Overview
- The campaign 'AfD-Verbot jetzt!' organised an action day on May 23, 2026 with rallies at more than 20 locations to press the Bundesregierung, Bundestag or Bundesrat to start a ban procedure before the Federal Constitutional Court.
- Turnout varied by city, with police reporting a peak of about 40 people in Erfurt and initial counts of a few hundred in Munich while organisers in Munich had announced 3,000 participants.
- A nationwide ban can occur only if a federal body files at the Federal Constitutional Court, which makes the demand procedurally complex because neither the government nor parliament had shown clear signs of preparing such an application.
- Legal hurdles are active: the Verwaltungsgericht Köln in February barred the federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution from calling the federal AfD 'securely right-wing extremist' for now, while the state agency in Thuringia already classifies its AfD branch under Björn Höcke as extremist.
- If political bodies did pursue a ban, the case would require proof that the party’s goals or actions threaten democracy, a high legal bar that makes bans rare and means the protests are likely to shape debate rather than produce an immediate legal outcome.