20260731 Berufsverbote 2.0

Reimplementing "Berufsverbote"

Dr. Rolf Gössner, who himself was affected for over 40 years by the first wave of occupational bans in the 1970s, has once again described the policies of that time in the magazine “vorgänge,” a journal on civil rights and social policy, and points to the current new cases in which people’s lives are being destroyed because they are deemed enemies of the constitution without any evidence. We will not go into detail about the policies of that time here; the events can be read about in his report.

Occupational Bans 2.0: A Revival of a Dark Chapter in German History

Although, over the course of 54 years, legal proceedings brought by those affected have led to clear rulings against the practice of occupational bans, various federal states are currently attempting once again to conduct ideological vetting of applicants for public service positions. At that time, there were approximately 3.5 million routine inquiries and ideological vetting procedures conducted by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. These led to about 11,000 professional ban proceedings, over 1,500 specific professional ban measures (refusals to hire and dismissals), and approximately 2,200 disciplinary proceedings.

According to a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, the measures violated the principle of equality and the prohibition against discrimination, as well as the fundamental rights to freedom of occupation, expression, assembly, and association. As early as 1987, the International Labor Organization (ILO) determined that by denying access to public service on political grounds, the Federal Republic of Germany was in violation of Convention No. 111 of 1958 concerning Discrimination in Employment and Occupation. However, these were always rulings in individual cases, meaning that, for example, the surveillance of the author, Dr. Rolf Gössner, by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution dragged on for over 40 years until a final ruling by the highest court.

Here we go again

In several federal states — including Bavaria, Bremen, Hamburg, Hesse, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony, and Saxony-Anhalt—there is once again a form of routine inquiries directed at the “Office for the Protection of the Constitution.”

In Bavaria, in addition to routine inquiries to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution for police officers, prosecutors, and judges, there is a questionnaire on “loyalty to the constitution in the civil service.”

In Brandenburg, the then-ruling CDU/SPD/Greens coalition introduced so-called “constitutional loyalty checks” prior to the hiring of all civil servants, in accordance with the April 2024 Act to Improve the Protection of the Civil Service Against Enemies of the Constitution.

In some states, such as Baden-Württemberg, Brandenburg, and Hamburg, disciplinary law has been tightened to make it easier to remove potential “enemies of the constitution” who are already civil servants.

Currently affected by these measures are members or sympathizers of the VVN, SDAJ, DKP, ...
The linked article lists the individual cases that have come to light. These include a civil servant on probation who was dismissed from civil service for criticizing Israeli policy.

The list also mentions cases from the far-right spectrum. These are concentrated in the police and the Bundeswehr. In these proceedings, we once again see judges who turn a blind eye to the far right and failed to identify any violations of the duty of loyalty to the Constitution in the use of “SH” (for “Sieg Heil”) and “HH” (for “Heil Hitler”) alongside misanthropic messages in chat groups. The court tolerated this as “deliberately playing with the forbidden.”

The fact that, even 80 years after the fall of the Third Reich, this one-sided blindness can still be observed in some judgments serves as an even greater reminder that, when hiring candidates for the civil service, the Basic Law alone must serve as the standard — with its requirement to respect human dignity and human rights, as well as the principles of democracy and the rule of law (popular sovereignty, a multiparty system, the legality of administration, the separation of powers, and independent courts). This does not require unverifiable suspicions raised by a domestic intelligence agency.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)