The decision by the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig not to ban the magazine Compact was a difficult one, according to Judge Ingo Kraft. "However, the Basic Law guarantees freedom of opinion and freedom of the press even to the enemies of freedom, trusting in the power of free social debate," he said on Tuesday, June 24.

The ruling is a defeat for former German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, who banned Compact magazine in 2024. At the time, she justified the move saying the magazine is "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."

The judges now said there was reason to doubt whether freedom of the press and freedom of expression had been sufficiently taken into account in the ban. They argued that terms such as "remigration" and "cult of guilt" are covered by freedom of expression. This also applied to conspiracy theories and historical revisionist theories.

A 2023 report from the

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