‘Post’ reports stop funding for German neo-Nazi party linked to Hezbollah

The Jerusalem Post’s investigative series into bank accounts and online payment services for organizations that support Palestinian and Hezbollah terrorism caused the German neo-Nazi party The Third Way to pull the plug on its online fundraising.

The Third Way party (Der Dritte Weg), which energetically campaigns for a boycott of the Jewish state, announced on its website that “Unfortunately, the repression against national Germans by banks and money transfer service providers is very large. Again and again, loyal clubs, parties and communities even have to seek the legal way to open a bank account. For this reason, we have not published any bank data from us.”

The Post first revealed in January that The Third Way was using the giant online payment service PayPal, prompting the US company to close its account with the left-wing neo-Nazi party. The Third Way declared on its website that its goal is the creation of “German socialism.”

The Third Way claims it has a bank account but did not list the financial institution on its website.

After the closure of the PayPal account, The Third Way switched in January to the French online payment company leetchi.

In January, leetchi confirmed to the Post during a telephone interview that the company “deleted” the account because it was “against the terms and conditions” of the business. When asked specifically what the account violated, the spokesman said France’s law against hatred. The Post sent press queries to leetchi about The Third Way’s account prior to the closure.

In 2017, the Post reported that the website of the Third Way published a report in April on a visit by its members to Lebanon to champion Hezbollah’s war against Israel.

The Third Way secured enough votes in May to enter town council in Plauen, Saxony.

Members of the extremist group can be viewed on their website visiting the Hezbollah propaganda museum, called Where the Land Speaks to the Heavens, in the village of Mleeta in southern Lebanon. Kai Zimmermann, a senior leader of Der Dritte Weg, posed next to a plaque reading, “No, Israel is not invincible.” The neo-Nazi group labeled Israel a “Terror state Israel” on its website.  According to the organization’s website, members of the Third Way met with the extremist Syrian Social Nationalist Party in Lebanon and representatives of the Bashar Assad regime in Syria.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s administration refuses to outlaw the entire Hezbollah operation in Germany, where 1,050 members raise funds and spread antisemitic ideology, according to German intelligence documents.

The Third Way supports the activities of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) targeting Israel.

German intelligence officials in the state of Baden-Württemberg wrote in a 2018 report that propaganda from the Third Way calling to boycott Israeli products “roughly recalls similar measures against German Jews by the National Socialists, for example, on April 1, 1933 (the slogan: ‘Germans! Defend yourselves! Don’t buy from Jews!’”)”

A graphic on the Third Way’s website states: “Boycott products from Israel: 729=Made in Israel.” The number 729 is used in bar codes to identify Israel-based products and companies. The intelligence agency for the state of Rhineland-Palatinate wrote in its 2018 report: “The Third Way’s slogan ‘Boycott Products from Israel’… betrays significant parallels to the anti-Jewish agitation of the National Socialists.”

Two additional German Nazi parties, The Right and the National Democratic Party, support BDS. The Post sent a press query to The Third Way.