widely known by the acronym AfD. The party's 10.3 million votes — 20.8 percent of the total — gave it 152 of 630 seats, by far its best showing since its founding in 2013.

The sheer speed of the AfD’s rise has been extraordinary. In 2013 it did not meet the threshold for a single Bundestag seat; in 2017, with nearly six million votes, it won 94; there was an ebb in 2021 to 83 seats; and now it is the second-largest party, the primary opposition to the coalition between the CDU and the center-left Social Democratic Party of Germany.

With the backing of one in five German voters, the AfD cannot be lightly dismissed. No far-right party in post-war German history has ever enjoyed such strong support.

This month, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s domestic security agency, announced that it had concluded that the AfD was a “proven right-wing extremist organization.” The Office, after compiling a 1,100-page report, is satisfied that it has proven that the AfD seeks to undermine the democratic system. This new status lowers the legal bar to carry out surveillance of party members and scrutiny of its finances, including the use of undercover informants and communications interception.

The next sanction, for which........

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