German mainstream media and established politicians often stigmatize the Euroskeptic party AfD as a “radical” and sometimes even as an “extremist” political group. But what does “political extremism” really mean?
To find answers to that question, the factions of the AfD party in the German regional parliaments organised a congress in Berlin on March 18. “Germany in the crosshairs” was the title of the AfD “congress on extremism” which took place at the Maritim hotel in the center of Germany’s capital.
A number of independent experts such as Dr. Uwe Kemmesies (Federal Criminal Police Office), Prof. Dietrich Murswiek (German law expert), Prof. Werner Patzelt (political scientist at Dresden Technical University) and Prof. Wolfgang Ockenfels (Roman Catholic cleric, Trier University) analyzed in their speeches and lectures the different types of extremisms, including left, right and Islamist versions.
Berlin’s AfD faction leader Georg Pazderski highlighted in his opening speech that the AfD is neither extremist nor radical, but deeply rooted in democratic values. Pazderski: “We, the parliamentarians of the AfD believe in the parliamentarian democracy. Otherwise we wouldn’t be in the parliaments. Otherwise we wouldn’t join the political debates.”
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