The German Communist Party (german: Deutsche Kommunistische Partei, ) is a

communist party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...

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 in 1969 by former KPD functionaries in close cooperation with East Germany's ruling party, the Socialist Unity Party (SED), from which the DKP received both political directives and – through covert transfers – most of its funds. 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 The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...

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 Bremen ( Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state con ...

and 2.7% in the

Saarland The Saarland (, ; french: Sarre ) is a state of Germany in the south west of the country. With an area of and population of 990,509 in 2018, it is the smallest German state in area apart from the city-states of Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg, and ...

. Following German reunification, the DKP entered a steady decline. The DKP received national public attention in early 2008 when

Christel Wegner Christel Wegner (born November 16, 1947 in Hamburg) is a German Communist politician. In 2008, she was elected to the assembly of Lower Saxony for '' Die Linke'', although she is a member of the German Communist Party (DKP), which until now has c ...

, elected to the state parliament of Lower Saxony on the list of the Left Party as the first DKP member of a state parliament, allegedly endorsed the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the governme ...

, the

Stasi The Ministry for State Security, commonly known as the (),An abbreviation of . was the state security service of the East Germany from 1950 to 1990. The Stasi's function was similar to the KGB, serving as a means of maintaining state authori ...

and other aspects of the East German state in an interview. This caused embarrassment to the national Left Party leadership. Despite denying that she made the controversial statements (at least in the form that was reported) she was expelled from the Left Party faction a few days later. The DKP ended its observer status in the Party of the European Left on 27 February 2016.

Media

The party publishes a

weekly newspaper A weekly newspaper is a general-news or current affairs publication that is issued once or twice a week in a wide variety broadsheet, magazine, and digital formats. Similarly, a biweekly newspaper is published once every two weeks. Weekly new ...

, ''

Unsere Zeit ' (') is a weekly newspaper published by the German Communist Party. The paper's full name is ' (). History and profile ''Unsere Zeit'' was established in Düsseldorf in 1969. It is the organ of the German Communist Party. Its circulation was 6 ...

'' ().

Election results

Bundestag

European Parliament

Footnotes

External links

*
30 Year history, a speechUnsere Zeit (UZ)
Socialist Weekly Newspaper
50,000 People Attend German Communist Party Media Fair
''People's Weekly World'', 22 June 2009 {{Authority control 1968 establishments in West Germany Communist parties in Germany East Germany–West Germany relations Far-left politics in Germany Außerparlamentarische Opposition Party of the European Left former member parties Political parties established in 1968 International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties