The Muslim Brotherhood in Germany in 2025: financial blows and the government enters direct confrontation
In 2025, the Muslim Brotherhood suffered significant setbacks in Germany, ranging from the exposure of funding channels and fraud cases to the government’s move into a decisive phase of confrontation with the group.
As a result, the year now drawing to a close was far from favorable for the Brotherhood and its members on German soil, driving yet another nail into the coffin of the organization’s decline.
The beginning of 2025 was particularly challenging for the group, as the German parliament debated, in January, a draft resolution calling for a ban on the Muslim Brotherhood.
The proposal, submitted by the parliamentary group of the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, was entitled “Ensuring long-term internal security: prioritizing the fight against crime, terrorism, and antisemitism”.
The draft resolution called for the timely implementation of a definitive ban on “Islamist and antisemitic organizations”, while always taking into account the scope of action permitted under the rule of law.
It identified “the Muslim Brotherhood in Germany and its branches” as the foremost organization to be banned in the country.
The party stressed that banning the Brotherhood requires concrete executive measures, particularly against the “Muslim Community Association in Germany” (DMG), the group’s main arm in Germany, as well as its affiliated organizations.
The proposal also urged authorities to scrutinize mosque associations in order to detect potential “infiltration attempts by the Muslim Brotherhood, especially with regard to imam training, the spread of Islamist positions, and possible influence or control from abroad”, and to take immediate steps to prevent such activities.
However, political negotiations surrounding the formation of a new government at the time left parliament with little room to move forward with the adoption of the proposal.
An action plan
In April, the coalition government formed by the Christian Union (conservative) and the Social Democratic Party (center-left) pledged, in its coalition agreement, to combat political Islam, with the Muslim Brotherhood at the core of this effort.
The agreement stated: “We will combat Islamism and establish a federal action plan for this purpose. We will further develop the task force for the prevention of Islamism so that it becomes a permanent body within the Federal Ministry of the Interior, addressing this phenomenon comprehensively and supporting the forthcoming action plan”.
From November onward, Germany witnessed an intensification of measures targeting the Muslim Brotherhood and organizations linked to it.
At the beginning of the month, the Ministry of the Interior announced the ban of the organization “Muslim Interaktiv”, delivering a strong blow to groups that had turned the internet into a space for activity, recruitment, and mobilization, according to observers.
In the ban order, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt stated: “We will not allow organizations such as Muslim Interaktiv to undermine our free society through hatred, to show contempt for our democracy, or to attack our country from within”.
To justify the ban, the ministry explained that the organization’s objectives and activities were incompatible with the constitutional order and the principle of peaceful coexistence among peoples.
Muslim Interaktiv represents a new generation of organizations associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and focuses its discourse on younger generations.
The El-Gazzar case
During the second week of November, a German court convicted Saad El-Gazzar, head of the Marwa El-Sherbini Cultural and Educational Center in Dresden, of misappropriating donations from worshippers for personal benefit.
He was found guilty of repeatedly stealing from the association’s cash funds in 2019 and transferring more than 13,000 euros to himself, money that had been donated by worshippers during Friday prayers at the center’s mosque.
Of Egyptian origin, El-Gazzar is regarded as the most prominent Muslim Brotherhood figure in eastern Germany. The organization had entrusted him with overseeing the expansion of its branches in the state of Saxony and spreading its ideology online.
A blow to the “soft arm”
In the third week of the same month, the Alternative for Germany party, the second-largest parliamentary bloc in the Bundestag, submitted an urgent inquiry to the government regarding the allocation of public funding to certain projects managed by organizations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.
In the preamble to the inquiry, the AfD parliamentary group stated that the federal government has for years supported organizations working in the fields of democracy promotion, integration, and combating discrimination. Among these organizations are the Alliance Against Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Hatred (CLAIM), the Network of New German Organizations, as well as regional partners such as Teilseiend e. V. and the Islamic Academy of Heidelberg.
The group emphasized that “public subsidies for private projects may only be granted if there is a significant federal interest”, in accordance with Article 23 of the Federal Budget Code, arguing that funding such organizations requires “comprehensive parliamentary investigations”.
This inquiry opens a sensitive file in Germany concerning the financing of organizations operating in a gray zone: while not directly affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, they function within its network and implement its strategy using public funds allocated through programs related to democracy and integration.
Two years ago, an investigative report how the Muslim Brotherhood operates the CLAIM alliance from behind the scenes, under a “soft” façade, to advance its objectives and spread extremist ideas in Germany.
An advisory council
In parallel with the inquiry, the German Federal Ministry of the Interior announced the establishment of a permanent advisory council tasked with combating political Islam and religious extremism. According to the ministry, this step aims to develop effective preventive policies to counter this form of extremism, while avoiding any stigmatization or discrimination against Muslim communities in the country.
Chaired by Parliamentary State Secretary at the Ministry of the Interior Christoph de Vries, the advisory council brings together fifteen experts, including leading specialists in Islamic studies, social sciences, preventive work, security services, representatives of civil society, counter-extremism experts, and figures involved in civic participation and integration issues.
The new council represents a preparatory step toward launching an action plan to combat Islamism, a commitment made by the current governing coalition parties last spring.
According to observers, the end of 2025 has seen an intensification of measures against the Muslim Brotherhood, its affiliates, and its members in Germany, paving the way for an even more challenging year ahead, likely to witness further robust actions against the group.
