Racism fueled Nazi ideology and policies. The Nazis viewed the world as being divided up into competing inferior and superior races.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
At its core, the Nazi worldview was racist and biological, positing that the so-called ‘Aryan’ race – primarily the North Europeans – was the superior race of humanity.
Yad Vashem – The World Holocaust Remembrance Center
The German Nazis were decidedly far-Right, not leftwing. To call the Left “Nazis,” or frame the German Left as Nazis, when the enormous weight of corpses and contemporary political analyses note the German Nazis as Right-wing, congratulations, you have taken on the tactics of abusers: Gaslighting.
They merely had “Socialist” in the name. They used the language to co-opt working-class support. Then they aggressively persecuted leftists–i.e., trade unionists, socialists, communists–while advocating for anti-Communism, authoritarianism, militarism, nationalism, traditionalism, and xenophobia.
Facts of history and the dead matter, not scoring political points for personal gain. To more recent history, German intelligence agencies ranked the AfD with neo-Nazi groups as a Gefahr für die Demokratie (danger to democracy).
May 2025…: German intelligence agencies connected the Afd to extreme-right ideology. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) report stressed AfD’s ethnisch-abstammungsmäßiges Volksverständnis(ethnically defined concept of “the people”) as violating democratic order, seeking to exclude entire groups. AfD characterized as a “racist and anti-Muslim” organization, e.g., slogans like Abschieben schafft Wohnraum(“deportation creates housing”) and Jeder Fremde mehr in diesem Land ist einer zu viel (“each more foreigner is one too many”). These are listed as evidence of dehumanizing language. BfV President Thomas Haldenwang called this “a good day for democracy.” A history exists here, too.
March 2022: a Cologne court upheld the BfV’s classification of the AfD and its youth wing as a Beobachtungsobjekt (Verdachtsfall) (suspected extremist organization), finding ausreichende tatsächliche Anhaltspunkte für verfassungsfeindliche Bestrebungen– “sufficient factual indications of anti-constitutional aims.” The BfV 1,100-page report filled the extremism criteria.
Late 2023: Bavarian prosecutors opened investigations into newly elected AfD MP Daniel Halemba for possible use of Nazi symbols. He previously belonged to a student fraternity raided for Nazi paraphernalia.
December, 2023: Several state Verfassungsschutz offices flagged AfD branches. Saxony’s domestic intelligence classified the Saxony AfD as gesichert rechtsextremistisch. Saxony’s VS president Dirk-Martin Christian said, “…an der rechtsextremistischen Ausrichtung der AfD Sachsen bestehen keine Zweifel mehr”(“there is no longer any doubt about AfD Saxony’s right-extremist orientation”) The party held typische völkisch-nationalistische Positionen (“typical folk-nationalist positions”) and used common anti-Semitic conspiracy language. These mirrored Nazi-era rhetoric. Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt earlier flagged local AfD branches as extremist as well.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) called the intelligence review legal and independent, resulting in a 1,100-page internal report being apolitical. The new classification permitted intensified surveillance, including deployment of informants and communication interception.
May, (2024). German courts have penalized AfD members for Nazi-linked speech. The Halle state court convicted Thuringia AfD leader Björn Höcke for using the SA slogan “Alles für Deutschland!”
2025: Two Saarland AfD local councillors liked a Facebook post celebrating Hitler’s birthday. Authorities launched a Volksverhetzung (incitement) probe and party expulsion proceedings.
Leading German politicians likened the AfD to fascism and Nazi extremism. SPD Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned protesters in 2024: Wer die AfD aus Protest wählt, dem müsse klar sein, dass sie Faschisten wählten. (“Anyone who votes AfD out of protest must be aware that they are voting for fascists.”) SPD leader Lars Klingbeil accused AfD co-leader Alice Weidel of heading a rechtsextreme Partei… die AfD ist durchsetzt auch mit Nazis in Europa. (“the AfD is also filled with Nazis in Europe.”) Former SPD head Sigmar Gabriel compared hearing AfD rhetoric to his Nazi-father: Alles, was die [AfD] erzählen, habe ich schon gehört — im Zweifel von meinem eigenen Vater, der … ein Nazi war. Green and Linke politicians made similar warnings. Expert commentators warned of Nazi parallels.
German officials and courts drew a direct line between AfD rhetoric and Nazi-style ideology. Official reports cite AfD policy goals, mass deportation slogans to ethno-nationalist immigration stances, as incompatible with Germany’s constitution.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen is Director of Advocacy for The New Enlightenment Project. He is the publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes forThe Good Men Project, International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN 0018-7399; Online: ISSN 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), A Further Inquiry, and other media. He is a member in good standing of numerous media organizations.
Photo by Ansgar Scheffold on Unsplash
