I know it’s easy to miss, only two thirds of the article are about this.

The agency said it had assessed numerous statements from functionaries and elected officials of the far-right party, as anti-Muslim, antisemitic, and racist before making the assessment.

The AfD’s Saxony-Anhalt branch has been under formal suspicion of far-right extremism since 2021.

BfV head Jochen Hollmann said his organization had gathered extensive information that showed the association’s values were incompatible with human dignity, democracy, and the rule of law.

“The regional association not only continues to hold anti-constitutional positions that led to its classification as a suspected case, but has also become radicalized to such an extent since the coronavirus pandemic that systematic observation using intelligence service means is justified.”

The Saxony-Anhalt AfD aspires to create a “homogenous ethnocultural national population” and exclude others on the basis of race or religion, according to the BfV.

The party also aspires to, “do away with parliamentary democracy in its current form.”

Created in 2013, the AfD began as an anti-euro party in the midst of the euro crisis, before becoming a staunchly anti-immigrant outfit in the midst of the 2015 refugee crisis.

It also latched on to frustrations brought on by the coronavirus pandemic and has regularly stoked fear and spread conspiracy theories. Its leaders routinely make headlines using Nazi language, trafficking in antisemitic tropes, denying the Holocaust and trivializing Germany’s Nazi past.