A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Comintern after Bolshevisation and the communist states within the Comecon, the Eastern Bloc, and the Warsaw Pact. Marxism–Leninism currently still remains the ideology of a few parties around the world. After its peak when many communist states were established, the Revolutions of 1989 brought down most of the communist states, however, it is still the official ideology of the ruling parties of China, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, and to a lesser extent, North Korea. During most of the 20th century, before the Revolutions of 1989, around one-third of the world's population lived under communist states.
The National Front of the German Democratic Republic was an alliance of political parties (Blockpartei) and mass organizations in the German Democratic Republic, controlled by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), which stood in elections to the East German parliament, the Volkskammer.
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is Germany's federal domestic intelligence agency. Together with the Landesämter für Verfassungsschutz (LfV) at the state level, the federal agency is tasked with intelligence-gathering on efforts against the liberal democratic basic order, the existence and security of the federation or one of its states, and the peaceful coexistence of peoples; with counter-intelligence; and with protective security and counter-sabotage. The BfV reports to the Federal Ministry of the Interior and tasks and powers are regulated in the Bundesverfassungsschutzgesetz. The President is Thomas Haldenwang; he was appointed in 2018.
The Parlamentarischer Rat was the West German constituent assembly in Bonn that drafted and adopted the constitution of West Germany, the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, promulgated on 23 May 1949.
Antifaschistische Aktion was a militant anti-fascist organisation in the Weimar Republic started by members of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) that existed from 1932 to 1933. It was primarily active as a KPD campaign during the July 1932 German federal election and the November 1932 German federal election and was described by the KPD as a "red united front under the leadership of the only anti-fascist party, the KPD."
Defensive democracy is a term referring to the collection of laws, delegated legislation, and court rulings which limit certain rights and freedoms in a democratic society in order to protect the existence of the state, its democratic character and institutions, minority rights, et cetera. The term describes a major conflict that may emerge in a democratic country between compliance with democratic values, particularly freedom of association and the right to be elected, and between preventing anti-democratic groups and persons from abusing these principles.
The Federal Republic of Germany guarantees freedom of speech, expression, and opinion to its citizens as per Article 5 of the constitution. Despite this, censorship of various materials has taken place since the Allied occupation after World War II and continues to take place in Germany in various forms due to a limiting provision in Article 5, Paragraph 2 of the constitution. In 2014 the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index ranked Germany as 14th in the world in terms of press freedom. During the Allied occupation of Germany, the media was controlled by the occupying forces. The policy rationales differed among the occupying powers, but there was resentment in literary and journalistic circles in many parts of the country. Undesired publishing efforts were unilaterally blocked by the occupying forces.
The Socialist Equality Party is a minor Trotskyist political party in Germany.
Eckhard Jesse is a German political scientist. Born in Wurzen, Saxony, he held the chair for "political systems and political institutions" at the Technical University of Chemnitz from 1993 to 2014. Jesse is one of the best known German political scholars in the field of extremism and terrorism studies. He has also specialized in the study of German political parties and the German political system.
The Federal Agency for Civic Education is a German federal government agency responsible for promoting civic education. It is subordinated to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community. Thomas Krüger has served as President of the agency since 2000. The modern agency was established in West Germany in 1952 by the Adenauer government to counteract communism during the Cold War, but it has its roots in earlier government agencies dating back to the First World War.
The Association of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime/Federation of Antifascists (VVN-BdA) is a German political confederation founded in 1947 and based in Berlin. The VVN-BdA, formerly the VVN, emerged from victims' associations in Germany founded by political opponents to Nazism after the Second World War and the end of the Nazi dictatorship.
Autonome Nationalisten are German, British, Dutch and to a lesser degree Flemish Nationalists, who have adopted some of the far-left and Antifa's organizational concepts, demonstration tactics, symbolism, and elements of clothing, including Che Guevara T-shirts and keffiyehs. Similar groups have also appeared in some central and eastern European countries, beginning with Poland, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Romania and Greece and others.
Hans-Helmuth Knütter is a German political scientist and politician (CDU). He habilitated with the work “Die Juden und die deutsche Linke in der Weimarer Republik 1918-1933”. Knütter was one of the many doctoral students of Karl Dietrich Bracher. From 1972 on, Knütter worked as professor at the University of Bonn und until 1996 managed the Seminar of Political Science there. Knütter was given the emeritus status in 1997. From 1985 to 1989, Knütter was a member of the Advisory Council of the Federal Agency for Civic Education. From 1989 to 1994, he acted as a rapporteur for the Interior Ministry of the Federal Republic of Germany and of the BpB.
Referendums in Germany are an element of direct democracy. On the federal level only two types of a mandatory binding referendum exist – adopting a new constitution and regional referendums in case of restructuring the states. On the state level, all states have various types of statewide and municipal referendums.
A communist front is a political organization identified as a front organization under the effective control of a communist party, the Communist International or other communist organizations. They attracted politicized individuals who were not party members but who often followed the party line and were called fellow travellers.
Christoph Butterwegge is a German political scientist and poverty researcher. From 1998 to 2016 he was Professor of Political Science at the Institute for Comparative Education and Social Sciences at the Humanities Faculty of the University of Cologne and is a member of the Research Center for Intercultural Studies (FiSt).
Communist Party of Germany v. the Federal Republic of Germany was a 1957 European Commission of Human Rights decision which upheld the dissolution of the Communist Party of Germany by the Federal Constitutional Court a year earlier.
Antifa is a political movement in Germany composed of multiple far-left, autonomous, militant groups and individuals who describe themselves as anti-fascist. According to the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Federal Agency for Civic Education, the use of the epithet fascist against opponents and the view of capitalism as a form of fascism are central to the movement. The antifa movement has existed in different eras and incarnations, dating back to Antifaschistische Aktion, from which the moniker antifa came. It was set up by the then-Stalinist Communist Party of Germany (KPD) during the late history of the Weimar Republic. After the forced dissolution in the wake of Machtergreifung in 1933, the movement went underground. In the postwar era, Antifaschistische Aktion inspired a variety of different movements, groups and individuals in Germany as well as other countries which widely adopted variants of its aesthetics and some of its tactics. Known as the wider antifa movement, the contemporary antifa groups have no direct organisational connection to Antifaschistische Aktion.
Der Flügel is a far-right faction within Germany's Alternative for Germany, a right-wing populist opposition party. The group was led by Björn Höcke and Andreas Kalbitz. Approximately 20 percent of AfD members are organized also in the "Flügel". Following the request by the AfD executive board to dissolve Der Flügel by the end of April 2020, the group's online presence went offline. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution has no reliable knowledge of an actual dissolution. Within the party, Der Flügel now calls itself the "social-patriotic faction".
