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AfD classified as extreme-right by German intelligence
- qoez 1y agoI wish there was tighter rules around what stays on the front page of HN. I come here for tech news or interesting nerdy blog posts not this stuff.
- Jackpillar 1y ago[flagged]
- flohofwoe 1y agoNot much worse than every other post being about AI bullshit tbh.
- josefritzishere 1y agoI have the same complaint. If AI can automate a whoopie cushion it gets a post.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- thrance 1y agoThose posts generally don't stay there more than a few minutes. Feel free to hide them. But I agree with you on a point, I wish it was better specified which kinds of politics are allowed or not and when. Edit: aaand it's flagged.
- nataliste 1y agoI finally got fed up yesterday and wrote a userscript so I can just silently block the offenders, their links, and their comments in perpetuity. It's a load off my mind.
- BobaFloutist 1y agoGod forbid we add a tagging system that lets you blacklist tags. Then again, I have the same complaint about reddit (which has flairs, but doesn't let you blacklist them because then you'd be able to filter out all the ragebait)
- PurpleRamen 1y agoTalking about the situation of potential workplaces/countries is legit here IMHO. There are many tech workers living or planing to live in other countries on this site. And several complaints in the last years about Germany were about the growing hostility from the extreme right. This is a step in a good direction. But it won't solve the problems in general.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- incomingpain 1y agoGuess this will be unpopular. >The AfD came second in federal elections in February, winning a record 152 seats in the 630-seat parliament with 20.8% of the vote. What does this give german intelligence the power to do? The german government is now monitoring the telephone, internet, and intercepting emails of their political opponents? They MAY also be using informants and undercover agents? The federal ministry of the interior MAY confiscate all the party's assets and shutdown everything including their websites?
- stop50 1y ago1. Its in the law for decades, it is derived from the constitution 2+3: yes. After they have been declared as extremists this is permitted under the law. 4. Only after the Bundesverfassungsgericht (supreme court) officially rules that the AFD is working against the constitution and forbids them. This must be initiated from the Bundestag, Bundesrat or from the Federal Government.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 1y agoAnd these exist specifically to prevent a repeat of how Hitler did what he did. https://archive.is/g6ElI https://archive.is/g6ElI > Following his failed Beer Hall Putsch of November 1923, Hitler had renounced trying to overthrow the Weimar Republic by violent means but not his commitment to destroying the country’s democratic system, a determination he reiterated in a Legalitätseid—“legality oath”—before the Constitutional Court in September 1930. Invoking Article 1 of the Weimar constitution, which stated that the government was an expression of the will of the people, Hitler informed the court that once he had achieved power through legal means, he intended to mold the government as he saw fit. It was an astonishingly brazen statement. > “So, through constitutional means?” the presiding judge asked. > “Jawohl!” Hitler replied.
- mamonster 1y agoIn theory, this could be used as the basis for the banning of the party. That said , I don't think the incoming government would allow it as Germany isn't super stable at the moment. At a minimum, this will be used as the basis for removing any talk of coalitions/joint votes etc within the CDU, so Merz or anyone after him can't attempt to go around the Brandmauer(mind you, this will be enforced by the parties themselves, not via law or anything). You can expect the same thing as with FN/RN in France before the developments within the last 2 years, i.e any right wing party not voting resolutions that are submitted by AfD even if they are 95% identical to what is in their own programme. I think the likely action is that they will attempt to "purge" the Flügel part of the party, with or without the help of Weidel.For example, Marine Le Pen purged the problematic elements of the old guard of FN by herself and "normalised" the party within 10 years.
- detaro 1y agoNow the election is over and everyone has decided that they really don't want to form a government with them, the agencies are suddenly allowed to state the obvious without potentially embarrassing their future bosses.
- stop50 1y agoAnnouncing this is considered an interference with the elections, so they delayed the announcement.
- flohofwoe 1y agoThis has been cooking for a very long time (pretty much since the AfD was founded in 2013, and some federal chapters of the AfD (like the Thuringian AfD under Hoecke [1], the Saxon AfD [2]) and five 'AfD Youth' federal chapters already earned the 'extreme-right' classification before [3]. The news is only that now the entire AfD is classified as extreme-right (to nobody's surprise). The AfD also isn't the first party which got the label, the AfD is just the latest reincarnation of the NPD (since the 1960s) and the so-called Republicans ('Die Republikaner') since the 1980s. There's also various smaller splinter-organizations which are more openly right-extremist than the AfD but at best play a minor role in municipal elections). [1] https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/thueringen/afd-rechtsextremistisch-einstufung-verfassungsschutz-100.html https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/thueringen/afd-rechtsextremis... [2] https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/deutschland/afd-sachsen-rechtsextremistisch-verfassungsschutz-100.html https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/deutschland/afd-sachs... [3] https://www.rnd.de/politik/wo-gelten-afd-und-junge-alternative-als-gesichert-rechtsextrem-und-was-bedeutet-das-BEOYLLR67FCABBNQ6ESSRUZJWM.html https://www.rnd.de/politik/wo-gelten-afd-und-junge-alternati...
- DarkWiiPlayer 1y ago> They argued their party was being "discredited and criminalised" shortly before the change of government. The AfD is known for their narratives of perpetual victimhood. They conveniently ignore any and all proof, and hope that their followers only get their information from them. It has worked great so far so it'll probably continue to work.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- _mlbt 1y agoI’m not a German so take this with a massive amount of salt, but what makes them extreme-right? Is it the anti-immigrant stance or is there more that I’m missing? They just seem to be regular right wing by American standards.
- LaurensBER 1y agoSome of their ex-members have been literal Nazis. Something that doesn't go over very well in Germany. The party banned these people but their standpoints are still very controversial, the main issue is that in some aspects they do no support the juridical system. So yeah, regular right wing compared to American standards but I think we can all agree that respecting the trias politica is a good thing in any country.
- _mlbt 1y agoI’ll be honest, as an American looking in from the outside, this looks like the leftist parties in Germany trying to silence the opposition. If the party is expelling the true extremists like the Neo-Nazi former party members that you mentioned, I don’t see why they should be held responsible for them. This would be like declaring the entire American Republican Party extreme-far right because of a few whack jobs like the Proud Boys. Opposition parties are extremely important to a properly functioning democracy. What is so extreme and dangerous about the actual current AfD party members other than their anti-immigration stance?
- LaurensBER 1y agoI'm not German but it's my understanding that nothing is being banned. This classification allows the German intelligence agencies to be more aggressive in gathering intelligence of any potential misconduct within the AfD. I'll abstain from making any moral judgements about this, I don't feel qualified to do so but I understand that the historical context places a very large role in Germany. Any association with Nazi's is condemned in the harshest way. The AfD has crossed that line several times in the past.
- flohofwoe 1y ago
- roenxi 1y agoGiven that AfD represents ~20.8% of the vote, 25% of the Bundestag and have upwards trending poll numbers; we can probably start talking about the collapse of democracy in Germany if they aren't allowed to engage politically as any other party. These numbers are too large to ignore. I wish the Germans the best of luck and reiterate that declaring war on their own energy supply was probably a mistake.
- thrance 1y agoSo, tell me again how you'll be preventing the "collapse of democracy" by not condemning the anti-democratic party?
- roenxi 1y agoI'm not sure I follow the double negative there, but once intelligence agencies get involved condemnation doesn't mean much.
- celsoazevedo 1y agoThis classification was made by the BfV[0], created in the 50s. They're tasked with finding extreme groups (right and left) that might present a threat to Germany's democracy. Now, if this should happen and all that, I don't know, but it doesn't seem to be a new thing in Germany (or in other countries like the US where the FBI classifies groups too). In any case and independently of my political views, I can see why a country with Germany's past flags anything that leaves the centre of the political spectrum. I also can see why they're paying attention to this party... their positions about Russia, funding, etc, should raise some red flags. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Office_for_the_Protection_of_the_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Office_for_the_Protect...
- throw123xz 1y ago[dead]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- dweinus 1y agoHuh, I guess they did Not See this coming.
- sincerecook 1y ago[dead]
- tharmas 1y agoThe more austerity for the people the more popular extremist parties will become. Banning them will just stoke the fire. The ruling clases are blinded by their greed. Throw the starving people more than a few crumbs and the appeal of extremist parties will drain away. Its politics 101.
- archagon 1y agoExcept the extremist parties intend to impoverish the people even further. (And don't even bother hiding it, for the most part.)
- Simulacra 1y agoThis is ridiculous, it's subjective, and it's really punitive in a political way. The AFD has made huge gains in Germany, the people voted for that, how dare the intelligence service say oh, this is far right. It's the same as if they had said, it was far left. The government has no business in deciding which party can field candidates. That's the voters to choose.
- froh 1y agothat's not how that works. they were under active investigation for years already, and it took until now to gather and evaluate the evidence. they want to overthrow the foundations of the constitutions. turn human rights back into birthright citizen rights and then likes. that's why they are considered right extreme. the election outcome is much more a success if their campaigning on slander platforms and bubble platforms like X and tiktok. Musks very actively supported their campaign not just through personal public endorsement but also through active support on X.
- awesomeMilou 1y agoThis is ridiculous, it's subjective, and it's really punitive in a political way. The NSDAP has made huge gains in Germany, the people voted for that, how dare the intelligence service say oh, this is far right. It's the same as if they had said, it was far left. The government has no business in deciding which party can field candidates. That's the voters to choose.
- froh 1y agothis is relevant on HN because AfD is the political party that got massive campaigning support by Musk, directly through endorsements and indirectly on X/twitter.
- mandmandam 1y agoI'd bet that's also why it's flagged :/