German NGO Sparks Outrage over Antisemitism; Main Project Partner has Extensive GMB Ties

Reports of pub­lic fund­ing for a con­tro­ver­sial Ger­man NGO, whose leader has been accused of anti­semitism, have inten­si­fied pub­lic crit­i­cism of gov­ern­ment over­sight, rais­ing ques­tions about the use of pub­lic resources for unvet­ted orga­ni­za­tions. On 29 July 2025, Apol­lo News report­ed that, since 2018, Ger­man state author­i­ties had chan­neled €4.6 mil­lion in tax­pay­er mon­ey to Mus­lim advo­ca­cy group Teil­seiend, whose founder has repeat­ed­ly made anti­se­mit­ic remarks in pub­lic state­ments and media inter­views. The arti­cle begins:

Ger­man state author­i­ties have chan­neled €4.6 mil­lion in tax­pay­er mon­ey since 2018 to a non­prof­it asso­ci­a­tion whose founder has repeat­ed­ly made anti­se­mit­ic remarks in pub­lic state­ments and media inter­views. The group, which remains unnamed in offi­cial doc­u­ments reviewed by Apol­lo News, has received the funds through mul­ti­ple state con­tracts, pri­mar­i­ly for cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al ini­tia­tives. Crit­ics, includ­ing oppo­si­tion par­lia­men­tar­i­ans and Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions, argue that the government’s finan­cial sup­port under­mines its stat­ed com­mit­ment to com­bat­ing anti­semitism and pro­tect­ing minor­i­ty rights. The founder’s remarks, which date back sev­er­al years and include com­par­isons of Israeli poli­cies to Nazi actions, have nev­er prompt­ed a sus­pen­sion or review of the organization’s state fund­ing. Gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives have cit­ed strict bureau­crat­ic cri­te­ria for fund­ing allo­ca­tions, claim­ing that the association’s projects meet all legal and pro­ce­dur­al require­ments. Mean­while, trans­paren­cy advo­cates and some law­mak­ers have demand­ed an imme­di­ate audit and par­lia­men­tary inquiry to clar­i­fy the back­ground of the fund­ing deci­sions. [Trans­lat­ed from Ger­man original.]

Read more: https://apollo-news.net/fast-46-millionen-euro-steuergeld-fr-verein-dessen-grnder-sich-antisemitisch-uerte/

Key Points

• Ger­man state author­i­ties have grant­ed €4.6 mil­lion in tax­pay­er mon­ey since 2018 to Teil­seiend, a non­prof­it whose founder, Isa Panz, has pub­licly made anti­se­mit­ic state­ments, includ­ing call­ing Jew­ish Zion­ists a “dis­ease” and ask­ing whether Ger­many would devolve into a “Juden­staat.”

• The fund­ing has con­tin­ued despite doc­u­ment­ed crit­i­cism from oppo­si­tion par­ties, Jew­ish groups, and trans­paren­cy advo­cates, who argue it con­tra­venes offi­cial com­mit­ments against antisemitism.

• The largest item was a project that was part of the Ger­man Fed­er­al Pro­gram ‘Liv­ing Democ­ra­cy!’ on Islam­o­pho­bia and Anti-Mus­lim Hate, with total fund­ing amount­ing to more than €2.7m.

• Gov­ern­ment offi­cials main­tain that the association’s projects meet legal fund­ing cri­te­ria, but crit­ics demand a par­lia­men­tary inquiry and audit into the allo­ca­tion process.

CLAIM Islamophobia Watchdog: Controversial Advocacy and GMB Ties

Until late 2024, Teil­seiend oper­at­ed CLAIM — Alliance Against Islam­o­pho­bia and Anti-Mus­lim Hate, an umbrel­la net­work of over 50 civ­il soci­ety and Mus­lim advo­ca­cy groups in Ger­many work­ing against “Islam­o­pho­bic, anti-Mus­lim and racist ten­den­cies.” Sev­er­al part­ner orga­ni­za­tions in the CLAIM net­work have close ties to the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB) and Islamis­che Gemein­schaft Mil­li Görüs in Ger­many, includ­ing JUMA, Fair Inter­na­tion­al, and the Mus­lim­is­che Jugend in Deutsch­land. Since its found­ing, CLAIM has exten­sive­ly lob­bied for polit­i­cal influ­ence in supra­na­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive bod­ies, reg­u­lar­ly meet­ing with high-lev­el EU offi­cials and nation­al gov­ern­ment lead­ers. In Sep­tem­ber 2020, the Ger­man Inte­ri­or Min­istry answered CLAIM calls to intro­duce an inde­pen­dent expert group on anti-Mus­lim hatred that fea­tured two CLAIM expert com­mit­tee mem­bers. CLAIM lob­bies for bind­ing fed­er­al mea­sures, improved data col­lec­tion, and struc­tur­al reforms to address what it says is anti-Mus­lim dis­crim­i­na­tion. CLAIM rep­re­sen­ta­tives have laud­ed the 2023 Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion­al Court rul­ing over­turn­ing Berlin’s head­scarf ban for teach­ers, a deci­sion that res­onat­ed across Ger­man pub­lic sec­tor employ­ment pol­i­cy. Despite CLAIM’s empha­sis on grass­roots empow­er­ment and vic­tim sup­port, the coalition’s access to sub­stan­tial pub­lic fund­ing has drawn crit­i­cism, with crit­ics argu­ing that the pres­ence of GMB-linked groups com­pli­cates pub­lic account­abil­i­ty and endan­gers the cred­i­bil­i­ty of Germany’s anti-dis­crim­i­na­tion sec­tor, even as CLAIM itself rejects such cat­e­go­riza­tion and focus­es on pol­i­cy out­comes and com­mu­ni­ty engagement.

CLAIM has dis­tanced itself from Teil­seiend, say­ing they had not been aware of the state­ments made by its founder.

Exter­nal References:

• Berlin beruft Islamis­ten in Kom­mis­sion gegen antimus­lim­is­chen Rassismus
• „Islamistis­che Kräfte haben in öffentlichen Ämtern nichts verloren“
• NGO-Hass gegen Israel mit deutschem Steuergeld?
• CLAIM Allianz Network
• Islamis­ch­er Lobbyismus
• NBS: Zurück in die Zukun­ft II
• Klarstel­lung zur Bericht­er­stattung zu CLAIM vom 21., 22. und 23. Juni 2025
• Anti­semiten und das Umfeld von Islamis­ten bekom­men Staats­geld von „Demokratie leben“

Dis­claimer:

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