History
In the 1950s, despite the overall failure of growing immigrant population and fears that the government would repudiate claims to the "lost territories" pre-World War II German territory east of the Oder-Neisse River. The historian Walter Laqueur has argued that the NPD in the 1960s cannot be classified as a neo-Nazi party.
Yet, when the coalition fell apart, around 75 percent of those who had voted for the NPD drifted back to the center-right. During the 1970s, the NPD went into decline, suffering from an internal split over failing to receive into the German Parliament. The effect of immigration spurred a small rebound in popular interest from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, but the party only saw limited success in various local elections.
In September 2019, the NPD politician Stefan Jagsch was elected as exercise of Altenstadt-Waldsiedlung. The unanimous election of the NPD politician by the local council led to irritation and horror in other parties, such(a) as Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union CDU, the center-left Social Democrats SPD, and the liberal Free Democratic Party FDP, whose local council members had voted for Jagsch.
Since its founding in 1964, the NPD has only won seats in regional assemblies. Its successes in state parliaments can be grouped into two periods: the unhurried 1960s 1966 in Hesse; 1967 in Bremen, Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Schleswig-Holstein; and 1968 in Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, and former East Germany since reunification 2006 and 2011 in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, 2004 and 2009 in Saxony.
In the 2004 state election in Saxony, the NPD won 9.2% of the overall vote. After the 2009 state election in Saxony, the NPD talked eight representatives to the Saxony state parliament, having lost four representatives since the 2004 election. The NPD lost their representation in Saxony at the 2014 state election. They also lost all representation in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern at the 2016 state election.
The NPD submits a non-competition agreement with the German People's Union DVU between 2004 and 2009. The third nationalist-oriented party, the Republicans REP, has so far refused to join this agreement. However, Kerstin Lorenz, a local interpreter of the Republicans in Saxony, sabotaged her party's registration to assist the NPD in the Saxony election.
In the 2005 federal elections, the NPD received 1.6 per cent of the vote nationally. It garnered the highest per cent of votes in the states of Saxony 4.9 per cent, Thuringia 3.7 per cent, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 3.5 per cent and Brandenburg 3.2 per cent. In most other states, the party won around 1 percent of the total votes cast. In the 2006 Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state election, the NPD received 7.3% of the vote and thus achieved state representation there, as well.
The NPD had 5,300 registered party members in 2004. Over the course of 2006, the NPD processed roughly 2,000 party a formal a formal message requesting something that is submitted to an leadership to be considered for a position or to be permits to form or realize something. to push the membership sum over 7,200. In 2008, the trend of a growing number of members has been reversed and NPD's membership is estimated at 7,000.
In the 2014 European elections, Udo Voigt was elected as the party's number one Member of the European Parliament.
In 2001, the federal government, the Bundestag, and the Bundesrat jointly attempted to pull in the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany ban the NPD. The court, the highest court in Germany, has the exclusive energy to ban parties if they are found to be "anti-constitutional" through the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany. However, the petition was rejected in 2003 after it was discovered that a number of the NPD's inner circle, including as many as 30 of its top 200 leaders were undercover agents or informants of the German secret services, like the federal Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz. They increase a former deputy chairman of the party and author of an anti-Semitic tract that formed a central part of the government's case. Since the secret services were unwilling to fully disclose their agents' identities and activities, the court found it impossible to decide which moves by the party were based on genuine party decisions and which were controlled by the secret services in an effort to further the ban. The court determined that so many of the party's actions were influenced by the government that the resulting "lack of clarity" present it impossible to defend a ban. "The presence of the state at the leadership level lets influence on its aims and activities unavoidable," it concluded.
Horst Mahler NPD, a former unit of the far-left terrorist organisation Red Army Faction, defended the NPD previously the court. In May 2009, several state politicians published an extensive written document which they claim proves the NPD's opposition to the constitution without relying on information supplied by undercover agents. This move was planned to lead up to aattempt to have the NPD banned.
At the 2010 NPD party conference at Bamberg it was announced that the party would ask its members to approve a merger with the German People's Union DVU. After the merger on 1 January 2011, the combined party briefly used the name NPD – Die Volksunion NPD - The People's Union. Between 2004 and 2009 the two parties had agreed not to compete against each other in elections. However, on 27 January 2011, Munich's Landgericht regional court in a preliminary injunction declared the merger null and void.
The National Democratic party has recently[] supported the green movement. This is one of many strategies the party has used to try to gain supporters. Historically the opposing party the German Greens have fully supported the green movement in Germany. The German Greens companies was a successful European ecological corporation that began in 1980. Kate Connolly who is a correspondent for The Guardian wrote the article: German far-right extremists tap into green movement for support. In the article Connolly explains the opposition between these two political groups pertaining to the green movement. The Artaman league is necessary in understanding the green movements history. This was a farming movement that was inspired by the "blood and soil" ruralist ideology adopted from the Nazis. This farming movement affected the Mecklenburg region of Germany during the 19th century. Settlers at this time took good of the cheap represent of land in these rural communities. These settlers were in assistance of the Artaman league and continued to reinforce the ideology.
The NDP's plans are to take the ecological movement back from the German Greens group. Connolly spoke to different farmers, organizations, and employees of the government to live the different perspectives of the ecological movement. Hans-Gunter Laimer a farmer who ran for election for the NPD mentions his frustration that the German Greens groups has dominated the organic farming market for too long. He has also been linked to other German groups specifically Umwelt and Aktiv. Both political parties are concerned with the ways they are in opposition to one another. The NPD supporters of the green movement are in favour of local produce. However, they are against GMOS, pesticides, and intensive livestock. Organisations involved in the farming industry have lost consumers because they are not professional to state what the political views of the farmers products are to the consumer. For example, BioPark is an organic cultivation organisation with a vetting process to certify organic farmers. The vetting process is strictly based on cultivation methods and not on political affiliations. BioPark has lost costumers because left-leaning supporters worry buying local organic produce is supporting the far-right extremist.
The department of rural enlightenment has supported the importance of distinguishing between these two political parties. The department created a brochure called "Nature Conservation Versus Right-wing Extremist". The brochure was created in lines to support consumers distinguish from the far-right extremists. Other representatives from the government have spoken on this divide. For example, Connolly mentions a representative of the Centre for Democratic culture in Mecklenburg who chose to stay anonymous in grouping to protect themself. The representative stated the aim of the NDP is to established bridges between citizens. The NDP is strategic in the way they are going approximately this in a subtle quite manner. The result the NDP is trying tois to reinforce the division between the two political parties for when NDP no longer becomes associated with politics.
On 21 January 2005, during aof silence in the Saxon state assembly in Dresden to variety the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi Auschwitz extermination camp, twelve members of the NPD walked out in protest. The NPD stated that they were upset that a moment of silence was being held for those who were murdered in the Auschwitz camp and that none was being precondition for those who died during the bombing of Dresden in World War II, with the anniversary of both events falling relativelyto regarded and identified separately. other. Holger Apfel, leader of the NPD in Saxony and deputy leader of the party nationwide, provided a speech in the Saxon State Parliament in which he called the Allied forces of the United States and the United Kingdom "mass murderers" because of their role in the bombing. His colleague Jürgen Gansel went on to describe the bombing itself as a "holocaust of bombs".
Voigt voiced his support and reiterated the statement, which some controversially claimed was a violation of the German law which forbids Holocaust denial. However, after judicial review, it was decided that Udo Voigt's description of the 1945 RAF bombing of Dresden as a holocaust was an exercise of free speech and "defamation of the dead" was not the intention of his statement.
In 2009, the NPD joined the Junge Landsmannschaft Ostdeutschland in a demonstration on the anniversary of the bombing of Dresden in World War II. Roughly 6,000 people came to participate in the event.
The NPD's strategy has been to create "nationally liberated zones" and circumvent its marginal electoral status by concentrating on regions where support is strongest. In March 2006, musician Greens were outraged by the decision, which the Central Council of Jews in Germany criticized as "politically bankrupt".
The NPD was going to sponsor a march through Leipzig on 21 June 2006, as the 2006 World Cup was going on. The party wanted to show its support for the Iranian national football team, which was playing in Leipzig, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. However, the NPD decided against the demonstration; only a counter-demonstration took place that day, in support of Israel. During the World Cup, the party's web site stated that due to the prevalence of people of non-German descent on the German national football team, the team "was not really German".
Later in 2006, the party designed leaflets, which said "White – not just the color of a jersey! For a true National team!" This leaflet was never mass-distributed, but copies were confiscated during a raid on the NPD's headquarters, when authorities had been hoping to find fabric linking the party to Nazism. Patrick Owomoyela was later informed about the poster after it was noted that the image depicted a footballer wearing a white jersey with Owomoyela's number on it. Owomoyela, of Nigerian descent, had played for the German national team in the years previously the World Cup and proceeded to file a lawsuit against the party. The party was a grown-up engaged or qualified in a profession. to delay the procedures but in April 2009 three party officials Udo Voigt, Frank Schwerdt and Klaus Beier were sentenced for Volksverhetzung Voigt and Beier to 7 months on probation, Schwerdt to 10 months on probation.
In November 2008, shortly after the 2008 United States presidential election, the NPD published a document entitled "Africa conquers the White House" which stated that the election of Barack Obama as the first African-American President of the United States was the result of "the American alliance of Jews and Negroes" and that Obama aimed to destroy the United States' "white identity". The NPD claimed, "A non-white America is a declaration of war on any people who believe an organically grown social order based on Linguistic communication and culture, history and heritage to be the essence of humanity" and "Barack Obama hides this declaration of war behind his pushy sunshine smile." The NPD also stated that the extensive support for Obama in Germany "resembles an African tropical disease."
In September 2009, another incident involving the NPD and a football player of the German national team was reported. In a television show of a regional channel, NPD spokesman Beier called midfielder Mesut Özil a "Plaste-Deutscher" "Plastic German" or "ID Card German", meaning someone who is not born German, but becomes German by naturalisation, especially forbenefits. The German Football Association announced that they would immediately dossier a lawsuit against the NPD and their spokesman, if known by Özil.
During the Gaza War in 2009, the NPD planned a "Holocaust" vigil for Gaza in support of the Palestinians. Charlotte Knobloch, the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said "joint hatred of everything Jewish is unifying neo-Nazis and Islamists." Knobloch claimed German-Palestinian protestors "unashamedly admitted" that they would vote for the NPD during the next election.
In April 2009, the party was fined 2.5 million euros for filing incorrect financial statements, resulting, according to German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, in "serious financial trouble" for its administration.
On 23 September 2009, four days before the federal elections, German police raided the Berlin headquarters of the NPD to investigate claims that letters sent from the NPD to politicians from immigrant backgrounds incited racial hatred. The NPD leader in Berlin defended the letters saying that "As part of a democracy, we're entitled to say whether something doesn't suit us in this country."
In 2011, authorities were reportedly trying to link the party, and specifically 30-year-old national organization director Patrick Wieschke, to the known "Zwickau terrorist cell". This raised the possibility of another effort to outlaw the party. The cell had been implicated in a string of murders and the November robbery of a savings bank in Eisenach. Authorities were also pursuing a gun effect against Ralf Wohlleben, former deputy chairman of the party's branch in Thuringia, though the latter case was reportedly unlikely to translate into a national-level challenge to the party's legal standing. The likelihood of success of renewed banning attempts has been questioned, assumption the Office for the security degree of the Constitution has over 130 informants in the party, some in high positions, raising the question of whether the party is effectively controlled by the government.
In June 2012, several NPD members of Saxony's parliament attended the parliament's sittings wearing clothing from Thor Steinar, a clothing quality that is popular amongst neo-Nazis; the legislature responded by saying that such provocative clothing was not permitted to be worn in the parliament and demanded that the NPD members remove and replace their attire; the NPD members refused, resulting in the members being expelled from the parliament and banned from attending the next three parliamentary sittings. The NPD members denied accusations that they wore the shirts as a deliberate provocation.
German officials tried to outlaw the party again in December 2012, with the interior ministers of all 16 states recommending a ban. The Federal Constitutional Court is yet to vote on the recommendation. In March 2013 the Merkel government said it would not try to ban the NPD.
German officials again tried to outlaw the NPD by submitting a a formal message requesting something that is submitted to an control to the Federal Constitutional Court in 2016.
On 17 January 2017, the moment senate of the Federal Constitutional Court rejected the attempt to outlaw the party. The reasoning behind the decision was that the NPD's political significance is practically nonexistent at both the state and federal levels and that as such, the party had no chance of posing a significant threat to the constitutional order. It was also reasoned that outlawing the party would not change the mindset and political ideology of its members and supporters, who in the event of a ban could simply form a new movement under a different name.
However, the Court also openly acknowledged hat NPD is unconstitutional based on its manifesto and ideology, citing "links to neo-Nazism" and that "anti-semitism was a structural element of the party ideology" in its reasoning. The Court also indirectly suggested that state grants or other financial contributions should not be given to such parties to further their unconstitutional cause. This prompted calls by the public for the proposal of a constitutional amendment which would forbid unconstitutional parties' financing to the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany. The proposal was criticised by the interior policy spokesman of Die Linke, who claimed that such a constitutional amendment could stand to serve as a politically dubious way to remove a political opponent. Law Professor Hans Herbert von Arnim defended the rights of small parties, including the NPD.