Since 2008 the Kai Homilius Verlag puplished a book-serie called "Compact", edited by Elsässer. Since 2009 there had been also published DVDs in Co-operation with Schild Verlag. In December 2010 number 0 of the magazine got puplished Magazins. Since August 2011 it was published in the "Compact-Magazin GmbH" in Werder. This company is founded by Jürgen Elsässer, Kai Homilius and the German antisemit Andreas Abu Bakr Rieger. All of them are holding one-third of the company. The magazine's domain was temporarily seized by a German court in January 2018 after compact had not paid for litigation costs. The journalist Richard Gutjahr had obtained a preliminary injunction against the vile suspicions about him that had been spread via Compact. The Compact magazine suggested that the journalist had known about terrorist attacks in advance. Since mid-2013, the Compact Magazine has advertised under the motto "Courage to the Truth," which also uses the "Alternative for Germany" as its motto. Elsässer distributed the magazine initially on AfD party days. In spring of 2015, he decided to make the magazine an election campaign for the AfD. Especially since the refugee crisis in Europe in 2015 Compact advertises regularly with front pages and theme books for AfD politicians and their positions. Three days before the state election in Saxony-Anhalt in 2016, Elsässer hosted a live conference with leading AfD candidate André Poggenburg, giving him space to present the AfD goals. He presented Compact as the voice of the "silent majority" and the AfD as their party. On election night Poggenburg was not at the press statement of the main public broadcasters, but only answers Compact magazine. Thus positioned Elsässers Compact as the mouthpiece of the AfD and Pegida supporters who flat-reject the mainstream media and call it a "lying press". Beside the monthly magazine, Elsässer and Homilius have enlarged their business activities: they run an online shop for compact-Poster, Sticker, Books and DVD. Also, they organizing so-called "compact conferences" and supply a YouTube channel with interviews. The interview partner is often based in conspiracy and far-right circles.
Together with German "Foundation for Conservative Education and Research", Junge Freiheit awards the Gerhard Löwenthal Prize, a biannual prize for conservative journalists.
Impact and reception
The media journalist Benjamin Friedrich wrote in 2016: "The journalistic performance of the magazine is low. Elsässer paraphrases or copies articles from the "mainstream press" and at the end adds them the toughest possible opinion." Friedrich wrote, that Elsässer for example takes over entire passages from the renowned Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and wote them in a new way, without giving citations and sources. He wrote, that the right-wing scene in Germany could probably give more Readers to Compact and Junge Freiheit, but he assumed, that right-wing sympathizers mistrust the medium of the printed newspaper as a whole and instead use more online media. Compact is described as „Querfront-Magazin“. According to Mathias Brodkorb Compact has an Anti-US and Anti-imperialistic habitus. This traditional left opinions, are used by compact to finde pro-Russian and nationalistic conglusions. Andre Haller showed in an study from 2018, based on empiric observations undertaken in the U.S. and Germany, that populist politicians and right-wing alternative media are drawing ever closer to each other and that mutual dependencies are arising. He pointed out compact as one of the main right-wing media outlets in Germany. In 2016 the magazine "won" the negative-price Goldener Aluhut in the category „media and webblogs“ for its reception of conspiracy theories.
