A quiet but unmistakable crack is running through the republic. A report from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, dry in tone, unambiguous in consequence: the Alternative for Germany has been classified as proven right-wing extremist in several federal states - and nationwide as a suspected right-wing extremist case. In the end, I believe it will be the Federal Constitutional Court that delivers the final ruling on the intelligence agency's assessment. A legal diagnosis, yes. But also a moral mirror. Because with it, a political gut feeling becomes an official diagnosis. And a protest voter suddenly becomes someone who has to show their true colors.
Now show your face.
Until now, it was easy. You could vote for the AfD and hide behind it - behind frustration over refugee policy, COVID measures, or "gender madness." Behind the sentence: "I'm not a Nazi, but ..." But that sentence no longer holds. Anyone who votes for the AfD today is making a conscious decision. For a party whose leading figures defamed the Holocaust Memorial as a "monument of shame," that mocks democratic institutions and seeks to disenfranchise entire population groups. Whoever still checks the AfD box now knows exactly what they're doing.
You’ll have to decide: Do I stand on the side of democracy - or do I align with those who want to destroy it?
The Social Mask Falls
The impact of the report doesn’t just unfold on paper. It is social. Professional. Personal. No one will be able to say: “I didn’t know.” Voting for the AfD becomes a public act - with consequences. Colleagues will look more closely. Circles of friends will grow more alert. Employers will begin to ask: Do I want to employ someone who supports a right-wing extremist party?
History knows these tipping points. In the 1950s, it was the banning of the SRP, the Socialist Reich Party - a haven for old Nazis. When the Federal Constitutional Court banned it in 1952 as unconstitutional, it ended the attempt to establish Nazi ideology under a new name. And with the ban came social ostracism.
An even more fitting example, however, is the NPD.
There were two attempts to ban it - most recently in 2017. The Constitutional Court reached a clear conclusion: the NPD is racist, völkisch, anti-constitutional. Merely too insignificant to be dangerous. Yet even without a ban, the effect was devastating: the party was politically isolated, socially shunned, legally disarmed.
Anyone who publicly aligned with the NPD placed themselves on the fringe. The term "Nazi" was clearly assigned. The party fell - not legally, but socially.
And that is exactly where the AfD now stands - on the threshold of the same isolation. The difference? It is larger, more successful, more dangerous. But it too could fall - once the mask has finally slipped.
The Silent Withdrawal – and the Silence of the Functionaries
Already, the first local politicians are leaving the party. Quietly. Without press releases. Not out of remorse, but because the cost is rising. Suddenly, it's no longer enough to just rage against "those at the top." Now it's about personal responsibility. About what remains when the protest vocabulary is stripped away - and the bare resentment becomes visible underneath.
Whoever puts up AfD posters these days wears a label: follower or true believer. Both are dangerous. But the followers who still hope right-wing extremism can be downplayed or sugar-coated may now jump ship - if they find the courage.
A Party Without a Mask
The AfD has radicalized. Not in backrooms, but on open stages. With Höcke, Krah, Bystron, 2x Kotré...... With its alignment with the New Right, with identitarian circles, with enemies of democracy. The bourgeois mask has fallen. What remains is a hard ideological core - and a frightening echo on the marketplaces of the East. But that echo is not inevitable. It can be shaped. Because even in Thuringia, Saxony, and Brandenburg, there are people who refuse to give up the democratic consensus.
The question is: How many people really want to be seen as Nazis?
How many will continue to carry this party - and how many will turn away once they realize that they themselves are suddenly the ones being meant?
"It is the hour of decision. For voters. For functionaries. For everyone who believes the AfD is something good. But then take off the mask - good luck explaining that. Even to your neighbor."
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