AfD Urges Germany Follow US Antifa Terrorist Designation

The AfD is urg­ing Berlin to fol­low the US antifa ter­ror­ist des­ig­na­tion in a dis­play of transat­lantic nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive coor­di­na­tion. On 14 Novem­ber 2025, The Guardian report­ed that AfD deputy fed­er­al spokesper­son Stephan Brand­ner wel­comed the US State Depart­ment deci­sion to clas­si­fy Ger­man Antifa Ost as a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion and called on Euro­pean gov­ern­ments to fol­low the exam­ple. The arti­cle begins:

Ger­many’s far-right Alter­na­tive für Deutsch­land par­ty has wel­comed the US gov­ern­men­t’s deci­sion to clas­si­fy a promi­nent Ger­man anti-fas­cist group and three oth­er Euro­pean net­works as ter­ror­ist organ­i­sa­tions, call­ing on Berlin and oth­er Euro­pean gov­ern­ments to fol­low the exam­ple. But his­to­ri­ans of anti-fas­cism warned that at a time when far-right groups were mak­ing elec­toral gains across the con­ti­nent, the move set a dan­ger­ous prece­dent that could pre­pare the ground for a broad­er crack­down on left­wing activism. The US state depart­ment announced on Thurs­day that the ban would apply to Ger­many’s Antifa Ost, an anti-fas­cist group whose mem­bers have been pros­e­cut­ed by Ger­man author­i­ties for attacks on far-right fig­ures; Italy’s Inter­na­tion­al Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Front, which sent explo­sive pack­ages to the then pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion in 2003; and two organ­i­sa­tions accused of plant­i­ng bombs in Greece: Armed Pro­le­tar­i­an Jus­tice and Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Class Self-Defense.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/14/afd-hails-us-ban-european-leftwing-groups-historians-fear-anti-fascist-crackdown

Key Points

• AfD deputy fed­er­al spokesper­son Stephan Brand­ner wel­comed the US des­ig­na­tion, stat­ing that antifa is a ter­ror­ist organ­i­sa­tion, and it would be easy for the Ger­man state to take action, accus­ing Berlin of tol­er­at­ing far-left vio­lence while call­ing on Euro­pean gov­ern­ments to fol­low the US example.
• Rut­gers Uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor Mark Bray said the Trump admin­is­tra­tion is try­ing to lump all rev­o­lu­tion­ary and rad­i­cal groups togeth­er under the antifa label, set­ting the stage for declar­ing Amer­i­can antifa groups affil­i­at­ed with sup­posed for­eign ter­ror­ist groups.
• Ger­many’s BfV domes­tic intel­li­gence ser­vice, which has des­ig­nat­ed AfD as a con­firmed rightwing extrem­ist force, has pre­vi­ous­ly con­clud­ed that the antifa move­ment has nei­ther a fixed orga­ni­za­tion­al struc­ture nor a clear­ly defined hierarchy.
• His­to­ri­an Richard Rohrmoser told Der Spiegel that Trump is pur­su­ing a per­fid­i­ous tac­tic where labelling groups as antifa allows ban­ning left­wing groups and demon­stra­tions and crack­ing down on oppo­si­tion fig­ures wear­ing antifa symbols.

AfD and MAGA: Germany’s Far-Right Forges Ties with US Movement

Ger­many’s far-right Alter­na­tive for Ger­many (AfD) has emerged as a key Euro­pean node in the Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance link­ing Amer­i­can MAGA fig­ures with Euro­pean nation­al­ists. This transat­lantic coali­tion shares oppo­si­tion to glob­al­ism, mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, and what mem­bers term “woke ide­ol­o­gy,” with Hun­gary serv­ing as the cen­tral bridge between move­ments on both con­ti­nents. The alliance rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant depar­ture from Rea­gan-era con­ser­vatism toward nation­al­ist and pro­tec­tion­ist agendas.

The AfD-MAGA rela­tion­ship inten­si­fied dra­mat­i­cal­ly when bil­lion­aire Elon Musk endorsed the par­ty in Decem­ber 2024, declar­ing, “Only the AfD can save Ger­many.” Accord­ing to the Atlantic Coun­cil’s Dig­i­tal Foren­sic Research Lab, Musk’s back­ing led to an eight-fold increase in engage­ment for AfD politi­cians on X, with views jump­ing from 17,000 to 145,000 in a sin­gle week. In Jan­u­ary 2025, Musk con­duct­ed a livestreamed con­ver­sa­tion with AfD leader Alice Wei­del that attract­ed rough­ly 200,000 view­ers, pro­mot­ing shared themes of anti-immi­gra­tion pol­i­cy and oppo­si­tion to pro­gres­sive pol­i­tics. NPR report­ed that Ger­many’s domes­tic intel­li­gence agency has placed the AfD under sur­veil­lance for sus­pect­ed right-wing extremism.

The ide­o­log­i­cal align­ment between AfD and MAGA cen­ters on shared oppo­si­tion to immi­gra­tion, pro­gres­sive social poli­cies, and what both move­ments char­ac­ter­ize as “wokism”—a ral­ly­ing point for the Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance. AfD MEP Max­i­m­il­ian Krah explic­it­ly pre­dict­ed that “woke pol­i­tics” would dri­ve deep­er col­lab­o­ra­tion between Ger­man nation­al­ists and Amer­i­can con­ser­v­a­tives, declar­ing the AfD “the future” that MAGA allies would inevitably embrace. Accord­ing to TIME, the AfD and Trump admin­is­tra­tion align on being “against islami­sa­tion, against migra­tion, against woke culture”—themes that dom­i­nat­ed the Musk-Wei­del conversation.

The CPAC con­fer­ences have become show­cas­es for this alliance, bring­ing togeth­er Tuck­er Carl­son, Steve Ban­non, and Euro­pean far-right lead­ers, includ­ing Jor­dan Bardel­la and San­ti­a­go Abas­cal. At CPAC 2025, Hun­gar­i­an offi­cials pre­sent­ed their mod­el of illib­er­al democ­ra­cy as a blue­print for con­ser­v­a­tive gov­er­nance world­wide. Fol­low­ing the Char­lie Kirk assas­si­na­tion, AfD leader Wei­del joined oth­er GNCA fig­ures in mourn­ing, call­ing Kirk “a fight­er for free­dom of speech.” TIME Mag­a­zine report­ed that Vice Pres­i­dent JD Vance pri­vate­ly told Wei­del that the U.S. seeks to “break down the fire­wall” iso­lat­ing the AfD from main­stream Ger­man pol­i­tics, sig­nal­ing deep­en­ing offi­cial engage­ment between MAGA lead­er­ship and Ger­many’s far right.

Exter­nal References:

• The Musk Effect: Assess­ing X’s impact on Ger­many’s elec­tion dis­course — Atlantic Coun­cil DFRLab
• Far-Right AfD Ris­es in Ger­many, Boost­ed by Trump Back­ing — TIME
• Elon Musk’s chat with Ger­man far-right AfD can­di­date draws alarm — NPR

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