In January 2024 Bavarian school principal Roland Feucht urged people to attend a school demonstration for democracy and social diversity. Several AfD members responded by filing a Kleine Anfrage in the Bavarian state parliament, accusing Feucht and other principals of violating the political neutrality required of state employees and asking whether disciplinary action would follow. The Bavarian government declined to criticize Feucht, but Simone Fleischmann, chair of the Bavarian teachers’ association, warned of a chilling effect: ‘Every one of those questions makes you, as a teacher, pause… Should I do this? Am I stepping into dangerous territory? Because that’s what it is when I know I might be denounced.’
Similar reports are emerging across Germany. Refugee support workers told public broadcaster NDR they feel the AfD is ‘breathing down their necks.’ Researchers, civil-society groups, churches and other parties say the AfD is abusing its right to submit formal written questions to target and intimidate political opponents.
Kleine Anfragen are a standard oversight tool in German politics: written questions MPs send to state and federal governments to demand facts and data, hold the executive to account and often drive public debate. All parties use them, but the AfD’s volume is striking. Between March and October 2025 the party submitted 525 Kleine Anfragen to the Bundestag — more than two a day and nearly two-thirds of all parliamentary questions in that period. The number of such inquiries is also rising in several state parliaments.
Thuringia, an AfD stronghold led in the state parliament by Björn Höcke and described by security authorities as ‘confirmed right-wing extremist’, stands out for the sheer number and tone of inquiries. Left-party parliamentarian Katharina König-Preuss says the AfD appears to have a deliberate strategy: anyone who criticises the party is flooded with questions. She says many requests seek names and data on individuals and associations in civil society, exposing them to attack. König-Preuss points to questions aiming to identify how many people in Thuringia say they are gay or lesbian — a line of inquiry she says evokes Germany’s darkest history.
Civil-society organisations have been frequent targets. The Amadeu Antonio Foundation, which campaigns against racism and antisemitism and receives public funding, has been repeatedly probed by the AfD, including questions about its funding. Foundation spokesperson Lorenz Blumenthaler says the party tries to create the impression of a collusion between government and NGOs, suggesting nonprofits are part of a coordinated political agenda: ‘Above all, the aim is to create an impression among the broader public that something is wrong with these nonprofit organizations.’ When asked if the tactic is working, he replied bluntly: ‘Absolutely.’ DW sought comment from the AfD’s Bundestag group about its questioning practices but received no reply.
More alarming are allegations that the AfD’s inquiries may be gathering sensitive information about critical infrastructure. In October 2025 Thuringia’s Interior Minister Georg Maier told Handelsblatt there were signs the party was deliberately probing transport, water and energy supplies and digital infrastructure. Thomas Röwekamp (CDU), chair of the Bundestag Defence Committee, has accused the AfD of obtaining information about Germany’s defence capabilities. König-Preuss asks what happens to such data, noting there is little sign the party then pushes motions to improve police or disaster-response resources.
AfD politicians have long faced criticism over links to Russia; several senior figures are suspected of Kremlin-related ties. Two parliamentarians — one in the Bundestag and one in the European Parliament — are under investigation on bribery charges involving Russia and China. The AfD rejects accusations of espionage and points to its democratic right to question the government. Nonetheless, politicians, civil-society leaders and security officials warn that the party’s extensive use of Kleine Anfragen increasingly looks less like oversight and more like a tool for intimidation, public smearing and potentially gathering information that hostile actors could exploit.
This article was originally written in German.