http://dx.doi.org/10.59704/950fbd158d793ee1 https://verfassungsblog.de/erfurt-shines/ Erfurt Shines - Two Identitarian Grand Projects, and in Between a Spark of Civil Society Steinbeis, Maximilian eng 2026-07-10 electronic resource text/html ddc:342 AfD Deutschland Freedom of Speech Freedom of research Israel Neutrality Neutralitätsgebot civil society Deutschland Verfassungsblog Verfassungsblog--2366-7044 CC BY-SA 4.0 Last weekend I was in Erfurt, the place where the authoritarian-populist AfD party held its annual federal convention. On Saturday I got up at the crack of dawn to help block the AfD delegates from reaching the assembly hall. Was I supposed to do that? As managing director of a legal-scholarly discourse platform should I not have remained neutral? The demand to forbid oneself from discriminating between non-banned parties loyal to the constitution and non-banned parties hostile to it is questionable not only insofar as it is addressed to democratic civil society, but also and especially insofar as it is addressed to scholarship.