Icon: enlarge
Interior Minister Seehofer
Photo: Omer Messinger / Getty Images
For only one week, the AfD was under observation by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV).
For a week, according to a secret classification, she was suspected of right-wing extremism.
Because there are "sufficiently weighty indications of anti-constitutional efforts in the party as a whole," as stated in a 1001-page internal report by the office that is available to SPIEGEL.
Lawyers and right-wing extremism experts from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution evaluated hundreds of speeches, Facebook postings and appearances by AfD politicians at all party levels.
Eventually this classification became public.
On Wednesday, many media, including SPIEGEL, reported on the "suspected case" of the AfD.
more on the subject
Icon: Spiegel PlusIcon: Spiegel Plus Confidential opinion on the protection of the constitution on the AfD: "Violent resistance cannot be ruled out" By Jörg Diehl, Ann-Katrin Müller, Ansgar Siemens and Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt
The judges at the Cologne administrative court apparently didn't like that at all.
Because there has been an urgent procedure for a few weeks that the AfD has initiated against the protection of the constitution.
And in this process, the domestic secret service had promised not to publicly disclose if the party were to observe.
This is called a standstill commitment in legal German.
If there is one thing judges dislike, it is a lack of calm in their proceedings.
Especially when it comes to such a delicate question as to whether it is permitted or perhaps even urgently necessary to use secret service methods to monitor the largest opposition party in an election year.
And so the Cologne administrative court decided this Friday: It will not be observed until the urgent procedure is over.
The judges' announcement was unusually harsh.
They made the Federal Office responsible for the media reports.
The authority had at least "not taken sufficient care" that the classification of the party as a "suspected case" did not leak out.
Head of the Constitutional Protection, Thomas Haldenwang, announced this decision to colleagues in the 16 state offices in an internal bulletin on Wednesday morning.
There was no public announcement.
“Silence is the most important virtue of the intelligence community.
Unfortunately, this virtue was disregarded in this case. "
Horst Seehofer
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU), Haldenwang's employer, was angry on Friday.
Not because of the court decision, but rather he criticizes the protection of the constitution, those of the federal states, but also his own federal office.
"Silence is the most important virtue of the intelligence services," Seehofer told SPIEGEL.
"Unfortunately, this virtue was disregarded in this case." The requirement of the administrative court was clear that the decision and the expert opinion should not be discussed.
But "of course" there was chatting again, criticized Seehofer, from whomever: "This is my collar." It was "not wise" to inform all office heads in the countries via a video conference immediately after the decision.
But the question is how it could have been different.
The Federal Office works closely with the state offices, they form the so-called Constitutional Protection Association.
The offices in the federal states contributed a lot of material for the AfD report, as is customary in this association.
Many footnotes in the report refer to their supplies.
It is just as common for the Federal Office to notify the federal states of the results of its examinations.
After all, they also need the assessment from the headquarters in Cologne for their on-site assessment.
more on the subject
SPIEGEL survey: majority for observation of the AfD by the protection of the constitution
Right-wing extremism suspicion: Administrative court prohibits the protection of the Constitution from observing the AfD for the time being
AfD and the Protection of the Constitution: In the Abyss An analysis by Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt
The circle of initiates has recently grown larger and larger.
In the past few days, an extensive document from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution had also been sent to the Cologne Administrative Court - and thus also to the AfD involved in the proceedings.
On the far right, the decision of the administrative court was seen as a "gossip" for the head of the protection of the constitution.
Ever since he replaced Hans-Georg Maaßen at the head of the secret service, Haldenwang has been considered a kind of hatred figure in the party.
After all, after he took office, the völkisch-nationalist "wing" network was classified as right-wing extremist in March 2020.
Shortly afterwards, leader Björn Höcke officially dissolved it.
In its latest report, however, the Federal Office doubts that the influence of the network has been extinguished as a result.
Once again, many AfD politicians tried to create the impression that the AfD had achieved legal success.
But that's not the case.
Because the administrative court has not yet dealt with the crucial question in its decision from Friday: whether the AfD is to be viewed as anti-constitutional.
The internal report of the secret service shows that there are weighty arguments for this.
In it, the office even warns of an increasing willingness to use violence within the AfD: "Violent resistance - at least among parts of the party - cannot be ruled out in principle."
"A significant part of the party," write the protection of the constitution, is not concerned with leading a sometimes polemical discourse - "but rather arousing or reinforcing a fundamental rejection of the federal government and all other parties and their representatives."
Icon: The mirror
