[2] The DKP supports far-left positions and was an observer member of the European Left before leaving in February 2016.

[7] It had relatively greater local support in the 1970s: it achieved up to 2.2% of the vote in Hamburg, 3.1% in Bremen and 2.7% in the Saarland, yet still not enough to enter any Landtags.

However, the party enjoyed some success in municipal elections, two patterns of municipalities can be identified in which the DKP was able to win seats: on the one hand working-class residential communities with a long left-wing tradition such as Bottrop in the Ruhr area or Mörfelden-Walldorf in Hesse, and on the other university towns such as Marburg or Tübingen.

[2] Despite denying that she made the controversial statements (at least in the form that was reported), she was expelled from the Left Party faction a few days later.

[10] The group around the former chairpersons Bettina Jürgensen, Heinz Stehr and the “architect of the reform course” in the party, Leo Meyer, organized itself in the “Communist Network” and in the association “Marxist Left” (MaLi).