In the Name of Democracy: How Germany Ended Up Funding Hate

The recent scandal surrounding the German government’s funding of organizations deeply entrenched in an antisemitic outlook isn’t merely bureaucratic incompetence—it’s the inevitable outcome of a policy framework designed to silence dissent rather than foster genuine democratic discourse. What began as an effort to combat populism has devolved into state-sponsored extremism, revealing the dangerous contradictions at the heart of Germany’s approach to ‘protecting’ democracy.

The crisis erupted when Die Welt am Sonntag exposed how ‘Democracy Live’ (Demokratie Leben)—a program ostensibly created to “promote democracy, strengthen diversity and prevent extremism”—had become a funding pipeline for the very extremist groups it claimed to combat. The revelations are as shocking as they are predictable.

Consider Teilseiend e.V., which pocketed €2.8 million in taxpayer funds, in great part to finance the Muslim Academy Heidelberg. While promoting workshops on “hijab styling,” board member Isa Koray Panz was simultaneously spreading antisemitic poison on social media, referring to a “Jewish Zionist disease” and questioning whether Germany had “degenerated into a ‘Jew State'”—using the Nazi term Judenstaat—when a menorah was temporarily set up at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate for Hannukah. 

Similarly, BIWOC Rising received €800.000.to operate as a “safe space” for marginalized “BIW*oC and TIN*BIPoC”, as its webpage states. Its founder Loubna Massoudi celebrated the October 7 Hamas massacre as “resistance against colonialism,” while another member referred to Jewish settlers as “pigs without dignity.” 

Perhaps most damning was the revelation that over €1 million funded an organization called the Islamic Science and Education Institute (IWB), claiming to run “prevention programs” while maintaining intimate ties to Islamist networks. 

The state clearly hasn’t just been failing to prevent extremism—it has been subsidizing it.

These aren’t isolated incidents but symptoms of a deeper pathology. Earlier this year, Democracy Live-funded organizations orchestrated demonstrations against CDU chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz, with groups like ‘Grannies Against the Far Right’ branding him racist for critiquing mass migration. In response, the CDU submitted an official questionnaire to parliament (the Bundestag), criticising the allocation of state funds. Yet supporters who had worried about the future of the programme under a new government, such as one commentator in Taz, soon noted with relief that there was no intention to scrap it. 

Indeed, the new CDU-led coalition government’s response has been tellingly tepid. While Karin Prien, now in charge of the Ministry of Family Affairs which controls the funds,  promises a “thorough review,” and Alexander Throm, the CDU’s domestic policy spokesperson, demands “absolute loyalty to national goals” (without however specifying what these goals should be), no one seemingly dares question the program’s fundamental premise. Instead, officials from all the established parties rush to emphasize that Democracy Live, despite needing “reform,” must continue. 

Yet, Democracy Live wasn’t accidentally corrupted. Launched in 2015 under Angela Merkel’s rule (CDU) – during the refugee crisis as the AfD surged in polls, the program explicitly aimed to combat “radicalisation and polarisation” by strengthening society’s “resilience against anti-democratic tendencies.” This, of course, is another way of saying that the programme was set up to fight the populist challenge. In practice, this meant funding any group claiming victimhood under the anti-populist’s diversity agenda, while systematically excluding organizations with even a hint of populist sentiment.

The strategy was never about fostering democratic debate but about manufacturing consent through the creation of a fake “civil society” concept. By funding organizations that ordinary Germans would never voluntarily support, the state has created and emboldened an artificial network of quasi-lobbyists dependent on government money. These groups, predictably, became fierce defenders of the very policies driving voters toward populist alternatives.

The program’s obsession with combating ‘Islamophobia’ created perverse incentives. Organizations learned they could secure funding by positioning themselves as victims of mainstream German society, regardless of their actual beliefs or activities.

This dynamic inevitably attracted extremists and oddballs who understood how to game the system. Islamist organizations and radical identity groups discovered they could cloak anti-Western, antisemitic ideologies in the language of diversity and inclusion. The state, so focused on combating the ‘far-right’ threat, became willfully blind to extremism emanating from its preferred victim groups.

The Democracy Live scandal exposes a fundamental misconception about civil society itself. Genuine civil society emerges organically from citizen initiative and voluntary association. It cannot be manufactured through government funding without becoming corrupted by state dependence. When the government selects which groups deserve support based on ideological compatibility, it creates not civil society but a network of advocacy organizations pursuing narrow sectarian interests.

The program’s explicit goal of building “resilience against anti-democratic tendencies” reveals a profound authoritarian impulse. Who determines what constitutes “anti-democratic” thinking? In practice, it’s anyone who questions elite consensus on immigration, multiculturalism, or European integration. 

The new government, and Karin Prien, the new Minister for Family, in particular (Prien herself has Jewish roots) might now attempt to rectify some of the worst errors of the past. However, this misses the point. 

The only honest response would be to abolish the programme entirely. Any programme designed to stave off populism and government critics is necessarily a vehicle for manipulation and, as such, open to corruption. Rather than strengthening democratic debate, the programme aims to stifle and control it. A democratic state confident in its citizens’ judgment doesn’t need to fund artificial civil society organizations. It trusts that genuine democratic discourse will ultimately produce sound outcomes, even when those outcomes challenge elite preferences.