Bundestag (German Parliament)

Main article: Germany

2024

Top far-right AfD candidate Maximilian Crash resigns from party leadership after claiming 'not everyone was criminals' in SS

In May 2024, it became known that the main candidate from the German far-right party AfD in the European elections, Maximilian Krakh, will refrain from further election activities and will immediately resign from the party's governing council.

It comes after he told Italian newspaper La Repubblica that in the SS, the main Nazi paramilitary force during the Second World War, "not everyone was criminal."

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has said her party must make a "clean break" with the AfD, suggesting the AfD has become too toxic an ally ahead of the European elections in June 2024.

Court allows German intelligence to monitor Alternative for Germany party as suspected of extremism

The domestic Germany intelligence agency can continue to monitor the far-right Alternative for Germany party as a suspect in extremism, and posing a potential threat to democracy, a court ruled in May 2024.

Extremist status means authorities are allowed to enforce measures such as wiretapping phones or using whistleblowers to track potential illegal activity.

Die Heimat party stripped of government funding for threatening Germany's' basic democratic order '

Germany's highest court ruled in January 2024 to ban election funding for one of the country's most prominent political parties in a decision made amid growing calls to restrict far-right campaigning - the FT.

On January 23, judges at the federal constitutional court in Karlsruhe ruled that Die Heimat, or "Homeland" - a small party formerly known as the NPD - should lose access to public funding for the next six years as it poses a threat to Germany's "basic democratic order."

2023

Sharp rise in popularity of far-right AfD above 20% amid economic downturn due to conflict in Ukraine

By November 2023, the far right in Germany is on the rise, and Chancellor Scholz is at a loss. AfD has seen a surge in support.

As the EU's biggest economy grapples with a steady decline and surge in immigration, the spectre of German nationalism is back. Citizens are in such a contradictory state about the direction of development of the country, which has not happened since the Second World War.

Proportion of women in parliament - 35.1%

Data for September 2023

2022

The share of seats of the far-right AfD party (Alternative für Deutschland) - 11%

As of September 26, 2022,

Proportion of women in parliament - 39.4%

Data for August 2022,

1966: Formation of the extra-parliamentary opposition due to its absence from parliament

The extra-parliamentary opposition (Ausserparlamentarische Opposition, APO) - in the 1960s in Germany is almost synonymous with the entire protest movement. It is finally formed after the coming to power of the large coalition of the SPD/CDU/CSU in 1966 - due to the actual absence of opposition within parliament. The main forms of activity are discussions, demonstrations, congresses; the main topics are protest against the law on the state of emergency, against the Vietnam War, support for liberation movements in third world countries, criticism of imperialism.

Unlike the French student opposition, which is supported by trade unions and young workers, APO in Germany effectively remains a university and near-university political phenomenon. After 1968, APO ceases to act as a single force and breaks up into numerous circles, clubs and groupings.

One of the goals of the extra-parliamentary opposition is to claim public spaces, primarily universities. The three main forms of such "appropriation" are go in (students turn a lecture into a debate), teach in (collective, public study of an important public topic, a kind of political information) and seat in (sit-in). These are all distant ancestors of the later "occupy." The most famous go in will take place in 1968 during a lecture by Theodore V. Adorno, who recently returned to Frankfurt from exile: a dozen students (according to other sources, three), who believe that the professor does not pay enough attention to the topic of gender equality, rise from their places and partially undress, remaining standing in front of the topless lecturer. Adorno, whose writings for protesting students are kind of foundational, is very surprised to realize that he is being treated like an academic reactionary.

For more details see: Freie Universitat Berlin (Free University of Berlin)

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