In Germany they will again try to ban the NPD

The representation of the federal states of Germany (Bundesrat) yesterday sent a lawsuit to the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany to ban the right-wing extremist National Democratic Party of Germany (NDPD). The German authorities made the first attempt to ban the NPD in 2001, but it failed. Experts still cannot predict whether the court will consider the party, already weakened by cuts in government funding and gaining just over 1% in the federal elections, dangerous to society.

Photo: REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch/Files, Reuters

Germany may ban the far-right party as “contrary to the constitution” for “sympathies for historical National Socialism” and “connections with the criminal environment of neo-Nazis” as early as 2014. The corresponding claim was sent today to the Constitutional Court of Germany in Karlsruhe by deputies of the Bundesrat, which performs the functions of the upper house of parliament in Germany. “The study of key ideological postulates - the biologically racist division into friends and enemies, militant illiberalism and anti-Semitism, rejection of individualism - allows us to speak about the fundamental kinship of the NPD with the NSDAP (Hitler’s party - Kommersant ),” says the text of the 270-page lawsuit .

The filing of the claim was supported by representatives of all German states. The first court hearing may take place in the next six months, and a decision will be made in a year or two, an interlocutor at the Lower Saxony Ministry of Internal Affairs explained to Kommersant. “The very fact of submitting an application means that the states expect success,” he is sure. “To do this, it is necessary to prove that the activities of the NPD are contrary to the constitution, evidence of this is the materials that we collected together with the German Ministry of Internal Affairs.”

A similar attempt was made in 2001, but then the court dismissed the case after two years: it turned out that a significant part of the statements discrediting the NPD were made and then conveyed to the public by intelligence service informants. This time, the initiators of the ban say, the materials were collected more carefully. In addition, the idea of banning the NPD began to gain popularity again after the start of a judicial investigation into the so-called money murders - a series of murders committed in the early 2000s by a gang of neo-Nazis, uncovered in 2011 (see Kommersant on May 15). According to a survey conducted on the website of the Center for Political Education subordinate to the German Ministry of Internal Affairs, about 65% of Germans support the ban. The prospect of banning the NPD will be one of the central topics of the conference of the heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the federal states opening today in Osnabrück.

However, the initiative to ban the party, created in 1964 and never overcoming the five percent barrier, also had many opponents who believe that Germany has more pressing tasks. The far right, although represented in the country's two state parliaments, polled just 1.3% in the September federal elections. In addition, the NPD has been weakened by a fine of €1.3 million, recently confirmed by the court, for distortions in party accounting (see Kommersant of March 10). Until the fine is paid, the party, which previously received more than €1 million annually from the state, is deprived of state subsidies. Finally, critics of the Bundesrat’s initiative say, a lengthy judicial investigation, which in the event of a decision on a ban will certainly be continued in the European Court in Strasbourg, may unwittingly turn into an advertisement for the ideas of National Socialism.

Galina Dudina

German states united against neo-Nazis