Björn Höcke
German politicians suspect the AfD of providing the Kremlin with information about Germany’s infrastructure. The Thuringian government points to the party’s repeated requests for information as an indication.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is being accused of espionage by the Interior Secretary of the state of Thuringia. In an interview with the newspaper Handelsblatt, Social Democrat Georg Maier said that the party has submitted requests to the state parliament regarding specific details of Germany’s transport infrastructure, water supply, digital infrastructure and energy supply, and expressed doubts about the legitimacy of these requests, which, according to him, would serve Russia’s interests.
“It’s almost inevitable the impression that the AfD is working with a list of orders from the Kremlin in its investigations,” said Maier.
The secretary points out that the AfD regional directory presented 47 requests of this type to the state parliament in the last 12 months alone – and with “increasing intensity and increasingly detailed details”.
“The AfD shows particular interest in IT [tecnologia da informação] and in equipment used by the police, for example in the area of drone detection and defense”, explained Maier. Equipment for civil protection, the healthcare system and the activities of the German Armed Forces are also targets of requests.
In Germany, parliamentary groups can obtain information from governments that is not publicly available through formal inquiries. These mechanisms are mainly used by opposition parties that do not have direct access to ministries and authorities within the government apparatus. You governments are obliged to respond these requests in writing.
In Thuringia, the AfD state and bench leader is Björn Höckeclassified by security authorities as right-wing extremist. Höcke was once accused of using a banned slogan from the Nazi era. Höcke has also repeatedly praised President Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
In a YouTube conversation with AfD politician Maximilian Krah in January 2023 – after the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine – he declared: “Today, whether the mainstream media hears this or not, Russia is not only linked to negative associations, but is also a country that some hope can be the vanguard of a world of free and sovereign states, without hegemonic influence.”
Höcke vehemently rejects the accusations made by the state Interior Secretary and claims that Maier has problems with the rule of law. “He has no evidence to support his allegations. It bothers him that the opposition is doing what is its constitutional mandate: monitoring the government’s work and, if necessary, criticizing it”, he reacted in a Facebook post.
Also according to Höcke, the requests for information sent by the AfD state bench are intended to prepare the party for the eventuality of reaching the state government.
Höcke announced in Erfurt that his bench was considering presenting a defamation complaint against the Secretary of the Interior and who requested his resignation from Governor Mario Voigt, of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
The AfD is the strongest political force in Thuringia. However, due to its ties to the extreme right, all other parties rejected an alliance with the party, applying the so-called “cordon sanitaire”. Since last year, a coalition of Christian Democrats, Social Democrats and the populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) has governed the small German state, located in the east of the country.
Fear of revealing secrets
But Maier also received expressions of support from important figures in national politics. Marc Henrichmann (CDU), chairman of the Bundestag Intelligence Control Committee (PKG), said he “firmly believes that Putin is using the AfD as an instrument of submission”. “And the leadership [Höcke] – even if you see it differently – you have no strength to stop this form of betrayal”, declared the conservative to the RND news network.
According to Henrichmann, it was because of these same fears that AfD representatives were not elected to the PKG, a committee whose meetings are secret and aim to monitor the work of the federal intelligence services.
The AfD has been repeatedly accused of closeness to Russia. Several AfD members in the Bundestag have maintained close contacts with Putin’s circle in the past. One of them, federal deputy Jan Nolte, has already written for the Russian propaganda newspaper Izvestia. The deputy leader of the AfD parliamentary group, Markus Frohnmaier, was part of the organizing team of the “Yalta International Economic Forum” in 2018, which had the support of the Russian government and the Russian intelligence agency FSB. In October 2025, Frohnmaier announced his intention to travel to Moscow for political negotiations.
Several other party officials have come under public scrutiny in the past for downplaying Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Due to the AfD’s ties to Russia, the Thuringian Interior Secretary is pushing to include this “betrayal” in a motion to ban the party.
“The AfD is unconstitutional not only because of its nationalist ideology, but also because it threatens our liberal democracy through its ties to authoritarian systems,” Maier argued.
