Are Germany's NGOs too powerful?
Dear Reader,
These days, €39 is the kind of money you could lose down the back of the sofa and not even notice.
Before you close this email, no, this isn't a gimmick to get you to sign up for membership of The German Review (though you’re very welcome to do so). Instead, it's a story about how a seemingly trivial sum has ignited a national debate over alleged “secretive alliances” between NGOs and left‑wing politicians, supposedly aimed at subverting the will of the average voter.
The cash in question was used to fund a protest in the small town of Suhl, Thuringia, in February. Under the motto “Suhl bleibt hell” (“Suhl stays light”), a local NGO called the Suhl Alliance for Democracy and Tolerance and Against Right‑wing Extremism encouraged residents to take to the streets carrying torches. Once at the town square, participants arranged themselves to spell out “Nie wieder” (“Never again” — as in, never again to fascism).
The NGO claimed the event was politically neutral, giving it access to a €39 grant from the local government. That money, in turn, came from a much larger pot of federal cash designated for groups that “stand up for a diverse and democratic coexistence… and against polarisation.”
Ever since 2015, the Families Ministry has been doling out funds to civil‑society organisations to combat what it sees as a growing lack of trust in democratic institutions. At its inception, the fund — called Demokratie Leben! — had an annual budget of €100 million. Since then, it has swelled to nearly €200 million.
Early on, though, concerns were raised that the money was falling into the hands of organisations that weren’t just promoting democracy abstractly, but were actively advocating for specific political parties. In 2021, the Families Ministry responded to an AfD complaint by insisting that “projects explicitly directed against political parties are not eligible for funding” and that “we take this into account when reviewing funding applications.”
So, when the Suhl Alliance for Democracy printed the Families Ministry’s logo on the pamphlets for its march, it immediately caught locals’ attention. Which isn’t surprising: by any measure, the event was politically partisan.
Firstly, the man who registered it — alongside his volunteer work — happened to be a town councillor for the left‑wing party Die Linke. Secondly, the march was held outside an AfD campaign event ahead of that month’s national election. Thirdly, during the march, participants held signs saying things like “Alice am Arsch”, a reference to AfD leader Alice Weidel.
“We didn’t take to the streets against a political party, but for humanity, respect, and democratic coexistence,” the event’s organiser, Steffen Hartwig, insisted afterwards.
At the campaign event that the march just happened to take place outside of, AfD firebrand Björn Höcke saw things rather differently. Speaking inside, he accused the marchers of being “professional protesters bussed in by the cartel parties, paid for with your tax money.”
Truth be told, if this had only involved the AfD, this little scandal over €39 might have been forgotten. Even though it’s illegal for the federal government to fund projects targeting the AfD, several NGOs benefiting from federal funds openly oppose the anti‑immigration party. The press and the political class tend to turn a blind eye.
What made this a national story was what was happening elsewhere. At the same time, massive protests had erupted across the country against the CDU, which had just voted with the AfD in the Bundestag for the first time ever. In one Berlin demonstration alone, 150,000 people marched through the Tiergarten park, its iconic Siegessäule lit up with the words “Berlin hates the CDU.”
When the Families Ministry got wind of what happened in Suhl, it sent a panicked email to all the NGOs that received funding through Demokratie Leben! “In light of a recent case, the logo of the Ministry for Family Affairs may under no circumstances appear on calls for demonstrations,” the email stated.
The fact that such an email had to be sent out at all was instructive. Clearly, the Families Ministry suspected that the Suhl Alliance for Democracy wasn’t the only NGO benefitting from state funding that was helping to organise the pre-election protests.
For some in the CDU, the evidence was clear: these protests weren't organic. Instead, they were the result of years of state funding of groups that hate all things to the right of the SPD.
“Their masks have finally fallen,” thundered Kristina Schröder (CDU), who was Families Minister from 2009 to 2013, in an opinion piece for Die Welt. “These organisations can bring hundreds of thousands onto the streets at the push of a button… They are only ‘non-governmental’ insofar as they are not directly owned by the state. But they are predominantly state-funded and see their job as defending government policy, at least if it is left-wing.”
Immediately after the election, the CDU submitted 551 parliamentary questions to the outgoing government, demanding to know whether 17 groups behind anti‑CDU protests had received federal funding—and insisting such funding be rescinded if so.
The NGOs reacted with outrage, accusing the CDU of a “campaign of intimidation” aimed at silencing them.
Symbolic of this spat became a group called Omas gegen Rechts, a group of grannies who organise marches against the right-wing. To conservative pundits, these seemingly innocent old ladies embodied a “shadow state” of state‑funded NGOs serving left‑wing interests. To the left, these courageous grannies were being turned into a public punching bag by right-wingers indulging in Orbán-esque populism.
The issue turned out to be so combustible that it even threatened to torpedo the subsequent coalition negotiations between the CDU and the SPD. When the outgoing government eventually replied to the CDU’s 551 questions it provided 80 pages of legal blurb but offered no answer on whether anti‑CDU protest groups had actually received state funds.
Then, instead of escalating the fight, the CDU backed down. Reports say Friedrich Merz privately told SPD leader Lars Klingbeil he would drop the issue for coalition harmony.
But, other NGO interventions are continuing to raise hackles on the right. This month, CDU/CSU MPs accused Pro Asyl, a refugee charity, of illegally assisting refugees after the Interior Ministry lost a court case brought by Somali asylum‑seekers. And last week, Die Welt reported on secret contracts between the European Commission and environmental NGOs targeting Germany’s coal industry.
Though the suggestion that NGOs are secretly sabotaging right-wing policies makes for good headlines, there's a more mundane but crucial issue: the Families Ministry spends €200 million a year on democracy‑promotion—but there’s little evidence it achieves anything meaningful.
A closer look at projects it has funded offers curious examples of how the federal government plans to prevent societal collapse.
Waldschlösschen e.V., a charity in Lower Saxony, has just received half a million euros for its work on supporting “sexual, romantic and gender self-determination.” Among the charity's upcoming events: a tantra workshop for men who want to “pursue a longing for deeper intimacy” by unlocking the erotic secrets of Indian massage.
Meanwhile, the National Association of Russian-Speaking Parents have secured half a million euros to fund projects that include an art competition to paint “anti-totalitarian posters.” This is described as a “creative response to the threats of disinformation, hate, and radicalisation.” The association recently breathlessly announced that the venue for one of its events “was barely big enough” for all the participants – all forty of them.
The Families Ministry's funding programme, is subject to external evaluation. But the most recent assessment, published last year, was incongruously optimistic about the strides being made. Those reached by the funding had “overcome racist prejudices” and “learned to appreciate diversity,” the authors found, concluding that the funding was “strengthening democratic structures and increasing resilience against extremist tendencies.”
Anyone who has read the latest statistics on political extremism – which recorded a 40% surge in politically motivated violence last year – may have reason to wonder what planet these external evaluators live on.
Former Families Minister Kristina Schröder (CDU) gave this more sobering assessment of how the system actually works:
“Most of the so-called civil society groups who run these projects make their living from them... Every four years, they renew their funding applications and tweak the projects so that they qualify as ‘model projects.’ And, because the budget keeps growing, almost no one is ever turned away.”
Of course, there is a paradox in Schröder’s argument. On the one hand she says that these state-backed NGOs are so powerful that they can bring masses of people onto the street at the click of a finger; on the other, she dismisses them as a self-serving talking shop.
What is clear is that the amount of money being spent on these projects is enormous, especially at a time when state budgets are so tight that swimming pools and schools are falling to pieces. I’m of the mind that this is largely money thrown down the drain. But, what do you think? Do you have any experience of interacting with these organisations? Let me know in the comments.