The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) does not have to hand over any documents to the former Brandenburg AfD head of state Andreas Kalbitz. According to a spokeswoman, the Cologne administrative court decided on Thursday and thus dismissed two lawsuits by the state parliamentarian. The judgments are not yet final.
Kalbitz, who was one of the founders of the right-wing national “wing” of the AfD, which has since been formally dissolved, was stripped of his party membership in 2020.
At the beginning of 2019, the BfV announced that the AfD was being processed as a test case on the basis of an initial report and that the “wing” had been classified as a suspected case.
In March 2020, the BfV prepared a second report on the classification of the “wing” as a proven extremist effort, in which Kalbitz was mentioned by name.
Kalbitz then applied to the BfV for, among other things, the release of his personal file, the second report and evidence of his alleged contacts with the banned right-wing extremist “German Youth Loyal to Home” (HDJ). The BfV then gave Kalbitz information about certain data, but refused to send the documents to him.
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Rightly so, the Cologne administrative court has now ruled. The complaints are inadmissible and unfounded. Kalbitz has no entitlement to the required documents going beyond the information already provided. According to the Federal Constitutional Protection Act, it is generally sufficient if the BfV summarizes the content of the stored data and reproduces it in its own words.
