The Homeland (German: Die Heimat), formerly the National Democratic Party of Germany (German: Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands, NPD), is a far-right, neo-Nazi and ultranationalist political party in Germany. It was founded in 1964 as successor to the German Reich Party (Deutsche Reichspartei, DRP). On 1 January 2011, the nationalist German People's Union merged with the NPD and the party name of the National Democratic Party of Germany was extended by the addition of "The People's Union". In June 2023, the party renamed itself to Die Heimat after a party vote. A splinter party, the National Democratic Party of Germany, emerged from party dissidents opposed to the change and retain the symbols and name of the NPD.
As a neo-Nazi organization, it has been referred to as "the most significant neo-Nazi party to emerge after 1945". The German Federal Agency for Civic Education, or BPB, has criticized the NPD for working with members of organizations which were later found unconstitutional by the federal courts and disbanded, while the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany's domestic security agency, classifies The Homeland as a "threat to the constitutional order" because of its platform and ideology, and it is under their observation. An effort to outlaw the party failed in 2003, as the government had many informers and agents in the party, some in high position, who had written part of the material used against them.
Since its founding in 1964, the party has never managed to win enough votes on the federal level to cross Germany's 5% minimum threshold for representation in the Bundestag; it has succeeded in crossing the 5% threshold and gaining representation in state parliaments 11 times, including one-convocation entry to seven West German state parliaments between November 1966 and April 1968 and two-convocation electoral success in two East German states of Saxony and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern between 2004 and 2011. Since 2016, The Homeland has not been represented in state parliaments. Udo Voigt led the NPD from 1996 to 2011. He was succeeded by Holger Apfel, who in turn was replaced by Udo Pastörs in December 2013. In November 2014, Pastörs was ousted and Frank Franz became the party's leader and in 2024 he was succeeded by Peter Schreiber.
Voigt was elected the party's first Member of the European Parliament in 2014. The party lost the seat in the 2019 European Parliament election.
On 23 January 2024, the Federal Constitutional Court excluded the party from party funding for six years, arguing that it continued to oppose the fundamental principles that are indispensable for the free democratic constitutional state and aimed to eliminate them.
Contents
History
20th century
In the 1950s, despite the lack of complete de-Nazification, early right-wing extremist parties in West Germany failed to attract voters away from the moderate government that had presided over Germany's recovery.
Adolf von Thadden, an artillery officer in World War II and Nazi Party member, was active in far-right politics in the West Germany and was elected to the Bundestag in 1949. Thadden supported Werner Naumann, an associate of Joseph Goebbels, after his arrest and included him on the Deutsche Reichspartei's (DRP) list of candidates for the 1953 election. However, the government removed Naumann as a candidate and the party only received around 1% of the vote. Thadden then worked with Wilhelm Meinberg, a Nazi Reichstag member and recipient of the Golden Party Badge, and Heinrich Kunstmann, who joined the Nazi Party before Adolf Hitler. Both Meinberg and Kunstmann served as chairs of the DRP. Thadden replaced Kunstmann as chair in 1961 after continued electoral failures. Thadden's DRP allied with the BHE and German Party (DP) for the 1951 Bremen elections as none of the parties were strong enough to win on their own. This alliance received 5.2% of the vote and gained 4 seats in the bürgerschaft.
On 28 November 1964, around 600 people met in the banqueting hall of the Döhrener Maschpark inn in Bonn at the invitation of Friedrich Thielen. The National Democratic Party of Germany was formed at this meeting and 437 of those in attendance became members although they were allowed to maintain their membership in other parties. Thielen was selected to be chair of the party. Thadden, who proposed the unification of Germany's far-right parties, was made deputy chair. The newspaper he co-owned, Deutsche Nachrichten became the NPD's newspaper. The DRP, BHE, DP, and German National People's Party merged into the NPD. The NPD was organised in 196 of 248 federal election districts by April 1965. The party's first convention was held on 7–9 May 1965 in Hannover with 1,007 delegates and 2,000 non-delegates in attendance while. The party's membership of 7,500 was far smaller than the Christian Democratic Union (CDU)'s 390,000 and Social Democratic Party's 700,000. 8 of the NDP's 18 national committee members were former members of the NSDAP.
Thadden believed that 30% of the national voting public were undecided and that 15% could be swayed to support the NPD in the 1965 federal election. He launched a national car convey for the campaign starting in Cologne. Thielen and other members of the party laid wreathes on the graves of Nazi war criminals at Landsberg Prison. High profile people joined the party, such as Olympic gold medalist Frank Schepke and rocket pioneer Hermann Oberth. The NPD received 2% of the vote, below the 5% needed to gain seats and the 15% claimed in party propaganda.
2000s
In the 2004 state election in Saxony, the NPD won 9.2% of the overall vote. After the 2009 state election in Saxony, the NPD sent eight representatives to the Saxony state parliament, having lost four representatives since the 2004 election. The NPD lost their representation in Saxony in the 2014 state election. They also lost all representation in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in the 2016 state election.
The NPD maintained a non-competition agreement with the German People's Union (DVU) between 2004 and 2009. 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.
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-Vorpommern (3.5 percent) and Brandenburg (3.2 percent), all formerly part of East Germany. In most other states, the party won around 1 percent of the total votes cast. In the 2006 Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state election, the NPD received 7.3% of the vote and thus achieved state representation there, as well.
The NPD had 5,300 registered party members in 2004. Over the course of 2006, the NPD processed roughly 2,000 party applications to push the membership total over 7,200. In 2008, the trend of a growing number of members has been reversed and the party's membership is estimated at 7,000.
In the 2014 European elections, Udo Voigt was elected as the party's first Member of the European Parliament.
In September 2019, NPD politician Stefan Jagsch was elected as representative of Altenstadt-Waldsiedlung. The unanimous election of the NPD politician by the local council led to irritation and horror in other parties, such as Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), whose local council members had voted for Jagsch.
At the 2010 NPD party conference at Bamberg it was announced that the party would ask its members to approve a merger with the German People's Union (DVU). After the merger on 1 January 2011, the combined party briefly used the name NPD – Die Volksunion (NPD - The People's Union). Between 2004 and 2009 the two parties had agreed not to compete against each other in elections. However, on 27 January 2011, Munich's Landgericht (regional court) in a preliminary injunction declared the merger null and void.
2023 renaming to Die Heimat
The party renamed itself to Die Heimat ("The Homeland") at the party congress in Riesa in early June 2023. 77% voted in favor of the name change. Shortly after this vote, many of those that were opposed to the name change founded a new party to continue under the old name, the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD).
The Party did not run in the 2025 German federal election.
Platform and ideology
The Homeland is a neo-Nazi political party. It calls itself a party of "grandparents and grandchildren" because the 1960s generation in Germany, known for the leftist student movement, strongly opposes the NPD's policies. The NPD's economic program promotes social security for Germans and control against plutocracy. They discredit and reject the "liberal-capitalist system".
The Homeland’s foreign policy outlook is characterized by ultranationalism, revisionism, and isolationism. The party views the defense and restoration of national sovereignty as the guiding principle of its foreign policy and opposes international organizations, norms, and alliances that it believes infringe upon Germany’s national sovereignty. The Homeland argues that NATO fails to represent the interests and needs of European people. The party considers the European Union to be little more than a reorganization of a Soviet-style government of Europe along financial lines. Although highly critical of the EU, as long as Germany remains a part of it, The Homeland opposes Turkey's incorporation into the organization. Voigt envisions future collaboration and continued friendly relations with other nationalists and European nationalist parties. The Homeland is strongly anti-Zionist, frequently criticizing the policies and activities of Israel.
The Homeland's platform asserts that Germany is larger than the present-day Federal Republic, and calls for a return of German territory lost after World War II, a foreign policy position abandoned by the German government in 1990.
In the early 21st century, long-standing efforts to ban the party were renewed. The 2005 report of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution contains the following description:
The party continues to pursue a "people's front" of the nationalists [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 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 Nazism; its agitation is racist, antisemitic, homophobic, revisionist, and intends to disparage the democratic and lawful order of the constitution.
Green movement
The Homeland has supported the green movement. This is one of many strategies the party has used to try to gain supporters. Historically the opposing party the German Greens have fully supported the green movement in Germany. The German Greens group was a successful European ecological group that began in 1980. Kate Connolly who is a correspondent for The Guardian wrote the article: German far-right extremists tap into green movement for support. In the article Connolly explains the opposition between these two political groups pertaining to the green movement. The Artaman League is essential in understanding the green movements history. This was a farming movement that was inspired by the "blood and soil" ruralist ideology adopted from the Nazis. This farming movement affected the Mecklenburg region of Germany during the 19th century. Settlers at this time took advantage of the cheap cost of land in these rural communities. These settlers were in support of the Artaman league and continued to reinforce the ideology.
The NPD's plans are to take the ecological movement back from the German Greens group. Connolly spoke to different farmers, organizations, and employees of the government to represent the different perspectives of the ecological movement. Hans-Gunter Laimer, a farmer who ran for office for the NPD, mentions his frustration that the German Greens groups has dominated the organic farming market for too long. He has also been linked to other German groups specifically Umwelt and Aktiv. Both political parties are concerned with the ways they are in opposition to one another. The Homeland supporters of the green movement are in favor of local produce. However, they are against GMOs, pesticides, and intensive livestock. Organizations involved in the farming industry have lost consumers because they are not able to state what the political views of the farmers products are to the consumer. For example, BioPark is an organic cultivation organization with a vetting process to certify organic farmers. The vetting process is strictly based on cultivation methods and not on political affiliations. BioPark has lost customers because left-leaning supporters worry buying local organic produce is supporting the far-right extremist.
The department of rural enlightenment has supported the importance of distinguishing between these two political parties. The department created a brochure called "Nature Conservation Versus Right-wing Extremist". The brochure was created in order to help consumers distinguish from the far-right extremists. Other representatives from the government have spoken on this divide. For example, Connolly mentions a representative of the Centre for Democratic culture in Mecklenburg who chose to stay anonymous in order to protect themselves. The representative stated the goal of the NPD is to build bridges between citizens. The NPD is strategic in the way they are going about this in a subtle quite manner. The result the NPD is trying to achieve is to reinforce the division between the two political parties for when NPD no longer becomes associated with politics.
Controversies
Holocaust denial
Josef Truxa, the chair of the NPD in Munich, denied on 18 June 1965, that the Nazis committed any crimes and that it was propaganda by Jews.
2012 Thor Steinar clothing
In June 2012, several NPD members of Saxony's parliament attended the parliament's sittings wearing clothing from Thor Steinar, a clothing brand that is popular amongst neo-Nazis; the legislature responded by saying that such provocative clothing was not permitted to be worn in the parliament and demanded that the NPD's members remove and replace their attire; the NPD's members refused, resulting in the members being expelled from the parliament and banned from attending the next three parliamentary sittings. The NPD members denied accusations that they wore the shirts as a deliberate provocation.
World War II and Holocaust commemoration controversies
In 2005, the Landtag of Saxony held a minute of silence for the victims of Nazi Germany. Holger Apfel, leader of the NPD in Saxony and deputy leader of the party nationwide, boycotted the remembrance along with 11 other NPD politicians and staged a walkout from the Landtag chamber. He also gave a speech in which he demanded a moment of silence be held for the victims of the bombing of Dresden in 1945 and called the Allies of World War II "mass murderers", stating that "Today we in this parliament are taking up the political battle for historical truth, and against the servitude of guilt of the German people... The causes of the holocaust bombing of Dresden have nothing to do with either 1 September 1939 or with 30 January 1933." Apfel's speech caused politicians from other parties in the Landtag to walk out in protest.
Udo Voigt voiced his support for Apfel's and reiterated the statement, which some controversially claimed was a violation of the German law which forbids Holocaust denial. However, after a judicial review, it was decided that Voigt's description of the Allied bombing of Dresden as a "holocaust" was an exercise of free speech and "defamation of the dead" was not the purpose of his statement.
In 2009, the NPD joined the Junge Landsmannschaft Ostdeutschland in a demonstration on the anniversary of the bombing of Dresden in World War II. Roughly 6,000 people came to participate in the event.
Activism
The NPD's strategy has been to create "nationally liberated zones" and circumvent its marginal electoral status by concentrating on regions where support is strongest. In March 2006, musician Konstantin Wecker tried to set up an in-school anti-fascist concert in Halberstadt, Saxony-Anhalt two weeks before the state elections. The NPD argued that because of politics, the date and the in-school venue, the concert "was an unacceptable form of political campaigning." In protest, the NPD vowed to buy the tickets and turn up en masse at Wecker's show, which led local authorities to cancel the event. The Social Democrats and the Greens were outraged by the decision, which the Central Council of Jews in Germany criticized as "politically bankrupt".
The NPD was going to sponsor a march through Leipzig on 21 June 2006, as the 2006 World Cup was going on. The party wanted to show its support for the Iranian national football team, which was playing in Leipzig, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. However, the NPD decided against the demonstration; only a counter-demonstration took place that day, in support of Israel. During the World Cup, the party's web site stated that due to the prevalence of people of non-German descent on the Germany national football team, the team "was not really German".
Later in 2006, the party designed leaflets, which said "White – not just the color of a jersey! For a true National team!" This leaflet was never mass-distributed, but copies were confiscated during a raid on the NPD's headquarters, when authorities had been hoping to find material linking the party to Nazism. Patrick Owomoyela was later informed about the poster after it was noted that the image depicted a footballer wearing a white jersey with Owomoyela's number on it. Owomoyela, of Nigerian descent, had played for the Germany national team in the years before the World Cup and proceeded to file a lawsuit against the party. The party was able to delay the procedures but in April 2009 three party officials, Udo Voigt, Frank Schwerdt, and Klaus Beier, were convicted of Volksverhetzung (incitement to hatred). Voigt and Beier were sentenced to 7 months of probation, and Schwerdt was sentenced to 10 months of probation. The convictions were overturned by the Berlin State Court in March 2011, judging that the number alone was not enough to link the leaflet to Owomoyela, and that "white" has other meanings including good moral character.
In November 2008, shortly after the 2008 United States presidential election, the NPD published a document entitled "Africa conquers the White House" which stated that the election of Barack Obama as the first African-American President of the United States was the result of "the American alliance of Jews and Negroes" and that Obama aimed to destroy the United States' "white identity". The NPD claimed, "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 "Barack Obama hides this declaration of war behind his pushy sunshine smile." The NPD also stated that the extensive support for Obama in Germany "resembles an African tropical disease."
Organization
Youth wing
Junge Nationalisten (short: JN; until 13 January 2018 Junge Nationaldemokraten) is the official youth organization of the party, founded in 1967. According to The Homeland's statutes, the JN are an "integral part" of the party.
The JN are committed to the basic program of the party, but represent these points of view much more aggressively, which is evident both during demonstrations and in political style. They are observed by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and classified as right-wing extremists. Their regular publication is called The Activist. In this central organ, under the heading "The Federal Leader Has the Word", they describe themselves as "representatives of the national revolutionary wing within the NPD". The youth organization criticizes those in The Homeland who have made the "fight for parliaments" the "most important goal". Instead, "resistance and criticism are appropriate, since these developments run the risk of gradual adjustment and bourgeoisie". The JN describe themselves as anti-imperialist. Among other things, they call for the withdrawal of German troops from Afghanistan, describe Israel as the "enemy of all peoples", and refer to it as becoming a parasitic state.
The JN maintains active contacts with a network of neo-Nazi organizations across Europe, like the Nordic Resistance Movement whose Finnish independence day march it has attended, where speakers eulogized the Waffen SS. The JN has also attended gathering with National Corps of Ukraine, Bulgarian National Union, Serbian Action and others.
Women's wing
In mid-September 2006, the Homeland founded a nationwide women's organisation, the Ring Nationaler Frauen (RNF). The party sub-organisation within the Homeland aims to act as a voice for female party members and provide a contact point for women who share nationalist views but are not affiliated with any political party. Since late May 2017, Antje Mentzel has served as the national chairperson of this organization.
Associated organizations
The Homeland runs its own "security service" (Ordungsdienst). The group is led by Manfred Börm.
The Homeland has had various newspapers throughout its history. The official press organ was initially the Deutsche Nachrichten. After a merger with the Deutsche Wochen-Zeitung (DWZ), bought by publisher and DVU chairman Gerhard Frey in 1986, it was renamed Deutsche Wochen-Zeitung - Deutscher Anzeiger. In 1999, it was merged with the National-Zeitung, also published by Frey. The National-Zeitung was discontinued in 2019.
The party's current press organ is Deutsche Stimme, which has been published since 1976 and currently has a monthly circulation of 10,000. There are also regional and local publications such as Sachsen-Stimme and Zündstoff-Nachrichten.
Finances
The NPD's party assets were only small. At the end of 2005, property worth around 700,000 euros was offset by a loan, guarantee and credit burden of around one million euros.
The Homeland holds a 100 per cent stake in Deutsche Stimme Verlags GmbH in Riesa. The publishing house, originally based in Bavaria, publishes the party newspaper Deutsche Stimme as its main product.
The party is dependent on donations due to its low financial reserves. Its income from contributions amounts to only half a million euros and it receives around one million euros from donations and contributions from elected representatives. In 2005, the NPD received seven donations totalling more than 10,000 euros, mainly from its own Members of Parliament.
In late 2006, it was revealed that the German Bundestag administration demanded the return of approximately 870,000 euros in party financing from the party due to the issuance of fraudulent donation receipts in the Thuringia state association after 1996. These irregularities led to higher party financing, with false donations accounting for six percent of the total in 1997 and ten percent in 1998. Consequently, the Bundestag administration deemed the financial reports for these years to be significantly incorrect, leading to the complete recovery of the funding for those years. As a result of this financial crisis, the party dismissed ten of its twelve employees at the federal headquarters. Additionally, reports indicated that much of The Homeland's real estate assets were heavily mortgaged, potentially rendering them unusable as collateral for future party financing payments.
International connections
Voigt has held meetings with various proponents of white nationalism, including David Duke, a US white nationalist, author, politician, and activist. Between 1989 and 1992, the International Third Position began to ally itself with the NPD in Germany and Forza Nuova in Italy. Udo Voigt represented the NPD in the conference of far-right and neo-Nazi parties in Russia in 2015, known as the International Russian Conservative Forum. Participants included Golden Dawn, the Nordic Resistance Movement, the Russian Imperial Movement and others, as well as well known white supremacists from the United States such as Jared Taylor of American Renassaince and Brandon Russell of the Atomwaffen Division.
They have been in contact with Youth Defence, the Irish anti-abortion group, since 1996. Justin Barrett, former leader of Youth Defence and former president of the National Party of Ireland, has spoken at their events in Passau in 2000.The Homeland has also links with the Romanian neo-Legionary group Noua Dreaptă.
The party has links with the Alliance for Peace and Freedom, a European political alliance since 2015.
The party also has connections with far-right parties and politicians in Croatia. In 2017, according to Dražen Keleminec, president of the marginal far-right Autochthonous Croatian Party of Rights (A-HSP), NPD party member Alexander Neidlein took part in the party's march to show their support and declare allegiance to then-recently elected American president Donald Trump. During the march, the party's members, dressed in black uniforms, waved NPD and American flags while shouting the Ustasha salute Za dom spremni. The following day, the U.S. embassy in Zagreb reacted by publishing a statement in which they strongly condemned the march and rejected any attempts to connect the United States with Ustasha ideology.
In 2018, Croatian far-right MP Željko Glasnović took part in the NPD party congress in the town of Büdingen, and expressed his support for the party.
Election results
Literature
Ackermann, Robert: Warum die NPD keinen Erfolg haben kann – Organisation, Programm und Kommunikation einer rechtsextremen Partei. Budrich, Opladen 2012, ISBN 978-3-86388-012-5.
Brandstetter, Marc: Die „neue" NPD: Zwischen Systemfeindschaft und bürgerlicher Fassade. Parteienmonitor Aktuell der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. Bonn 2012 (online)
Brandstetter, Marc: Die NPD unter Udo Voigt. Organisation. Ideologie. Strategie (= Extremismus und Demokratie. Bd. 25). Nomos Verlag, Baden-Baden 2013, ISBN 978-3-383-29708-3.
Prasse, Jan-Ole: Der kurze Höhenflug der NPD. Rechtsextreme Wahlerfolge in den 1960er Jahren. Tectum-Verlag, Marburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-8288-2282-5.
Philippsberg, Robert: Die Strategie der NPD: Regionale Umsetzung in Ost- und Westdeutschland. Baden-Baden 2009.
apabiz e. V.: Die NPD – Eine Handreichung zu Programm, Struktur, Personal und Hintergründen. Zweite, aktualisierte Auflage. 2008. (online) (PDF; 671 kB)