Calls to ban Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) party — now the second-largest in the country — are escalating, sparking alarm from legal experts and historians who warn such a move could tear apart the nation’s democratic fabric. Despite receiving over ten million votes and securing official opposition status, the AfD continues to face aggressive attempts by the German left to remove it from public life.
After the outgoing leftist government labeled the AfD a “right-wing extremist” organization, some German states have barred its members from becoming police officers or civil servants. Left-wing politicians are even openly pushing for an outright ban on the party, which would result in the removal of elected AfD officials from parliament — a drastic measure with no modern precedent in Western Europe.
Professor Andreas Rödder of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, a leading figure in Germany’s center-right intellectual sphere, cautioned against this authoritarian turn. Speaking to Euronews, Rödder warned that banning the AfD could trigger civil unrest, stating it would be a “sure path to civil war.” He urged the German left to “think carefully” about the long-term consequences of subverting democratic norms to eliminate political opposition.
The AfD, founded in 2013, has consistently challenged establishment politics on issues like mass immigration and EU overreach. Though often maligned by legacy media as “far-right,” the party’s electoral success suggests widespread public support for its nationalist and sovereigntist platform. Party leaders like Björn Höcke argue that efforts to surveil and criminalize the movement are themselves a “massive attack on democracy.”
Even Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who leads the center-right Christian Democrats in coalition with the left, opposes the ban. He argues that outlawing the AfD won’t erase the convictions of its ten million voters, and that victory should be sought at the ballot box—not through state repression.
