The Republicans (Germany)

The Republicans Die Republikaner
Leader	Tilo Schöne
Founded	26 November 1983
Split from	Christian Social Union in Bavaria
Headquarters	Munich, Bavaria
Membership (31 December 2014)	4,533[1]
Ideology	National conservatism[2] Euroscepticism
Political position	Right-wing to far-right
Colours	Black,   Red,   Yellow (official, German Republic colours)   Blue (customary)
Website
www.rep.de
Politics of Germany Political parties Elections

The Republicans (German: Die Republikaner, REP) is a national conservative political party in Germany. The primary plank of the programme is opposition to immigration. The party tends to attract protest voters who think that the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU) are not sufficiently conservative. It was founded in 1983 by former CSU members Franz Handlos and Ekkehard Voigt, and Franz Schönhuber was the party's leader from 1985 to 1994. The party had later been led by Rolf Schlierer, until 2014. The Republicans had seats in the European Parliament between 1989 and 1994, Abgeordnetenhaus of West Berlin in 1989–1990 and in the parliament of the German state of Baden-Württemberg between 1991 and 2001.

The German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution between 1992 and 2006 said that the Republicans were a "party with partially extreme-right tendencies" although the Republican leadership did rebuff an electoral alliance with more openly extreme-right parties such as the National Democratic Party of Germany, losing members to these more successful parties. The Republicans' strongholds tended to be in relatively affluent South Germany rather than the more economically depressed Eastern Germany where the more radical right-wing parties tended to do well.

In the 2013 federal elections, the Republicans received only 0.2 percent of the total national vote.