The Office for the Protection of the Constitution of Saxony recognizes the “wing” of the AfD, which is officially dissolved but still exists in terms of personnel, as “an important link between right-wing extremist and non-extremist sections of the population”.

That said the President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Dirk-Martin Christian, on Tuesday in Dresden at the presentation of the agency's new report.

The protection of the constitution has been observing the efforts of those belonging to the "wing" since March of last year. In Saxony, this included "at least half" of the approximately 3,000 AfD members. "If you look at the leadership and the main structures of the party, however, then the wing is the whole bird," said Saxony's Interior Minister Roland Wöller (CDU). The "wing" also includes a two-digit number of MPs. The goals of the "wing" are the abolition of the free and democratic basic order as well as the exclusion and disenfranchisement of politically dissenters and migrants.

With the observation of the "wing", the number of right-wing extremists in Saxony increases by 1400 to 4800 people.

Of these, around 1,700 are violence-oriented, according to the authority.

Right-wing extremists continue to pose the greatest threat, said Wöller.

Above all, Corona "shows in an oppressive way that obvious enemies of the constitution demonstrated side by side with non-extremist citizens and tolerated by them against the restrictions".

Beyond red lines

The “wing” also used the breeding ground created by the protests to promote the delimitation between democratic, radical and extremist positions in society. "For right-wing extremist constitutional enemies, Corona does not mean lockdown, but a showdown against democracy." A mixture of opponents of the Corona measures, conspiracy supporters as well as politicians, state and democracy disenchanted with each other with lies and hate speech against each other cavort on social media State and "those up there" incited.

"Red lines are increasingly being crossed," said Dirk-Martin Christian. In many cases, Corona is merely the occasion for protests that serve to express anger, frustration and hatred against politicians, state structures and science. There is a political alienation of part of the population, which leads to increasing radicalization and a willingness to use violence. According to Wöller, extremists were specifically looking to join forces with non-extremist citizens. This “dangerous coexistence” could be observed everywhere - whether on Corona walks in the village or demonstrations in large cities. Nobody distanced himself from extremists, even though the majority of the people there had so far had nothing to do with political extremism.

Freedom of assembly is a great good, said Wöller. However, anyone who stands with right-wing extremists and Reich citizens at events “where Reich flags are waved, anti-constitutional slogans are shouted and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are proclaimed”, “is definitely on the wrong side”. In this context, the minister referred to corona symbols reminiscent of Jewish stars that demonstration participants gave themselves. That was "the moral low point". Anti-Semitism is "unfortunately an essential part" of these protests. Wöller also appealed to civil society to resolutely oppose such hustle and bustle.

Left-wing extremists occupy more space than before in the new report by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. They too would become “an ever greater danger for the rule of law” because they used “increasingly self-confident and unrestrained violence” - against both things and people, said Wöller. The number of left-wing extremists in Saxony rose by 40 to around 800 (nationwide: around 34,300), around 465 are willing to use violence. Although the number of left-wing extremist crimes has decreased, the number of violent crimes has doubled to 230. An example of this was the initially peaceful demonstration by around 3,500 leftists in Leipzig in September, which was blown up by around 1,000 violent autonomists, said Christian.

Overall, the extremists radicalized on both sides of the political spectrum, said Interior Minister Wöller.

"Our democracy has never been as threatened as it is recently."