Spooked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the German military drafted a 1,000-page blueprint in 2024 to set out how to respond to another Russian attack in eastern Europe. Senior leaders in Germany’s 16 states are among the few government officials allowed access to the classified document, known informally as an “Oplan.”
Now, Germany’s federal government, under chancellor Friedrich Merz, is preparing to restrict that access, in order to prevent a far-right, Moscow-friendly party – which won a recent election in the small eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt – from reviewing the plan.
That party, Alternative for Germany, or AfD, is trying to form a coalition government to take power in Saxony-Anhalt this autumn. If the AfD succeeds, military leaders fear, the party might pass the plan to Russia, according to three senior officials familiar with the discussions.
The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive statecraft, as did 14 others who detailed further efforts to restrict an AfD-led state government from reviewing state secrets or blocking government co-operation.
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Asked for comment, a spokesperson for the German defense ministry said it was assessing what security-related information needed protection, but declined to offer further details.
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A spokesperson for the AfD, Jork Herrmann, said: “It would be utterly undemocratic and impossible to justify to voters to withhold intelligence information from the party based on unsubstantiated and unprovable allegations.”
The plans would affect the balance of Germany’s federalist system, which was designed after the second World War to pool power between the central and state governments and grant a degree of autonomy to Germany’s regions. Under that system, each German state run its own intelligence office. The offices receive a wide range of information from federal intelligence.
Other proposals include:
- Blocking Saxony-Anhalt’s ability to see intelligence concerning Russian subterfuge in Europe, while still allowing it to view other intelligence needed to thwart terrorist attacks;
- Changing rules governing interstate co-operation, which require unanimity between the 16 state governments, to prevent AfD officials in Saxony-Anhalt from paralysing policing programs that cross state lines;
- Preventing the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt, which is under federal surveillance, from viewing intelligence files related to the party and investigations into far-right extremists;
- The plans sharpen a dispute among Germans about how best to protect their postwar democratic system, which was intended after the defeat of nazism to make it harder for extremist groups to ever take power again;
Officials in Merz’s national government, a coalition led by his conservative Christian Democratic party, want to limit the AfD’s access to sensitive information because they view it as an extremist group. It is also an effort to reassure Germany’s allies, who have expressed deep concerns to Berlin over the AfD’s coziness with Moscow.
The moves could draw a court challenge from the AfD, which has complained that the country’s mainstream parties are seeking to undermine democracy by thwarting the will of voters and restricting its power in office.
German officials say it is necessary to act because of the AfD’s affinity for Russia. The AfD’s national leaders have expressed open admiration for Vladimir Putin, Russia’s authoritarian leader, as well as playing down the Holocaust and resurfacing Nazi slogans.
The German federal intelligence agency has designated the national AfD party as “suspected extremist” and its local chapter in Saxony-Anhalt as “confirmed extremist.” It has accused the party of promoting a racist and unconstitutional vision of nationhood that essentially relegates minorities to second-class status. The party denies it is extremist, saying the accusation is politically motivated.
Federal concerns took on new urgency when the AfD won 44 per cent of the vote in state elections this month in Saxony-Anhalt, allowing it to begin negotiations with rivals to form a government there.
Because many AfD officials, including some of its top figures in Saxony-Anhalt, maintain strong ties with Moscow, German leaders believe it is a near-certainty that the AfD would pass intelligence related to Russian threats and the war in Ukraine back to the Kremlin.
Before the election, the German defence minister, Boris Pistorius, told one newspaper, Bild, that he would not share military intelligence with an AfD government. “Their affinity for Putin is impossible to overlook,” said Pistorius, a leader of the centre-left Social Democrats, Merz’s governing partners.
Tensions between Moscow and Berlin are escalating as the war drags on and Germany continues to back Ukraine, militarily and diplomatically. German leaders have publicly blamed Russia for cyberattacks, sabotage campaigns and a recent effort to bomb cargo planes at the Leipzig airport. Russia denies the accusations.
Germany’s top military allies, including Poland and some Scandinavian countries, have expressed concern to German officials over continuing to share Russia-related information with Germany if it could be passed by an AfD state government to Moscow, five officials said.
Those officials said that Germany had assured its allies that it is preparing measures to deny Saxony-Anhalt officials access to certain sensitive intelligence in the event the AfD takes power there.
The Germans have not specified exactly which intelligence they will no longer share with the state should the AfD take power, the officials said, but they said the German assurances had been convincing.
The federal government does not plan a blanket ban on intelligence sharing with Saxony-Anhalt, which could hamstring the state government’s ability to deter terrorist attacks or other calamities, six officials said.
Instead, it is planning to sever state access to certain types of intelligence, like information involving far-right groups or Russia – either for Saxony-Anhalt specifically or, in order to comply with the German Constitution, for all states.
German officials have also discussed denying an AfD government access to information about the AfD itself.
The Saxony-Anhalt wing of the AfD is under surveillance by federal intelligence, including undercover agents, because of its “confirmed extremist” designation. The AfD could use routine intelligence sharing to find those agents and otherwise thwart efforts to monitor it, German officials say.
rebuilt it from scratch.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
