On June 2, 2019, a far-right extremist with longstanding ties to far-right organisation Combat 18, itself long monitored by German security services, and other far-right movement organisations—shot and killed the district president of Kassel, Walter Lübcke. On October 9, 2019, another far-right figure attempted to carry out a mass shooting at a synagogue in the Saxony-Anhalt city of Halle, killing two individuals near the building. In response and because of public pressure on the government, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer’s announced a ban on Combat 18. This corresponds to a longstanding pattern in the German state’s response to far-right extremism: crises, public pressure, and spikes in far-right violence prompt bans.
The application of the provision of the ‘law on associations’ (Vereingesetz) that permits bans on organisations has renewed perennial debates in Germany about the ethics and efficacy of banning far-right groups. But the case of Combat 18, more so than many previous prohibitions, should prompt a wider re-examination of far-right extremism and the utility of bans.
Figure 1 exhibits this pattern; three conspicuous waves of bans are present over the last thirty years: (1) a spate of bans were imposed in the mid-1990s following a spike of far-right violence against immigrants, refugees, and Germans of minority ethnic backgrounds; (2) several bans were imposed in 2005, coinciding with other responses to a rise in far-right mobilisation (including several large demonstrations in places like Wunsiedel, Bavaria) in the early 2000s; and (3) numerous bans were imposed in 2011-2012, propelled by revelations of far-right terrorism in the so-called 'National Socialist Underground' case. Here, then, is the typical pattern of the German state application of banning powers: reactive—not proactive.
