Gerd Eichmann via Wikimedia Commons
This Tuesday, the 23rd, the Federal Court banned the financing of the “Die Heimat” party with public funds. The decision also prevents the party which describes itself as the successor to the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler in the 1930s and 1940s from receiving tax benefits to sustain itself.
The aim of the decision is to suppress rightwing extremist parties in the country, which only has a history of National Socialism for a century. “Today’s decision sends a clear signal: our democratic state does not finance enemies of the constitution,” the country’s Interior Minister, Nancy Faeser, wrote in a statement.
Heimat adopted the name last year after calling itself the “German National Democratic Party” for years. Despite its history, the party has never been successful: it never chose a name in the 14 general elections in which it stood. There are no representatives in the German states; and in 2014 it elected the only MEP in its history.
The ruling was made by the highest legal authority in Germany, which is equivalent to the Supreme Court (STJ) in Brazil. Decisions like this are extremely rare and have only been made twice: to ban the Socialist Party and the Nazi Party after the end of World War II.
It's not the end the government which has been calling for the party's outright extinction since 2019 expected, but it could be useful for the same longterm plans. “We will of course take a close look at what this tells us in other contexts that could be of interest to us,” said the country’s Prime Minister, Olaf Scholz.
This is because the measure to prevent longterm financing can also be applied to other parties, such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD), which is considered a third party.
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