The president of Thuringia’s regional Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which is the country’s main domestic intelligence agency, said he considers one in five Germans to be right-wing extremists, specifically using the phrase “brown dregs.”
“We’re at about 20 percent brown filth in the Federal Republic,” Kramer told broadcaster NDR Info after Alternative for Germany’s landmark election victory in the district of Sonneberg, which came after the AfD hit a polling high of 20 percent nationwide, or one in five Germans. The “brown” reference is clearly an allusion to the Nazi brownshirts, with many on the left and within the establishment media routinely attempting to frame the AfD party as National Socialists.
Kramer, who is himself a member of the left-wing Social Democrats (SPD), said that he still has “hope” of reaching AfD voters.
“If you now see that 53 percent voted for the AfD, then there is still a margin in between that you can still reach,” he stressed, referring to the party’s election victory in the Sonneberg district.
In principle, he said, all AfD party members are right-wing extremists.
“Party members know what the party stands for. That’s why they are members, that’s why they are right-wing extremists,” he said.
However, the AfD regional party leader in Thuringia, Björn Höcke fired back over the claims.
“(Stephan Kramer), president of the so-called Office of the Protection of the Constitution in Thuringia, classifies 20 percent of the population as literally ‘brown dregs.’ An official who uses such language not only violates the rule of moderation, but also dehumanizes,” wrote Höcke on Twitter.
Kramer, however, described the AfD election victory in Sonneberg as a “slap in the face.” He said it had long been foreseeable that something like this would have to happen at some point. Nevertheless, he did not have the impression that the other parties had heard the “wake-up call.”
Kramer also warned against what he described as a merger of left and right-wing “extremists.” He claimed there was an ideological overlap between the Left Party wing that supports Sahra Wagenknecht and AfD supporters. He said it is “problematic that many actors in the political arena keep dismissing the possibility of the emergence of a cross-front between the far left and the far right as absurd theater and malicious propaganda.”
Kramer is known for speaking out against the AfD and his aggressive stance toward the party. His office has labeled the regional branch of the party in Thuringia as “proven right-wing extremists,” which means the office is permitted to use extremely intrusive intelligence methods, including surveilling emails, browsing history, and phone calls all without a court warrant. The office only requires knowledge that a target is a member of the AfD party.
