Pro Germany Citizens' Movement Bürgerbewegung pro Deutschland | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Chairman | Manfred Rouhs |
| Vice-Chairman | Alfred Dagenbach |
| Founded | 20 January 2005 |
| Dissolved | 11 November 2017 |
| Headquarters | Allee der Kosmonauten 28 12681Berlin |
| Ideology | Right-wing populism[1][2][3] |
| Political position | Far-right[4][5][6] |
| Website | |
| www.pro-deutschland.net | |
ThePro Germany Citizens' Movement (German:Bürgerbewegung pro Deutschland) was afar-right political party inGermany. It was founded inCologne on 20 January 2005 as a part of thePro-movement after Pro Cologne members had been elected to the Cologne City Council.Manfred Rouhs, treasurer of the Pro Cologne movement and former candidate of theGerman League for People and Homeland and theNational Democratic Party of Germany, was elected its first chairman. The federal party convent decided at its ninth ordinary meeting in Wuppertal on 11 November 2017 to dissolve the party.
The party was linked to the citizens' movements Pro Cologne and Pro NRW that are only active in the city ofCologne and the state ofNorth Rhine-Westphalia, respectively.
The party advocatedlaw and order; lowering theage of criminal responsibility from 14 to 12 years of age;deportation ofillegal immigrants, and the segregation of students with insufficient German language proficiency.
It was critical ofmulti-national corporations, in particularbanks and otherfinancial institutions.German parents are promised achild check worth €5,000 and afamily loan up to €20,000.
The headquarters of pro Germany were located inBerlin. The first state party was formed in Berlin (Pro Berlin Citizen's Movement). Pro NRW and Pro Cologne are only active in North Rhine-Westphalia and Cologne, respectively. The "Pro Movement", organised as an association, serves as an umbrella organisation to co-ordinate the activities of the formally independent parties.[7]
The party has been endorsed by theFreedom Party of Austria[8] but lost this endorsement, once the FPÖ decided to not support any other parties in Germany besides theAfD.
The party's regional branch in Berlin contested thestate election on 18 September 2011. Its electoral campaign has attracted considerable attention of the media. On 25 July, three days after theNorway attacks, Pro Germany supporters gathered for a "silent vigil" in front of the Norwegian embassy. Governing MayorKlaus Wowereit sharply protested against the perceived disturbance of the commemoration.[2][9] Later the former state treasurerThilo Sarrazin successfully filed a suit against Pro Germany because they had used his name in their slogan "Wählen gehen für Thilos Thesen!"(Go to the polls for Thilo's theses!").[10] On 11 August, two Pro Germany campaigners were arrested. According to the police and media reports, they had charged at a migrant passerby with a hammer handle and assaulted a police officer with fists and pepper spray.[3][6][11] Eventually, Pro Germany won 1.2% of the votes.[12] Therefore, they failed to surmount the 5% threshold and did not win any seats in the House of Representatives.
ThePro Cologne Citizens' Movement (German:Bürgerbewegung pro Köln) was formed in 1996 as an offshoot of the extreme right-wingGerman League for People and Homeland. The far-right publisher Manfred Rouhs and the lawyer Markus Beisicht have been active in the association from its start. In the 1999 mayoral election, the party presented Stephan Flug as its candidate who won 0.3% of the votes. When the municipality planned to erect amosque in Cologne'sChorweiler district, the citizen's movement organised acollection of signatures petitioning against the project. They were able to present 28,000 signatures against any mosque construction site in Cologne to the committee on petitions only shortly before the 2004 local elections. With the tailwinds from the signatures campaign, the voter's association was able to win 4.7% of the votes and four seats in the Cologne city council. In 2005, a fifth councillor joined Pro Cologne's group. The electoral success initiated the expansion of the party to the state and federal level.
In 2007, the movement ran another signature campaign against theCologne Central Mosque in Ehrenfeld.[13] They showed more than 23,000 signatures, however at least 7,000 of them were not valid and thecitizen's initiative failed. In September 2008, Pro Cologne organised theAnti-Islamisation Congress,[14] invitingMario Borghezio andFilip Dewinter among others. Counter-protests and blockings prompted the police to cancel the congress and rally.[15] The congress was repeated in May 2009. In the 2009 Cologne local election, the party won 5.4% of the votes and was able to defend its five council seats.[16] The chairman of Pro Cologne, Markus Beisicht, ran for mayor and won 4.8% of the votes.[17] At the local elections on 25 May 2014, the party lost more than half its votes and could hold on to only two seats in the city council.[18]
The North Rhine-Westphalian state intelligence service (Verfassungsschutz) has observed the grouping. From 2004 to 2010 it has presented it in itsannual reports for the suspicion of right-wingextremist aspirations. In October 2005, Pro Cologne filed a suit against the state to get the mention of the party removed from the annual report. Thereupon the Higher Administrative Court has ruled that there are sufficient factual indications for the suspicions, that justify the observation and mention in the report.[1] Since 2011 the intelligence service has stated that the indications for anti-constitutional aspirations went beyond the scope of mere suspicion. According to their observations, the movement violates thehuman rights as specified in theGerman constitution.[19] Several members of the party were convicted of fraud, perjury, and tax evasion in connection with falsified attendance fee calculations as city council members.[20]
The leadership of Pro Cologne decided on March 7, 2018, to dissolve the organization. The final decision is supposed to be resolved by a General Meeting on April 15, 2018.[21]
According toFH Düsseldorf sociologistAlexander Häusler whose research focus is Neonazism, pro Germany can be considered afar-right movement on the fringes ofright-wing extremism andright-wing populism. He seesethnonationalist andracist as well asantisemitic strands,authoritarian ideas and the rejection ofequality anddiscrimination of minorities in activities of pro Germany, particularly the campaigning againstmulticulturalism, building ofmosques andminarets.[22]
The party was considered a part of thecounter-jihad movement.[23]
…the counter‐Jihad scene incorporates the 'defence leagues' in Australia, Denmark, England, Finland, Norway, Poland, Scotland, Serbia and Sweden, groups such as Pro‐Cologne and the Citizens' Movement Pax Europa in Germany, Generation Identity in France, the 'Stop the Islamization' networks in Europe and the United States, the American Freedom Defense Initiative and the International Civil Liberties Alliance. (Goodwin, 2013: 3)
Media related toBürgerbewegung pro Deutschland at Wikimedia Commons