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Thomas Haldenwang (born 21 May 1960) is a German lawyer and the president of the German
Thomas Haldenwang (born 21 May 1960) is a German lawyer and the president of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (german: Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz or BfV, often ''Bundesverfassungsschutz'') is Germany's federal domestic intelligence agency. Together with the Landesämter für Verfassungss ...
(''Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz).''
Biography
Haldenwang was born in 1960 inWuppertal
Wuppertal (; "''Wupper Dale''") is, with a population of approximately 355,000, the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as the 17th-largest city of Germany. It was founded in 1929 by the merger of the cities and to ...
and studied law at the University of Marburg
The Philipps University of Marburg (german: Philipps-Universität Marburg) was founded in 1527 by Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, which makes it one of Germany's oldest universities and the oldest still operating Protestant university in the wor ...
.
Since November 2018 Haldenwang has been the president of the ''Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz'', a German intelligence agency
An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, Intelligence analysis, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety, and foreign policy objective ...
with the mission to fight extremist
Extremism is "the quality or state of being extreme" or "the advocacy of extreme measures or views". The term is primarily used in a political or religious sense to refer to an ideology that is considered (by the speaker or by some implied shar ...
adversaries of the federal constitution.
BfV-presidency
After his appointment, he announced an increased focus of the BfV on right-wing extremism. The number of employees in this phenomenon area should be increased from 200 to 300. In the murder case ofWalter Lübcke
Walter Lübcke (22 August 1953 – 2 June 2019) was a German local politician in Hesse and a member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). On 2 June 2019, he was assassinated at his home by a neo-Nazi extremist. Stephan Ernst was arrested o ...
, Haldenwang said that one might also have to assume a scenario of "sleepers" in the field of right-wing extremism – similar to that in the field of Islamism – and adapt accordingly to it. By classifying the AfD group Der Flügel
Der Flügel () is a far-right faction within Germany's Alternative for Germany (''Alternative für Deutschland'', AfD), a right-wing populist opposition party.Christopher F. SchuetzeFar-Right Faction of German Populist Party Vows to Dissolve '' ...
as a "secured right-wing extremist aspiration", he is said to have become the enemy image of right-wing extremists, according to Der Spiegel
''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
.
Haldenwang pointed out from 2021 that the anti-corona movement will become smaller, but more radical. "With violence-oriented right-wing extremists and in the radicalized corona protest milieu, no scenario can be ruled out," he said in January 2022. According to Haldenwang, there is "selective and in some regions a formative influence by right-wing extremists."
References
1960 births Living people 21st-century German civil servants People from Wuppertal University of Marburg alumni {{Germany-law-bio-stub