THERE was plenty of good news about the Morning Star’s German sister paper Junge Welt at the Rosa Luxemburg Conference — but ominous warning signs of new levels of censorship and repression as well.

The newspaper’s business manager Dietmar Koschmieder said the 2023 conference, which the paper has staged since 1996, was its largest yet with over 3,000 attending in person and over 20,000 tuning in to watch sessions online.

Junge Welt is also increasing its circulation across Germany and even in German-speaking Switzerland and Austria, though distribution problems mean it is often only available a day late in those countries — a problem familiar to the Morning Star, which for years had difficulty ensuring same-day delivery in Scotland.

Koschmieder was blunt about the problems too. Some are the same faced by us at the Morning Star — the exploding cost of producing a paper at a time of rampant inflation, for example.

But others show the German state is intervening directly against the paper in a bid to suppress it. 

The British state is no fan of the Morning Star of course, and discriminates against us in various ways, whether that was the BBC’s effective boycott of our front pages when reviewing the next day’s newspapers, or our being the only national daily excluded from public health advertising during the pandemic — which brought in tens of thousands in revenue for other titles, including hundreds of small and local publications.

But our comrades at Junge Welt face much worse than we have — yet.

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has accused it of being an anti-constitutional publication in reports on the protection of the constitution. 

The reasoning given has serious implications for freedom of speech — one example in a briefing requested by Die Linke in the Bundestag was that Junge Welt’s recognition of the existence of antagonistic classes in society undermines Germany’s constitutional protection of “human dignity” (an analogous distortion of the concept of universal human rights was visible in arguments that class should become a “protected characteristic” in Britain last year, though the idea that discrimination based on class background, rather than the existence of classes in the first place, is the problem makes a mockery of any serious analysis of capitalism).

Other justifications for keeping Junge Welt under surveillance are trivial enough to be blatant excuses — continuing to refer to Nicolas Maduro as Venezuelan president after Germany recognised the US-backed pretender Juan Guaido was one.

Koschmieder says authorities have put pressure on radio stations not to carry adverts or refer to Junge Welt, and its publisher has been urged to stop printing it.

One regional environmentalist magazine was turned down for publication last year simply for carrying an advert for the socialist daily.

Many German universities block access to its website from their computers, and it is barred from advertising on public transport.

Why the pressure?

“This country is in a war already and the state and judiciary are becoming even more repressive.”

Junge Welt is now suing the German state to challenge its “anti-constitutional” status, a legal battle that is consuming six-digit figures — so the need to raise sales and donations is greater than ever.

The theme of the conference — stopping World War III — highlights Junge Welt’s role as the only anti-war daily in Germany.

“Junge Welt has never been more important than in the last 11 months,” the conference heard.

The same threats of censorship in the cause of a bogus national unity have already emerged in Britain — though targeting foreign-owned publications so far.

We at the Morning Star must be alive to that danger.