On the spies who tell us stories, the myth of the secret world, and the well-timed espionage scandals presently rocking Alternative für Deutschland

AfD politician Maximilian Krah posing with his close aide and alleged Chinese spy Jian Guo.

The time has to talk about spies and the stories we tell about spying.

Two espionage scandals have rocked Alternative für Deutschland in as many months. It can be no accident that both of them target leading AfD candidates for the European parliamentary elections in June.

The first surrounds the second-place AfD candidate, Petr Bystron. Czech intelligence services allege that he received payments from “Voice of Europe,” a media operation that is being called a front for Russian interests financed by the Ukrainian “business oligarch” Viktor Medvedchuk. No proof of bribery has been published, but the “revelations” continue in a steady trickle. The latest reporting from Der Spiegel holds that Czech intelligence have surveillance footage of Bystron receiving “small parcels” from “Voice of Europe” manager Artem Martschewskyj, as well as a recording allegedly confirming that he was paid 20,000 Euro. Bystron has called the reports “A lame attempt to reheat old coffee in order to keep the campaign against the AfD in the media until the EU elections.”

The second scandal hit this week; its focus is Maximilian Krah, the first-place AfD candidate. Police arrested Krah’s Chinese-born parliamentary aide, Jian Guo, on Monday night in Dresden on suspicion of espionage; federal prosecutors allege that he is an agent of the People’s Republic who used his position to spy on the European parliament and on “anti-CCP opposition figures within Germany.” Guo has been an aide to Krah since 2019; the two met each other around 2014, when Guo retained Krah as a lawyer. According to Die Zeit, 2014 is also the year that Guo first came to the notice of German intelligence. He allegedly offered to spy on China for Germany, but was turned down on suspicions that he was “unreliable” and attempting to operate as a double agent.

The core accusations are not, strictly speaking, new. The press first thematised Bystron’s alleged connections to Russia when he made an unreported trip to Belarus on an official visit to Lithuania in 2022. Suspicions about Guo were first raised last year by none other than Krah’s fellow AfD representatives in the EU parliament:

Parliamentary colleagues with knowledge of Guo’s employment with Krah told The European Conservative that they were unsure how Guo got the job considering his …lack of English or German language skills and the fact that he is older than most aides …

As part of its investigation, The European Conservative obtained internal communications which appear to show Guo offering AfD politicians trips to China with the promise that he could have COVID-19 restrictions relaxed for VIPs. He also displays insider knowledge of the Confucius Institute and has expressed a particular interest in private meetings among MEPs relating to EU-China policy. Colleagues also noted Guo’s insistence on giving out gifts of Chinese vodka for Christmas and haphazard attendance at work.

The accusations arose from tensions within the AfD parliamentary delegation, originating in the circles of pro-Western AfD representatives dissatisfied with the line taken by anti-Atlanticists like Krah.

In both cases, we are dealing with carefully prepared stories that were seeded months if not years ago. This gave Bystron and Krah a chance to deny the charges and proceed with their candidacies, only to be hit with more direct accusations ahead of the elections. Presumably this pattern will continue, with a steady stream of leaks between now and June intended to cast doubt on whatever denials both men continue to issue. If there is any hard proof that Krah himself is compromised, or that Bystron received bribes, we’ll see it only when its release is judged to be maximally disruptive.

Unlike other media campaigns against the AfD, these have hurt the party considerably, for they strike at the core of their patriotic, nationalist message. The AfD has responded well to prior press attacks, circling the wagons and defending their candidates. The present scandal is different; the AfD-adjacent newsweekly Junge Freiheit complains of “unheeded warnings,” and following talks with party leadership, Krah has canceled an upcoming campaign event.

That these are political attacks does not, of course, mean that they are pure inventions or that there is nothing to them. It is much more complicated than that.