[4][5] On 16 July 2024 the Federal Ministry of the Interior banned the Compact entity for "anti-human hate speech and agitation" with immediate effect.
[6] Police searched nationwide business premises as well as the residences of a number of persons, which had financed or edited Compact, including editor-in-chief Elsässer.
[6][7] In 2008, the editorial Kai Homilius Verlag [de] began publishing a book series called Compact, which was edited by Elsässer.
Compact-Magazin GmbH was founded by Jürgen Elsässer, Kai Homilius, and the German Muslim convert Andreas Abu Bakr Rieger [de]; each owned one third of the company at the beginning.
Since mid-2013, Compact magazine has advertised under the motto "Courage to the Truth" (German: Mut zur Wahrheit), which the AfD has also used as a slogan.
Especially since the 2015 migrant crisis in Europe, Compact advertises regularly with front pages and theme books for AfD politicians and their positions.
Thus Compact has positioned itself as the mouthpiece of the kind of AfD and Pegida supporters who completely reject the mainstream media, calling it the "lying press" (German: Lügenpresse).
The magazine's domain was temporarily seized by a German court in January 2018 after Compact failed to pay litigation fees.
First, the company Valora ("Press & Books", 150 train station bookstores in Germany and various sales outlets in airports) announced that it would be removing Compact from its range, followed by the "Dr. Eckhart" group, which owns around 400 locations, including around 240 self-managed retail stores.
"Dr. Eckhart" also stopped distributing other right-wing titles such as "Knight's Cross biographies", "Junge Freiheit", "Eigentümlich Frei", "Zuerst" and the "German Military Magazine" out of stores.
[14] The main products of the multimedia-oriented company are the monthly "Compact Magazine" with a recent circulation of 40,000 copies (2024) and the online video channel "Compact-TV".
[15] The magazine's domain was temporarily seized by a German court in January 2018 after Compact failed to pay litigation fees.
In the "Compact Special" series, dossiers with background information on topics such as "Corona lies", "Russia as an enemy" and "Deep State" are published.
"[18] In some articles, the use of relevant codes and hidden messages ("dog whistling") also specifically addresses New Right, conspiracy ideologies or so-called Reich citizens.
"[19] On the morning of July 16, state police searched the properties and apartments of leading players, management, and significant shareholders of Compact and Conspect in order to seize assets and other evidence, such as propaganda material.
Jürgen Elsässer managed to recruit right-wing extremist activists from the National Democratic Party of Germany (today: Die Heimat) and the Identitarian Movement such as Mario Müller, Paul Klemm and Martin Sellner as editors and authors.
[24][25][26][27] According to Mathias Brodkorb, an anti-right-wing extremism activist and Social Democratic Party of Germany politician, Compact has an anti-American and anti-imperialistic veneer.
Andre Haller showed in a study from 2018, based on empiric observations undertaken in the U.S. and Germany, that populist politicians and right-wing alternative media are drawing ever closer to each other and that mutual dependencies are arising.
Facebook said: "[We] prohibit organizations and individuals from using our services if they systematically attack people based on characteristics such as origin, gender and nationality.
[33] The Brandenburg Office for the Protection of the Constitution describes "Compact" as an "ideological superspreader that offers conspiracy theories a cross-milieu platform, bundles them, strengthens them and spreads them in a targeted manner.