AfD in the sights of the constitutionalists: The legal risk

The SPD politician Ralf Stegner likes to tweet and do a lot. The recent decision of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution to take a closer look at the AfD, commented the Schleswig-Holstein SPD head of state with the sentence: "This had to go the unfortunate Mr. Maassen, so that can happen, which was long overdue."

The political opponent was only too happy to accept the bill. The Thuringian AFD right wing outward Björn Höcke spread Stegner's words, provided with the remark: "Protection of the Constitution as an election campaign:" The real reason why Maaßen had to go. "Similarly, the AfD Group Chairman Alice Weidel was at a press conference in the Bundestag.

Hans-Georg Maaßen was retired in November by Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) in the temporary retirement, after the former constitutional protection president was advised several times in the headlines. Among other things, because he had met with the former AfD chairman Frauke Petry, which Maaßen always defended as a normal conversation in the context of his service.

DPA

Andreas Kalbitz

Meanwhile, Thomas Haldenwang leads the domestic intelligence service, which has now declared the AfD with a view to possible extremist aspirations to the "test case". The offspring of the "Young Alternative" (JA) and built by Björn Höcke collection movement "The wing" classifies the protection of the Constitution even as a "suspected cases", which against these the use of intelligence resources (observation, V-people) would be possible.

Behind the "wing" is a network of right-wing party members who try to base themselves on power struggles and on party conferences. In its report, the protection of the Constitution certifies the "wing" in particular numerous violations of the principle of human dignity. As an alternative to the right-wing network, the "alternative center" had formed in the summer of 2017, which sees itself as a moderate connection within the AfD.

The right-wing populists once again fell in the victim role after the intelligence classification. But what does the decision for the party in practice mean? After all, this year there are election campaigns in Bremen, Brandenburg, Thuringia, Saxony and the European elections.

AfD party and faction leader Alexander Gauland was unaffected to the outside, said that the measures have "no effect on the election campaign." The head of the internal AfD working group on the protection of the constitution, Roland Hartwig, however, lamented recently that the Federal Office had made the "complete non-event" - the constitutional protection check finally always - public, also "with the intention to damage us politically". It is possible that certain voters "influence their voting behavior".

DPA

Björn Höcke (at the state party convention of the AfD Thüringen)

After all, there are now two representatives of the "wing" under special observation, the top candidates of the AfD in their respective countries. In addition to Höcke in Thuringia this is the Brandenburg state and faction leader Andreas Kalbitz. In both countries, the AfD national associations cited by Höcke and Kalbitz are doing well in recent polls - in Thuringia at 22 percent, in Brandenburg at 20 percent, and at the same time as the ruling SPD. In both countries, the party could even become the strongest force.

The 46-year-old Kalbitz is less well known as Höcke but has a dazzling political past in the far-right milieu: Once he started with the Junge Union and the CSU, as a young man he joined the far-right party "The Republicans", wrote for the right weekly "Junge Freiheit", visited in 2007 a camp of the (two years later banned) neo-Nazi "Heimattreuen German Youth" - which he admitted after a TV report in 2018.

Already before the party exit of the former Höcke companion André Poggenburg Kalbitz 'position in the "wing" had become increasingly strong, not least because he sits since December 2017 in the Federal Executive of the AfD. For the constitutional protection Kalbitz counts therefore beside Höcke and the Islamic scientist Hans Thomas Tillschneider to the "authoritative" figures in the "wing".

Moderate forces call for "self-cleaning process"

How far the classification as a "suspected case" could be exploited by the internal opponents in the power struggle of the AfD, is open. Frank-Christian Hansel, one of the co-founders of the "Alternatives Mitte" said to the SPIEGEL now: For a "reasonable national-conservative flow" on the ground of the Basic Law is in the AFD course place, but not for "extremist positions". This is not a question of "tactically motivated tonality", but fundamental conviction of the AfD. "Who does not share, is not one of us," said Hansel, the AfD-faction leader in the Berlin House of Representatives.

Other representatives of the "alternative middle" meanwhile demand a "self-cleaning process" of YES and "wings", both groups must "separate from certain people". They have become "a threat to the existence of the entire party".

Kalbitz does not want to know about it. He gives the impression that he takes the measure of the protection of the constitution calmly. He could well imagine that in the West, it scares off voters, in the East, he estimates the situation completely different.

An influence on his person or the state election campaign, he could "just as little recognize as an internal weakening of the wing," he tells the SPIEGEL. On the contrary: the AFD is "aware of the importance of cohesion and unity in moments of factually unfounded external hostility".

Certainly you are on the edge of the AfD but apparently not. In the coming week Höcke wants to discuss with his party friends at a "wing" meeting in Saxony about the new situation.