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German Communist Party Deutsche Kommunistische Partei
Leader	Patrik Köbele
Founded	25 September 1968; 56 years ago (1968-09-25)
Preceded by	Communist Party of Germany
Headquarters	Hoffnungstraße 18, 45127 Essen
Newspaper	Unsere Zeit
Youth wing	Socialist German Workers Youth
Membership (2021)	2,850
Ideology	Communism Marxism–Leninism
Political position	Far-left
Regional affiliation	Socialist Unity Party of Germany (1968–1989)
European affiliation	European Anti-Capitalist Left
International affiliation	IMCWP
Colors	Red
Bundestag	0 / 735
European Parliament	0 / 96
Website
www.dkp.de
Politics of Germany Political parties Elections

The German Communist Party (German: Deutsche Kommunistische Partei, DKP) is a communist party in Germany. The DKP supports far-left positions and was an observer member of the European Left before leaving in February 2016.

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 on 25 September 1968.

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 vulnerable 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 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 and 2.7% in the Saarland, yet still not enough to enter any Landtags. However, the party enjoyed some success in municipal elections, two patterns of municipalities can be identified in which the DKP was able to win seats: on the one hand working-class residential communities with a long left-wing tradition such as Bottrop in the Ruhr area or Mörfelden-Walldorf in Hesse, and on the other university towns such as Marburg or Tübingen. Following German reunification, the DKP entered a steady decline.

The DKP received national public attention in early 2008 when Christel Wegner, 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 Stasi 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, Unsere Zeit (lit. 'Our Time').

Election results

Bundestag

European Parliament

Election	Votes	%	Seats	+/–	EP Group
1979	112,055	0.40 (#6)	0 / 81	New	–
1984	Did not contest		0 / 81	0
1989	57,704	0.20 (#10)	0 / 81	0
1994	Did not contest		0 / 81	0
1999	Did not contest		0 / 81	0
2004	37,160	0.14 (#20)	0 / 81	0
2009	25,615	0.10 (#28)	0 / 81	0
2014	25,204	0.09 (#22)	0 / 81	0
2019	20,419	0.05 (#37)	0 / 81	0
2024	14,945	0.04 (#33)	0 / 81	0

See also

• Communist Party of Germany (1918)
• Communist Party of Germany (1990)

Footnotes

1. "Verfassungsschutzbericht 2021" (PDF). Bundesambt für Verfassungsschutz. July 2021. Retrieved 25 January 2023.
2. ^ Björn Hengst, Philipp Wittrock (19 February 2008). "Linke zeigt Kommunisten die Rote Karte" (in German). Spiegel Online.
3. "Für die EU, ohne die DKP". Junge Welt. 29 February 2016. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
4. "DKP leaves the European Left". 1 March 2016.
5. "30 Jahre DKP: Eine Veranstaltung in der Offenbacher Stadthalle" ("30 years DKP: An event in the Offenbach town hall"), by Rudi Hechler, September 30, 1998, DKP of Hesse website
6. Helmut Bilstein et al, Organisierter Kommunismus in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Opladen 1977, p. 16.
7. Deutsche Welle - Wahl 2005 Archived 6 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine
8. Fülberth, Georg (1990). KPD und DKP. Zwei kommunistische Parteien in der vierten Periode kapitalistischer Entwicklung [KPD and DKP. Two communist parties in the fourth period of capitalist development.] (in German). Heilbronn. pp. 131–132. ISBN 3-923208-24-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
9. "Aktuell". Archived from the original on 7 February 2012. Retrieved 29 February 2008.
10. "ELP-Beobachterstatus beendet « DKP-Nachrichtenportal" (in German). Archived from the original on 28 June 2020. Retrieved 23 May 2019.

External links

• Official website
• 30 Year history, a speech
• Documents of the foundation
• Unsere Zeit (UZ) Socialist Weekly Newspaper
• 50,000 People Attend German Communist Party Media Fair People's Weekly World, 22 June 2009

• 1968 establishments in West Germany
• Außerparlamentarische Opposition
• Communist parties in Germany
• East Germany–West Germany relations
• Factions and associate parties of The Left (Germany)
• Far-left politics in Germany
• International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties
• Party of the European Left former member parties
• Political parties established in 1968