Germany bans Compact magazine, a 'mouthpiece of far-right extremists'

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has banned the magazine Compact, considered "a mouthpiece of the far-right extremist scene," her ministry said on Tuesday.

Affiliated production company Conspect Film GmbH has also been banned, according to a statement.

Police have raided the outlet's premises in Falkensee, just outside Berlin, as well as the homes of leading managers and shareholders in the states of Brandenburg, Hesse, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt to confiscate assets and evidence, it said.

Faeser justified the ban by saying that Compact is a "central mouthpiece of the far-right extremist scene."

"This magazine incites hatred against Jews, against people with a history of migration and against our parliamentary democracy in an unspeakable manner," the minister said.

Compact is a monthly political magazine led by editor-in-chief Jürgen Elsässer, who has incited his audience at events with slogans like "Americans go home" and "Friendship with Russia."

The ban means the magazine's planned summer party in Saxony-Anhalt has also been prohibited. The ban prohibits the "continuation of any activities" and thus also the "Compact" summer party, the Saxony-Anhalt Interior Ministry said in response to an enquiry. The state police will enforce this ban and prevent any illegal activities.

The ban was immediately criticized by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as "a serious blow to the freedom of the press," according to party leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla in a joint statement.

The two said banning a press organ was "a denial of discourse and diversity of opinion" and accused Faeser of abusing her powers "to suppress critical reporting."

The magazine's leading figures maintain contacts with important figures of the far-right scene.

In its online shop, the outlet offers a coin with the image of Björn Höcke, a firebrand politician from the far-right AfD who was recently convicted and fined again for using a banned Nazi slogan.

Germany's domestic intelligence service, known as the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, classified Compact as a proven far-right extremist publication in late 2021, saying the magazine spreads "anti-democratic and inhumane" positions.

Faeser said the ban shows "that we are also taking action against the intellectual arsonists who are fuelling a climate of hatred and violence against refugees and migrants and want to overcome our democratic state."

In order for an organization to be banned in Germany, it is not enough that it propagates an anti-constitutional stance, but it must do so in an aggressive and militant manner.

In its statement, the Interior Ministry cited fears that readers and viewers of Compact content could be incited and encouraged to carry out anti-constitutional acts. Compact publications "aggressively propagate the overthrow of the political order," it said.

Right-wing extremism researcher Maik Fielitz called Compact the most important medium of the right-wing extremist scene.

"It is a medium that unites different currents of right-wing extremism and various conspiracy theories," the head of the Department of Right-Wing Extremism and Democracy Research at the Institute for Democracy and Civil Society in Jena told the dpa,

The "Compact" magazine sees itself as a "representative of the little man" and is careful not to keep topics too complex and to break them down to scandalizing content, according to Fielitz.

Editor-in-chief Elsässer originally came from very left-wing circles. Patriotism is now the most important thing for him - and "not the class struggle on the left." However, he still has connections to players from the left-wing scene.

Since 2015, Elsässer has explicitly seen himself as the AfD's in-house magazine, which has brought him and the magazine reach and popularity, Fielitz said.

The ban is "one of the heaviest weapons of a defensive democracy," he added. But there are many media outlets that can step into the breach and fill the gap.