Germany’s Constitutional Court ruled Tuesday that one of the country’s most extreme political parties, Die Heimat, or The Homeland, will be excluded from state funding, furthering the heated debate over the legal restriction of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
Die Heimat, previously known as Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD), is a neo-nazi, ultranationalist party in Germany. There have been previous unsuccessful attempts to ban the organisation in 2011, 2012 and 2017. In the latest attempt in 2017, the court stated that the party had little support and was politically insignificant but that its ideology was unconstitutional and anti-democratic. The party rebranded as Die Heimat in 2023, and although it had received no direct funding in recent years due to its small size, it was still able to receive significant tax breaks. The ruling on Tuesday excludes Die Heimat from state funding, essentially eradicating the party’s financial support.
In its unanimous verdict, the court said that the political concept of Die Heimat was one that “disrespects the human dignity of all those who are not part of the ethnic ‘Volksgemeinschaft’ (people’s community) and is also incompatible with the principle of democracy.” They went on to state that the party was “working towards abolishing the free democratic basic order” through its organisational structure and its involvement with extremist groups.
The judgment comes just days after Berlin saw massive demonstrations against the rise of the far-right in Germany, specifically the AFD. The protestors are calling for the banning of the AfD following a report by investigative journalists at Correctiv, where they allege that a secret meeting took place in Berlin where high-ranking politicians from the AfD discussed forced deportations of millions of refugees and asylum seekers from Germany, including those with German citizenship. Around 250,000 people turned out in Berlin over the weekend, with banners showing slogans such as “It feels like 1933, AfD ban now!” There were other smaller protests in other German cities at the same time. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz supported the protestors on X (formerly Twitter).
