Opening the Door to the Far Right: German McCarthyism Redux?

Annette Ohme-Reinicke

This January 19, 2024 Hamburg antifascist demonstration was one of a series of national actions against the far right. CC0 1.0

CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS and activists in Germany are coming under increasing pressure. Some activists are being barred from working in the civil service, and several campaigns have had their bank accounts frozen.

The political influence of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (the infamous Verfassungsschutz) is increasing, and freedom of speech is under attack. In addition, funding for democratic initiatives have been eliminated, and in some cases venues for public events are simply not being made available.

“Firewall”?

All of this is happening while the German government repeatedly emphasizes that it is erecting a “firewall” against the far-right party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), and will under no circumstances cooperate with it. However, by weakening civil society, it is paving the way for the far right and bolstering its influence.

While the current Chancellor announced in 2018 that he would cut the AfD’s share of the vote in half — it stood at under 20% at the time — its share of the vote has in fact grown significantly. According to representative polls, the AfD currently leads the ruling conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) by at least three percentage points. In the state of Saxony-Anhalt, where elections will be held in September, the far-right party is polling at 41%, while the conservative CDU stands at 26%.

In recent years civil society’s space for action has been repeatedly curtailed. For instance, it has become more difficult to file objections to large-scale infrastructure projects, and a staff unit for citizens’ councils in the German Bundestag was dissolved by the federal government, weakening citizens’ participation.

This year Wolfram Weimer, the German Minister of State for Culture, maneuvered to have three left-wing bookstores excluded from the annual Bookstore Awards without providing a reason. The country’s second-largest newspaper, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, ran this headline on March 12: “There is a larger plan behind this.”

Indeed. These measures, clearly intended to suppress public criticism of the government, are fueling fears that the country is heading toward authoritarianism.

Another example is the nationwide funding initiative “Let Democracy Live! Action Against Right-Wing Extremism, Violence, and Misanthropy,” the largest funding program for civil society. As part of this program, the federal government has been distributing approximately 100 million euros annually since 2015. The Christian Democratic Union minister overseeing these programs recently announced that the funds would be withdrawn and redistributed.

Citizens’ initiatives, youth education centers, violence prevention groups, and exit programs for right-wing extremists previously received funding. These included, for example, the “Citizens’ Initiative: Colorful Instead of Brown” (Brown is understood to stand for Naziism) and the association “For Diversity and Democracy.”

Instead of raising awareness about right-wing extremism and supporting democratic initiatives, the funding will now be directed toward projects that promote German “traditional customs,” such as volunteer fire departments. Absurdly, the responsible CDU minister cites “the protection of democracy” while withdrawing funding from democratic projects.

Secret Funding Decisions

Some of the attacks on civil society have been going on unnoticed for some time. In 2025, it was revealed that between 2020 and 2024, approximately 1,250 civil society organizations and 1,300 individuals had been investigated by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Office). “Findings relevant to the protection of the constitution” were reported for about 200 organizations. As a result, government funding for democratic initiatives was cut.

The basis for the reviews conducted by the Office was the so-called Haber procedure. In 2017, Emily Haber, then State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of the Interior, had offered other federal government departments the opportunity to use intelligence from the Office to make decisions regarding funding for civil society initiatives. So-called extremists were not to receive any funding. Requests to the Office were to be made explicitly in secret.

However, the Office is not permitted to disclose specific information, but only to confirm whether “findings relevant to the protection of the constitution” exist or not. This is why Minister of State for Culture Weimer could not explain exactly why the three left-wing bookstores were excluded from the award ceremony. And that is why those affected usually do not learn what “findings” the Office (allegedly) has.

Consequently, no formal appeal is possible. No public court proceedings take place, and there is no legal basis for the Haber proceedings. It violates the Constitution.

Restricting Freedom of Speech

For the past decade freedom of speech in general has also come under massive attack, as lawyer and journalist Ronen Steinke points out. “The state,” he writes, “now defines numerous statements as criminal offenses that, just ten years ago, clearly fell under the protection of freedom of speech.”

In one case, a citizen referred to the German foreign minister on the social media X as “the dumbest politician in the world” because she was obstructing peace talks with Russia and promoting arms deliveries to Ukraine. A district court ruled in 2024 that this constituted a criminal insult.

Investigations into “speech offenses” have at least tripled, and raids are now taking place because someone is alleged to have committed the offense of insult to a public official. For example, a woman had referred to the chancellor online as an “old little Nazi” in 2024. A search of her home soon took place, and the suspect’s cell phone was seized for several weeks.

In May of this year, a district court ruled that calling Chancellor Merz a “lying Fritz” (Lügenfritz) in a Facebook post constitutes a criminal insult. The author was ordered to pay a fine of approximately 2,000 euros.

“Never before have there been so many investigations in this country based solely on words,” Steinke writes in his latest book, Freedom of Expression. Of course, there have been previous episodes, not to mention the days of the German Democratic Republic in the East.

Sanctions, Banning and “Debanking”

Sanctions are also specifically targeting individual activists. Damial Bamdadi, a trade unionist from Stuttgart, originally from Iran, is actively working to counter far-right tendencies within trade unions. He had been living in Germany for 13 years when his application for naturalization was denied on the grounds of “far-left activism.”

Lisa Pöttinger, a young teacher from Munich, was barred from working because of her involvement with Fridays for Future, an international organization of climate activists. This is reminiscent of the “Berufsverbote” (employment ban) period in the 1970s.

So-called “debanking” has become yet another tool used against civil society. In this process, bank accounts are cut off, often without the affected individuals even knowing beforehand. This means that credit cards suddenly stop working, people can no longer withdraw cash, and they cannot make any electronic purchases. Only a basic amount of about 500 euros remains available.

In some cases, those affected are prohibited, under penalty of law, from accepting help from others. Debanking has been used against authors, publishers, associations, radio stations—and also against the perfectly legal German Communist Party (DKP).

Debanking is based on so-called “terror lists.” The first of these lists was established in late September 2001 by George W. Bush as part of the “War on Terror.” A few months later, the European Union also created a sanctions list. It is updated at irregular intervals.

Sanctions are not based on court orders or charges. A public legal defense is usually not possible. This form of disenfranchisement, which threatens people’s livelihoods, is historically reminiscent of medieval ostracism and banishment. A system of law without courts is taking hold, in which a fundamental principle of every democratic state is being suspended: the separation of powers.

It is often unclear which list — the American or the European one — is being used. For example, GLS-Gemeinschaftsbank, a cooperative bank founded in 1974, which promotes itself on the basis of its social and environmental principles, closed the DKP’s accounts in 2025. No specific reason was given. Presumably, the trigger was a fundraising campaign for Cuba.

Last year, Sparkasse (savings bank) Göttingen also closed the account of the long-standing initiative Rote Hilfe (Red Aid). A court case ensued, and the bank stated that Rote Hilfe had called for donations to a “network classified as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.” (Norddeutscher Rundfunk, a state-run news channel, March 6, 2026)

The bank closed the account because it feared “disadvantages in the financial market.” It is assumed that the United States is threatening to exclude German banks from the SWIFT agreement, which links financial institutions internationally, if they do not close the accounts.

Jaques Baud, a Swiss national living in Belgium and a former employee of the Swiss Intelligence Service, was also added to the European sanctions list. He held one of the highest ranks in the Swiss military and was sanctioned because, based on Ukrainian sources, he demonstrated that Ukrainian politicians shared responsibility for the continuation of the war and criticized the European Union (EU) for its bias and one-sided support of Ukraine, advocated for negotiations, and argued that Russia could not be defeated militarily. All his bank accounts were frozen and a travel ban was imposed.

Speaking Out for Palestine

In August 2025, the accounts of International Criminal Court Judge Nicolas Guillous and several of his colleagues were also closed. The reason: they had issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Gallant. Italian lawyer and UN Special Rapporteur on human rights for the occupied Palestinian territories since 1967, Francesca Albanese, is also affected. So is journalist Hüseyin Dogru from Berlin. He had reported on the Gaza war and repression against activists on his website “Red.”

In particular, those who seek to address the situation of the Palestinian people and criticize the Israeli government are being criminalized. For example, a Palestine Congress scheduled to take place in Berlin in April 2024 was forcibly broken up by the police. Speakers such as Yanis Varoufakis, former Greek finance minister, and Francesca Albanese were barred from entering Germany.

Often, no venues are made available for planned discussions. Nancy Fraser of the New School for Social Research had her visiting professorship at the University of Cologne revoked in 2024. The reason: she had signed, along with 400 others, an open letter criticizing the State of Israel as an apartheid state.

Numerous activists who advocate for Palestinian rights and who do not hold German passports had their right of residence in Germany revoked; some lost their jobs. Jewish activist Iris Hefets, a psychoanalyst born in Israel and living in Berlin for over 20 years, was arrested three times in Berlin while demonstrating for Palestinian rights.

While the mayor of Berlin insisted that Jewish students have to be able to study without fear, last April the Berlin police used batons against Jewish students and others who had occupied the famed Humboldt University in opposition to the threatened deportation of four pro-Palestinian student activists.

Even representatives of the UN Human Rights Council expressed “alarm over Germany’s suppression of solidarity actions for Palestine” in October 2025. They criticized police violence against activists and called on the federal government to respect the right to peaceful assembly. In a detailed report on solidarity with Palestine, the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam describes Germany as a “laboratory of repression.”

AfD Works to “Drain the Swamp”

The far-right AfD also uses legal means to target civil society. Shortly after entering the Bundestag in 2017, it submitted a parliamentary inquiry regarding the aforementioned “Democracy Lives!” funding program. The Bundestag is required to provide information and published a 68-page list of all recipients of the program’s funds throughout Germany.

Since then, the AfD has been portraying civil society — especially in the form of NGOs — as the enemy. It speaks of an “NGO complex” and, in May 2025, announced an “action plan” to “drain the NGO swamp.”

This aims to silence public criticism of right-wing extremism, climate policy, racism, and other issues. In doing so, this party is using the instruments of democratic parliamentarism — ultimately to abolish it, just as Joseph Goebbels once boasted.

In January 2026, the AfD posted a job opening explicitly dedicated to monitoring and evaluating civil society organizations. To this end, a database of civil society organizations and activists is also to be established — using data provided by Parliament.

Far-right extremists have particularly targeted organizations such as the highly regarded Amadeu Antonio Foundation, named after a man who was murdered by far-right extremists in Brandenburg in 1990. Among other things, the foundation provides financial assistance, counseling, and advocacy for victims of far-right violence, documents far-right violence, supports those affected, and offers training in democratic action. The AfD moved to end state funding for the foundation.

Ironically, some of the repressive measures are having an opposite effect.

• Since being excluded from the award ceremony one of the sanctioned bookstores have found their sales have skyrocketed.

• A court recently ruled that the Minister of State may no longer label one of the bookstores as “extremist.”

• The Swiss colonel mentioned earlier has been reported delighted by a rapid surge in sales of his books.

• When the 250-year-old Württembergischer Kunstverein (Cultural Society) organized a symposium, “On the Critique of Freedom and Its Repression,” had its municipal funding of 15,000 euros withdrawn, within a week a fundraising campaign raised nearly 20,00 euros. Despite the intervention by the German-Israeli Society on grounds of “anti-Semitism” the symposium took place.

Nevertheless, these sanctions do more than just pave the way for right-wing extremism and undermine the conditions for civil society action. Current government policy also contradicts the principles of the democratic societies it claims to protect.

To counter this shift to the right, we must improve the conditions for democratic action and promote public debate and freedom of information and expression — rather than let them be criminalized.

July-August 2026, ATC 243