The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is taking a closer look at associations of the New Right. The authority classifies the "Institute for State Policy", the association "One Percent" and the AfD youth organization "Young Alternative" (JA) as secured right-wing extremist efforts. The indications of efforts against the free democratic basic order have "now condensed to certainty," said the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

Helene Bubrowski

Political correspondent in Berlin.

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The "Young Alternative" had already been classified as a suspected case in January 2019. Since 2020, the "Institute for State Policy" and "One Percent e.V." have also been under observation by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

"The positions of the 'Institute for State Policy', 'One Percent e.V.' and the youth organization of the AfD 'Young Alternative' are not compatible with the Basic Law," said the President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang. "There is no longer any doubt that these three groups of persons are pursuing anti-constitutional tendencies."

According to the authority's findings, the three associations aim at the exclusion of supposedly 'strangers' and try to make these positions socially compatible. "The deliberate propagation of enemy images and the stirring up of resentment among the population are also generally suitable for preparing the ground for non-peaceful behaviour towards those affected," said Haldenwang. The task of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is to act as an "early warning system" to protect the free democratic basic order to inform the public about such efforts.

Agitation against refugees and migrants

In the case of the "Young Alternative", the Office for the Protection of the Constitution observes a consolidation and tightening of extremist positions. Their understanding of the people, which is expressed in pronouncements, contradicts the popular understanding expressed in the Basic Law, that German nationals with a migration background are devalued to "second-class Germans".

According to the findings of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the JA propagates a völkisch concept of society that postulates a state people that is as ethnically homogeneous as possible, excludes migrants of non-European origin as fundamentally unintegrable and sees the greatest danger in a supposedly controlled population exchange for the destruction of the "organically grown European peoples". Agitation against refugees and migrants is also a central and constant theme in the statements of the YES and its members.

With regard to the "Institute for State Policy" (IfS), the Office for the Protection of the Constitution attaches the upgrade in particular to statements that are directed against human dignity. According to their findings, leaders of the IfS represent an "ethnic-descent understanding of the people" and strive for a "state people that is as ethnoculturally homogeneous as possible". The propagated idea that there is a German people beyond the people of the state defined in the Basic Law as the totality of German citizens implies a disparagement of naturalized nationals. In addition, the attitude is taken that there is a threat of the "dissolution of the German people" and that there is allegedly a "population exchange" taking place, also called "Great Replacement", "Umvolkung" or "Replacement Migration".

In the case of the association "One Percent", the Office for the Protection of the Constitution has observed a radicalization in terms of content. "The positions represented and propagated demonstrably contain völkisch-nationalist ideologemes, are anti-immigrant, xenophobic and anti-Muslim as well as racist," the authority said. "One percent" also represents a concept of the people based on ethnic ancestral premises. The aim of the association is the "metapolitical achievement of cultural hegemony" and thus the establishment of a corresponding "counterculture".