The Thuringia branch of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is being officially reviewed by local security services, officials announced on Thursday.

Thuringia's arm of the domestic intelligence service, the BfV, which monitors extremist activities, will take a closer look at the Thuringia AfD as a "test case" to probe the party for unconstitutional, right-wing extremist activities.

Remarks from state party leader Björn Höcke (pictured above, center) particularly caught the attention of authorities, who has in the past described Berlin's Holocaust memorial as a "memorial of shame." He and other Thuringia AfD party officials also marched in protests organized by known-right-wing extremist groups in the eastern German city of Chemnitz.

Watch video 26:00 Share The far right: Can Germany defeat its demons? Send Facebook google+ Whatsapp Tumblr linkedin stumble Digg reddit Newsvine Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/34Qxw The far right: Can Germany defeat its demons?

The AfD's participation in the demonstrations in Chemnitz was one of the reasons authorities decided to review the right-wing populists, said Stephan Kramer, the head of Thuringia's BfV said on Thursday.

There is "an increasingly eroding demarcation" between the AfD and right-wing extremist groups, Kramer said.

Public comments by state party officials as well as AfD publications will be examined in the review, reported public broadcaster MDR. Authorities did not say when the review would start.

Officials at the security agency will try to determine whether or not Thuringia's AfD actually adheres to right-wing extremist beliefs, despite strategic efforts to differentiate themselves.

AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks Alexander Gauland Co-chairman Alexander Gauland said the German national soccer team's defender Jerome Boateng might be appreciated for his performance on the pitch - but people would not want "someone like Boateng as a neighbor." He also argued Germany should close its borders and said of an image showing a drowned refugee child: "We can't be blackmailed by children's eyes."

AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks Alice Weidel Alice Weidel generally plays the role of "voice of reason" for the far-right populists, but she, too, is hardly immune to verbal miscues. Welt newspaper, for instance, published a 2013 memo allegedly from Weidel in which she called German politicians "pigs" and "puppets of the victorious powers in World War II. Weidel initially claimed the mail was fake, but now admits its authenticity.

AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks Frauke Petry German border police should shoot at refugees entering the country illegally, the former co-chair of the AfD told a regional newspaper in 2016. Officers must "use firearms if necessary" to "prevent illegal border crossings." Communist East German leader Erich Honecker was the last German politician who condoned shooting at the border.

AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks Björn Höcke The head of the AfD in the state of Thuringia made headlines for referring to Berlin's Holocaust memorial as a "monument of shame" and calling on the country to stop atoning for its Nazi past. The comments came just as Germany enters an important election year - leading AfD members moved to expel Höcke for his remarks.

AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks Beatrix von Storch Initially, the AfD campaigned against the euro and bailouts - but that quickly turned into anti-immigrant rhetoric. "People who won't accept STOP at our borders are attackers," the European lawmaker said. "And we have to defend ourselves against attackers."

AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks Marcus Pretzell Pretzell, former chairman of the AfD in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and husband to Frauke Petry, wrote "These are Merkel's dead," shortly after news broke of the deadly attack on the Berlin Christmas market in December 2016.

AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks Andre Wendt The member of parliament in Germany's eastern state of Saxony made waves in early 2016 with an inquiry into how far the state covers the cost of sterilizing unaccompanied refugee minors. Thousands of unaccompanied minors have sought asylum in Germany, according to the Federal Association for Unaccompanied Minor Refugees (BumF) — the vast majority of them young men.

AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks Andre Poggenburg Poggenburg, head of the AfD in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, has also raised eyebrows with extreme remarks. In February 2017, he urged other lawmakers in the state parliament to join measures against the extreme left-wing in order to "get rid of, once and for all, this rank growth on the German racial corpus" — the latter term clearly derived from Nazi terminology.

AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks Alexander Gauland - again ... During a campaign speech in Eichsfeld in August 2017, AfD election co-candidate Alexander Gauland said that Social Democrat parliamentarian Aydan Özoguz should be "disposed of" back to Anatolia. The German term, "entsorgen," raised obvious parallels to the imprisonment and killings of Jews and prisoners of war under the Nazis.

AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks ... and again Gauland was roundly criticized for a speech he made to the AfD's youth wing in June 2018. Acknowledging Germany's responsibility for the crimes of the Nazi era, he went on to say Germany had a "glorious history and one that lasted a lot longer than those damned 12 years. Hitler and the Nazis are just a speck of bird shit in over 1,000 years of successful German history."

AfD leaders and their most offensive remarks Andreas Kalbitz The Brandenburg state AfD chief admitted in 2019 to attending a 2007 rally in Greece by the ultranationalist Golden Dawn party at which a swastika flag was raised. "Der Spiegel" had published a leaked report by the German embassy in Athens naming him as one of "14 neo-Nazis" who arrived from Germany for the far-right rally. Kalbitz released a statement saying he took part out of "curiosity." Author: Dagmar Breitenbach



AfD could face surveillance

The review, however, does not mean that Thuringia's AfD is currently being put under surveillance by the domestic security agency.

It does, however, signal that authorities believe there's enough material to investigate the state party — and that surveillance could be close behind. Kramer confirmed that after the review, authorities would decide whether or not the AfD should be officially placed under surveillance.

Under Höcke's leadership, the Thuringia branch of the AfD is home to some of the more extreme members of a party already known for being markedly right-wing. The party holds eight of the 91 seats in the state parliament.

Calls for the AfD to be placed under surveillance by authorities rose again after Höcke and other AfD leaders marched alongside thousands of right-wing extremists and leaders of the anti-immigrant PEGIDA group in Chemnitz.

Other political parties in Germany have been placed under official surveillance, including the ultranationalist National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) and individual members of the Left party.

rs/msh (AFP, dpa, epd)