Germany: NPD Banning Attempt Launched

The New Observer
December 10, 2015

In another display of the “democracy” to which Angela Merkel so often refers, the German Federal Constitutional Court has announced that it will start proceedings to ban the National Democratic Party (NPD) at the beginning of March next year.

The petition to ban the party was started by the governments of all sixteen federal German states, governed by the establishment parties—the Christian Socialist Union (CSU), Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Socialist Party of Germany (SPD), the Greens and the Left (Die Linke, the former East German Communist Party).

The judges have said that they have set aside three days, from March 1 to 3, for a public hearing on whether the NPD must be banned for the crime of being “anti-constitutional.”

In his reaction, NPD leader Frank Franz said that this case was not just about the party, but about the continued existence of “democracy and the rule of law.”

He said it was “dangerous for those who want to do away with our constitutional values on behalf of the government.”

He promised that he would attend the hearings when they open in the town of Karlsruhe, and he will argue that this is a matter of determining whether there is any freedom of expression left in Germany.

“If this ban is successful,” he said, “then any party which is in any way critical of excessive immigration, the European Union, or the euro single currency will be banished from public view.

“A ban on the NPD will criminalize any positive reference to the German people. This is what is at stake, and that is why we cannot allow it,” he concluded.

 

The last time the court attempted to ban the NPD was in 2003, but that attempt failed after it was revealed that the internal state security agency had been responsible for generating the “evidence” through its planted agents within the party.

The basis for the new attempt to ban the NPD is because it supposedly “represents an ideology that is identical over the long term with the historic doctrines of German National Socialism.”

The dossier which the establishment parties have gathered together to try and prove their case is 268 pages long, consists of affidavits from 15 secret agents, and a total of 303 party documents.

The material is, the dossier says, “based largely on publicly available sources, including publications of the NPD, court decisions as well as films and reports on the Internet.”

The dossier also claims that the use by the NPD of the words “folkish world” is proof that they are “firmly in favor of a violation of human dignity” as well as “an impairment of the free democratic basic order.” This means, the dossier says, that the NPD “propagates the notion of a national community.”

To even talk about a “national community” is, the dossier says, a “racist biological worldview” which aims to “preserve ethnicity above individual identity.”

The dossier also objects to the NPD’s statements that it is “impossible to integrate ‘immigrants.’” This, the dossier says, is one of the “historical foundation points of the NPD’s Nazi obsession.”

Additionally, the dossier accused the NDP of breaching the “no discrimination” requirement which is a “principle of democratic parliamentary system of government.” This means, the dossier says, that the NPD’s goal is to bring about a complete change in the system currently in power in Germany.

The dossier also accuses the NPD of “covertly” denying the holocaust. There is no supporting evidence for this claim, as denying the holocaust is illegal in Germany. The dossier instead relies on NDP statements calling for crimes committed during World War II by all sides to be “put into historical perspective.”

Lastly, the dossier claims that the NPD “approves of violence as a means of political struggle.” It does not however provide any examples of this, saying that the NPD only uses a “deferred threat of violence.”

The lack of direct supporting statements for these main charges has made it less than certain that the banning attempt will be successful. An article in the Bild newspaper, for example, has already pointed out that there is almost “no proof” for any of the allegations.

Needless to say, the German Central Council of Jews has come out in support of the banning attempt.

 

An article in the Jüdische Allgemeine newspaper (the official paper of the Central Council of Jews in Germany) quoted Central Council President Josef Schuster as saying that the banning of the NPD would be a “contribution to the stability of our democracy.”

“We have been calling for a ban on this extreme right wing party for a long time, and are therefore very grateful for the states for their commitment to gather such resilient material,” he said.