National Democratic Party of Germany

For the East German block party, see National Democratic Party of Germany (East Germany)

The National Democratic Party of Germany (German: Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands, NPD) is a nationalist political party in Germany. The party, founded on 28 November 1964, is a successor to the German Empire Party (German: Deutsche Reichspartei, DRP). Udo Voigt has led the party since 1996. The NPD associates itself with the black-red-gold colour pattern of contemporary Germany, but identifies most strongly with the black-white-red colour combination of the German Empire. A large majority of the population considers the NPD to be undemocratic and damaging to the image of Germany.^[1]. Its opponents see the NPD as a neo-Nazi party and associate it with the colour brown.

The German federal intelligence agency Verfassungsschutz classifies it as a "threat to the constitutional order" because of its platform and philosophy.

Party leaders

History

At the time of the NPD's founding, efforts were made to have it declared a direct successor to the Nazi Party and thereby disbanded in accordance with West German law. Such efforts failed. Since its establishment in 1964, the party has never won the minimum 5% of votes in German federal elections that allow a party to send delegates to the German Parliament. However, it was represented in several state parliaments in the 1960s and has repeated this feat recently, winning 9.2% of the vote in the 2004 state election in Saxony. The NPD currently sends 12 representatives to the Saxony state parliament, the Landtag. During the 2004 election, the NPD entered a non-competition agreement with the German People's Union (DVU) and has since maintained that only one of the two parties will compete in any given election. The third nationalist-oriented party, the Republicans (REP), has so far refused to join this agreement. However, Kerstin Lorenz, a local representative of the Republicans in Saxony, sabotaged her party's registration to help the NPD in the Saxony election. The NPD had 5,300 registered party members in 2004, compared to 400 in the DVU.^[2]

In the 2005 federal elections, the NPD received 1.6 percent of the vote nationally. It garnered the highest percent of votes in the states of Saxony (4.9 percent), Thuringia (3.7 percent), Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (3.5 percent), and Brandenburg (3.2 percent). In most other states, the party won around 1 percent of the total votes cast. ^[3]

After the recent 2006 September State Parliamentary election in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania where the NPD received 7.3% of the vote, the NPD gained representation there as well.^[4]

Platform and philosophy

The primary concern of the National Democratic Party and Deutsche Volksunion is the interests of the German people; their platform focuses on the politics of culture-identity and the welfare of the nation, simultaneously addressing a number of issues such as unemployment and immigration restriction.

According to the leader of the NPD, Udo Voigt, there are four major points regarding the party's "vision of a future Germany":

"Politicians will do their utmost to serve the people, rather than to be served by them."
"Germany will honourably take her place among the world's nations as an equal partner and will no longer tolerate the blackmail methods used by her enemies because of the past."
"There will be a new economic as well as a new social order, which will ensure an honoured place for the German family and which will give financial support to young Germans in order to enable them to raise children, the most precious resource of [the country's] people."
"Foreigners will be welcomed as guests, but should live and work in their own countries."

File:Neonazimarch.jpg

Numerous supporters of the NPD during a march in Berlin, 2005.

Nationalist parties tend to emphasize the concepts of law and social order, an idea that is in conflict with libertarian democratic philosophy. Udo Voigt states that the philosophy of the NPD differs from the ideologies of international Communism and liberalism in that it acknowledges people as unequal products of their societies and environments, largely governed by the "laws of Nature." (This might indicate a concept of social Darwinism.) Voigt acknowledges that the work of modern sociologists such as Konrad Lorenz and Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt has contributed to their shaping of policy, representative of more "traditionalist" valuations.

The NPD considers itself as s party of "grandparents and grandchildren", as the sixties generation in Germany, known for the leftist student movement, seldom votes in agreement with the NPD and its politics. Although the NPD is sometimes referred to as "far right", in terms of economics, the NPD actually represents a position in favour of social security for Germans and control against "plutocracy". It has many similarities with socialism in its economic program, though it does not touch upon private property. However, the primary feature of the NPD - what some classify as its "extremism" - is its social orientation and philosophy.^[5] This includes a desire to end the Constitutional Democracy in Germany as it presently exists. NPD Leader Udo Voigt called the current German political system "illegitimate" and said, "it is our goal, to do away with the Federal Republic of Germany, just as 15 years ago, the people did away with the German Democratic Republic (Former East Germany)." ^[6]

International outlook

The NPD argues that NATO fails to represent the interests and needs of the European people. Similarly, the European Union is seen to be little more than a reorganisation of Europe along financial lines; the EU does not overcome the problems of nationality and divided interests still exist. To begin, the EU does not address "mass unemployment and social setback," both which reflect directly on the "welfare of the state."^[7] Although highly critical of the EU, as long as Germany remains a part of it, the NPD is against Turkey's incorporation.

Voigt envisions future collaboration - and continued friendly relations - with other nationalists and European national parties, such as the Ukrainian National Party. The party's platform says that Germany is larger than the present-day Federal Republic and calls for revision of the post-war border acknowledgements.^[8] A map of Germany on the party's web site omits the border shared with Austria and also leaves out the Oder-Neisse Line which established the limits of federal Germany to the east, and was finally agreed upon with modern Poland in 1990.^[9]

While this suggests a desire to renegotiate the status of historical eastern Germany, it may be an effort to capitalise on the bitter sentiments of Germans expelled from their country from these regions (especially Silesia, Pomerania, Danzig and East Prussia).

On this, the 2005 report of the Verfassungsschutz federal agency contains the following description:^[10]

"The party continues to pursue a "people's front" of the nationals [consisting of] the NPD, DVU and forces not attached to any party, which is supposed to develop into a base for an encompassing "German people's movement". The aggressive agitation of the NPD unabashedly aims towards the abolishment of the parliamentary democracy and the democratic constitutional state, although the use of violence is currently still officially rejected for tactical reasons. Statements of the NPD document an essential affinity with National Socialism; its agitation is racist, antisemitic, revisionist and intends to disparage the democratic and lawful order of the constitution."

The NPD has drawn further controversy on account of Udo Voigt`s meetings with infamous former Klansman David Duke, author of an international best seller titled "Jewish Supremacism". Udo Voigt assured Mr. Duke that an NPD government would never employ any policies that are remotely Zionist and that they would not support the current state of Israel.

The 2003 banning attempt

In 2003, the federal government, the Bundestag, and the Bundesrat jointly attempted to ban the NPD in a trial before the Federal Constitutional Court, the Bundesverfassungsgericht, the highest court in Germany with the exclusive power to ban parties if they are found to be "anti-constitutional." However, the case was thrown out when it was discovered that a large percentage of the NPD's inner circle were in fact undercover agents or informants of the German secret services. They include a former deputy chairman of the party and author of an anti-Semitic tract that formed a central part of the government's case. A number of other intelligence services' agents remain undetected. Since the government assemblies 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 attempt to further the ban. "The party was, in part, responding to the government's dictates" the court said. "The presence of the state at the leadership level makes influence on its aims and activities unavoidable," it concluded. [11]

Horst Mahler(NPD), a former member of the far left terrorist organisation Red Army Faction, defended the NPD before the court. Former chancellor Gerhard Schröder has suggested that the government should try to place a ban on the party again, but others did not see why it would be any more successful than the previous failed attempt.

World War II and Holocaust memory controversies

On 21 January 2005, during a silence in the Saxon state assembly in Dresden to mark the 60th anniversary of the Soviet take-over of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz, twelve members of the NPD walked out in protest. The NPD was upset that a moment of silence was being held for those who died in the Auschwitz camp and that none was being given for those who died during the bombing of Dresden in World War II, with the anniversary of both events falling relatively close to each other. Holger Apfel, leader of the NPD in Saxony and deputy leader of the party nationwide, made a speech in the Saxon State Parliament in which he called the Allied forces of the United States of America and Britain "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 purpose of his statement.^[11]

Alleged intimidation attempts

The NPD has come under criticism for allegedly exerting party influence by means of "intimidation," creating "national free zones" in areas where their support is the strongest. This tactic is seen by some as an attempt by the NPD to circumvent their marginal electoral status. As also reported by Deutsche Welle^[12], the Party utilised this strategy to prevent a concert by leftist musician Konstantin Wecker in Halberstadt, Saxony-Anhalt, vowing to buy out the tickets and put NPD supporters in attendance at that March 2006 show.

NPD supporters had planned to march around the city of Leipzig on 21 June, 2006 in support of the Iranian national football team at the 2006 World Cup match held in the city. Although they intended to show their support of Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the NPD cancelled its sponsorship of the event upon further review and no supportive demonstration took place - only a counter demonstration in support of Israel and opposed to the President actually took place in the city.^[13]

During the World Cup, the party's own website complained that due to the prevalence of people of non-German descent on the German National Football team, the team "was not really German," even posting a banner with the slogan "White - not only the colour of a jersey."

Most recently, after making large gains in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the party now has 6 seats in its Landtag (state parliament).

References

^ [1] Poll where Germans were asked whether they thought the NPD was "undemocratic" or "damaging to the image of Germany"
^ Spiegel [2]
^ Deutsche Welle news update [3]
^ BBC News update [4]
^ Overview of the theoretical political spectrum [5]
^ ZDF Archive (German) [6]
^ NPD party programme (in German) http://npd.de/medien/pdf/parteiprogramm.pdf
^ Party program, p. 13. ("Deutschland ist größer als die Bundesrepublik! ... Wir fordern die Revision der nach dem Krieg abgeschlossenen Grenzanerkennungsverträge.")
^ Map of Germany on NPD's website http://www.npd.de
^ Report of the Versfassungsschutz [7]
^ Telegraph article [8]
^ Deutsche Welle article [9]
^ BBC News article [10]

External links

[1] [1] Poll where Germans were asked whether they thought the NPD was "undemocratic" or "damaging to the image of Germany"

[2] Spiegel [2]

[3] Deutsche Welle news update [3]

[4] BBC News update [4]

[5] Overview of the theoretical political spectrum [5]

[6] ZDF Archive (German) [6]

[7] NPD party programme (in German) http://npd.de/medien/pdf/parteiprogramm.pdf

[8] Party program, p. 13. ("Deutschland ist größer als die Bundesrepublik! ... Wir fordern die Revision der nach dem Krieg abgeschlossenen Grenzanerkennungsverträge.")

[9] Map of Germany on NPD's website http://www.npd.de

[10] Report of the Versfassungsschutz [7]

[11] Telegraph article [8]

[12] Deutsche Welle article [9]

[13] BBC News article [10]

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