KPD ban

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The KPD ban of August 17, 1956 was the second party ban in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany after the openly neo-Nazi Socialist Reich Party (SRP) was banned in 1952. It led to the forced dissolution of the first Communist Party of Germany (KPD), the withdrawal of its political mandates , the ban on the establishment of substitute organizations and legal proceedings against thousands of members.

background

After a twelve-year ban during the Nazi era, the KPD was re-established in 1945 and was the first party to receive the required license from all four occupying powers in Germany . In the western zones, she was represented in the Parliamentary Council with Hugo Paul and Max Reimann and entered the first German Bundestag in 1949 with 5.7 percent (1,361,706 voters) . Under the prevailing political conditions, she was isolated there because she was considered a slave to the then Stalinist Soviet Union and the majority of the other parties represented in the Bundestag accused her of complicity in the failure of the Weimar Republic .

In September 1950, the federal government passed the so-called Adenauer Decree , which stipulated the constitutional loyalty of public employees and thus forbade membership in anti-constitutional organizations. Many communists were subsequently dismissed from the public service on charges of being unconstitutional.

On June 26, 1951, the federal government banned the FDJ in accordance with Article 9 (2) of the Basic Law. Their close ties to the SED and the KPD, which was still legal at the time, were given as reasons for this. Shortly afterwards, in just two days, the 1st Criminal Law Amendment Act was passed, which laid down 37 new penal norms and made high treason , treason and secret bundling a punishable offense, which later affected some KPD members.

On November 23, 1951, the Federal Government applied for the Federal Constitutional Court to declare the KPD unconstitutional , as it had done three days earlier against the Socialist Reich Party , which was openly neo-Nazi and had been banned as early as 1952. Previously, some MPs of the KPD ( Heinz Renner , Oskar Müller , Walter Vesper and Friedrich Rische ) had been expelled from the Bundestag for 20 days of session because of unparliamentary behavior . This began a number of searches of party offices in order to collect evidence for the pending trial.

The KPD was already heavily involved in the actions against West German rearming (which it called “remilitarization”) at an early stage , for example with demonstrations and a referendum (banned by the Federal Minister of the Interior in 1951). At that time, their popularity in elections was already falling for various reasons. The referendum served as the occasion for a trial for high treason  - a paragraph that had not been applied since the Nazi era and was only reintroduced with the 1st Criminal Law Amendment Act in 1951. Members of the main committee for referendums were indicted in 1954 and criminalized in the judgment not as treason, but as an "anti-constitutional association". Despite repression, the KPD integrated itself with its referendum in a movement that had support among the population of post-war Germany that far exceeded the number of votes in the KPD. After all, the KPD was able to collect nine million votes against rearmament before its referendum was banned.

She maintained close contacts with the GDR and thus with the SED , which had emerged from the forced unification of the SPD and KPD in the east . This was considered high treason . It campaigned for the reunification of Germany on terms that were incompatible with the western integration pursued by the Adenauer governments .

In January 1952 the rules of procedure of the Bundestag were changed, as a result of which the KPD lost its parliamentary group status and with it the right to submit motions and inquiries. The party's extra-parliamentary agitation then intensified, leading to a call for the “revolutionary overthrow of the Adenauer regime ”. In doing so, the party itself provided important arguments for its ban.

Banner against a KPD ban at a demonstration by the Leipzig iron and steel works (1952)

From 1953 the KPD, which achieved only 2.2% (607,860 voters), was no longer represented in the Bundestag and was subsequently only able to hold its own in a few state parliaments . However, at the time of its ban it still had between 78,000 and 85,000 members.

Oral proceedings before the First Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court began on November 23, 1954. Shortly before its ban, in April 1956, the party revoked the principle of the revolutionary overthrow of Adenauer.

The judgment

It took five years for the Federal Constitutional Court to come to a verdict. Previously, the government under Konrad Adenauer had changed the basic order of the court so that six weeks after the end of the oral proceedings without result, the proceedings passed to the 2nd Senate, which is seen by many critics as an indirect exertion of pressure and influence. The long hesitation on the part of the court to render a verdict is also seen in many ways as the judges' unwillingness to respond to the application and the hope that the government will change its mind. In addition, the first President of the Federal Constitutional Court, Hermann Höpker-Aschoff , a declared opponent of the KPD ban, died in 1954 and Josef Wintrich, who was considered right-wing conservative , took his position. The President of the Federal Constitutional Court also stated in his declaration prior to the reading out of the reasons for the judgment that the court was not responsible for the Federal Government's application and only had to decide on the basis of legal considerations.

The court gave detailed reasons for the legality of a party ban under the Basic Law. For this purpose, it also referred in particular to the historical intention of the legislature after the overthrow of the "totalitarian state system":

"The installation of effective legal safeguards against the fact that such political directions could ever again gain influence on the state dominated the thinking of the constitution."

In order to be considered unconstitutional, a party must "reject the highest values ​​of the constitutional order, the elementary constitutional principles that make the constitutional order a free democratic one [...]." However, this must be accompanied by "an actively combative, aggressive attitude towards the existing order ; it must deliberately impair the functioning of this order, want to eliminate this order itself in the further course. ”The low chances of success of these goals are irrelevant, which was to be assumed in view of the isolation of the KPD, because:

"According to what has been said, a party can also be unconstitutional within the meaning of Article 21, Paragraph 2 of the Basic Law if, according to human judgment, there is no prospect that it will be able to realize its unconstitutional intention in the foreseeable future."

The same applies in the event that it temporarily postpones its unconstitutional goals.

The court interpreted the following policy out of Marxism-Leninism for the KPD as follows:

"The social development to be inferred from the doctrine of Marxism-Leninism would be summarized in one formula: establishment of a socialist-communist social order on the way through the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat."

These goals are incompatible with the free and democratic basic order . The KPD behaves as a “Marxist-Leninist fighting party” and thus rejects “principles and institutions whose validity and existence is a prerequisite for the functioning of a free democratic order.” It uses those institutions and only invokes them and the Basic Law as an aid to bringing about a revolutionary situation.

In dealing with Marxism-Leninism, the court went further into the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat as the goal. It stated that, according to Marx, Engels, Stalin and Lenin, the revolution can almost exclusively take place as a violent overthrow. For this purpose, the court cites some documents of the KPD in which the KPD admits that there is "[...] no peaceful way to socialism". Regarding the incompatibility of free democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat, the court said:

“This means that the equality of all citizens is replaced by a divorce into“ leading ”, ie. H. ruling, “led” by means of an “alliance”, d. H. ruled and "oppressed" classes and the promotion or oppression of the individual depending on his class or at best according to the degree of his usefulness for the general social goal. The individual as such cannot be entitled to basic rights in the sense of free democracy. "

The court elaborates on this later:

“The most important basic political rights, in particular the right to free opinion and expression, also in the political field, must lose their value. In any case, the freedom of the press and freedom of association is in practice considerably restricted by the clear primacy of the communist party and its aid organizations. "

For the current policy of the KPD mainly the "program for national reunification" was used. This was already described in advance by other courts as high treason, because in that court the party called for the "overthrow of the Adenauer regime". From this it followed for the court:

"With the attack against the" Adenauer regime ", the KPD also intends to attack the free democratic basic order."

The unconstitutionality of the KPD was ultimately justified by its “overall political style”, for which the Federal Constitutional Court cited particularly aggressive statements. These statements are "an expression of a systematic agitation aimed at the degradation and contempt of the constitutional order of the Federal Republic. Their reputation is to be diminished, the trust of the people in the value system established by them is to be shaken.

The term “free democratic basic order”, which is often used in the court ruling, was defined by the court in the proceedings against the SRP in 1952, inter alia. so:

"A free democratic basic order within the meaning of Art. 21 II GG is an order which, excluding any violence and arbitrary rule, represents a rule of law on the basis of the self-determination of the people according to the will of the respective majority and freedom and equality."

The representatives of the KPD had already pointed out at the beginning of the proceedings that the party had to be democratic simply because it had been licensed in all zones of occupation. This was rejected on the grounds that the occupiers at that time had only judged according to the anti-fascist principle and not according to that of the free democratic basic order, which at that time had not yet been developed. The court also did not respond to the objection that reunification with all-German elections would be made more difficult by a ban, because it could not have established “that a ban by the KPD represented a legal or an insurmountable actual obstacle”. From 1956 the KPD tried unsuccessfully to get back into the oral evidence, because they believed that their party politics had changed decisively as a result of the de-Stalinization .

The 1st Senate finally banned the Communist Party of Germany on August 17, 1956, also banned the establishment of substitute organizations, but did not withdraw their state parliament mandates because the states concerned had already made appropriate regulations, but confiscated the party's assets for charitable purposes and set six Months minimum sentence for a violation of the ruling (BVerfGE 5, 85).

effects

The KPD was declared illegal for the fourth time since it was founded (after 1919, 1923 and 1933) . This resulted in thousands of trials and convictions. On the day the verdict was pronounced, the police closed party offices, confiscated printing works and arrested 33 officials. Parts of the top leadership of the party had already moved to the GDR before the verdict was pronounced. The party assets, including real estate, printers and 17 newspapers with a total print run of around 150,000 copies, were confiscated and donated to charitable purposes. There were no major protests against the KPD ban, especially from the workers, as the party had isolated itself in the trade unions through "Thesis 37", which accused them of working with the "German monopolists". Since the Spiegel affair , the media like Spiegel , Die Zeit and the Süddeutsche Zeitung have taken a more critical look at the rule of law practice in the Federal Republic, which culminated in the accusation of political justice and finally gave room to discussions about the re-admission of the KPD.

The investigative proceedings that were subsequently initiated against members and parties close to the party had, in some cases, considerable personal consequences, even if no conviction was made, because the suspicion of a criminal act could serve as an important reason for dismissal. Pure political activity in the workplace was also sufficient for termination. Cases are known in which the Office for the Protection of the Constitution pointed out his political past when a new Communist was hired, which could lead to another dismissal. The number of investigations and convictions initiated is given as 125,000 to 200,000 investigations and 7,000 to 10,000 convictions - with 78,000 to 85,000 KPD members at the time the party was banned. Many communists were also affected, who had to spend long years in penitentiaries and concentration camps during the years of the National Socialist dictatorship. By 1958, there were 80 bans at state level against organizations that were considered to be controlled by the KPD and thus fell under the judgment. Overall, the number of associations and organizations banned as substitute organizations by the GDR is more than 200. Most of the bans were based on unconstitutional association (Section 90a of the Criminal Code, first treacherous association and then violation of party prohibition), organizational offenses (Sections 128–129a, included, among other things, secret bundles and criminal associations ), endangering the state (Section 88-98 StGB) and treason (Section 99 -101 StGB).

In the Lower Saxony state parliament , the two MPs ( Ludwig Landwehr and Heinz Zscherpe ) were allowed to keep their mandates as non-attached parties, and the same was done in the Bremen citizenship . The four MPs remained in municipal citizenship as an independent group. After the Saarland joined the Federal Republic of Germany , the Saar Communist Party was banned on April 9, 1957, after it had previously been classified by the Federal Constitutional Court as a substitute organization for the KPD. The attempt by the Saarland Landtag to withdraw their seats from the two Communist Party members in July 1959 failed due to an interim order from the Saarland Constitutional Court ; in the main , the legality of the dismissal was not decided. The communal mandates of the KPD had been revoked in accordance with the conclusions from the prohibition ruling against the SRP in Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia. Josef Angenfort , chairman of the FDJ, was sentenced to five years in prison (despite his limited immunity as a member of the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia) and thus received the highest sentence that was pronounced in the course of the waves of trials. Immediately afterwards, as head of the West German FDJ, he was accused of supporting the program of national reunification and thus of having committed high treason (as well as violations of § 90a, 91, 128, 129 StGB).

Members of the underground party ran for elections several times after 1956 and also achieved a few seats in the municipal sector. Occasionally they even provided the mayor, as in the Pfeffelbach community . Several voter communities and candidacies from individual communists were banned, however, and the candidates were convicted of violating the KPD ban. This also affected people who could not be proven to have any connections to the KPD before or after the ban, but only shared individual characteristics of the attitude or had contacts with the GDR. As a rule, these convictions also included the deprivation of civil rights . At times, even members were convicted for working in the party when it was still legal, but the Federal Constitutional Court overturned this in 1961.

In 1957 an application by the FDP for a political amnesty , which would have affected many communists, was rejected by the Bundestag. The KPD called for the SPD to be elected for the 1957 Bundestag election and the DFU in 1961 and 1965 , which in some cases had formed as a reservoir for communists.

Herbert Wehner and Willy Brandt spoke out in the course of the political change in the 1960s in favor of legalizing the activities of communists, because this would have a positive effect on domestic and foreign policy (in the sense of Brandt's Ostpolitik, which was based on relaxation). They emphasized that this could only take place in a new establishment that was based on the Basic Law, since a simple re-admission would not be conceivable. So the DKP was founded , which was always considered the real successor organization of the KPD, but was tolerated in the course of the policy of détente . In addition, many other KPDs were founded , each claiming to be the rightful successor.

On the day the party was banned, the GDR started the propaganda radio station Deutscher Freiheitsender 904 .

Historical evaluation

The CDU and its MPs (such as the Federal Minister of the Interior at the time, Paul Lücke (CDU)) see the ban as legitimate and emphasized that the court ruling would come about properly, as provided for by the constitution (according to Article 21, Paragraph 2) . That is why they also considered a readmission to be impossible, as it would intervene directly in the separation of powers. This view was also shared by the Federal Minister of Justice of the grand coalition, who later became President Gustav Heinemann (SPD). The judicial condemnation was also necessary and was "subject to the rule of law" and was extremely mild, especially in comparison to the GDR. This is supported by the fact that largely suspended sentences and probably only two prison sentences of over 3 years were imposed.

Communists themselves and other leftists consider the KPD's struggle against rearmament and nuclear weapons to be the real reason for the ban, as the only “real” opposition that was an obstacle for the CDU government. Adenauer is personally accused of having exerted enormous pressure on the Federal Constitutional Court and thus intervening in the separation of powers . The court itself only constructed a danger from the literature and did not provide any real evidence. The KPD is therefore seen as a victim of the Cold War and the fronts that it hardened, reinforced by the division of Germany.

In 1957, the European Commission for Human Rights rejected the complaint by Max Reimann and Walter Fisch on behalf of the KPD against the ban as inadmissible. The European Convention on Human Rights did not protect efforts to establish a dictatorship.

In any case, since the tolerance of the DKP and at the latest with the collapse of Soviet communism, the political risk assessment of a communist party has decreased significantly. In 1996, for example, the then President of the Federal Constitutional Court, Jutta Limbach, declared that she would no longer ban the KPD according to the current rule of law.

The ban is so far the only one of a communist party within a Western European democracy after the Second World War. In 1940, was in Switzerland , the Communist Party of Switzerland banned. However, measures have been taken against communists in other countries as well. For example, political expression was severely restricted by communists in the United States (which also denied public service to those of the McCarthy era ), Canada, and Australia in the 1950s . In the latter, attempts were made to ban the Communist Party, but this failed at the local High Court . The CPSU was banned in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but its successor organization was tolerated.

According to historian Josef Foschepoth , who was able to view files released on the KPD ban in mid-2016, the Federal Constitutional Court was in the early years by no means the independent authority that it is perceived as today. At the time, there was massive pressure and much greater pressure on the judges than was previously known, especially on the issue of the KPD ban.

Recent political aftermath

In 1995 the Lower Saxony state parliament decided unanimously to pay the reparation pension retrospectively for those persecuted by the Nazi regime. According to the Federal Compensation and Prisoner Assistance Act, this could be denied if the person concerned violated the free democratic basic order after 1945 ( Section 6 of the Federal Compensation Act ), which was also applied as a result of the KPD ban. However, due to legal concerns, the state government overturned this initiative, which would have amounted to a partial rehabilitation of those affected. Towards the end of 2006, the Left Party took up this idea again in a proposal to amend the Federal Compensation Act (BEG).

On the 50th anniversary of the KPD ban, there were events and demonstrations that demanded readmission and the reversal of the judgments. This was mainly supported and supported by the DKP, the FDJ , the SDAJ and various civil rights activists such as Karl Stiffel and Rolf Gössner as well as individual representatives of the Linkspartei.PDS .

On May 19, 2014, Peter Dürrbeck, spokesman for the Initiative Group for the Rehabilitation of Victims of the Cold War (IROKK), and the long-time chairman of the VVN-BdA , Heinrich Fink , handed over a petition signed by around 3,000 people to the Petitions Committee of the German Bundestag, calling for the prohibition judgment to be lifted. On May 22nd, the spokesman for the IROKK in Essen was informed that the petition requested by the Bundestag to review the prohibition ruling due to the “three-way division of state authority and the independence of judges” was not possible.

In the summer of 2016, on the 60th anniversary of the ban, the left-wing parliamentary member Jan Korte called for the KPD ban as a “relic from the Cold War Ice Age to be overcome as quickly as possible” and for the victims of the Cold War to be rehabilitated.

In the 2nd NPD prohibition proceedings , the Federal Constitutional Court decided in January 2017 not to ban the NPD and justified this with a lack of evidence for a successful implementation of its anti-constitutional goals. According to the press release of the Federal Constitutional Court, the Senate no longer adheres to the different definition from the KPD ban.

Possibilities for re-admission

The KPD ban is no longer applicable in case law, although decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court have the force of law (§ 31 BVerfGG), which means that parties and groups that would fall under it as a successor organization, such as B. the DKP, are tolerated. However, various parties are still calling for re-authorization, on the one hand to enable compensation for the victims and on the other hand to exclude the theoretically given possibility of renewed use.

One way of re-admission would be to delete the possibility of party bans provided for in Article 21 (2) of the Basic Law, which would require a two-thirds majority in the Bundestag and Bundesrat . After that, the KPD could be re-constituted and would have all the rights it is entitled to without being banned again.

The Federal Constitutional Court can also review the judgment at certain time intervals and, if necessary, revoke it. It can declare the reasons given at that time null and void or refer to the current situation and thereby determine that the reasons given at the time no longer exist today.

In its judgment, the court itself had mentioned the possibility of re-admission in the event of reunification with subsequent all-German elections. You could even get your party assets back for this process in order not to be disadvantaged compared to other parties.

Even the lifting of the KPD ban would not include automatic rehabilitation and compensation for the convicts; a new law would have to be passed for this.

See also

literature

Representations

  • Wolfgang Abendroth , Helmut Ridder and Otto Schönfeldt : KPD ban or living with communists? Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 1968.
  • Alexander von Brünneck: Political justice against communists in the Federal Republic. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1978.
  • Josef Foschepoth : Unconstitutional! The KPD ban in the Cold Civil War. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2017, ISBN 978-3-525-30181-4 .
  • Georg Fülberth : KPD and DKP. Distel Verlag, Heilbronn 1990.
  • Rolf Gössner : The forgotten justice victims of the Cold War. Development of the Taschenbuch Verlag, 1998.
  • Günter Judick , Josef Schleifstein , Kurt Steinhaus : KPD 1945–1968 documents. Marxist sheets, Neuss 1989.
  • Wilhelm Mensing: Take or accept. The banned KPD in search of political participation. edition interfrom, Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-7201-5220-0 .
  • Sarah Langwald: Communist persecution and legal resistance: the "Defense Committee Movement" and the "Main Committee for Referendum". In: Work - Movement - History. Issue I / 2018, pp. 92-109.
  • Gerd Pfeiffer , Hans-Georg Strickert: KPD process. Documentary work on the procedure on the Federal Government's motion to establish the unconstitutionality of the Communist Party of Germany before the First Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court, 3 volumes, Verlag CF Müller, Karlsruhe 1956 ( retro-digitization of the tables of contents of all three volumes ).
  • Press and Information Office of the Federal Government: Proceedings against the KPD before the Federal Constitutional Court. Bath pressure, Karlsruhe.
  • Martin Will: Ephoral Constitution. The party ban of the right-wing extremist SRP from 1952, Thomas Dehlers Rosenburg and the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2017, ISBN 978-3-16-155893-1 (on the KPD ban: Chapter 8 = p. 441 ff.)

Legal considerations

  • Udo Mayer : The damaged Basic Law. Pahl-Rugenstein Verlag , Cologne 1977.
  • Gustav Heinemann : Re-admission of the KPD? In: Legal journal. 22. Vol., No. 14, 1967, pp. 425-426.
  • Carl Nedelmann: The violence of the political state security and its instances. In: The CDU state. 1, Suhrkamp, ​​Munich 1972, pp. 174-210.
  • Wolfgang Abendroth : The KPD prohibition judgment of the constitutional court. In: Antagonistic Society and Political Democracy. Luchterhand, Neuwied and Berlin 1972, pp. 139–174.

Movies

  • When the state saw red. Justice Victims in the Cold War. Director: Hermann G. Abmayr. Documentation, D 2006.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alexander von Brünneck: Political Justice against Communists in the Federal Republic. Suhrkamp, ​​FfM 1978, p. 64.
  2. ↑ Federal Law Gazette Volume I , 1951, p. 739-747 ( bgbl.de [PDF]). See: Hans Čopić: Basic Law and Political Criminal Law of the New Art. Mohr, Tübingen 1967 ( retro-digitized version of the table of contents ).
  3. ↑ See high treason and threat to the state . Müller, Karlsruhe 1957. (Collection of BGH decisions from the years 1954–1958; retro-digitized content of the tables of contents ).
  4. ^ Sarah Langwald: Communist persecution and legal resistance: the "Defense Committee Movement" and the "Main Committee for Referendum". In: Work - Movement - History . Issue I / 2018, pp. 92-109. ISSN 2366-2387.
  5. ↑ Georg Fülberth: Guide through the history of the Federal Republic. Cologne 1987, p. 25.
  6. ↑ PDS parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Section II. German Bundestag: Printed matter 13/4 of November 10, 1994.
  7. ^ Dietrich Staritz: The Communist Party of Germany. In: Party Handbook. 1983, p. 1666.
  8. ↑ On some questions about the post-war history of the KPD. In: KPD 1945–1968, documents. P. 83.
  9. ↑ Alexander von Brünneck: Political Justice against Communists in the Federal Republic. Suhrkamp, ​​FfM 1978, p. 118.
  10. ↑ Gerd Pfeiffer / Hans-Georg Strickert: KPD process. Volume 3, Verlag CF Müller, Karlsruhe 1956, p. 583.
  11. ↑ DFR - BVerfGE 5, 85 - KPD ban . In: unibe.ch .
  12. ↑ DFR - BVerfGE 5, 85 - KPD ban . In: unibe.ch .
  13. ↑ DFR - BVerfGE 5, 85 - KPD ban . In: unibe.ch .
  14. ↑ DFR - BVerfGE 5, 85 - KPD ban . In: unibe.ch .
  15. ↑ DFR - BVerfGE 5, 85 - KPD ban . In: unibe.ch .
  16. ↑ DFR - BVerfGE 5, 85 - KPD ban . In: unibe.ch .
  17. ↑ DFR - BVerfGE 5, 85 - KPD ban . In: unibe.ch .
  18. ↑ DFR - BVerfGE 5, 85 - KPD ban . In: unibe.ch .
  19. ↑ DFR - BVerfGE 5, 85 - KPD ban . In: unibe.ch .
  20. ↑ DFR - BVerfGE 5, 85 - KPD ban . In: unibe.ch .
  21. ↑ DFR - BVerfGE 5, 85 - KPD ban . In: unibe.ch .
  22. ↑ DFR - BVerfGE 5, 85 - KPD ban . In: unibe.ch .
  23. ↑ DFR - BVerfGE 2, 1 - SRP ban . In: unibe.ch .
  24. ↑ DFR - BVerfGE 5, 85 - KPD ban . In: unibe.ch .
  25. ^ Georg Fülberth: KPD and DKP. Diestel Verlag, Heilbronn 1990, pp. 50 ff. And 91.
  26. ↑ Alexander von Brünneck: Political Justice against Communists in the Federal Republic. Suhrkamp, ​​FfM 1978, p. 317 ff.
  27. ↑ Carl Nedelmann: The violence of the political state protection and their instances. In: The CDU state. 1, Suhrkamp, ​​Munich 1967, p. 199 f.
  28. ↑ Alexander von Brünneck: Political Justice against Communists in the Federal Republic. Suhrkamp, ​​FfM 1978, p. 299 ff.
  29. ↑ Diether Posser: Political criminal justice from the point of view of the defense attorney. Karlsruhe 1961, p. 26.
  30. ↑ Alexander von Brünneck: Political Justice against Communists in the Federal Republic. Suhrkamp, ​​FfM 1978, p. 242.
  31. ^ Rolf Gössner: The forgotten justice victims of the Cold War. Structure of Taschenbuch Verlag, Berlin 1998, p. 26.
  32. ^ Heinrich Hannover : Justice Victims of the Cold War. In: Ossietzky . 22/2004, archived from the original on August 19, 2014 ; accessed on February 10, 2019 . Rolf Gössner : Taboo topics of May 8th. In: rolf-goessner.de. May 8, 2005, accessed February 10, 2019 .
  33. ↑ Alexander von Brünneck: Political Justice against Communists in the Federal Republic. Suhrkamp, ​​FfM 1978, p. 113 f.
  34. ↑ Roland Meister: The rule of law problem in the West German present. State Lender d. German Democrat. Republic, Berlin 1966, p. 147.
  35. ↑ Alexander von Brünneck: Political Justice against Communists in the Federal Republic. Suhrkamp, ​​FfM 1978, pp. 272-278.
  36. ↑ Federal Constitutional Court, decision of March 21, 1957, BVerfGE 6, 300.
  37. ↑ Federal Constitutional Court, decision of October 10, 1961, Az. 2 BvN 1/60, BVerfGE 13, 165.
    Az. Lv 5/59. In: Website of the Constitutional Court of the Saarland. December 12, 1961, archived from the original on January 12, 2014 ; accessed on February 10, 2019 .
  38. ↑ DFR - BVerfGE 2, 1 - SRP ban. In: unibe.ch. Retrieved February 10, 2019 .
  39. ^ Rolf Gössner: The forgotten justice victims of the Cold War. Structure of Taschenbuch Verlag, Berlin 1998, p. 110.
  40. ^ Rolf Gössner: The forgotten justice victims of the Cold War. Structure of Taschenbuch Verlag, Berlin 1998, p. 94.
  41. ↑ Alexander von Brünneck: Political Justice against Communists in the Federal Republic. Suhrkamp, ​​FfM 1978, p. 158.
  42. ↑ Falco Werketin: The political and legal handling of system opponents in the GDR and in the Federal Republic in the fifties. In: German Pasts - A Common Challenge. Ch.links, Berlin 1999, p. 260.
  43. ↑ Judgment of March 21, 1961 - 2 BvR 27/60: BVerfGE 12, 296.
  44. ↑ KPD 1945-1965. Berlin (GDR) 1966, p. 107.
  45. ↑ KPD 1945-1965. Berlin (GDR) 1966, p. 224.
  46. ↑ Andreas Voigt: After the ban. Hamburg 1989, p. 45.
  47. ↑ Otto Schönfeld: Interim balance. In: KPD ban or living with communists? Roro Verlag, Hamburg 1968, p. 18.
  48. ↑ See the CDU's answer to an application by the Left Party in the Bundestag.
  49. ↑ Falco Werketin: The political and legal handling of system opponents in the GDR and in the Federal Republic in the fifties. In: German Pasts - A Common Challenge. Ch.links, Berlin 1999, p. 266 ff.
  50. ↑ 6 years of preparation for the KPD ban kpd4.htm . In: infopartisan.net .
  51. ^ Laufer: Constitutional jurisdiction and political process. Tübingen 1968, p. 476.
  52. ↑ Decision of the European Commission for Human Rights, Application No. 250/57
  53. ^ Rudolf Wassermann: Disputable Democracy. In: The world. August 21, 1996.
  54. ↑ Alexander von Brünneck: Constitutional jurisdiction in the western democracies. Nomos, Baden-Baden 1992, p. 84 f.
  55. ↑ Dieter Umbach, Sanford Levinson: Admission to the public service and the barriers to political activity of civil servants in the USA. In: Extremists and the Civil Service. Baden-Baden 1981, pp. 559-599.
  56. ^ Walter Murphy, Joseph Tannenhaus: Comparative Constitutional Law. New York 1977, p. 638.
  57. ^ Walter Murphy, Joseph Tannenhaus: Comparative Constitutional Law. New York 1977, p. 627.
  58. ^ Walter Murphy, Joseph Tannenhaus: Comparative Constitutional Law. New York 1977, p. 630.
  59. ↑ Federal archive releases files on the KPD ban: "Constitutional judges were politically instrumentalized". Josef Foschepoth in conversation with André Hatting, Deutschlandradio Kultur, August 17, 2016.
  60. ^ Rolf Gössner: The forgotten justice victims of the Cold War. Structure of Taschenbuch Verlag, Berlin 1998, p. 12.
  61. ↑ In the middle of the Cold War. In: Junge Welt. May 29, 2007.
  62. ↑ Hans Canjé: Relic of the Cold War.
  63. ↑ Small question from MPs Ulla Jelpke, Kerstin Kassner, Petra Pau, Kersten Steinke, Halina Wawzyniak and the DIE LINKE parliamentary group of July 2, 2014: Bundestag printed paper 18/2028 (PDF file).
  64. ↑ Time for a late apology.
  65. ↑ KPD ban 60 years ago: Left demands rehabilitation. ( Memento from August 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Deutschlandfunk, August 16, 2016.
  66. ↑ Federal Constitutional Court: No ban on the NPD due to a lack of evidence for a successful implementation of its anti-constitutional goals. Press release No. 4/2017 of January 17, 2017.
  67. ↑ Helmut Ridder: Is there a possibility of “legalizing” the KPD under the current law of the Federal Republic of Germany? In: KPD ban or living with communists? P. 108 ff.
  68. ↑ DFR - BVerfGE 5, 85 - KPD ban . In: unibe.ch .
  69. ^ Rolf Gössner: The forgotten justice victims of the Cold War. Structure of the Taschenbuch Verlag, Berlin 1998, p. 188 f.