Certainly right-wing extremist: Is the AfD now a “Nazi party”?

When he hears Björn Höcke "talking so coldly," a dismayed Hendrik Wüst said last year, it sends a "chill down my spine." One can call Höcke a "fascist," added the CDU Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia, in other words, a "Nazi." And if the dominant figure in a party is a Nazi, Wüst judged, "then it's a Nazi party."

It has been clear since Friday that, after several years of investigation, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) has classified the AfD as confirmed right-wing extremist. The domestic intelligence agency announced that the suspicion that the party is pursuing efforts against the free democratic basic order has been confirmed and, in significant parts, solidified into certainty. This assessment had previously only applied to the state associations in Thuringia, Saxony, and Saxony-Anhalt.

And yet, does that make the AfD a "Nazi party"? Is "right-wing radical" the same as "confirmed right-wing extremist"? What does "confirmed" even mean? What is "right-wing"? And is it important to remain linguistically precise—or is every quibble on the far right merely a dangerous trivialization?

Is the AfD a "Nazi party"? A look ahead to the Alternative for Germany federal party conference in Riesa in mid-January 2025.

Source: IMAGO/dts news agency

It's complicated. Precise terminology is just as important as fairness and facts in political debate. Why? Because vague bashing ("They're all Nazis!") only fosters division and encourages defiant reflexes in the voting booth. Formal correctness is exhausting, but essential. The feeling of being labeled a "Nazi" indiscriminately alienates many people from the democratic system as a whole. A political culture war is likely playing out at hundreds of thousands of kitchen tables these days:

“Why do you want to vote for the AfD? It’s a Nazi party!” – “It’s not!” – “It is! They’re right-wing extremists!” – “Who says so?” – “The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution!” – “They’re controlled by the old parties!” – “Nonsense! The AfD is definitely right-wing extremist!” – “But not a Nazi party!” – “That’s the same thing!” – “It isn’t!” – “It is! And Björn Höcke is a nationalist fascist!” – “What is that supposed to be?” – “A Nazi!” – “At most, he’s a new right-wing populist!” – “That’s the same thing!” – “Isn’t it...!”

The more ambiguous the vocabulary, the easier it is for a disastrous dispute to escalate. This was recently demonstrated by the coronavirus pandemic, when a grueling, polemical debate about mandatory vaccination, morality, and solidarity tore families apart, destroyed friendships, and left deep wounds – in many cases simply due to semantic scabs. Now new conflicts are looming. Because: "The terms right-wing extremism, neo-Nazis, and right-wing radicalism are often confused," worries not only the Federal Agency for Civic Education (bpb). So let's attempt to clarify the terms.

What does "right" even mean? "Right" initially simply means being to the right of center on the political spectrum, which has its origins in the French National Assembly of 1789. There, the "radicals" (then the social-liberal democrats) sat on the left and the conservative-reactionary aristocrats on the right. From France, the left-right pattern spread throughout Europe. In the German Parliament of St. Paul's Church in 1848, the republican opponents of the monarchy sat on the left and the conservative supporters of the king on the right.

And what does "radical" mean? Those who think "radically" want to solve social issues from the ground up in an uncompromising, unilateral way (Latin "radix": "root, origin"). This is not forbidden. "Radical political views have their legitimate place in our pluralistic social order," the bpb judges. Society must "also tolerate prominent, radical right-wing or left-wing views," agrees political scientist Rudolf van Hüllen.

The AfD, however, is not considered right-wing radical, but rather "confirmed right-wing extremist." This is the next stage of political escalation. Right-wing radicals Although they also question the basic rules of society, they do not plan a totalitarian dictatorship or a new empire. Right-wing extremists On the other hand, they want to abolish democracy. Hence the justification of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution: the party pursues efforts against the free democratic basic order.

The task of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, as an "early warning system for democracy," is to prevent precisely that. To this end, it may at any time review publicly accessible information—such as press articles or TV appearances—about organizations, parties, or individuals for evidence of unconstitutionality ("test case"). If this reveals indications of extremist intentions, the matter becomes a "suspected case." From this point on, the public must be informed. Investigators are now also permitted to use intelligence tools, such as recruiting informants or monitoring cell phones. If suspicions are further substantiated, the agency can classify a group as "confirmed right-wing extremist" (or "confirmed left-wing extremist" —such as the German Communist Party (DKP) since 1968). This happened on Friday.

Nationwide classified as “certainly right-wing extremist”: A participant in the 16th federal party conference of the Alternative for Germany in mid-January in Riesa wearing a hoodie with the emblem of the youth organization “Junge Alternative”.

Source: IMAGO/Revierfoto

The AfD state associations in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia have long been classified as "certainly right-wing extremist" according to this principle. The youth organization "Junge Alternative"—from which the party has just disassociated itself —is categorized nationwide as "certainly right-wing extremist," as is the officially dissolved but still active "wing" around Björn Höcke. Now the entire party has been affected. But does that also make it "fascist" —or, in Wüst's sense, a "Nazi party"?

Fascism is, literally, the self-designation of the right-wing extremist movement that dominated Italy under Benito Mussolini from 1922 onward. Its name comes from its emblem, which depicted a bundle of ancient Roman wooden rods with an axe (Latin: "fascio"), the symbol of power of the officials in the Roman Empire. The word quickly became a catchall for all ultra-right leadership ideologies.

The term, often shortened to a combative term ("fascist") on the left, is controversial among historians as a synonym for Nazi ideology. Specifically, "fascist" only describes the followers of a Mediterranean Mussolini-style neo-fascism. US political scientist Paul Gottfried, for example, considers the word unsuitable as a term for "anything the speaker finds deeply repulsive."

So why is it permissible to call AfD leader Björn Höcke a "fascist" ? The Meiningen Administrative Court ruled in 2019 that the designation constituted a permissible "value judgment" that was not plucked out of thin air, but rather "based on verifiable facts." Strictly speaking, the court did not rule that Höcke is a fascist, but rather that he may be called such within the framework of freedom of expression.

And what are Identitarians then? As ethnically oriented xenophobes, they propagate the imaginary "ideal" of a homogeneous, "pure" people that must be protected from any "foreign" influence. At the heart of this worldview is the conspiracy-based fear of a "great replacement" of the local population by non-European immigrants, aided by a powerful "welfare asylum migrant lobby."

French alliances were pioneers in 2002, and German offshoots emerged in 2012, fueled in part by the debate surrounding Thilo Sarrazin's book "Germany Is Abolishing Itself." This Islamophobic, identitarian ideology belongs to the diffuse spectrum of the New Right. Like a political wolf in sheep's clothing, it likes to masquerade as intellectual, but according to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, it "violates the constitutionally enshrined human dignity and the principle of democracy."

New right parties – including the Austrian FPÖ, the Lega Nord in Italy, or the SVP in Switzerland – seek to connect with the conservative camp through more subtle signals, but in reality, as the Swiss journalist Roger de Weck put it, are working to "make contempt for humanity socially acceptable." The AfD is supported by new right networks, but is not a "new right" party. Why? The label would be too harmless for it. "A party that is politically right-wing and longs for the collapse of the system is undoubtedly not a 'normal party' in the democratic competition of a pluralistic representative democracy," writes historian Ralf Melzer, now director of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Israel, in a guest article in "Spiegel" magazine.

Was Adolf Hitler a communist? This was the claim made by AfD leader Alice Weidel in her conversation with US entrepreneur Elon Musk on his platform X.

Source: IMAGO/Hanno Bode

What does "Nazi" even mean? "National Socialism," as the murderous foundation of the Third Reich, was essentially a political contrivance: Nationalism, in the sense of a modern "tribal affiliation," focuses on the interests of sovereign individual states, while socialism emphasizes the individual rights of exploited workers. Hitler claimed to unite both. With their alleged "national socialism," the Nazis distanced themselves, on the one hand, from the internationalism of the communists and social democrats—and, at the same time, from the conservative "nationalism" of the "old parties." Just because the word "socialism" appears in "National Socialism" doesn't mean Hitler was a communist, as AfD leader Alice Weidel claimed in her conversation with Elon Musk. Communists were among the first victims of the Nazi murderers.

So every neo-Nazi is at least right-wing radical, but not every right-wing radical is a neo-Nazi. There are overlaps with Reich Citizens, who in turn consider the Federal Republic of Germany illegitimate. And the AfD? It was long considered "right-wing populist," but not right-wing extremist. That has changed. "Unlike right-wing extremists or even right-wing terrorists like the NSU, right-wing populists mark the gray area between democratic-conservative and right-wing extremist," writes Melzer. In France, the Front National under Marine Le Pen has transformed from a right-wing extremist to a right-wing populist party. The AfD, on the other hand, has taken exactly the opposite path.

May be called a “fascist”: AfD politician Björn Höcke at the 16th federal party conference of the Alternative for Germany on January 12, 2025 in Riesa.

Source: IMAGO/Revierfoto

So, is it a "Nazi party"? Not in the strict sense, because its concrete goal is not the reinstallation of a totalitarian Führer state modeled on the Nazis. But there are ideological similarities. Conclusion: Not every "right-winger" is right-wing extremist, and certainly not every AfD voter is a Nazi. However, with every voter voting, it must be clear that this – let's be precise about the term – is a clearly right-wing extremist party that tolerates people in its ranks who can legally be labeled fascists, and which, according to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, is striving nationwide to undermine the Basic Law. That is frightening enough.