In July 2024, then Interior Minister Nancy Faeser banned Compact magazine. She justified the move, saying: "It's a central mouthpiece for the right-wing extremist scene. This magazine incites against Jews, people with ethnic migrant backgrounds and against our parliamentary democracy in the most abhorrent way."

Compact sees itself as part of 'resistance movement'

A 2023 report from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany's domestic intelligence agency, features an entire page dedicated to Compact — a magazine and multimedia company headquartered in Falkensee, on the outskirts of Berlin.

According to the BfV, the magazine's publisher says it sells 40,000 print copies a month. The number of subscribers to the Compact YouTube channel is significantly higher, at 513,000 as of June 10, 2025.

"Compact sees itself as part of what it calls the resistance movement, and it is seen by other actors among the so-called new right as part of the scene," the BfV wrote. "The main feature of many of its published articles is agitation against the federal government and against the current political system."

Ties to extremist Identitarian movement

Examples cited by the BfV include abstruse conspiracy theories used to agitate against state institutions and pluralist society. "Historic revisionist content and antisemitic narratives round out the agenda," it added.

Moreover, the report said, the outfit maintains ties with right-wing extremist groups like the German Identitarian movement (IBD) and the eastern German regional party the "Freie Sachsen," or Free Saxons.

Faeser said the message was clear — we will not allow anyone to define who does and does not belong in Germany by their ethnicity. "Our constitutional state protects all those who have been attacked because of their religion, their origins, their skin color or their desire to live in a democracy," she said last July.

Faeser wanted to send a signal

Faeser leaned heavily on the constitution, Germany's Basic Law, in calling for the right-wing extremist publication to be banned. Article 9 of the Basic Law, which regulates freedom of assembly, reads: "Associations whose aims or activities contravene the criminal laws or that are directed against the constitutional order or the concept of international understanding shall be prohibited."

Compact's editor-in-chief, Jürgen Elsässer, is a suspected right-wing extremist who belonged to the far left as a young man. Now in his 60s, Elsässer was once a member of the Communist Youth Wing and wrote for the newspaper, Arbeiterkampf (The Workers' Fight). He later worked as a reporter for other left-wing media, including Neue Deutschland (New Germany), which was a key news organ for the socialist East German government when the country was still partitioned. 

Compact can publish until final verdict

Elsässer and other plaintiffs fought the ban on his media operations before the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig. He was partially successful in August 2024 when it was determined that he could continue publishing Compact until a final verdict had been handed down. In granting its stay, the court said the outcome of the case remained unclear as it had yet to be determined whether Compact had acted against the constitutional order.

The court did, however, immediately find evidence of violations of human dignity in which citizens with migrant backgrounds were demeaned. Notwithstanding, it also voiced doubt as to whether that was enough to justify a ban. For that would represent the most serious intervention possible regarding speech and press freedoms guaranteed in Article 5 of the Basic Law.

Where does press freedom begin and end?

Still, Article 5 does put some limits on speech, saying, "These rights shall find their limits in the provisions of general laws, in provisions for the protection of young persons and in the right to personal honor."

The trial to define where press freedoms in Germany begin and end will start on June 10. It's unclear when a decision will be handed down.

This text was originally written in German.