section_path: Ideology and platform
section_name: Ideology and platform
paragraph_text: Ideology and platform
  
  AfD is broadly considered to be a right-wing and national-conservative movement in both socioeconomic and sociocultural terms. AfD's policy brief and mission statement seeks to define the party as both liberal and conservative, with an emphasis on protecting sovereignty, Western identity, and German culture in what it calls a "peaceful, democratic and sovereign nation-state of the German people." Political scientists and journalists have also described AfD as synonymous with opposition to immigration, Euroscepticism, and holding a nationalist bent, with various shades of German nationalism from civic nationalism to hardline sentiments visible in the party. Other commentators have categorized it as a radical right populist party or as "a typical radical right-wing populist party", with an emphasis on nativism. Within its elected representation and grassroots membership, AfD has grown to contain interparty factions that range from more moderate conservatives to radicals.
  
  AfD was initially founded as a liberal conservative party of the middle class, with a tendency towards soft Euroscepticism, being supportive of Germany's membership in the European Union but critical of further European integration, the existence of the euro currency and the bailouts by the Eurozone for countries such as Greece. At that time, the party also advocated support for Swiss-style semi-direct democracy, major reforms to the Eurozone, opposition to immigration, and opposed same-sex marriage. During this period, the party espoused economic liberal, ordoliberal, and national liberal policy stances. Former party MEP Hans-Olaf Henkel likened AfD's early platform to the Conservative Party in Britain rather than hard Eurosceptic or nationalist parties such as the UK Independence Party or the National Front in France. AfD was also compared to the Tea Party movement by some media outlets due to its campaigns against Eurozone bailouts, although AfD's early leadership disputed this and said it was not looking to attract right-wing extremists into the party.
  
  In 2015 more moderate members, including its founder and former chairman Bernd Lucke, left AfD after Frauke Petry was elected chairperson to found a new party, the Alliance for Progress and Renewal, which was renamed the Liberal Conservative Reformers in November 2016. When party founder Bernd Lucke had left AfD in 2015, he cited, among other reasons an " anti-western, decidedly pro-Russian foreign and security policy orientation " as well as increasing calls to "pose the 'system question' with regard to our parliamentary democracy" as reasons for his departure from the party. At that time, AfD was performing poorly in opinion polls, polling at around 3%, and was suffering infighting; however, an influx of refugees and migrants boosted their support later in 2015, with the party turning from matters related to the Eurozone to focus on opposing migration, in particular Muslims and Muslim immigration.
  
  AfD underwent a further shift to the right after Petry left the party in 2017 and formed The Blue Party, following AfD's adoption of more hardline Islamophobic, anti-immigration positions, and historical revisionist remarks by leading AfD figures. The party now resembles other populist radical right parties in Europe but is somewhat unusual because it maintains visible ties to even more extreme groups. The party has been described by political scientists as more radical than many other European right-wing populist parties, including the Sweden Democrats, the Danish People's Party, and the Freedom Party of Austria. AfD has been described as, and accused of, containing members sympathetic to the Identitarian movement and Pegida. The AfD leadership has been split on whether to embrace these movements within the party.
  
  In March 2020 the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (German: Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) classified AfD's far-right nationalistic faction known as Der Flügel as "a right-wing extremist endeavor against the free democratic basic order" and as "not compatible with the Basic Law", placing it under government surveillance. In early March 2021 most of Germany's major media outlets reported that the Bundesverfassungsschutz had placed the whole AfD under surveillance as a "suspected extremist group". In response to claims from AfD members that the move was intended to damage the party's chances in the 2021 German federal election, the agency stated it would not make public announcements regarding investigations into AfD or its candidates for the foreseeable future. After the revelations, the surveillance was blocked by the courts to give equal opportunities among political parties in a key election year. In 2022 it was ruled that the BfV may classify and monitor the entire party as a suspected right-wing extremist group. A corresponding lawsuit by AfD was dismissed because "there were sufficient factual indications of anti-constitutional efforts within the AfD". The dismissal was upheld in May 2024. On 26 April 2023 the BfV, after four years of investigations into the Young Alternative for Germany, categorized that group as a confirmed extremist organisation. This allowed the chief of the BfV Thomas Haldenwang to place the youth wing under even more intensive surveillance than the tapping of phone and the use of undercover agents that had been the case until then. In 2025, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution officially classified AfD as a "confirmed right-wing extremist endeavor," which allows authorities to increase surveillance, and permits the use of informants and monitoring of communications. The expertise by the BfV, that led to that classification, was later leaked to the public.
  
  AfD is anti-communist and engaged in red-baiting by comparing Angela Merkel and her government to the secret police in East Germany.