.
Donate

Help us fight against disinformation

M

Take action to stand for a democratic, inclusive Europe, and against disinformation and hate. We rely on donations for our campaigns & actions, and to develop the tech tools needed for a citizen-driven democracy. 
For long-term impact, consider making a monthly contribution, to shape the future of Europe together. 

Foreign Information Manipulation in the 2025 German Federal Election

ISD,
Alliance4Europe,
Debunk.org,
GMF Alliance for Securing Democracy,
DEN Institute,
EU DisinfoLab.

Karolin Schwarz,
CeMAS, Polisphere,
411,
Kemea

Download full report

Foreign Information Manipulation in the 2025 German Federal Election

Executive Summary

The 2025 German federal election took place in a volatile political landscape marked by multiple geopolitical crises, economic uncertainty and declining trust in institutions. This report by ISD and contributing organisations offers a comprehensive analysis of the foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) that shaped the pre-election period. It examines the motivations behind these influence operations, the actors involved, the techniques employed and the broader impact on democratic discourse and electoral integrity.

Foreign and domestic actors exploited existing societal divisions—particularly around migration, economic instability and national identity—by deploying coordinated campaigns and leveraging digital platforms to spread disinformation. Key operations such as Operation Overload, Storm-1516 and Doppelgänger were instrumental in disseminating misleading narratives and manipulating public opinion. They often made use of tactics such as AI-generated content, impersonation of credible institutions and abuse of social media infrastructure.

Themes in disinformation narratives included electoral fraud, anti-migrant sentiment, economic collapse, support for Ukraine and the delegitimisation of democratic institutions. We found it particularly concerning that campaigns integrated AI-generated content and bot networks and that sanctioned outlets such as RT DE (formerly RT Deutsch) continued to reach German audiences and diaspora communities in Germany despite being officially banned.

Given the often significant interaction between FIMI actors and domestic communities, the report highlights tactics employed by foreign entities as well as the selective and strategic adoption of similar approaches by domestic actors, including the right-wing populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. Despite efforts from civil society, regulators and platforms, significant gaps in policy enforcement and platform accountability remained.

To safeguard democratic integrity, the report recommends a coordinated, multi-stakeholder approach involving regulatory reform, enhanced transparency, media literacy and long-term investment in democratic resilience.

Download full report

Foreign and domestic actors exploited societal divides ahead of Germany’s 2025 federal election. Russian-aligned campaigns used AI, bots and media impersonation to spread disinformation, distort engagement and undermine democratic trust.

About the Project

This country election report was developed through the project FIMI Defenders for Election Integrity. The project consortium brings together the expertise from 10 organisations
to develop a multistakeholder foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) framework to effectively monitor, respond to and counter FIMI threats before and during elections, while simultaneously strengthening FIMI defender communities and democratic institutions. This monitoring and response also involved engaging and coordinating with 16 in-country partners from across German civil society and academia.

Over the course of these monitoring efforts, the consortium produced a series of incident alerts to be circulated to relevant election stakeholders in real-time. These incident alerts detail key information about FIMI incidents and their impact in the country of focus and provide a set of recommendations for response. Where insights derived from these incident alerts are mentioned throughout this report, they are signposted with an alphanumeric code beginning with ‘IA’.

Acknowledgements:

About the FIMI-ISAC

The FIMI-ISAC (Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Information Sharing and Analysis Center) is the first ISAC worldwide dedicated to fighting FIMI and creating common standards in this field. It unites a group of like-minded organisations that protect democratic societies, institutions and the critical information infrastructures of democracy from external manipulation and harm. Through collaboration, the FIMI-ISAC enables its members to detect, analyse and counter FIMI more rapidly and effectively while upholding the fundamental value of freedom of expression. The FIMI-ISAC does not act independently to counter FIMI. Instead, enhancing collaboration empowers its members to do so more effectively.

Infrastructure

This report and project were facilitated through the Counter Disinformation Network.
The CDN is a collaboration and crisis response platform, knowledge valorisation resource, and expert network, bringing together 58 organisations and over 300 practitioners from OSINT, journalism, fact-checking and academia from 25 countries. The network has been used to coordinate projects on four elections and has produced 76 alerts since its creation in May 2024.

Back to Reports