German Churches Criticized for Allying with DITIB and IGMG

Church­es in the Ger­man state of Schleswig-Hol­stein are ally­ing with Islamist orga­ni­za­tions to advance an amend­ment includ­ing reli­gion in the state con­sti­tu­tion. On 20 Octo­ber 2025, Konfessionsfrei.de report­ed that the Cen­tral Coun­cil of the Non-Reli­gious strong­ly opposed the inclu­sion of a “God” ref­er­ence in the Schleswig-Hol­stein state con­sti­tu­tion, warn­ing that Chris­t­ian church­es were form­ing alliances with prob­lem­at­ic Islamist asso­ci­a­tions to achieve this goal. The arti­cle begins:

The Cen­tral Coun­cil of the Non-Reli­gious is staunch­ly opposed to the inclu­sion of a “God” ref­er­ence in the Schleswig-Hol­stein state con­sti­tu­tion. “This step would be impos­si­ble to explain to the large­ly sec­u­lar pop­u­la­tion,” says Philipp Möller, Chair­man of the Cen­tral Coun­cil of the Non-Reli­gious. In Schleswig-Hol­stein, 57% of the pop­u­la­tion do not belong to any church. “A new­ly added God ref­er­ence in the state con­sti­tu­tion would dis­re­spect both the absolute majori­ties for sec­u­lar pol­i­tics and the con­sti­tu­tion­al prin­ci­ple of the state’s sec­u­lar neu­tral­i­ty.” The church­es had already unsuc­cess­ful­ly tried in 2014 and 2016 to include a God ref­er­ence in the state con­sti­tu­tion. For this third attempt, they have cho­sen a broad­er con­stel­la­tion and are rely­ing on an “inter­faith alliance,” which includes prob­lem­at­ic Islam­ic asso­ci­a­tions. Among these are the Erdo­gan-linked asso­ci­a­tion Ditib and Schu­ra Schleswig-Hol­stein. Schu­ra includes mem­ber com­mu­ni­ties of the Islam­ic Com­mu­ni­ty Mil­lî Görüş (IGMG)—the “largest Islamist orga­ni­za­tion in Ger­many.” In Sep­tem­ber, the Fed­er­al Min­istry of the Inte­ri­or had giv­en Ditib an ulti­ma­tum to clear­ly dis­tance itself from anti­se­mit­ic and Islamist posi­tions, as well as from the polit­i­cal influ­ence of the Turk­ish reli­gious author­i­ty Diyanet; the future coop­er­a­tion between the state and Ditib depends on this. [Trans­lat­ed from Eng­lish using Perplexity.]

Read more: https://konfessionsfrei.de/gottesbezug-in-schleswig-holstein-kirchen-gehen-pakt-mit-politischem-islam-ein/

Key Points

• Chris­t­ian church­es are form­ing an inter­faith alliance with Islam­ic orga­ni­za­tions includ­ing Ditib and Schu­ra Schleswig-Hol­stein to push for a “God” reference.
• Schu­ra includes mem­ber com­mu­ni­ties of Islamis­che Gemein­schaft Mil­lî Görüş, described as Ger­many’s largest Islamist orga­ni­za­tion by Ger­man authorities.
• The Fed­er­al Min­istry of the Inte­ri­or issued an ulti­ma­tum to Ditib in Sep­tem­ber demand­ing it dis­tance itself from anti­semitism and Islamism.
• The Ger­man Cen­tral Coun­cil of the Non-Reli­gious warns this alliance would advance Islamism and under­mine con­sti­tu­tion­al sec­u­lar neu­tral­i­ty principles.

The Influence of Islamic Community Millî Görüş (IGMG) on Islam in Germany

Two Turk­ish-ori­gin Islam­ic orga­ni­za­tions shape Mus­lim reli­gious life in Ger­many through exten­sive infra­struc­ture and direct state ties to Ankara. The Turk­ish-Islam­ic Union for Reli­gious Affairs (DITIB) man­ages over 900 mosques across Ger­many, while the Islamis­che Gemein­schaft Mil­lî Görüş (IGMG) oper­ates as the Ger­man branch of a move­ment whose stat­ed aim is to trans­form Turkey into an Islam­ic state through edu­ca­tion and preach­ing. Ger­many’s Fed­er­al Office for the Pro­tec­tion of the Con­sti­tu­tion clas­si­fies IGMG as an Islamist orga­ni­za­tion that pro­motes the cre­ation and expan­sion of Islamist milieus.

DITIB func­tions as an arm of Turkey’s Direc­torate of Reli­gious Affairs (Diyanet), with imams whose salaries are paid by the Diyanet or Turk­ish con­sulates. Accord­ing to Ger­man broad­cast­er NDR, DITIB con­gre­ga­tions have trans­ferred dona­tions from wor­ship­pers to Turk­ish con­sulate accounts, with threats made to with­draw imams from com­mu­ni­ties that failed to con­tribute suf­fi­cient funds. Research from Ger­many’s Göt­tin­gen Insti­tute for Democ­ra­cy found board mem­bers at mul­ti­ple DITIB mosques post­ing anti­se­mit­ic and anti-con­sti­tu­tion­al con­tent. One Stuttgart DITIB imam pub­licly praised Hamas founder Ahmad Yasin as a “fight­er for the Pales­tin­ian cause.”

IGMG pur­sues what Ger­man intel­li­gence describes as steady infra­struc­ture expan­sion focused on com­pre­hen­sive reli­gious edu­ca­tion span­ning preschool through adult pro­grams as a “mul­ti-gen­er­a­tional project.” The orga­ni­za­tion over­sees chap­ters in at least 12 Euro­pean coun­tries with over 127,000 mem­bers world­wide. IGMG’s reach extends beyond mosques—in 2022, the Ham­burg City Sen­ate allowed IGMG increased input regard­ing youth wel­fare poli­cies. In 2023, IGMG Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Ali Mete acknowl­edged that IGMG employs 40 imams sent by Turkey’s Diyanet, though he declined to state whether Hamas is a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion. IGMG head Kemal Ergün accept­ed an invi­ta­tion to meet Pres­i­dent Erdoğan in Novem­ber 2022.

Both orga­ni­za­tions main­tain finan­cial and ide­o­log­i­cal ties to Turk­ish Islamist move­ments. Between 2004 and 2009, IGMG offi­cers fun­neled at least €9.5 mil­lion to Turkey’s Islamist Felic­i­ty Par­ty. The Ger­man gov­ern­ment has not­ed that Erdoğan’s AKP par­ty inten­si­fied rela­tions with Mil­lî Görüş fol­low­ing Turkey’s 2016 coup attempt. Ger­many’s inte­ri­or min­istry for­mal­ly demand­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2025 that DITIB dis­tance itself from extrem­ist rhetoric. A com­pre­hen­sive 380-page inte­ri­or min­istry report from 2023 high­light­ed over­lap­ping net­works between DITIB, IGMG, and oth­er Turk­ish nation­al­ist orga­ni­za­tions, illus­trat­ing coor­di­nat­ed dias­po­ra influ­ence oper­a­tions direct­ed from Ankara.

Exter­nal References:
— Ger­many pres­sures Turk­ish gov­ern­ment-fund­ed mosques to break with rad­i­cal mes­sag­ing — Nordic Monitor
— Erdo­gan’s Long Arm in Europe — For­eign Policy
— The Mil­li Görüs of Ger­many — Hud­son Institute

Dis­claimer:

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) uti­lizes AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing the gen­er­a­tion of sum­maries for news items, intro­duc­tions, key points, and, often, the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, all images are gen­er­at­ed using AI and are intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.