Why Comparisons with Dictatorship Are Now Considered Unconstitutional

by Magnus Klaue

The following article was originally published in German as “Warum Diktaturvergleiche jetzt als verfassungsfeindlich gelten” in Die Welt on May 15, 2025, and it appears here in English translation by permission of the author. Translated by Julius Bielek.

Is it right-wing extremism to compare the Federal Republic of Germany with the GDR or the Nazi regime? That is what the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution [Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, or BfV] claims in its report on the AfD.

According to this absurd logic, prominent historians and philosophers would have to be treated as enemies of the constitution. Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s maxim, “We live in the best Germany that has ever existed,” seems to formulate a raison d’état in the view not only of the current government personnel but also of the BfV.

There is no other explanation for the fact that the BfV, in its assessment of the AfD as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” organization, which has now been suspended but not withdrawn, cites statements as evidence that do not defame parliamentary democracy but rather warn against its transformation into a totalitarian state.

That’s what the BfV report states, as reported by Bild: the AfD “massively denigrates” the German state by “portraying the Federal Republic as a totalitarian system” and by “making comparisons with the GDR or the Nazi regime.” Furthermore, during the coronavirus pandemic, AfD members of parliament had described the Federal Republic as a “dictatorship” and “totalitarian,” with the aim of “undermining trust in the political system as a whole.” Three things are noteworthy about this assessment. First, the BfV seems unable to distinguish between the German state, its “political system,” and the federal government, whose members are temporary administrators of that state and not identical with it. Second, the BfV apparently does not know the difference between a comparison and an equation and misunderstands the diagnosis of totalitarian tendencies within a democracy as an expression of totalitarian sentiment, thus seeking to punish the messenger for being the bearer of bad news. Third, the assessment shows a memory loss that borders on historical revisionism. Because using “comparisons with the GDR or the Nazi regime” to criticize current conditions in Germany should come as no surprise to anyone who doesn’t confuse present-day Germany with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s “best of all possible worlds,” as Steinmeier does.

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