German Communist Party

The German Communist Party is a communist party in Germany. The DKP supports left positions and was an observer member of the European Left. At the end of February 2016 it left the European party. History The DKP considered itself a reconstitution of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), which had been banned by the Federal Constitutional Court in 1956 for its aggressively militant opposition to the West German constitution. The new party was formed on September 25, 1968. The foundation was preceded by talks between former KPD functionaries and Gustav Heinemann, the West German minister of justice, who explained to them that while a refounding of a banned party was not legally possible, Communists were free to form an entirely new party. Even though the close links to the banned KPD made the new party liable to be declared illegal, no such declaration was requested by the German government as West German authorities were liberalizing the attitude towards the communist bloc and East Germany in particular. The DKP remained on the political fringe, never winning more than 0.3% of the total votes in federal elections. It had relatively greater local support in the 1970s: it achieved up to 2.2% of the vote in Hamburg, 3.1% in Bremen and 2.7% in the Saarland. Following German reunification, the DKP entered a steady decline.