Under the guidance of the MHP, the ADÜTDF was founded in 1978 and today has over 9,000 members and 160 local associations. In 2017, the German Federal Agency for Civic Education stated that the Wolves had “outgrown the neo-Nazis as the largest far-right group” in Germany.
In 2020, after almost all the federal parliament groups voted to ban the ADÜTDF, the federal minister of the interior, Horst Seehofer of the CSU, refused to consider banning the Grey Wolves umbrella organisations. This may be in part due to the historic ties between the CSU/CDU and the Grey Wolves. In the 1970s, CDU politician Hans-Eckhardt Kannapin helped to ensure Colonel Türkes’ German envoy received a resident permit to begin his work establishing the German Grey Wolves.
A German Government report from 2021 describes the ADÜTDF as follows: "Outwardly, the group demonstrates a commitment to comply with German law and it tries hard to maintain a moderate demeanor. Inwardly, however, the ADÜTDF is an advocate of a nationalist right-wing extremist ideology in line with its parent party MHP. Because of its membership size, the association is a major exporter and disseminator of right-wing extremist ideas among Turks and Germans of Turkish descent living in Germany.”
