Introduction to the German constitution protection law (Verfassungsschutzrecht)

Abstract

The German constitution protection law represents the entirety of legal norms, which aim towards the protection of the free democratic fundamental order of Germany and towards the existence and security of the federation or of a land. The article represents a short introduction to this law domain and details its fundaments and its actual regulation. As early as 1952 the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany defined the expression “free democratic fundamental order of Germany” as being one of the main objects of protection and defense of the German offices for the protection of the constitution. Handling with this subject has a specific importance, because Germany (as well) is one democratic state that adopted in the constitution a “democratic anti-extremist ideology”. The principle of militant democracy (wehrhafte Demokratie) was adopted by the constitutional legislator as a solution to the “democratic dilemma” of the 1920s, when the constitutionalists of the time asked themselves, if a democracy should have the right to dissolve itself through a democratic procedure. In this way, Germany created after the Second World War the offices for the protection of the constitution.