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The party is registered at theFederal Returning Office as "DER DRITTE WEG" short-form: "III. Weg".[15] According to the party's website, the official English translation of the name is "The Third Way", stylized as "THE THIRD WAY".[16] Despite this, the party's name is commonly translated as "The Third Path" or "The III. Path".[17][18]
Video of Third Path demonstration on 15 October 2016 inFürth
Third way was founded inHeidelberg on 28 September 2013 by Klaus Armstroff, a former official of theRhineland-Palatinate NPD, with the other five founding members of its federal board also being former NPD members.[4] According to theFederal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) the party is "particularly linked to the programme of the so-called left wing of theNSDAP around theStrasser brothers" arguing for "German socialism" and the "preservation and development of the biological substance of the people."[4]
Third way participated in its first election In May 2014 earning 0.5% of the vote inBad Dürkheim and in the 2016 election received 0.1% of the vote in Rhineland-Palatinate.[4] In a 2015 report by the BfV it was estimated that the Third Way had ~300 full time members mostly in Rhineland-Palatinate but with a smaller presence in East Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Brandenburg and Saxony.[4] In 2014 their Bavarian section absorbed the membership of the bannedFree Network South.[4]
A group of people bearing Der Dritte Weg flags marched in through a town inSaxony on 1 May 2019, the day before theJewish remembrance of theHolocaust, carrying a banner saying "Social justice instead of criminal foreigners". TheCentral Council of Jews said that the state government should ban such marches if it were serious about tackling right-wing extremism.[19] The party stood in the2019 European elections, achieving 0.03% of the vote.
Der Dritte Weg has sent a delegation to the annual neo-Nazi612 march in Finland. In 2019 the event was attended by then leader of the party Armstroff.[20]
During the2021 German federal election, the party had controversial posters which called forHang theGreens. These posters were ordered to be taken down by the courts later on.[21][22][23]
In Bavaria, the six "bases" in 2014 reflected the centers of the former comradeships.[24] In 2019, the party succeeded in expanding its structures, albeit only slightly.[25] Accordingly, only three of the planned four regional associations have been founded so far. The party has not yet succeeded in establishing structures in the north of Germany.[26] At the federal party conference in September 2019, Der III. Weg decided to amend its statutes to restructure the regional associations into state associations. The party had previously taken part in the local elections in Saxony in 2019, but was denied participation in the state elections in Saxony on September 1, 2019, by the state election committee for formal reasons. With the amendments to the statutes, the party underlined its intention to continue to contest elections in the future and thus fulfil or consolidate one of the requirements necessary to maintain party status.[27]
In 2019, the estimated number of members/followers/supporters nationwide increased to around 580.[28] As of 2021, the majority of the approximately 650 full and supporting members[29] were active in the federal states of Bavaria, Berlin, Brandenburg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony,[30] and since 2019 also in NRW in the greater Cologne-Düsseldorf area.[31]
According to the constitutional protection report of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, the party is mainly financed by donations and contributions in 2019.[33]
^Potter, Nicholas (6 January 2021)"The Pan-European "Ikea Fascism" of Nordiska Motståndsrörelsen"Archived 13 June 2021 at theWayback MachineBelltower.News "The exchange has been mutual, with members of Der III. Weg also travelling to Finland: In 2019, party founder Klaus Armstroff visited the head of the Swedish NMR, Simon Lindberg, in Helsinki. Together with a delegation of his fellow party members, Armstroff took part in the “612 March” on Finnish Independence Day. Holiday snaps from their Helsinki trip are even on the party's website: The delegation visited a tank museum and the Finnish-German military cemetery. There also appear to be links between the NMR and the Junge Nationalisten (Young Nationalists, JN), the youth organisation of the German far-right party NPD. In 2017, the JN also participated in the “612 March” in Helsinki."
^Verfassungsschutzbericht Bayern 2014 (Archived June 15, 2016 in the Internet Archive) In: Bayerisches Landesamt für Verfassungsschutz, 2015 (PDF).
^Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz: . Hrsg.: Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz. S. 80.
^Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (Red.):Verfassungsschutzbericht 2017. Herausgegeben vom Bundesministerium des Innern, für Bau und Heimat, Stand July 2018, S. 78 (PDF; 4,5 MB). Retrieved 5 May 2019.
^Verfassungsschutzbericht 2016. (PDF) Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, retrieved 6 July 2017.
^Verfassungsschutzbericht des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen über das Jahr 2019, Stand June 2020, S. 108-110. (PDF) Ministerium des Innern des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, 9 June 2020, retrieved 9 June 2020.
The Left: is currently only in the state parliaments ofBerlin, Bremen,Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern,Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia.
BSW: is currently only in the state parliaments of Berlin, Brandenburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saxony, and Thuringia.
FW: is currently only in the state parliaments ofBavaria, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony; does not participate in state elections inBrandenburg, an associated partyBVB/FW participates here.
700 (2022)est.[1]
