AfD deputies under espionage suspicion over Bundeswehr data requests

Alice Weidel in her office ahead of an online meeting with American billionaire Elon Musk on his X platform in Berlin, Germany, January 9, 2025. REUTERS/Kay Nietfeld/Pool

AfD deputies have found themselves at the center of a new espionage scandal: they are suspected of gathering sensitive information about the Bundeswehr that could have been transmitted to foreign intelligence services, including Russia and China. These conclusions are drawn by the German publication Der Spiegel.

In particular, Gerold Otten and Rüdiger Lucassen submitted a series of official requests to the federal government, asking to provide extremely detailed and sensitive information about the state of the German army. Security experts call these requests “fodder for spies.”

In their inquiries to the state of Thuringia (Erfurt), they spoke about details of military transports, protection from drones, and critical infrastructure, as well as other security-related information concerning the Bundestag.

“It is quite obvious that AfD is submitting a large number of systematically interconnected and highly detailed requests regarding the Bundeswehr’s capabilities and gaps”

The head of the Bundestag’s Defense Committee, Thomas Rövekamp, stated to Spiegel that such requests cannot be explained by a legitimate interest in parliamentary oversight of the government’s activities. He emphasized that the aggregate and level of detail of the requests go beyond normal oversight.

According to sources in coalition parties, AfD in the Bundestag is interested in topics of drones, protection against them, and critical infrastructure, as well as in how well the federal government can protect this infrastructure. Also discussed was the question of how well other ministries are equipped to defend against cyberattacks.

According to Der Spiegel, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) is currently examining who could actually have formulated these questions, and there is suspicion that AfD deputies could have been “front men,” and the requests themselves were prepared by foreign agents. Because of the sensitivity of the information the Ministry of Defense classified the responses as secret (Classification: “For Official Use Only”).

“For some time now we have watched with growing concern that ‘Alternative for Germany’ is abusing its parliamentary right to question in order to systematically investigate our critical infrastructure”

On May 2, the AfD was officially recognized as a threat to democracy and extremist by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which noted that the party’s ideology rests on ethnic concepts of belonging to a people, which contradict the foundations of democracy.

In the context of this investigation, data are also cited on how affiliated activity could influence the political situation in Germany, considering the numerous requests to the government and the need for thorough investigation of possible impacts on the country’s security.