More than twenty years ago, Christoph Kopke and Lars Rensmann expressed a wish in the "Blätter für deutsche und Internationale Politik".
It is to be hoped, according to the political scientists in the December 2000 issue, "that the catchphrase 'extremism' will also be replaced in public space by a more differentiated, socio-scientific understanding of right-wing extremist dangers in particular".
Even then, criticism of the formal term “extremism” was not new.
The debate about Nancy Faeser's contribution in the journal of the "Association of the Persecuted of the Nazi Regime - Association of Anti-Fascists" has shown that it has hardly borne fruit to this day.
The mere mention of the association in the Bavarian intelligence report provoked the usual affect of demarcation from all extremism.
The substantive discussion gave way to the endeavor
Marlene Grunert
Editor in Politics.
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However, even the Ministry of the Interior, which is superordinate to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, offers little guidance.
On its side it says: "Aspirations that reject the democratic constitutional state and its fundamental values, its norms and rules are referred to as extremism." The ministry is thus taking up an understanding that has been circulating since the 1970s, offers hardly any standards and largely ignores differences take care.
At that time, extremism research was looking for a generic term that should apply to all types of extremism.
In his "circle model" Manfred Funke placed democrats in the middle.
He placed the extremists around them, whose motives are basically interchangeable.
The horseshoe model, which is better known today and which Uwe Backes and Eckhard Jesse brought into play at the end of the 1980s, works in a similar way.
Accordingly, all extremists are close enough to touch.
According to Kopke and Rensmann, Backes and Jesse also failed to support the “political battlefield concept of 'extremism'” with rational arguments.
German verbosity is an exception
In a current article in the yearbook "Extremism & Democracy" (Nomos Verlag), Backes of all people critically examines the automatisms and alleged evidence that the term "extremism" he propagates entails.
The political scientist dedicates himself to the communication of German authorities for the protection of the constitution and primarily focuses on the annual reports for the protection of the constitution.
They are extremely unusual in international comparison.
Backes writes that nowhere else in Europe is the intelligence service reporting so extensively on extremist “endeavours”.
The subject matter of the reports is not surprising.
They document what the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is responsible for: the forefront of violence.
In terms of reporting, however, the German concept of “military democracy” comes into play.
After the experience of National Socialism, the state wanted to be able to take action against enemies of the constitution in good time.
The lead-up is correspondingly broad and includes in particular intellectual endeavors.
Critics of the concept have always pointed out the danger of the state taking "attitudes" into account.
Backes is now picking this up.
The German Office for the Protection of the Constitution plays a special role with “its extremism-sensitive political culture and the militant democracy that is nowhere else constitutionally anchored in such a system”.
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution began publishing annual reports in 1969.
Backes writes, using a formulation by Winfriede Schreiber, former head of the Brandenburg state office, that they presented themselves as “news service providers” for militant democracy.
It is a self-image that distinguishes the German secret service from other intelligence services - and poses difficulties.
What can be understood as a contribution to the transparency of an otherwise secretly acting authority interferes with the basic rights of citizens who have not (yet) made themselves punishable.
This is about the fundamental dilemma of extremism monitoring, as Backes writes: Those who limit themselves to violent phenomena will hardly be suitable as an “early warning system”.
A domestic intelligence agency probing far in the "upfront"
run the risk of encroaching on the sphere of freedom of suspicious citizens.
If this happens in public reports, there is an additional stigmatization.
Backes speaks of a "selective-exclusive" effect.
Not everyone can liberate themselves from this through creative reinterpretation as easily as the band Feine Sahne Fischfilet.
The mere mention of them in a state constitutional protection report once even got the Federal President into trouble.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier had advertised a "concert against the right" in which the band from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania should take part.
According to earlier mentions in the constitutional protection report, the musicians had visited the state office in Schwerin with a gift basket as a thank you for the advertising.