Germany has spent decades reckoning with its Nazi history and the Holocaust. But in recent years, far-right extremism and violent plots, especially against Jews, Muslims and immigrants, have been on the rise. At the same time, the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany) party has been gaining political ground and been accused of provoking violence, which it denies. In the new FRONTLINE documentary Germany’s Enemy Within, filmmaker Evan Williams investigates the rise of the AfD and far-right extremism, speaking to intelligence officers, political figures, and victims of far-right violence.

Williams spoke to FRONTLINE about how the rise of the AfD has impacted German politics more broadly and why it was important to question Björn Höcke, one of the AfD’s most influential politicians, about his anti-immigrant rhetoric. Williams also spoke about the growing divisions in German society and how minorities in the country are affected by far-right political rhetoric and violence.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What prompted you to go back to Germany and make a follow-up to your 2021 film Germany’s Neo-Nazis & the Far Right? How has the far-right movement and its role within German society evolved since then?

In 2021, we focused very much on acts of far-right political violence against politicians, Muslims and Jews, and the groups that were organizing violent plots. Over the past few years, we’ve noticed that through the growth of the Alternative für Deutschland, the AfD, the thing that people are worried about now is that far-right parties like the AfD are getting more power in politics. Particularly, in eastern Germany, where they’re very popular in the polling — often over 30% — which means they could take power in those states, which would be the first time a far-right party has taken control of a German state since the Nazis were running Germany. The AfD maintains about 20% popularity across the entire country. So almost 1 in 5 Germans basically support a party which is associated very strongly with anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-LGBTQ rhetoric; and is very authoritarian, ethno-nationalist, white German culture.

And there were two other main incidents that got our attention. One was the Reichsbürger plot, which was the alleged planned storming of the federal parliament by a group of people from what’s called the Reichsbürger movement, involving a key AfD politician. Then, there was the exposé by the Correctiv news outlet about this meeting where four AfD party officials were present, where they discussed the idea of: Should migrants be forcibly re-migrated or deported from the country, not just if they’re illegal immigrants, but also if they have not assimilated enough to German society. That particular meeting sparked mass protests across Germany.

Is it fair to say that the rising popularity of the AfD political party has shifted the far right’s ideology from the fringes of society into the mainstream? Has there been any impact on Germany’s mainstream political parties as the AfD gains popularity?

The AfD started essentially as an anti-EU (anti-European Union) party in 2013, and they were having a grumble about the European bailouts Germany was financing at the time.

Then it evolved, because in 2015, German Chancellor Angela Merkel let in over one million, mainly Syrians and Afghans, during the refugee crisis. That sparked a very severe anti-immigrant, anti-refugee backlash in Germany. The AfD capitalized on that. It started using anti-immigrant rhetoric and its popularity grew dramatically. And since then it’s been bringing the center of German society more towards its positioning, particularly on immigration. Increasingly, you find the central politicians starting to use AfD type rhetoric against immigrants.

You spoke to Björn Höcke, the AfD’s head in the German state of Thuringia. Who is he within the context of German politics?

Björn Höcke is a former history teacher, who is described by a key political scientist we interview in the film, Kai Arzheimer, as somebody who is one of the most influential, if not one of the most powerful figures, in the AfD. He is very anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-multiculturalism. He is also, as Arzheimer tells us, actively trying to rewrite German history. A number of public comments he’s made are very controversial where he’s called the Holocaust memorial in Berlin the memorial of shame. [Editor’s note: Amid calls for Höcke to be expelled from the AfD after his 2017 comments about the memorial, he stated that he’d made a “mistake” and that he‘d learned “many lessons.”]

He also said that the cultural understanding of having to remember the Holocaust and teach children about what happened in the Holocaust — very central to German society, education and politics — he said we should have a 180-degree turn on that, which basically means reversing the education of the Holocaust. He’s a very vocally anti-Muslim immigrant politician. And he is very influential in the AfD.

Höcke rarely speaks to foreign media. How did the interview happen? What did you hope to understand from speaking to him and did anything in particular strike you from the interview?

We work with excellent colleagues, German producers and the people we’re working with, who got us that interview through their contacts with the AfD. And I think they were probably quite interested in talking to American television. They’re watching what’s going on with [former President Donald] Trump. They’re watching what’s going on with the far right here. Höcke even quoted Trump in the interview, because of one of the comments I raised with him that he’s been found guilty of, which was the “everything for Germany” phrase, which is a Nazi saying.

The most important thing, journalistically, was to be able to put to Höcke personally some of the claims that are made against him, like the Nazi sayings, to try and get a greater understanding of what he really believes. Does he really believe that some Muslims can’t be integrated properly in German society? Why is he so anti-immigrant?

He didn’t shy away from any of the most controversial comments he’s made. I think he genuinely believes a lot of the things he’s saying. He also is a very clever politician. He’s very careful with his language. He will say things that he knows are going to attract a certain section of German society, a more far-right group; but will almost always try and stay just on the inside of the law, although he’s testing that all the time.

Höcke often uses rhetoric that echoes anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim sentiments in his speeches, and we just talked about him using a banned Nazi slogan. Through your reporting, have you found what the impact of that rhetoric is on the groups targeted by Höcke’s speech?

All minorities are feeling vulnerable because they feel they’re being targeted as the “other” in society. They’re being targeted as not German. And this is making people feel very unsettled and very unsafe.

Armin Kurtović believes the man who killed his son, the far-right shooter, had been watching these far-right videos — some of which Björn Höcke appeared in. And the police concluded that the shooter was influenced or somehow encouraged to do that act because of the rhetoric that was being pursued by the AfD, by the far right in Germany. [Editor’s note: The AfD officially condemned the attack in which Kurtović’s son was killed and rejected that the killer was motivated by their rhetoric.]

The head of domestic intelligence in Thuringia says that if the AfD gets enough votes to be in power, then he’s going to leave Germany. That to me was a really striking comment. He is the head of domestic intelligence of that state who’s Jewish, who says he’s not going to take a chance. The reason is because he’s been saying for years that we need to pay more attention to the growing political clout of the far right, and he’s been told, “Don’t worry about it. We’ll take care of it.” And he’s like, “I’ve been told that for years, and now look where we are.” And I said to him, why not just move to another part of Germany? And he said because if they win one state it will go on to more — victory will engender more victory.

The sense I came away with this time in East Germany is that the concerns about the far right are much more developed. People are worried about what impact that might have on social and political life, particularly for immigrants, but also for the critics or the free press, the media, the police.

A still from “Germany’s Enemy Within” shows filmmaker Evan Williams.

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has declared the AfD in Thuringia and two other states an extremist threat to democracy and placed it under observation. The national party has been declared a suspected threat to democracy. Höcke was found guilty of using a banned Nazi slogan. Both the AfD and Höcke are able to take part in democratic elections. How are Germany’s democratic institutions striking a balance between preserving political freedoms and confronting threats to democracy?

This is the big central question. Domestic intelligence was set up after World War II as a way to prevent the return of extremism — particularly in politics, to prevent the return of Nazis. At the same time, Germany is supremely aware of the protections of freedom of speech and political activity, because of the way the Nazis took action against any opposition including the free press — well before the Jewish pogroms and everything else.

So Germany has this really difficult balance because of its history. After the Correctiv revelations, there was a big push to say, “Let’s ban the AfD. They’re clearly extremists.” But a lot of people say, “Hang on a second. We’ve got to be very careful, because banning political parties is what happened in the 1930s.” Also, if almost 20% of people nationally support the AfD, then you’re disenfranchising that group of people who will then go even further away from the democratic process, because they will feel that their voice is being stifled.

They’re trying to maintain freedom of political activity and expression. But they’ve decided there are limits to what you can actually say. In particular, when it comes to the Holocaust, there’s certain things which are just illegal.

We see that the AfD has been steadily gaining popularity in Germany over the past decade — but protests against the AfD also drew huge crowds of supporters. Are such divisions felt more deeply across Germany now than they were when you first started reporting on this?

There were the Correctiv revelations where the AfD was involved in this secret meeting talking about how you could deport not just migrants or not just refugees or illegal immigrants, but also people that they feel might not be assimilated enough. All of a sudden, it wasn’t just about migrants. It was about, potentially, people who are your neighbors, your friends, your own family. I mean, how far back do they go? Who decides, and how do they decide who’s not German enough? A lot of Germans were like, “This is not something that we accept, that can be discussed.” In my interview with Björn Höcke, he said it must be possible to encourage those who haven’t assimilated or are a burden on welfare to leave Germany.

I think the divisions are there. I think the divisions are deepening. The other thing I’ve found in the east this time was the attraction of the AfD message to people who don’t see themselves as neo-Nazi or far right at all — average folks, often well-educated, well off, middle class, older — who were attracted by what the AfD did next, which was going anti-Ukraine war. Because, “We don’t want to get involved in a land war in Europe. Russia’s our friend. We’ve always been friendly with them” — particularly because they’re from East Germany.

The AfD have been very successful recently in attracting people who were feeling like they’re not being listened to. Those people have been convinced that the mainstream media is against them. They don’t listen to the media anymore. They listen to their own media. So it’s becoming an echo chamber of more extreme, more far-right ideology that they believe. And then separating from the rest of society in what they listen to, what they believe. So, I think those divisions are deepening.

Much of the documentary is centered around Thuringia, the eastern German state where Höcke heads the AfD. What is it about Thuringia that has led it to become an AfD stronghold?

There are a few complex reasons. One important reason is East Germany still feels a bit left behind from the integration with West Germany. When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, there were promises of economic investment and growth in the east. To a degree that has happened, but to a degree it hasn’t. So they feel a bit shortchanged, to say the least, with the whole integration project.

The June 2024 European elections saw far-right parties, including the AfD, making major gains in the European parliament. How does the resurgence of the far right in Germany sit within the context of — or differ from — the rise of the far right in Europe more broadly?

I think the AfD is very much within that European movement. But what tends to happen is that the AfD goes a lot further than the other far-right groups in Europe. So in Italy or in France, if they get to a position of power, they tend to sort of moderate their messaging. The AfD continually goes the other way and gets more extreme. So much so that the French far-right party, the National Rally, refused to sit with them or to join up with them as part of an EU far-right group. So the AfD seems to be even too far right for the far right in Europe.

Inci Sayki, Goggin Journalism Fellow, FRONTLINE/Columbia Journalism School Fellowship

Email:

inci_sayki@wgbh.org

Twitter:

@incisayki