Germany bans far-right magazine Compact

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has banned the magazine Compact which has been classified by intelligence services as far-right extremist.

Production company Conspect Film GmbH has also been banned, the Interior Ministry said on Tuesday morning.

According to a ministry statement, police have been raiding the outlet's premises and the homes of leading actors, management and shareholders in the states of Brandenburg, Hesse, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt since the early hours of this morning to confiscate assets and evidence.

Faeser justified the ban by saying that Compact is a "central mouthpiece of the right-wing extremist scene."

"This magazine incites hatred against Jews, against people with a history of migration and against our parliamentary democracy in an unspeakable manner," the minister said.

The ban shows "that we are also taking action against the intellectual arsonists who are fuelling a climate of hatred and violence against refugees and migrants and want to overcome our democratic state."

Germany's domestic intelligence service, known as the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, labelled the magazine, led by editor-in-chief Jürgen Elsässer, as a multimedia outlet that spreads "anti-democratic" positions as early as 2022.

The magazine's leading figures maintain contacts with important actors of the New Right.

Among other things, in its online shop Compact offers a coin with the image of Björn Höcke, a firebrand politician from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) who was recently convicted and fined again for using a banned Nazi slogan.