GLS Bank’s decision follows a pattern of similar steps taken against left- and right-wing political groups in Germany in recent years
Local communists have asserted that there is a “campaign of increasing repression” targeting dissenting voices in Germany, after a bank notified the party that its accounts would soon be closed.
Earlier this month, GLS Bank informed the German Communist Party (DKP) that all of its accounts would be closed as of December 31.
Per the DKP, GLS Bank offered no explanation for its decision but had previously requested details about the party’s fundraising campaign for Cuba.
In a comment to the press, a GLS Bank spokesperson stated that the party’s accounts had been terminated due to “legal and regulatory requirements that we, as a bank, are obligated to comply with.”
The Communist Party has criticized the move as “clearly politically motivated.”
Klaus Leger, head of the DKP’s finance committee, told the NachDenkSeiten media outlet that bank representatives had implied during a phone conversation with him that “there had been external pressure, and that the closures were not based on a sovereign internal decision by GLS Bank.”
In early November, the same financial institution closed the business account of freelance journalist Aya Velazquez. Earlier this month, another freelance journalist, Flavio von Witzleben, disclosed that Sparkasse Karlsruhe had similarly terminated his account.
Last March, Berliner Sparkasse froze the account of a Jewish anti-Zionist group called the ‘Jewish Voice for Just Peace in the Middle East.’
In November, Verbund Volksbank OWL and Volksbank in Ostwestfalen—both member-owned cooperative banks rather than ones with external shareholders—terminated the accounts of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) chapter in North Rhine-Westphalia. The right-wing party condemned the decision as “politically motivated.”
Last July, Berliner Volksbank also closed AfD’s donations account.