Non-profit: The right-wing conservative think tank Republik 21 (R21), founded by the former CDU family minister Kristina Schröder and the former head of the CDU basic values commission Andreas Rödder, is unlikely to receive any state funding. This is the conclusion reached by a legal opinion commissioned by the campaign platform Campact. The officially non-profit association R21 is to receive 500,000 euros in funding annually from 2026.
The report from the Frankfurt law firm Winheller, which is available to the taz, argues on 76 pages that R21 could lose its non-profit status under the current legal situation: The association clearly works in a party-political manner. R21 had repeatedly criticized left-wing NGOs that use tax money for political activities – most recently in the wake of the Union’s attacks on civil society associations last year. Meanwhile R21 wants it himself 2 million by 2029 claim. The money for this comes from the budget of the Federal Press Office in the Chancellery.
The report not only expresses “significant constitutional concerns” about this funding, but also doubts the non-profit status of R21, which enables tax-deferred donations. It says that the think tank mixes charitable causes and politics. The aim of R21 is to shape public opinion formation in various policy areas from a bourgeois-conservative perspective. According to the case law of the Federal Finance Court, this contradicts state funding and non-profit status.
As a party-like project, R21 also circumvents the rules of party financing and endangers the parties’ equal opportunities. The combination of tax-deductible donations and state funding gives the conservative camp advantages that the party financing system does not provide for. However, the Federal Constitutional Court is calling for such detour financing to be limited.
State funding for R21 “highly problematic”
The report is based on publications by R21 on the website and podcasts that appear regularly there. These showed a “consistent political-programmatic profile” and influenced the formation of political will in a way that was detrimental to the non-profit organization. The report therefore describes state funding as “highly problematic”.
A podcast following the 2025 federal election is particularly highlighted: There, the interviewees appeared not just as observers, but as political actors who made demands on governments and emphasized their role as representatives of a certain political spectrum. “The consequence leaves the framework of objective democracy promotion in line with non-profit norms and is therefore to be seen as part of the pursuit of political ends,” the report concludes.
The report also criticizes the fact that R21 neither works in a scientifically sound manner nor promotes civic engagement – both central criteria for non-profit status. The think tank’s position papers are not open discussions on a democratic basis, but rather “programmatic statements”, for example against climate policies in favor of emissions trading.
Overall, a “consistent political and programmatic profile” emerges. The aim is “clearly the development, sharpening and promotion of concrete political strategies and political attitudes”. A neutral, pluralistic communication of democratic principles takes a back seat.
Touch
In view of the report, Campact spokeswoman Ann-Kathrin Seidel demands that Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil (SPD) should suspend the funding commitments until legal clarification is made: “The R21 association mainly engages in party-political propaganda to push through ultra-conservative ideas. The association’s chairman, Andreas Rödder, also repeatedly advocates an openness to the AfD. The association’s non-profit status is just a fig leaf and its state funding is an unjustified intervention in that Party competition.” Also because R21 itself has repeatedly denounced the funding of left-wing NGOs, this is not without a certain irony.
For Seidel, the case shows the Union’s double standards: “At the state level and in the municipalities, it ensures that democracy associations lose their financial foundations, even though they clearly work on a non-profit basis. At the federal level, on the other hand, it provides tax money to an association that wants to make cooperation with the AfD socially acceptable and breaks non-profit law.”
Campact itself lost its non-profit status in 2019. Since a 2014 ruling on the political activities of the NGO Attac, many tax offices have interpreted non-profit law restrictively. A request from the taz to the Munich tax office as to whether R21’s non-profit status was being checked remained unanswered. The think tank itself has not yet commented.
R21 as a firewall demolition company
Politically, R21 does a lot to avoid appearing neutral: the CDU think tank embodies radicalized conservatism in NGO form. The former CDU family minister Kristina Schröder recently called for cuts in aid for people with disabilities and railed against the supposed omnipotence of left-wing NGOs. For under-complex theory of extremism she has been known for a long time. And the R21 leader, historian Andreas Rödder, obviously lacks critical historical awareness when he rails against “political correctness” and “wokeness” and at the same time repeatedly promotes the demolition of the firewall to right-wing extremism. This also cost him the leadership of the CDU Basic Values Commission.
Last year, R21 itself railed against state funding for political organizations – in line with CDU MPs who wanted to cut off funding for supposedly left-wing NGOs. Even before the federal election last February, the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag asked 551 defamatory questions against organizations that had called for protests after Friedrich Merz shook the firewall and brought an anti-migrant motion through the Bundestag with the AfD. The Union had no questions about conservative non-governmental organizations such as the farmers’ association.
This initiative attacked the non-profit status and eligibility of many civil society initiatives – wrongly, as it later turned out. It was an authoritarian attack on civil society that was previously more familiar from the extreme right-wing AfD. He was supported by a fact-twisting campaign by Springer-Verlag and the Nius platform. What remained were intimidated charitable initiatives that had done nothing other than demonstrate for democracy – if necessary against the Union if it cooperated with the AfD.
Civil society organizations have long been calling for a reform of non-profit law that makes non-partisan political work for human and fundamental rights easier. But since a ruling against Attac in 2014, this has become much more difficult. Attac lost its non-profit status at the time and has since failed with legal action. The ruling hit numerous initiatives, including Campact, which also lost its nonprofit status in 2019. More than 220 associations and foundations have been fighting for reform ever since – so far without success.