Germany’s domestic intelligence agency formally classified the Alternative for Germany as a right-wing extremist movement, meaning authorities will have enhanced powers to monitor the party as a potential threat to democracy.
The judgment by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution “is based on an extremely careful expert review spanning approximately three years” that examined remarks made by high-ranking AfD officials, according to a statement published Friday by Sinan Selen and Silke Willems, the office’s co-vice presidents.
Fun fact: The last time we tried to ban a Nazi party, it failed because it had become “too irrelevant” and the ban “wasn’t necessary” anymore.
The time before that, the ban failed because too many “moles” who had infiltrated the party and were on the payroll of this same intelligence agency, were actually Nazis and had taken on an active role in the party. So it was impossible to prove whether Nazi acts were directed by “real” party members or by agents of our intelligence agency.
(There were lots of jokes back then about how the agency doesn’t need to ban the party, it would just vanish if they pulled back their agents.)
This time around, the movement to ban this Nazi party faces resistance from conservatives who say the party is already too big and popular to ban, and should be countered in debate and through good governance. While on local/regional levels and behind the scenes, those same conservatives are already actively cooperating with them. Instead of good governance, they’ve decided to go for open corruption. And by “debate” they mean copying their talking points.
So… Are there any circumstances under which a Nazi party gets banned?
Usually after losing a world war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Reich_Party
TL;DR: If you’re openly a nazi party in 1952 you might get banned.
EDIT: Also helps if you’re willing to ally with the soviets in 1952, it seems.
The only way a party can get banned is by a ruling of our highest court (our equivalent of the supreme court). However, they can not startathe process of banning a party unless our parliament or the Bundesrat (I dont know what’s the translation/English equivalent for this is) tells the court to investigate a party. It is unlikely that the parliament will do this and so the Bundesrat is pretty much our last and only hope.
Bundestag : First Chamber
Bundesrat : Second Chamber
Composition of Bundesrat currently:
Red is social democratic SPD, black and blue are conservative CDU+CSU, green is left-ecoliberal Grüne, yellow is neoliberal FDP, orange is ruralist-regionalist FW, purple is left-auth BSW, magenta is left-socialist Linke.
They represent the 16 federal states’ coalition governments.
Soon after WW2, they banned a party that was just the NSDAP (the original Nazi party) under a new name.
And the KPD (communist party).
Nowadays, I don’t think it’s possible anymore.
The follow-up party of the NSDAP got banned and now there’s an actual possibility of the AfD getting banned
As soon as the conservos and “social democrats” get their heads screwed on straight, it’ll happen. Promise.
So much for “Defensive Democracy” 🤦♂️