The AfD has a serious right-wing problem and doesn't want to clean up their act. Banning the party might lead to failure as with the NPD (which since renamed itself) but it's worth a try and in parallel axing their funding like just happened earlier this year with the NPD should be attempted.
I disagree with your "totalitarian measure" comment, it is the AfD who are not compatible with the German constitution and the majority of Germany's society who prefer a fair democracy should not bulge the shouting of demands by populists, Reichsbürger, Querdenker. The connections to the AfD do exist, AfD politician Malsack-Winkemann (then already not a member of the Bundestag anymore, a security issue in my eyes) toured through the Reichstag with people from the Reichtsbürger group around Heinrich XIII. Prinz Reuß. Local AfD politician Andreas Geitz was even part of the Reichstagsturm in 2020.
If the people want AfD, is not a clear indicator that either something is wrong with Germany's highest law or its interpretation? The benefit of there being being AfD in the open is that it would be in the open. Is it a good idea to keep things hidden?
If you are unhappy with a law, get a majority. AfD just like it's spiritual predecessor in the NSDAP won't get that. The best Hitler got before his Machtergreifung was only 43% right after the Reichstagbrand.
There was a path that we - thanks to the magic that is hindsight - can clearly see now and we should use that knowlegde to prevent history from repeating, but one thing is certain: The political extremes won't play by the rules, let alone play fair, to reach power. We've seen this with Hitler, we saw it with the Republican party in Florida 2020 to get Bush into power and we've seen it with January 6th and again with the preparations republican across the country do to prevent voters from voting or not validate results.
<< If you are unhappy with a law, get a majority.
<< The best Hitler got before his Machtergreifung was only 43% right after the Reichstagbrand.
Do you know how much support the remaining power centers had? Does it mean he had majority? Does it change your argument? If so, how?
I am avoiding addressing the meat of your argument so far and I am letting small things like Bush 2020 slide, because you are not wrong about power. You do, however, appear to be blinded by the convenience of Left/Right political spectrum.
Connections to the AfD exist, because extreme right people will always choose the most right wing viable party (NPD or successor is too small) as their home. The question is the percentage of these people and if all of them are genuine or some of them are planted.
I agree with the CDU here that the purported issue is not clear enough. It is a shame that we do not have the relatively normal political era of Schmidt, Kohl and Genscher, but that's the fault of the CDU/SPD.
In April 2018, Germany's domestic intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), estimated that Reichsbürger movement membership had grown by 80% over the previous two years, more than estimated earlier, with a total of 18,000 adherents, of whom 950 were categorized as right-wing extremists. [Wikipedia]
Apart from numbers -- given that their ranks include former KSK members, they've had some success infiltrating local police departments, and are part of a much broader cloth of revisionist/antidemocratic movements; on top of the events of December 2022 -- the description of "completely irrelevant" is weirdly hyperbolic.
For context: the RAF probably had no more than 100 members at any point, but no one would think to call them "irrelevant".
I disagree with your "totalitarian measure" comment, it is the AfD who are not compatible with the German constitution and the majority of Germany's society who prefer a fair democracy should not bulge the shouting of demands by populists, Reichsbürger, Querdenker. The connections to the AfD do exist, AfD politician Malsack-Winkemann (then already not a member of the Bundestag anymore, a security issue in my eyes) toured through the Reichstag with people from the Reichtsbürger group around Heinrich XIII. Prinz Reuß. Local AfD politician Andreas Geitz was even part of the Reichstagsturm in 2020.