Hate groupsGermany's far-right, populist, xenophobic movements on the rise

There have been many extremist right-wing, nationalist, populist, racist, anti-Semitic, anti-immigration groups and movements in Germany (and, earlier, West Germany). Currently, the German intelligence and law enforcement agencies are monitoring about three dozen groups, associations, fellowships, movements, open networks, and organized political parties in Germany which promote extremist ideologies, which include anti-Semitic, anti-Islam, anti-immigration, and xenophobic views – but which, in some cases, challenge the German state and its institutions.

DW reports that the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, in its most recently published report for 2015, says that there are 22,600 registered members of right-wing extremist groups in Germany, and that 8,000 of them have proven themselves ready to use violence.

These movements were on the decline since the early 1980s, but the quickening pace of EU integration since the mid-1990s, and the growing numbers of migrants arriving in Europe (even before the 2015 wave of migrants from Syria, Afghanistan, and Africa), have spurred a dramatic growth in nationalist, populist extremism.

The DW offers this list – a mere selection — of groups and movements on the extremist end of the German political spectrum:

Groups on the rise
Identitäre Bewegung (The Identitarian movement)
This group was established in France and Austria on social media, and the German chapter has been founded in 2012. The movement opposes “uncontrolled mass immigration” – warning of the “loss of [German] identity through foreign infiltration.” The group says that the solution to the danger immigration poses t German identity is “reinen Bevölkerungstausch” (pure population exchange). The German domestic intelligence service said that approximately 400 members of the Identitäre Bewegung are currently under surveillance. Members of the group engaged in violence against Muslim outside Mosques and, more recently, attacked Muslims migrants. The Identity movement is close to Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), a nationalist, populist political party founded in February 2013 as a reaction to the EU’s approach to immigration. The influence of AfD has increased since 2015, in parallel to the increase in the number of migrants Germany has admitted. The AfD has won seats in the legislatures of several German states.