The German Conservatives

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The German Conservatives e. V. is an association based in Hamburg , which was founded on September 17, 1986. In the 1995 report on the protection of the constitution, the association was classified as right-wing extremist .

Purpose of the association

The declared purpose of the association is to participate in the formation of political will. The association supports individual candidates or parties with election proposals or advises against their election. The members do not see themselves as the mouthpiece of a party, but as a counterweight to the political left and the media, which are perceived as left-leaning. In Hamburg since 1987 and in Bremen for the first time in 2007 , the German Conservatives ran their own candidates for elections.

The association has around two dozen members and an unknown number of sponsors. The executive chairman is the journalist, book author and politician Joachim Siegerist . The former mayor and CDU interior senator of Berlin , Heinrich Lummer , acted as honorary president .

Emergence

The association is a spin-off from the Conservative Action , founded in 1981 , which emerged from the Citizens' Action Democrats for Strauss . In mid-June 1986 the managing director and co-founder of the Conservative Action, Joachim Siegerist , was expelled from the association. The background was internal controversies about the political orientation of the club and financial irregularities, which the club's board accused Siegerist. Together with other campaigners, Siegerist initially called the Conservative Action Germany e. V. in life, which in September 1986 in Die Deutschen Konservatives e. V. was renamed.

Development and activities

The association draws attention to itself primarily through campaigns, advertising campaigns and circulars to sponsors and potential donors. In May 1987, the German Conservatives ran for the mayor elections in Hamburg , but only won 0.1% of the vote. Since 1991 the German Conservatives have regularly participated in the elections for the district assembly in Hamburg-Wandsbek. Here they achieve results between 0.1 and 0.2%.

In the mid-1980s, the association initiated a campaign for the release of Hitler's deputy Rudolf Heß, who was imprisoned in the Allied military prison in Berlin-Spandau . On August 20, 1987, three days after the death of Hess, the German Conservatives published an obituary notice in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , in which it was said, among other things, that “this man” (Rudolf Hess) would “before God […] grace and Finding Justice ". In 1988 the Rudolf Hess Association distributed commemorative medals.

In April 1987 the chairman of the association, Joachim Siegerist , his deputy Michael Stange and honorary president Chlodwig Prinz zur Lippe were sentenced in the first instance to a fine of 17,550 DM for insulting the former Federal Chancellor and SPD chairman Willy Brandt . In a circular circulated by the defendants in 1986, Brandt was described as a “traitor to the fatherland” and a “dodgy man [...] without political decency” who wanted “Germany to submit to Moscow's dictates”. The judgment was upheld in 1989 by the Hamburg Regional Court .

Before the fall of the Wall , the German Conservatives organized regular demonstrations on the inner-German border and on the Berlin Wall , which were directed against the SED dictatorship. In June 1989 members of the association let out protest leaflets attached to balloons in the direction of the GDR. In reunified Germany, the German Conservatives spoke out against the participation of the SED successor party, the PDS, in government.

Because of two circulars from the association from 1992, the chairman of the association, Joachim Siegerist, was sentenced by the Hamburg district court on November 21, 1997 for sedition , incitement to racial hatred and insult to a prison sentence of one year and nine months with probation and a fine of 24,000 DM. In the said letters, Siegerist described "Gypsies" as "consistently a bad, criminal pack", which "behaves like Jews persecuted by Nazis" who "rob, steal, cheat, blackmail and threaten". The same tenor was found in a half-page advertisement that was placed by the German Conservatives in October 1992 in the right-wing Ostpreußenblatt .

In November 1998 a German Conservative group was refused entry to Israel . The action taken by the Israeli government was directed against the club's chairman, who was classified as a “politically active racist of the extreme right wing”.

The German Conservatives regularly organize congresses on political topics, at which politicians and speakers appear primarily from the right-wing political spectrum. Since the mid-1990s, the German Conservatives have been sending more and more circulars to sponsors and interested parties in which, among other things, campaigns are announced and donations are called for. At the end of the nineties, in connection with the compensation fund for Nazi forced laborers, the association spoke out against further reparations from Germany and at the same time drew attention to the fate of German forced laborers. In addition, the German Conservatives rejected the planned Holocaust memorial at the Brandenburg Gate . In further donation letters Joachim Siegerist asked on behalf of the association for financial support for the construction of a soldiers' chapel and a "peace museum" for the soldiers of the German Wehrmacht on his property near Jelgava / Latvia. The German Conservatives have repeatedly called for humanitarian aid for former members of the Waffen SS in Latvia.

In May 2000, the German Conservatives advertised with a full-page advertisement in the Viennese daily newspaper Die Presse for “fair treatment of Jörg Haider ” and an end to “discrimination against Austria”.

At the beginning of 2003 the German Conservatives supported the German Party's running for the citizenship elections in Bremen. This German party, which the offices for the protection of the constitution in several federal states called right-wing extremists, achieved a result of 0.5% in the elections on May 25, 2003.

In November 2003, the German Conservatives campaigned for the Bundestag member Martin Hohmann , who had been excluded from the CDU parliamentary group because of a speech classified as anti-Semitic . A photo of the Archbishop of Fulda, Johannes Dyba , who died in 2000, was also shown in the advertisements . Church representatives and Dyba's relatives distanced themselves from the action.

Another important field of activity for Joachim Siegerist and his German Conservatives has been the political "unification of the right" in Germany since 1988, although this has not yet been achieved. In addition, the German Conservatives were involved in the Euro-Rights project, which was launched by the Austrian politician Jörg Haider. Other partners in this European network included the Belgian Vlaams Blok and the Italian Lega Nord .

The Bremen voters' initiative has to live , with Bernd Rabehl and Ivan Denes , among others , has been the official state association of German Conservatives since January 2007. V. She took part in the Bremen state election on May 13, 2007. The result of 25% striven for by top candidate Joachim Siegerist was clearly missed with 1.6% of the votes. The election campaign of “Bremen must live” was actively supported by the Carinthian governor and former chairman of the Austrian FPÖ , Jörg Haider, who appeared on April 27, 2007 as the main speaker at a major event of the voters' initiative in Bremen.

A participation of the association in the state elections in Hamburg 2011 failed because the participation announcement came too late. In 2014 the association took part in the election for the district assembly in the Hamburg-Nord district and received 0.06% of the votes.

criticism

In 1986, DER SPIEGEL accused the German Conservatives and their chairman Joachim Siegerist of anti-Semitic and racist stereotypes, which were found primarily in the circulars and the association's Conservative Deutsche Zeitung . Jewish organizations and their functionaries are repeatedly the target of journalistic attacks by the association. As early as 1986 Siegerist spoke of "thugs from the World Jewish Congress and fanatical Jews from Israel" who wanted to "push Germany [...] into the dust". In another letter to sponsors and donors dated December 6, 1988, Siegerist described the then chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Heinz Galinski , as "the 'professional Jew' that I find extremely unsympathetic".

It is also criticized that the German conservative parties and associations of the far right spectrum and offer representatives of these organizations a political platform. At the annual congress of the German conservatives, among others, the chairman of the are as speakers and guests Republicans , Rolf Schlierer , later NPD solicitor Horst Mahler and because of sedition sentenced songwriter Frank Rennicke occurred. Since the late 1990s, representatives of the Austrian FPÖ / BZÖ from Jörg Haider have regularly been among the participants and speakers at the event.

In the 1995 report by the Federal Republic of Germany for the Protection of the Constitution, the German Conservatives were described as "right-wing extremists". In 1998, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Cologne, at the request of journalists, confirmed that the association The German Conservatives had been known for years as a right-wing extremist organization. The fact that the group was no longer mentioned in later reports on the protection of the constitution does not mean that the association is no longer active. In November 2013, according to a report in the daily newspaper Neues Deutschland , representatives of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution declared that the association was "currently not being observed".

The German Conservatives are also controversial in the moderate right-wing political camp. Above all, it is criticized that the activities announced by the association and accompanied by extensive donation campaigns are either not carried out or only carried out to a limited extent. In a circular from the Young Conservatives, which came from a youth association of German Conservatives. V. emerged, it is said that the chairman Joachim Siegerist is "always at the forefront", "when it comes to spitting big tones". One of Siegerist's goals is "horrendous donations (...) which he lures unsuspecting followers out of his pocket in his numerous begging letters" and which the German conservatives "make senselessly disappear in some dark channels".

In 1992, the German Conservatives received donations totaling 85,409 DM for a campaign against (what they called) "asylum abuse" with two appeals for donations. Of this money, only an advertisement was placed under the heading "Criminal Gypsies" in the small-run East Prussian Gazette worth almost DM 2,000. The rest of the money is said to have been used mostly for salaries of the chairman, the managing director and another board member.

In a trial of incitement to hatred against the chairman of the association in 1994, the public prosecutor described the German conservatives as a "business association". In this context, he held against the defendant Siegerist, "He is not concerned with forming political opinions, but ultimately with making a living by appealing for donations".

The former chairman of the Republicans, Franz Schönhuber , described Siegerist in his book published in 2004 as the "undisputed king among fundraisers".

Publications

The German Conservatives regularly send out circulars on political topics, which, according to the association, have a circulation of tens of thousands of copies. The German Conservatives have published the periodical Deutschland-Magazin (DM) regularly since 1999 . The board of directors puts the circulation of the publication at 100,000 copies. The information sheet “Berliner Brief” will be published at the same time.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Report on the Protection of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany 1995, p. 188
  2. ↑ a b Der Spiegel, 42/1986, p. 129.
  3. ^ Obituary notice in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung from August 20, 1988.
  4. ↑ In: Die Aula , No. 3/2003, p. 12; Obituary notice in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung from August 20, 1988.
  5. ↑ Der Spiegel, 42/1986, p. 127.
  6. ↑ Der Spiegel, 13/1993, p. 178.
  7. ↑ die tageszeitung, November 22, 1997, p. 23.
  8. ^ The Ostpreußenblatt, October 31, 1992, p. 20.
  9. ↑ Ojārs J. Rozitis in: haGalil Online, November 12, 1998; Saarbrücker Zeitung from November 11, 1998.
  10. ↑ Circular from the German Conservatives at the turn of the year 1999/2000 and from May 19, 2000.
  11. ^ Circular of the German Conservatives of July 27, 1999.
  12. ^ Circular of the German Conservatives from January 15, 1999; Latvia News of July 11, 2001.
  13. ↑ a b In: Die Aula , No. 3/2003, p. 13.
  14. ↑ cf. z. B. Baden-Württemberg Constitutional Protection Report 2005, p. 152 ff.
  15. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung , November 19, 2003.
  16. ↑ Weser-Kurier, April 28, 2007, p. 12.
  17. ↑ DAPD Eight new parties recognized for Hamburg's state election  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / nachrichten.t-online.de  
  18. ↑ http://wahlen-hamburg.de/wahlen.php?site=left/gebiete&wahl=136#index.php?site=right/result&wahl=136&angebote=0&gebiet=5&idx=0&typ=3&stimme=2&flip=1&mode=liste&hoch=0&untertyp = 23
  19. ^ Circular of the German Conservatives of December 6, 1988, cited above. in: Jens Mecklenburg (Ed.): Handbook of German Right-Wing Extremism , Berlin 1996, p. 247 f.
  20. ↑ Pforzheimer Zeitung, November 10, 1998.
  21. ↑ http://www.neues-deutschland.de/artikel/838298.henkel-soll-ruhehaltung-von-heinrich-lummer-pruefen.html
  22. ↑ KID, November 26, 2003.
  23. ↑ Memorandum, edition 12/2003, p. 3 f.
  24. ↑ die tageszeitung, November 22, 1997, p. 23; Weser-Kurier, January 13, 2007, p. 16.
  25. ↑ cit. according to Das Ostpreußenblatt, April 30, 1994.
  26. ↑ Franz Schönhuber: The Abused Patriotism in Germany and Europe , 2004, p. 115.