Germany’s federal election was subject to “clear” and “successful” manipulation by Russia and other foreign actors, the head of the Bundestag’s intelligence committee has warned, calling on the government to acknowledge the impact on a vote that yielded a record result for the far right.
Konstantin von Notz, a Green member of parliament who chairs the committee that oversees the German intelligence services, said that it was impossible to say exactly how many votes were altered by manipulation campaigns ahead of the vote last weekend.
But he told the Financial Times: “I think what you can say for sure is that there was relevant, illegitimate influence on the decision-making process.”
Von Notz stressed that he was not calling for the result to be overturned. But he said: “We simply have to recognise that our elections are already being manipulated — and successfully manipulated.”
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which opposes weapons deliveries to Ukraine and has called for an end to sanctions on Moscow, secured a historic second-place finish in Sunday’s vote with almost 21 per cent.
The centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party the CSU finished first, but with a lower vote share than they had hoped, of 28.5 per cent.
Von Notz questioned why the CDU-CSU had not been able to benefit more strongly from deep voter discontent at outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-way coalition between his Social Democrats, the Liberals and the Greens.
“In my opinion, this also has something to do with the way in which this decision-making process was influenced,” he said.
“Right-wing extremist and extremist parties are becoming stronger in all Western-type democracies. And of course that has something to do with this influence . . . I think that is pretty clear. And if we want to keep the rule of law and our freedom, we have to act decisively.”
The MP voiced alarm at the fact that the AfD, together with the far-left Die Linke, would together be able to form a “blocking minority” in the next parliament. That risks limiting the ability of the next government to change the constitution — including in order to change borrowing rules to fund higher defence spending and support Ukraine in its battle against Russian aggression.
“This polarisation that we now see in parliament is also a result of these attempts at manipulation that have taken place,” he said.
Western governments have warned in recent years of large-scale attempts by foreign powers to influence their elections and undermine their security, using a raft of tactics from online disinformation to sabotage. They say those efforts have intensified dramatically since Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Von Notz said that he could not offer any easy solutions to a problem that he said was afflicting all western democracies. But he criticised Scholz’s government for not talking more openly about it.
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency warned during the campaign about attempts by foreign actors to influence the election, and the interior ministry commented on several specific apparent attempts at spreading disinformation online.
But Von Notz said that the government should have addressed the big picture more clearly.
“It has not been transparent and clear about what has been happening, what kind of campaigns are being waged,” he said.
He added: “It’s happening massively — and in almost all democracies in the world. The proximity of the vast majority of far-right parties in Europe and America to Russia should give us all something to think about.
“China and Russia want to disrupt the new world order and destabilise democracies. And that’s why it’s no surprise that we’re being attacked.”
Von Notz, who has headed the intelligence committee since 2022, pointed to what he said was a wide range of manipulations by different actors in the lead-up to Sunday’s vote, including a string of violent attacks by asylum seekers from Syria, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia that prompted a bitter national debate about immigration.
At least some of these attacks, he said, were motivated by political Islamists with the aim of “destabilising, polarising, unsettling and dividing society”.
He voiced concern at a slew of online disinformation and AI-generated content, as well as the support of Elon Musk — the world’s richest man and a key aide to US President Donald Trump — who threw his weight behind the AfD and heavily promoted the party on his social media platform X.
Von Notz referred to allegations that Russian agents were behind a campaign in southern Germany in which saboteurs blocked car exhaust pipes with foam and then put stickers on the vehicles implying the attacks were the work of Green party activists.
He also raised questions about the AfD’s funding after it was revealed earlier this month that Austrian police had launched a money laundering investigation over a €2.35mn donation to the party.
The gift was made in the name of an Austrian citizen, Gerhard Dingler, who had previously worked for the country’s far-right. But the German magazine Der Spiegel and Austria’s Der Standard reported that Dingler had acted as a frontman for a billionaire German businessman.
The AfD has said that it had been given assurances by Dingler that the money was his. Der Standard said Dingler had not responded to multiple attempts to reach him.
“You cannot say which of these measures sent which vote where,” Von Notz said. “But I think what you can say for sure is that there was illegitimate influence on the decision-making process.”
The MP insisted that he was not making excuses after his Green party won a disappointing 11.6 per cent of the vote.
He said: “First of all, I don’t think we had such a bad result . . . But the Greens, of course, also achieved a not-so-good result because of their own mistakes.”
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