Rote Hilfe is a German solidarity organization that aids people hit by state repression, such as anti-fascists. Recent moves to close its bank accounts are aimed at wrecking its activity, even though it hasn’t broken the law.

Unlike Germany’s numerous amorphous groups from the autonomous tradition, however, Rote Hilfe operates as a legal organization in compliance with federal law. It is registered as an association, has an official HQ, and maintains an elected federal executive committee as well as local chapters and activities in the public sphere. Although it is regularly attacked by Germany’s ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and features prominently in reports by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, it is not a banned organization. This makes the repression it is currently facing all the more astonishing.

  • randomname@scribe.disroot.orgEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    Every legal resident in an EU country is entitled to open a “basic payment account”. Banks cannot refuse your application for a basic payment account just because you don’t live in the country where the bank is established.

    Rote Hilfe is registered in Germany. What the article does not say is that they openly support, among others, the Red Army Faction (RAF). The RAF was engaged in a series of bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, bank robberies particularly in the 1970s and 1980s. The Rote Hilfe has never distanced itself from the RAF and its criminal activities, and have reportedly even openly supported the few RAF members still wanted by authorities.

    That should be added if such an article is published. I am personally not very happy with media outlets like this Jacobin. Not being far-right is not enough. If you read such media, you now exactly what narratives you get before you even click the link.

    • A_norny_mousse@piefed.zipEnglish
      5·
      2 days ago

      So? That isn’t illegal.

      Recent moves to close its bank accounts are aimed at wrecking its activity, even though it hasn’t broken the law.

      This is.

      • Denys Nykula@piefed.socialEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        Moreover, the article mentions that it’s one of multiple organizations debanked in a row, preceeded by ABC-Dresden, which is one of the loudest grassroots voices for international solidarity with Ukrainian anti-authoritarians fighting against the invasion. While Rote Hilfe has a different position (amplifying refugees and deserters, which IMO is also important despite not being treated as politically correct), they don’t seem to be debanked because of their specific connections, but because of a blanket ban on anything leftist and radical.

        • A_norny_mousse@piefed.zipEnglish
          2·
          1 day ago

          Shit. Germany really isn’t in a good place right now. Going the same route as so many other countries (normal conservative parties pandering to far-right populism), with the added historical baggage…

          • randomname@scribe.disroot.orgEnglish
            1·
            1 day ago

            The article frames the Rote Hilfe as a charity that is in the world only for the good of humanity. It doesn’t even mention that the organization also supports the RAF and its members, including those who have committed the worst crimes such as assassinations. This is not independent information.

            Germany really isn’t in a good place right now. Going the same route as so many other countries (normal conservative parties pandering to far-right populism),

            There is a lot wrong in Germany, but it is among the better places to live in if we compare it globally. The countries where minorities and their governments’ political opponents are suppressed are elsewhere, and these are often states that claim to be ‘left-wing’ or ‘socialist’ (exactly the ideologies the Jacobin magazine hails so much). If an organization in Russia or China has a different opinion, then people are not ‘debanked’ but they fall out of a window or disappear in some prison (and if someone criticizes the government in an article, the writer shares the same fate).