Holocaust survivors were among the first to criticise Germany’s top court for rejecting a bid to outlaw a fringe far-right party accused of pursuing a racist and antisemitic agenda.
The Federal Constitutional Court on Tuesday ruled that the National Democratic Party (NPD) is too insignificant to spell a real threat to German democracy.
In explaining the ruling, Chief Justice Andreas Vosskuhle said that while the party’s goals run counter to the German constitution, “there are currently no concrete indications … that its actions will lead to success.”
But the International Auschwitz Committee, a group representing survivors of the Nazi death camp, voiced dismay at the ruling, warning that it could spur far-right extremists across Europe to champion more hate.
“How can it be that those who cheerfully celebrate the Holocaust and provoke new episodes of hatred in many municipalities may remain in the democratic spectrum?” Vice President Christoph Heubner asked.
“This reality-blind and untimely decision sends a disastrous signal to Europe, where far-right and right-wing populists have found new partnerships and are now trying to transform the fear and insecurity of the population into hatred and aggression,” he warned in a statement.
Tuesday’s ruling marks the second failed attempt by the German parliament’s upper house to ban the NPD; it first applied for the ban at the end of 2013.
Founded in 1964 as a successor to the neo-fascist German Reich Party, the NPD calls for “the survival and continued existence of the German people in its ancestral central European living space” — or simply, “Germany for the Germans.” Such language flirts with phraseology used by the Nazis.
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency classifies the ultra-nationalist NPD as a far-right party and estimates it has approximately 6,000 members in a country of 82 million.
