Germany Excoriates Rubio Over Scandalous AFD Extremism Comments

Ger­many’s AfD extrem­ist clas­si­fi­ca­tion has trig­gered a diplo­mat­ic spat with the Unit­ed States. On May 3, 2025, AP News report­ed that Ger­many’s for­eign min­istry respond­ed sharply to crit­i­cism from US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Rubio after Ger­man intel­li­gence clas­si­fied the Alter­na­tive for Ger­many par­ty as a “right-wing extrem­ist” orga­ni­za­tion. The arti­cle begins:

Ger­many’s for­eign min­istry hit back at U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Rubio after he crit­i­cized the deci­sion to clas­si­fy the Alter­na­tive for Ger­many par­ty as a “right-wing extrem­ist” orga­ni­za­tion. The spat deep­ened Fri­day to embroil the for­eign office, Rubio, U.S. Vice Pres­i­dent JD Vance and tech bil­lion­aire Elon Musk. It also occurred at a com­pli­cat­ed time for Ger­many — just days before the 80th anniver­sary of the end of World War II and Nazi Ger­many’s uncon­di­tion­al capit­u­la­tion. Plus, a coali­tion deal between the cen­ter-right and cen­ter-left par­ties was just approved, and now par­lia­ment is set to vote next week to elect con­ser­v­a­tive leader Friedrich Merz as the coun­try’s new chancellor.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/germany-afd-jd-vance-marco-rubio-us-trump-9787d0989df4e3ff15cd626a57c7c02d

Key Points

• The Ger­man intel­li­gence ser­vice’s clas­si­fi­ca­tion means offi­cials can now use infor­mants and sur­veil­lance tools to mon­i­tor AfD activ­i­ties nationwide.
• Rubio labeled the move “tyran­ny in dis­guise,” while VP Vance claimed Ger­many’s estab­lish­ment had “rebuilt” the Berlin Wall.
• AfD lead­ers Wei­del and Chru­pal­la con­demned the clas­si­fi­ca­tion as “polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed” and a “severe blow to Ger­man democracy.”
• The dis­pute occurs as Ger­many pre­pares for Friedrich Merz to become chan­cel­lor fol­low­ing a coali­tion agree­ment between cen­ter-right and cen­ter-left parties.

Germany’s Extremist AfD: Rubio Comments Highlight Party’s Role in the GNCA

The Ger­man AfD par­ty has increas­ing­ly aligned itself with the Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance (GNCA), ampli­fy­ing nation­al­ist and anti-glob­al­ist nar­ra­tives while serv­ing as a con­duit for Russ­ian influ­ence in Europe. AfD lead­ers have sought clos­er ties with Hungary’s Fidesz par­ty and echoed GNCA talk­ing points on immi­gra­tion and “woke” pol­i­tics, as seen in recent pre­dic­tions by AfD MEPs about deep­en­ing alliances with Hun­gary and warn­ings about social crises. Mean­while, analy­ses reveal that the AfD’s pub­lic admi­ra­tion for Russ­ian gov­er­nance con­tra­dicts the real­i­ty of Putin’s author­i­tar­i­an­ism, yet this rhetoric has helped nor­mal­ize pro-Krem­lin posi­tions among Ger­man vot­ers, rein­forc­ing the party’s role in spread­ing Russ­ian dis­in­for­ma­tion and white­wash­ing Krem­lin poli­cies. The AfD’s rad­i­cal­iza­tion is fur­ther under­scored by inci­dents such as Lena Kotré’s planned speech at a UK far-right event and her dis­tri­b­u­tion of banned weapons, which experts warn could val­i­date and embold­en white suprema­cist groups. These trends reflect a broad­er pat­tern: Russ­ian oper­a­tives have active­ly court­ed AfD politi­cians, offer­ing incen­tives and orches­trat­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns to ampli­fy Krem­lin-friend­ly nar­ra­tives, espe­cial­ly ahead of Euro­pean elec­tions, as doc­u­ment­ed in exter­nal analy­ses of Russ­ian inter­fer­ence tac­tics. The AfD’s trans­for­ma­tion into a prin­ci­pal con­duit for exter­nal influ­ence and extrem­ist nar­ra­tives is now a grow­ing con­cern in Ger­many and across the EU.

Exter­nal References:

1. AfD pro-Rus­sia move­ment — Wikipedia

2. Far Right’s Ties to Rus­sia Sow Ris­ing Alarm in Ger­many — The New York Times

3. Intel­Brief: Russ­ian Inter­fer­ence Tac­tics in Euro­pean Demo­c­ra­t­ic Process­es Ramp Up — The Soufan Center

4. Rus­si­a’s best friends in Ger­many: AfD and BSW – DW

Disclaimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.