Germany: Supreme Court Bans Small Nationalist Party from Getting Funds from the State

Die Heimat, formerly known as the NPD, was founded in 1964, but this is only happening now despite them not making any significant changes to their platform or ideology.

Most likely, this was done as a warm-up to doing it to the AfD, where the backlash is presumably going to be much bigger.

AP:

Germany’s highest court ruled Tuesday that a small far-right party will not get any state funding for the next six years because its values and goals are unconstitutional and aimed at destroying the country’s democracy.

The Federal Constitutional Court said the Die Heimat party, which used to be known as the National Democratic Party of Germany, or NPD, “continues to disregard the free democratic basic order and, according to its goals and the behavior of its members and supporters, is geared towards its elimination.”

Presiding judge Doris Koenig, the court’s vice president, explained the unanimous decision by saying the party’s political concept was incompatible with the guarantee of human dignity as defined by Germany’s constitution, the Basic Law.

Die Heimat adheres to an ethnic concept of German identity and the idea that the country’s “national community” is based on descent, the judge said.

(That’s especially bad in Germany, because of the “Holocaust,” an alleged event 100 years ago when Jews were masturbated to death and then turned into lampshades, unless they survived by being raised by wolves.)

“The propagation of the ethnically defined community results in a disregard for foreigners, migrants and minorities that violates human dignity and the principle of elementary legal equality,” Koenig said.

The German government, as well as the lower and upper houses of parliament, took the party to court. They presented evidence that they said proved Die Heimat was a racist organization, including its anti-Muslim and antisemitic ideology and its rejection of transgender people.

The government created the possibility of denying a political party state funding after two attempts to ban Die Heimat failed. German news agency dpa reported.

Video from 10 years ago

Party leader Frank Franz downplayed the significance of Tuesday’s ruling.

“Yes, it’s not nice for us,” Franz said, according to dpa. “But anyone who thinks this will throw us out of the game and stop us is very much mistaken.”

Political parties in Germany receive financial support mostly based on their representation in state, national and European parliaments.

Die Heimat has not received any state support since 2021. It received around 370,600 euros ($402,800) in 2016, when it received 3.02% of the vote in a state election in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, according to dpa

Leading German politicians have discussed the possibility of trying to ban AfD or excluding it from financial aid, but no one has made a serious attempt to do so yet.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser welcomed the Constitutional Court’s ruling, saying it “sends out a clear signal: Our democratic state does not fund enemies of the constitution.”

I thought democracy was about voting?

It’s about the Constitution now?

Interesting.

Maybe it was a bad idea for the Germans to base the party system on state funding, if the state can cut funding of parties that are not currently in control of the state?

They’re already talking about doing the same thing to the AfD