In German politics and constitutional law the concept exists under the term wehrhafte or streitbare Demokratie ("well-fortified",[1] "battlesome",[2] "defensive"[3] or "militant democracy"[4][5][6]) which implies that the federal government (Bundesregierung), the parliament (Bundestag and Bundesrat) and the judiciary are given extensive powers and duties to defend the liberal democratic basic order ("freiheitliche demokratische Grundordnung") against those who want to abolish it.
The idea behind the concept is the notion that even a majority rule of the people cannot be allowed to install a totalitarian or autocratic regime, thereby violating the principles of the German constitution, the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany.
The German concept of defensive/militant democracy is a reaction to the experience of the Weimar Republic, whose liberal and democratic order was eliminated by the Nazi government – which came into office legally – and the Enabling Act of 1933.
The lawyer and political scientist Karl Loewenstein who had emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1933, coined the term wehrhafte Demokratie as he was convinced that the Weimar Republic had not sufficiently defended its democracy against subversive elements that were attacking its foundations.
Over 1,000 prospective teachers and university lecturers were rejected as "enemies of the constitution" (Verfassungsfeinde) – in most cases due to their membership in far-left organisations – which amounted to a professional ban (Berufsverbot).
In addition, Germany maintains a domestic intelligence service, the Verfassungsschutz (consisting of a Federal Office and 16 State Offices for the Protection of the Constitution), one of whose main purposes is to investigate organisations whose activities are directed against the free democratic basic order (in particular far-right and far-left parties as well as Islamist extremists) – using both publicly accessible sources and undercover methods.
During the 1980s, the issue was heavily discussed in a different context – for the first time in Israel's history, an extreme right-wing Jewish party (Kach), who rejected the state's democratic character and the rights of the Arab minority within the country, won representation to the Israeli parliament in the 1984 elections to the Knesset.
Article 8 of the 1980 Constitution originally declared acts and groups promoting violence, totalitarianism or class struggle as unconstitutional, as well as barring those found guilty of such from political and some civic activities for a number of years.