For the first time, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) has classified a radical climate protection group as a suspected extremist case. This is evident from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution’s report for 2023, which will be presented on Tuesday and was made available to WELT in advance.
The classification concerns the “Ende Gelände” alliance, founded in 2014. According to the domestic intelligence service, the project has “established itself as a cooperation partner for members of autonomous and dogmatic left-wing extremism.” In addition, “an increasing, independent escalation of forms of action, including sabotage” is evident. Policy papers from the alliance clearly show a “radicalization with regard to the group’s prevailing ideological positions.”
Last year, “Ende Gelände” called for the release of left-wing extremist Lina E., who had been convicted of multiple counts of grievous bodily harm. The year before, the alliance called for the abolition of the police.
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution is also observing attempts by extremist leftists to influence climate protection movements outside of this group. These are aimed at “shifting democratic discourses, radicalizing social protest and delegitimizing the state and its institutions,” the report says.
It continues: “In rejection of the state monopoly on violence and against the background of supposedly lacking climate policy successes while at the same time clinging to apocalyptic end-time narratives, terms such as ‘civil disobedience plus’ and ‘peaceful sabotage’ are being discussed.”
According to the report by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, almost 40 percent of the crimes classified as left-wing extremist last year were directed “against actual or identified right-wing extremists.” “There are hardly any limits to the violence and it is more a matter of chance that no deaths have occurred so far,” it says. AfD officials and supporters are also targeted. The far-right party is often the target of property damage and arson, and in isolated cases of physical attacks.
In the report, the BfV warns urgently of the emergence of a new left-wing and right-wing terrorism. Regarding the first-mentioned phenomenon, it says that the risk of serious acts of violence against people has increased again. “If the radicalization of individuals or structures, especially of violent criminals in the underground, continues unchecked, a new left-wing terrorism could emerge in Germany, which would be directed in particular against identified ‘fascists’, but could also lead to further violence against the state and police.”
A “xenophobic motivation” plays a particularly prominent role in right-wing extremist acts, it continues. “With the numbers of irregular migration to Germany increasing again since 2021, this issue has a high, ever-growing mobilization potential in the right-wing extremist scene. This development can ultimately lead to right-wing terrorist acts.”
Some right-wing extremists explicitly threatened that “if there are no changes in migration policy, they themselves would take action against the ‘foreign infiltration’ they claim.” The “ongoing agitation and incitement” of right-wing extremists against migrants is “in a number of cases reflected in attacks on initial reception centers and physical assaults against people perceived as foreigners.”
In the area of Islamist terrorism, the security authorities have stated that there is still a risk that has increased since the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza. The threat in Germany comes not only from jihadist groups, but above all from individual perpetrators with easily available means of committing crimes, “whose attacks are primarily directed against ‘soft’ targets.” Preventing such acts presents the authorities with major challenges: there is often only a short planning phase, and communication structures are often lacking.
In addition to the Middle East conflict, the report by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution names two central themes of Islamist propaganda: Koran burnings in Europe and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) movement. “Salafist clergy in particular have explicitly opposed homosexuality, which is branded as a ‘crime of immorality,'” it says. Muslims who are open to LGBT people are exposed to massive hostility from Islamists.
In the area of foreign extremism, the anti-Israel boycott movement BDS is listed for the first time as a suspected extremist case. The central demand is an end to the occupation of “all Arab lands”, which is to be understood as a demand for an “end to the state existence of Israel”.
The AfD continues to be considered a suspected case of right-wing extremism. The party’s statements “often express a nationalistic understanding of the people that contradicts the understanding of the people in the Basic Law,” it says. Asylum seekers and migrants from Islamic countries of origin in particular are also often “generally assumed to be culturally incompatible and have a pronounced tendency towards crime.” The North Rhine-Westphalian Higher Administrative Court confirmed the classification as legal in May of this year.
In addition, the BfV has observed an increasing networking of the New Right over the past year. A “division of labor can be observed, which covers a broad spectrum of activities from logistical and financial support for the scene to ideological debates on principles and strategies and even activism.” Actors of the New Right themselves speak of a “mosaic right.”
