Germany's Foreign Office has defended a decision to classify the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party as right-wing extremist, after sharp criticism from the White House, BBC reported on Saturday.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance accused "bureaucrats" of rebuilding the Berlin Wall, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio slammed the designation as "tyranny in disguise".

In an unusual move, the Foreign Office directly replied to Rubio on X, writing: "We have learnt from our history that right-wing extremism needs to be stopped."

The intelligence agency that made the classification found AfD's "prevailing understanding of people based on ethnicity and descent" goes against Germany's "free democratic order".

The AfD came second in federal elections in February, winning a record 152 seats in the 630-seat parliament with 20.8% of the vote.

The agency, Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), had already classed the AfD as right-wing extremist in three eastern states where its popularity is highest. Now, that designation has been extended to the entire party.

The AfD "aims to exclude certain population groups from equal participation in society", it said in a statement. The agency said specifically that the party did not consider citizens "from predominantly Muslim countries" as equal members of the German people.