National Democratic Party of Germany

The flag of the NPD.

The **National Democratic Party of Germany**(German: *Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands*, **NPD**) is a far-right neo-Nazi political party in Germany and Germany's most significant remaining post-1945 neo-Nazi party. It was founded in 1964 by four former members of the Nazi Party and was initially led by Adolf von Thadden. The party absorbed the German People's Union(German: *Deutsche Volksunion*, *DVU*) in 2011. The NPD is classified as a "threat to the constitutional order" by Germany's domestic security agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution(German: *Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz*), due to the party's alignment with Nazism. While the party officially rejects violence as a means of attaining its goals, many far-right gangs have engaged in violent crimes in the name of the party. Numerous initiatives have been launched to ban the NPD; however, all of said initiatives have failed for various reasons.

While the party has never held seats in the Bundestag, Germany's parliament, it has held seats in state parliaments; between 1966 and 1968, the party was represented in seven West German state parliaments, and between 2004 and 2011, the party held seats in Saxony and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern's state parliaments. The party held a seat in the European Parliament from 2014 to 2019, occupied by Udo Voigt, who has faced legal consequences for referring to Adolf Hitler as "a great German statesman", questioning the number of people who died in the Holocaust, and, in a 1998 campaign speech, calling for party supporters to engage in "armed combat”. Voigt was the party's leader from 1996 to 2011, and was responsible for steering the party more towards explicit far-right extremism by opening the party to neo-Nazi forces, before being replaced by Holger Apfel. Apfel was succeeded by Udo Pastörs in 2013, who was replaced in 2014 by Frank Franz, the party's current leader. A member of the party, Stefan Jagsch, was elected mayor of Waldsiedlung, Hesse in 2019, sparking controversy. The town council later voted to overturn the decision, removing him from office.

## Platform

The NPD is extremely opposed to the European Union and NATO, and seeks to withdraw Germany from both organizations. The party also advocates for all immigrants currently living in Germany, including those with citizenship, to have their German citizenship(if any) revoked and be deported to their home country. The NPD believes that Germany is larger than the borders of the Federal Republic; it demands the return of former territories of Germany ceded to Poland after WW2, as well as the annexation of Austria. The party’s website formerly displayed a map of Germany lacking the border between Germany and Austria, as well as the Oder-Neisse line, the border dividing Germany’s former eastern territories and the rest of Poland. The party is extremely hostile towards Israel, and is also hostile towards the United States.

The party’s economic program is supportive of social security, and denounces both capitalism and communism. According to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the party opposes liberal democracy and supports authoritarianism, and is racist, anti-Semitic, and homophobic. In 2005, the Federal Office reported that:

> The aggressive agitation of the NPD unabashedly aims towards the abolition of 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, homophobic, revisionist, and intends to disparage the democratic and lawful order of the constitution.
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## Controversies and activism

The NPD attempts to spread its ideology through the use of marches, rallies, posters, and leaflets, and is controversial for its incendiary rhetoric. In March of 2006, two weeks before the state elections, a musician named Konstantin Wecker announced that he would be holding an anti-fascist concert in a school in Halberstadt, Saxony-Anhalt. The party argued that it was "an unacceptable form of political campaigning" due to its location and time. The NPD vowed to buy tickets and come to the concert to protest. In response, the local authorities cancelled the concert. This led to outrage among the Social Democratic Party and the Greens, and the Central Council of Jews in Germany denounced the decision as "politically bankrupt".

During the 2006 World Cup, the NPD planned to hold a march in Leipzig, Saxony on June 21, to show support for Iran's national team, which was playing in the city, and the Iranian government and president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The party ultimately cancelled the march, and only a counter-protest took place demonstrating support for Israel. The party claimed that the German national team was "not really German" due to the fact that many of its players are ethnically non-German.

Later that year and also in response to the German team having many players of non-German heritage, the NPD produced numerous leaflets which it planned to distribute, featuring the phrase "White - not just the color of a jersey! For a true national team!" While the leaflets were never distributed, they were confiscated during a raid on the party's headquarters, in which authorities had sought to find material confirming the party as neo-Nazi in nature. The leaflets depicted a player wearing a jersey with player Patrick Owomoyela's number on it(Owomoyela is of Nigerian heritage). In response, Owomoyela sued the party. The lawsuit was ultimately successful, and in April 2009, three of the party's officials(Udo Voigt, Klaus Beier and Frank Schwerdt) were sentenced to probation for incitement. Voigt and Beier were sentenced to 7 months, while Schwerdt was sentenced to 10.

In 2007, Voigt nominated Rudolf Hess, Hitler's secretary and deputy, for a Nobel Peace Prize. As a result, he was charged with incitement, although he was not convicted.

Shortly after the 2008 presidential election in the United States, the NPD released a document titled "Africa conquers the White House". The document stated that the election of Barack Obama as President, and therefore the first black US President, was caused by the "American alliance of Jews and Negroes", and that Obama's goal was to destroy America's "white identity". The party claimed that "A non-white America is a declaration of war on all people who believe an organically-grown social order based on language and culture, history and heritage to be the essence of humanity", and that "Barack Obama hides this declaration of war behind his pushy sunshine smile". The NPD denounced many German citizens' support for Obama, comparing it to "an African tropical disease".

In 2009, NPD spokesman Klaus Beier claimed that midfielder Mesut Özil was a "plastic German"(referring to a non-native German who becomes a citizen). In response, the German Football Association threatened to sue the party if Özil requested it.

During the Gaza War, the NPD planned to hold a "Holocaust vigil" to support Palestine. The then-head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Charlotte Knobloch, claimed that German-Palestinian protesters openly said that they would vote for the NPD in the next election.

In 2011, the party's newspaper *Deutsche Stimme*(German Voice) published a crossword puzzle. Two of the clues in the puzzle referenced notorious Nazi leaders, the first being "A German first name that has fallen somewhat out of fashion" and "German politician of the 20th century". The respective answers to both clues were "Adolf" and "Hess"(referring to Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess, famous for his flight to Britain to attempt to negotiate a peace deal during World War 2). Many NPD leaders were critical of the crossword puzzle; the party's leader in Hesse, Jörg Krebs, said that the puzzle was one of "the dumbest PR actions in the history of the NPD" and "stupid squared". Later in the year, shortly before the 2011 Berlin state election, the party put up posters in Berlin featuring a caricature of a black man, a woman wearing a hijab, and a man wearing a turban riding a flying carpet with the phrase "good flight home".

Later that year, the party sparked outrage by distributing controversial posters featuring then-leader Udo Voigt riding a motorcycle with the phrase "gas geben". The phrase translates as "step on the gas", but can be translated literally to mean "give gas" or "treat with gas". Due to the phrase's literal meaning and the fact that "gas" was written in capital letters, many interpreted the posters as a reference to the Holocaust, in which gas chambers were a common method of execution. Andreas Gram, then a member of Berlin's House of Representatives and member of the Christian Democratic Union, referred to the posters as "inhumane" and claimed that they were an obvious reference to Nazi gas chambers, while Volker Ratzmann, then the Greens' leader in the Berlin parliament, said that the posters were a "deliberate provocation". Voigt claimed that the posters had no connection to the Holocaust and that he was simply an avid motorcyclist, and wanted to create an advertisement featuring his hobby.

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