A petition demanding a formal constitutional review of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has gathered over 1.336 million signatures in just days. Backed by organizations including Volksverpetzer and Omas gegen Rechts, the campaign titled "Prüft ein AfD-Verbot" or Examine a Ban on the AfD, calls on the Bundestag and Bundesrat to take the AfD to the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht). It follows the publication of a landmark 1,500-page legal report by the Society for Civil Rights (Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (GFF)) concluding that the AfD is unconstitutional, and that a ban would probably succeed.
Launched on the platform innn.it, the petition calls on the Bundestag and Bundesrat to formally request a constitutional review of the AfD at the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht). Gregor Hackmack, board member of innn.it, described the response as extraordinary.
"The excuse that proceedings could fail no longer holds," he said, pointing to the GFF report as having produced a measurable real-time effect on public engagement. The petition, he added, belongs to the largest civil society mobilizations in the history of the Federal Republic (Bundesrepublik).
The petition was launched following the publication of a sweeping legal report by the Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (GFF), a German civil liberties organization. An eight-member team spent 13 months producing the 1,500-page analysis, examining over three million text units related to the party, including social media posts and press releases, funded entirely through private donations.
GFF jurist Bijan Moini stated the report reaches an "unambiguous conclusion that the AfD is unconstitutional," adding that a formal ban application would "in our assessment probably succeed." According to the analysis, the party aims to undermine Germany's free democratic basic order (freiheitliche demokratische Grundordnung), violating both the democratic principle and human dignity as enshrined in the Basic Law.
The report assumes that the AfD, based on its goals and the behavior of its supporters, aims to undermine Germany's free democratic basic order, violating both the democratic principle and human dignity as enshrined in the Basic Law. It further argues that the AfD seeks to suppress political opponents and have politicians from other parties subjected to criminal prosecution.
The report also concludes that the party targets the human dignity of Germans with migration backgrounds, Muslims, asylum seekers, and transgender people through a systematic policy of exclusion, contempt, and far-reaching legal devaluation.
The report and petition have prompted calls for concrete steps from several political parties. The Green Party's co-parliamentary leaders Britta Haßelmann and Katharina Dröge wrote an open letter to the parliamentary leaders of the CDU/CSU, SPD, and Linke, stating the report "unmistakably suggests that the AfD massively threatens our free democratic basic order."
SPD legal expert Harald Baumann-Hasske called the report sufficient grounds to act, arguing that the tools of a defensive democracy "must finally be used." Linke deputy parliamentary leader Clara Bünger warned against further hesitation, saying the AfD's policies pose a concrete threat to a large number of people. CDU MP Elisabeth Winkelmeier-Becker expressed openness to a ban process, saying there is "every reason to allow the court to conduct this review."
Under German law, a party ban can be requested by the Bundestag, the Bundesrat, or the federal government. A Bundestag majority is required to file such a request. The Federal Constitutional Court then decides on the ban, though the legal threshold is high, requiring proof of an "actively combative-aggressive stance", aimed at dismantling the free democratic basic order.
Since the founding of the Federal Republic, only two parties have ever been banned: the Socialist Reich Party (Sozialistische Reichspartei) in 1952 and the Communist Party of Germany (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands) in 1956.
Thuringia's Interior Minister Georg Maier (SPD) has added significant political weight to the growing momentum. "In my view, the time has come at the latest now to initiate concrete steps toward ban proceedings," he told the Handelsblatt, expressing hope for consensus among all democratic parties.
Maier described the GFF report as well-founded and of high legal quality, saying it clearly documents violations of constitutionally guaranteed human dignity . He argued that further delay would contradict the principle of a defensive democracy, a core constitutional concept rooted in Germany's painful historical experience, and called on all democratic forces to act without hesitation.
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