Compact (magazine)

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Compact

Editor-in-Chief	Jürgen Elsässer
Editor	Daniell Pföhringer
Frequency	Monthly
Publisher	Compact-Magazin GmbH
Founder	Jürgen Elsässer, Kai Homilius, Andreas Abu Bakr Rieger
Year founded	2010
Based in	Falkensee, Germany
Language	German
Website	www.compact-online.de
OCLC	724419039

Compact (stylized COMPACT, published with the subtitle "Magazine for Sovereignty" (German: Magazin für Souveränität) since October 2013) is a German neo-fascist magazine. Jürgen Elsässer is the editor-in-chief of Compact, and Kai Homilius is the CEO of Compact-Magazin GmbH, the company which publishes Compact. The editorial office is based in a family home in Falkensee in Brandenburg, at the western border of Berlin.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (German: Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) categorizes the journal as a far-right extremist publication due to consistent Antisemitism, Islamophobia and contempt for the democratic principles of the Federal Republic of Germany. Since 2015, Compact has presented itself as a mouthpiece of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Islamophobic Pegida movement.^[1] In December 2021 Compact was designated as a proven far-right extremist publication by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.^[2]

History and business[]

In 2008, the editorial  [de] began publishing a book series called Compact, which was edited by Elsässer. The following year, it began publishing DVDs in cooperation with  [de]. In December 2010, the "zeroth" (Nullnummer) issue of the Compact magazine was published. Since August 2011, the magazine has been published by Compact-Magazin GmbH, which is located in Werder (Havel). Compact-Magazin GmbH was founded by Jürgen Elsässer, Kai Homilius, and the German Muslim convert  [de]; each owns one third of the company.

The magazine's domain was temporarily seized by a German court in January 2018 after Compact failed to pay litigation fees. The journalist Richard Gutjahr had obtained a preliminary injunction against the vile suspicions about him that had been spread via Compact. The magazine suggested that the journalist had known about terrorist attacks in advance.^[3][4]

Since mid-2013, the Compact Magazine has advertised under the motto "Courage to the Truth" (German: Mut zur Wahrheit), which the AfD has also used as a slogan. Elsässer distributed the magazine initially on AfD political conventions. In spring of 2015, he decided to make the magazine an election campaign for the AfD. Especially since the 2015 migrant crisis in Europe, Compact advertises regularly with front pages and theme books for AfD politicians and their positions. Three days before the regional election in Saxony-Anhalt in 2016, Elsässer hosted a live conference with leading AfD candidate André Poggenburg, giving him space to present the AfD goals. He presented Compact as the voice of the "silent majority" and the AfD as their party. On election night Poggenburg did not answer questions from the public broadcasters, but instead only spoke to Compact. 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).

Distribution[]

According to the company, the magazine can be purchased at 17,000 points of sale throughout Germany and has a monthly circulation of 40,000 copies. The editors distribute their content in several ways: as a monthly print magazine in stores, through special thematic issues, on the website, through daily news broadcasts on YouTube (over 150,000 subscribers), on Telegram (over 61,000 subscribers). ) and on Twitter (over 31,000 subscribers).^[5] The daily YouTube show is presented by right-wing activists such as Katrin Nolte and Jürgen Elsässer.^{[citation needed]}

Impact and reception[]

The media journalist Benjamin Friedrich wrote in 2016: "The journalistic performance of the magazine is low. Elsässer paraphrases or copies articles from the "mainstream press" and at the end adds them the toughest possible opinion." According to Friedrich, Elsässer has copied and rephrased passages from the renowned Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung without citing it.^[6] He wrote that the right-wing scene in Germany could probably give more readers to Compact and Junge Freiheit, but he assumed that right-wing sympathizers mistrust printed newspapers in general and tend to use more online media.

Compact is described as „Querfront-Magazin“ („Querfront“ literally meaning "cross-front", a term whose use in modern times mostly describes attempts at forming an alliance of left- and right-wing groups against globalism and in favour of populism^[7]).^[8][9][10]

According to  [de], an anti-right-wing extremism activist and Social Democratic Party of Germany politician, Compact has an anti-American and anti-imperialistic veneer.^[11] These traditionally left-wing positions are employed by Compact to reach pro-Russian and nationalistic conclusions.

Andre Haller showed in an 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. He identified Compact as one of the main right-wing media outlets in Germany.^[12]

In 2016 the magazine won a negative prize  [de] ("Golden Tin Foil Hat") in the category "media and blogs" for its reception of conspiracy theories.^[13][14]

In August 2020, the magazine's Facebook and Instagram accounts were banned. 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. Therefore, we have removed Compact magazine from Facebook and Instagram."^[15]

In December 2021, the magazine was designated as a proven far-right extremist publication by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. ^[16]

Citations[]

External links[]

• Official website (in German)