“Compact”: What is the magazine? And why should it be banned?

Showdown in Leipzig: On Tuesday, the Federal Administrative Court wants to make its judgment as to whether the controversial “Compact” magazine and its accompanying channels should be banned. The discussion has been smoldering since last year. The most important questions and answers to the judgment:

The “Compact” magazine is a magazine that has been published monthly since 2010. Your editor -in -chief is the scene -known right -wing extremist Jürgen Elsässer. The magazine is accused of lurid title leaves, constructed criticism of the political “elite” and anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic texts. It is considered the mouthpiece of the new right, movements such as Pegida and the AfD.

According to its own statements, the sold edition of “Compact” should be around 40,000 copies. In 2020, the magazine was initially classified by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a so -called “right -wing extremist suspicion” and in 2023 by the Brandenburg constitutional protection as “right -wing extremist”.

Since 2015, “Compact” has also operated the YouTube channel “Compact-TV” with almost 515,000 subscribers (as of June 2025), on which political discussions and news are prepared populist and lurid.

According to the classification of the constitutional protectors, the then Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser had a ban against Compact-Magazin GmbH in early June 2024, the associated Conspect Film GmbH and all associated license plates and symbols.

In one, the Ministry of the Interior justified its decision by spreading the respective publications and products “anti -Semitic, racist, anti -minority, historical revisionist and conspiracy theoretical content” and thus “promotes the human dignity of the individual and promotes the freedom and equivalent participation of all citizens in political will formation”.

As an example, the Ministry of the Interior cited international-nationalist ways of thinking, for example when people are referred to as “ethnic strangers”, as well as “resistance and revolution rhetoric as well as targeted crossing border and distorting representations.” It should therefore be feared that readers and spectators of such products that propagated the fall of the political order could be stored and encouraged to act against the constitutional order.

After Faeser’s advance, the magazine was no longer allowed to appear. The YouTube channels associated with the ban were blocked.

The prohibition order not only caused outrage in the right warehouse. Many observers and right -wing experts did not criticize a ban on the magazine per se, but the way it should be achieved.

A ban on individual media is very difficult to implement in Germany and bound to high hurdles. Often even in the event of an openly constitutional media, individual texts or expenses are prohibited or indicated to prohibit the publication of an entire medium, but is in conflict with Article 5 of the Basic Law, which protects the freedom of expression and press.

In the case of “Compact”, the Ministry of the Interior therefore tried the path of the association’s rights. The idea behind it: Not the magazine itself should be banned, but the companies that make its manufacture possible.

For example, the “” criticized this approach and considers the ban not justified. Portals such as “” analyzed similarly. In contrast to association law, the legislative competence for press law is not the federal government, but in the federal states. Many experts see the process of stamping a medium as a club and then forbidding it.

“Compact” himself reacted to the ban with legal steps. On the other hand, Compact-Magazin GmbH filed a complaint with the Federal Administrative Court on July 24, 2024. Almost three weeks later, the court partially exposed the immediate execution of the ban because the question of proportionality arises. The magazine with its secondary channels was allowed and may continue to appear for the time being. The Federal Administrative Court decides on Tuesday morning whether this will stay that way.