The discursive and political backing from influential sectors in the United States for far-right forces in Germany forms part of a broader process of international legitimation of ethnonationalist projects. In the German case, the normalization of the AfD and the reconfiguration of its youth wing under suspicion of extremist links intersect with a deeper geopolitical dispute: the confrontation between the European liberal-social model and a transatlantic agenda seeking to erode it from within.
In Berlin, the public debate no longer revolves solely around the AfD’s electoral growth. The central issue is how a force classified by German domestic intelligence as right-wing extremist managed to consolidate itself institutionally while, at the same time, receiving gestures of political support from Washington.
This is not a formal relationship of subordination nor evidence of direct financing. The phenomenon is more sophisticated: discursive legitimation, ideological convergence and strategic alignment around themes such as migration, regulation of speech, cultural sovereignty and the weakening of the European project.
The designation and the institutional battle
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution designated the AfD as right-wing extremist in 2025, based on reports describing an ethnic conception of the nation incompatible with the liberal democratic order. The measure opened a legal and political front. The AfD responded in court, challenging the classification and denouncing ideological persecution.
In parallel, its youth wing, Junge Alternative, had previously been identified as an extremist organization. The subsequent decision to dissolve it and replace it with a new youth structure did not eliminate suspicion, but shifted attention to the continuity of cadres and networks.
The critical point emerges here: when a youth organization is flagged for links with neo-Nazi scenes and later reconstituted under another name, the question is not formal but substantive. Did the ideological structure change, or only the legal packaging?
The youth scene and normalization
In recent years, extremism researchers have documented the rearticulation of young neo-Nazi groups in Germany with new aesthetics, strong digital presence and street mobilization strategies. These networks operate on the border between identitarian militancy, radical subculture and political activism.
Interaction with parliamentary parties is not always direct or organic. Sometimes it functions through thematic affinity: discourse on “remigration,” denunciations of “liberal decadence,” conspiracy theories about demographic replacement. The language softens in the parliamentary arena and radicalizes in youth spaces.
The process of legitimation does not require formal integration. Narrative coincidence and the absence of a clear rupture are sufficient.
Washington and its cultural export
The phenomenon fits within a broader strategy of transatlantic ideological confrontation. Sectors of the U.S. political establishment have intervened explicitly in the German debate, defending the AfD and criticizing Berlin’s institutional monitoring measures.
In May 2025, then Secretary of State Marco Rubio described Germany’s extremist designation as a form of “tyranny disguised as democracy” and argued that targeting the AfD amounted to attacking legitimate opposition to mass immigration. His remarks were interpreted in Germany as direct interference in the internal debate over safeguarding the constitutional order.
During the same period, figures close to Donald Trump’s political circle publicly questioned European regulations on hate speech and digital platforms, portraying them as ideological censorship. The recurring argument was that Europe restricts freedom of expression in the name of democratic security.
These interventions do not constitute proof of organic coordination, but they form part of a pattern of symbolic legitimation. When high-ranking U.S. officials describe constitutional surveillance of a party flagged for ethnonationalist extremism as “authoritarian,” the message goes beyond rhetoric: it politically validates that actor before its base and international audiences.
The strategic dimension
Supportive discourse toward forces that challenge the European model of state regulation, social protection and limits on hate speech serves a geopolitical function. A cohesive European bloc, with regulatory autonomy in technology, energy transition and industrial policy, represents an actor capable of shaping global agendas.
Weakening that cohesion through the normalization of nationalist forces that erode continental integration has tangible strategic effects.
The paradox is evident: projects that proclaim national sovereignty can end up weakening the supranational architecture that gives Europe geopolitical weight.
Germany’s historical memory transforms this dispute into something more than electoral competition. Surveillance against extremism is not an administrative whim, but a response to a past in which gradual normalization of radicalism ended in catastrophe.
“External endorsement erodes the cordon sanitaire that protects German democracy”
Transatlantic legitimation does not replace German domestic politics, but it alters the symbolic climate. When external actors minimize or ridicule institutional vigilance against extremism, they contribute to shifting the boundary of what is considered acceptable.
The open question is not whether Germany can or cannot ban the AfD. The question is whether the European project can sustain its democratic model under simultaneous pressure: internal radicalization and external validation.
The challenge is not merely legal. It is cultural and strategic. And it is being fought on the terrain of legitimacy.