Annual Report on the Protection of the Constitution

Last updated

The Annual Report on the Protection of the Constitution (German : Verfassungsschutzbericht) is an annual report on the activities of far right, far left, and Islamic extremist circles and on espionage activities in Germany.

Gathered on the basis of §16 of the Bundesverfassungsschutzgesetz  [ de ], since 1968 the report has been published annually by the German Federal Ministry of the Interior on behalf of its domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz). While the state-level counterparts, the State Offices for the Protection of the Constitution (Landesbehörden für Verfassungsschutz) contribute to the federal annual report, most federal states publish their individual annual reports for their regional area of responsibility. [1]

Related Research Articles

German Communist Party

The German Communist Party is a minor communist party in Germany. The DKP supports far-left positions and was an observer member of the European Left. At the end of February 2016 it left the European party.

Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is the Federal Republic of Germany's domestic security agency. Together with the Landesämter für Verfassungsschutz (LfV) at the state level, it is tasked with intelligence-gathering on threats concerning the democratic order, the existence and security of the federation or one of its states, and the peaceful coexistence of peoples; with counter-intelligence; and with protective security and counter-sabotage. The BfV reports to the Federal Ministry of the Interior. The current President Thomas Haldenwang was appointed in 2018.

The Military Counterintelligence Service is one of the three federal intelligence agencies in Germany that is responsible for military counterintelligence. The other two are the Bundesnachrichtendienst , which is the foreign intelligence agency, and the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz which is the domestic civilian intelligence agency.

Ursula Caberta

Ursula Caberta y Diaz is a German politician, former State of Hamburg government official and was the Commissioner for the Scientology Task Force of the Hamburg Interior Authority. She graduated in political economy. According to Deutsche Welle she is considered an expert on the subject of Scientology, and has been observing the organization since 1992. Her book Schwarzbuch Scientology was published in 2007. Caberta is also an official in Hamburg's authority for interior affairs.

The far-right in Germany quickly re-organised itself after the fall of Nazi Germany and the dissolution of the Nazi Party in 1945. Denazification was carried out in Germany from 1945–1951 by the Allied forces of World War II, with an attempt of eliminating Nazism from the country. However, various far-right parties emerged post-war, with varying success. Most parties only lasted a few years before either dissolving or being banned, and explicitly far-right parties have never gained seats in the Bundestag post-WWII. The closest was the hard-right Deutsche Rechtspartei, which attracted former Nazis and won five seats in the 1949 West German federal election and held these seats for four years, before losing them in the 1953 West German federal election. This was until the election of Alternative for Germany representatives to the Bundestag in 2017.

Ulrichsberg gathering

The Ulrichsberg gathering is an Austrian organisation with political interests, named after the Ulrichsberg mountain in Kärnten that was founded after World War II. It is considered as part of the Kärnten traditional organisations. The purpose of the organisation is to care for the memorials to returning soldiers (Heimkehrergedenkstätte) on the Ulrichsberg and in Klagenfurt, as well as the organisation of an annual meeting of war veterans and their families.

Carmen Everts is a German politician, political scientist and civil servant, a former member of the Parliament of Hesse for the Social Democratic Party of Germany, and an expert on political extremism. In 2009, she was appointed by the government of Hesse as head of department at the Hessian State Agency for Civic Education, responsible for research on the communist dictatorship in East Germany and demographic research.

Dagmar Metzger

Dagmar Metzger is a German lawyer and politician, and a former member of the Parliament of Hesse for the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

Silke Tesch is a German politician and a former member of the Parliament of Hesse for the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

The Bayerisches Landesamt für Verfassungsschutz is the domestic intelligence agency of the Free State of Bavaria. Its main function is the observation and surveillance of anti-constitutional activities in Bavaria. The Office is subordinate to the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior. It cooperates with the federal agency, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, and the 15 other state agencies. It has around 450 employees, and its headquarters is in Munich. Its work is governed by a state law, the Bayerisches Verfassungsschutzgesetz.

Heinz Fromm is a German civil servant, who served as President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution from 2000 to 2012. He is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany.

The Islamic Community of Germany is an Islamic organization headquartered in Munich, Germany and that consists of a network of mosques, centers and associations in all major West German cities. The German government says the IGD is the central organization for Muslim Brotherhood followers in Germany.

Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism is an Austrian police organization that acts as a domestic intelligence agency. It is tasked with the protection of constitutional organs of the Republic of Austria and their ability to function. The agency was created from the Austrian State police, as well as various special task forces targeting organized crime and terrorism that were under the direction of the Directorate General for Public Security, which itself is a department of the Federal Ministry of the Interior. The BVT publishes the Verfassungsschutzbericht, an annual report on the status of the protection of the constitution.

The State Office for the Protection of the Constitution is a state-level security agency in Germany.

Hans-Georg Maaßen

Hans-Georg Maaßen is a German civil servant and lawyer. From 1 August 2012 to 8 November 2018, he served as the President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany's domestic security agency and one of three agencies in the German Intelligence Community.

The Landesamt für Verfassungsschutz Sachsen is the domestic intelligence agency of the German federal state of Saxony. Its main function is the observation and surveillance of anti-constitutional activities in Saxony.

The Association of Students from Kurdistan, or YXK, is an umbrella organization of Kurdish students in Germany and Austria. Established 1991 at the Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, YXK is a legally registered association that is currently organized in twenty local chapters throughout Germany and Austria. Along with NAV-DEM and the youth organization Ciwanên Azad, it is one of the Kurdish diaspora organizations that the German Verfassungsschutz considers supportive of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Arndt Verlag is a German publishing house that belongs to the publishing group of the neo-Nazi publisher Dietmar Munier. It specialises in historical negationist literature. Arndt's authors include David Irving, Wilfred von Oven, Franz Kurowski and Franz W. Seidler.

Thomas Haldenwang

Thomas Haldenwang is a German lawyer and the president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the German Verfassungsschutz.

Der Flügel is a far-right faction within Germany's Alternative for Germany, a right-wing populist opposition party. The group was led by Björn Höcke and Andreas Kalbitz. Following the request by the AfD executive board to dissolve Der Flügel by the end of April 2020, the group's online presence went offline. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution has no reliable knowledge of an actual dissolution.

References

  1. Helmut Roewer; Stefan Schäfer; Matthias Uhl, eds. (2003). Lexikon der Geheimdienste im 20. Jahrhundert[Secret Service in the 20th Century] (in German). Munich: Herbig. pp. 60–63.