It has often been described that things have changed in the Office for the Protection of the Constitution under President Thomas Haldenwang.

The right-wing extremism department has been expanded significantly, and the authority is no longer demanding new skills as loudly as it used to be.

At the 18th Symposium of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, some things were the same as before, for example the male quota of what felt like ninety percent.

But the Office for the Protection of the Constitution had obviously made an effort to familiarize the German security community with the customs of Berlin-Mitte.

So next to the coffee there was not only lactose-free milk, but also oat milk.

Helen Bubrowski

Political correspondent in Berlin.

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And when Haldenwang greeted the participants, it almost seemed as if he was trying his hand at gender.

He was happy about the participation of the "speakers" - and in any case the moderator wanted to have heard a pause between the t and the i.

Maybe he just got confused.

What was actually surprising was that the humorous reference to the fact that the President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution had never changed was met with frenetic applause in the hall.

Praise for RT ban

In his speech, Haldenwang looked back to the old days, but now it was about serious issues, about the threats to Germany's internal security.

Two decades ago, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution dealt with the defense against internal and external subversion, especially attempted coups and espionage.

"The rival was in the east," inside the borders to the extremists on the right and left could be made out "sharp".

In the 1990s, according to Haldenwang, people briefly believed in the triumph of democracy, but it quickly became clear: "This momentum was an anomaly." On September 11, 2001, global and violent jihadism became the dominant issue.

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution had to adapt to this.

We have intensified the exchange of information with other services,

For several years, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution has been dealing with a new type of threat, which Haldenwang described as “dissolution of boundaries”: the fringes of society were becoming more permeable.

Left-wing extremists tried to undermine legitimate climate protests, right-wing extremists mingled side by side in civil demonstrations against refugees or corona measures, esotericists and anti-Semites.

Now the protests are declining, but the new phenomenon area "delegitimization of the state relevant to the protection of the constitution" is taken very seriously, according to Haldenwang.

The core of the anti-state attitude is looking for a new shell.

Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) also spoke about epochal breaks: The beginning of the war in Ukraine showed that Germany had to do even more for security.

The protection of the constitution is more important than ever in view of espionage activities and cyber attacks as well as influence campaigns by foreign powers that use lies and disinformation to pursue the goal of destabilizing democracy.

She spoke of Russian President Putin's attempts to portray the war as a "limited special operation" or to solidify the narrative of alleged Russophobia in the West, primarily aimed at the Russian-speaking population.

The Interior Minister praised the EU Commission for its ban on the Russian broadcasters RT and Sputnik.

This is not about expressing opinions, said Faeser.

It is important to delete false information so that it cannot spread.

But the federal government cannot do that, only the companies.

Faeser spoke of an intensive exchange with Google, Facebook and Twitter.

It is at least as important "to work every day to ensure that disinformation does not fall on fertile ground among people".