However, this would not mean that the Basic Law encompassed a general anti‐National
Socialist principle that would allow for the categorical prohibition of right‐wing extremist
or National Socialist opinions.25 On the contrary, the Basic Law relied on the force of
public deliberation and granted freedom of expression also to the enemies of freedom.
Other provisions of the Basic Law reflected the general principle that the constitutional
limits of public political discourse are not exceeded by the dissemination of anti‐
constitutional ideas but only by the active and aggressive attitude against the free and
democratic basic order.26 As a result, Article 5 of the Basic Law would allow the state to
interfere with the freedom of expression only when the expression of an opinion goes
beyond the intellectualsphere and turnsinto a dangerto legally protected interests.