Countering Right-wing Extremism - What does the ban on "Compact"-magazine mean?
With the far-right "Compact"-Magazine, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) has banned a company that insulted the Minister as a "criminal" and referred to itself as the "voice of resistance." Key questions and answers about the ban:
What is "Compact" known for?
Since 2010, the monthly "Compact"-Magazine has been published in a tabloid style. Its editor-in-chief, Jürgen Elsässer, also appears at events. Through videos and online offerings, the media company now reaches a larger audience beyond the circle of magazine readers. For example, "Compact" refers to an "asyl bomb." On a cover, it was recently claimed that "German generals are planning an attack on Russia." Recently, "Compact" showed Thuringia AfD state chairman Björn Höcke next to the former US President Donald Trump with the headline "2024 The Turning Point." Leading politicians are regularly insulted as "criminals" in the magazine, with the exception of AfD representatives.
Why did Faeser justify the ban?
Your ministry has come to the conclusion that people can be incited to actions against constitutional order through publications and events by "Compact." It refers to "antisemitic, racist, minority-hostile, historical revisionist, and conspiracy-theoretical content." The media company agitates not only against the Federal Government but also "generally against the political system," according to the assessment of the Constitutional Protection Agency.
According to the Interior Ministry, "Compact" uses "resistance and revolutionary rhetoric" and employs "distorting and manipulative representations."
Legally, this step involves a ban on an association - according to the Interior Ministry, companies can also be banned under certain conditions.
What is actually banned now?
The sale of the magazine, the website, and symbols associated with the magazine are banned. This includes the "Blue Wave." This relatively new symbol was chosen by Editor-in-Chief Elsässer for a campaign aimed at promoting a government change after the next Bundestag election in September 2025. Blue is the color of the AfD, but some of its representatives have expressed concerns about the campaign, possibly due to fears of a new party funding scandal.
How much influence does "Compact" have?
According to its own statements, the magazine has a circulation of about 40,000 copies, but this has not been independently verified. Compact TV has 345,000 subscribers on YouTube. According to the Federal Interior Ministry, "Compact" is a "central actor in the networking of the 'New Right'." With "New Right," a scene is described that advocates for an ethnically homogeneous state with authoritarian tendencies and, at the same time, distances itself from right-wing movements that refer to National Socialism.
The media company maintains close ties, among others, to the far-right Identitarian Movement and the extreme-right wing of the AfD. According to the Constitutional Protection Agency, the regional party "Free Saxony" also belongs to the closer circle.
Who is Jürgen Elsässer?
The 67-year-old has a turbulent political history behind him. As an author and activist, the former teacher was once located in the far-left spectrum. After 2005, Elsässer moved further towards the extreme right. While other journalists are occasionally confronted by the AfD on the open stage, the "Compact" editor-in-chief moves there like a fish in water.
"Naturally, the AfD is an important factor," he recently stated at an open-air event in Thuringian Sunneberg. At the same time, he expressed certain sympathies for the Left Party Alliance (BSW) and for Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he described as "a statesman who fights for his people, his country, and his state."
Has the ban had an effect on the AfD?
Not directly, but primarily the far-right wing of the party has lost a platform for spreading its content. AfD Bundestag member Jürgen Braun, who is not part of this stream, writes at X: "Compact-Elsaßer has primitively insulted me." Nevertheless, he supports "Compact" against what he calls "unconstitutional ban."
The federal manager of the party Die Linke, Katina Schubert, believes that the testing of an AfD ban is "inevitable." She finds: "The ban from the right-wing tabloid should not just be a symbolic pawn move." The AfD is currently being monitored by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a right-wing extremist suspect. Whether prospectively a classification of the entire party as a reliably right-wing extremist tendency by the domestic intelligence service could follow is currently not foreseeable.
The Bundestag, Bundesrat, and Federal Government are each authorized to file a request for a party ban. The decision on such a request is made by the Federal Constitutional Court. A prerequisite is that one can prove an aggressively combative stance from the respective party.
How unusual is a media ban?
This occurs relatively seldom - in such cases, the freedom of the press must be weighed against the arguments in favor of a ban. In his time as Federal Interior Minister, Thomas de Maizière (CDU) banned the right-wing extremist Internet platform "Altermedia Deutschland" in 2016. Ex-Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) declared the Mezopotamien Verlag and Verteilung GmbH and the MIR Multimedia GmbH as organizational entities of the Kurdish Workers' Party PKK as dissolved in 2019.
- The SPD's Nancy Faeser, the German Interior Minister, has been targeted by the far-right "Compact"-Magazine, which called her a "criminal" and considered itself the "voice of resistance."
- The "Compact"-Magazine, under editor-in-chief Jürgen Elsässer, has a history of publishing antisemitic, racist, and conspiracy-theoretical content, often insulting leading politicians.
- Faeser justified the ban on the "Compact"-Magazine due to the potential to incite actions against the constitutional order through its publications and events.
- The Constitutional Protection Agency assesses that "Compact" agitates against the Federal Government and the political system as a whole, and employs distorting and manipulative representations.
- The Interior Ministry has the authority to ban companies under certain conditions, and with the "Compact"-Magazine ban, it has banned the sale of the magazine, website, and associated symbols.
- The "Blue Wave" symbol, chosen by Elsässer for a campaign to promote a government change, is also included in the ban.
- Based in Falkensee, Brandenburg, the "Compact"-Magazine has a reported circulation of 40,000 copies, and its Companion TV has 345,000 subscribers on YouTube.
- The "Compact"-Magazine is considered a central actor in the networking of the "New Right" scene, which advocates for an ethnically homogeneous state with authoritarian tendencies.
- Jürgen Elsässer, the editor-in-chief, has a turbulent political history and held far-left views before moving towards the extreme right. He's often welcomed by the AfD and has expressed sympathies for the Left Party Alliance and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
- The ban on the "Compact"-Magazine has affected the AfD's far-right wing by losing a platform for spreading content, but the party has not suffered a direct blow.
- Media bans are relatively rare in Germany, as the freedom of press must be weighed against the arguments in favor of a ban, with former Federal Interior Ministers Thomas de Maizière and Horst Seehofer also having banned extremist media entities in the past.
