The Law and Order Offensive Party (German: Partei Rechtsstaatlicher Offensive), short form Offensive D (the "D" means "Deutschland"/"Germany") was a minor political party in Germany. It was founded in July 2000 by Hamburg judge Ronald Schill. It wished to call itself PRO but was forbidden from doing so after a judicial complaint by the Pro Deutsche Mitte party. Because of this the official short form was "Schill" and the party called itself Schill-Partei (Schill Party) 2000-2003, after its founder. The policies of the party were right populist.
In the 2001 elections to the Hamburg state parliament it came third and received 19.4% of votes/25 members. It went into coalition with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Free Democratic Party (FDP) which broke down in August 2003 after CDU mayor Ole von Beust accused Schill of extortion.
In December 2003 the party decided to expel Schill. In the 2004 Hamburg elections the party under the new leader Mario Mettbach only reached 0.4% and did not qualify for seats. After the election Mettbach and most of the other members left the party, some of them joining the CDU. The members who hadn't left elected a new leader and changed their name to Offensive D. Under that name, they came in last at the 2005 German federal election, polling 3,338 out of over 47 million votes.
The party dissolved due to poor election results and financial problems in September 2007, having lost several leading figures and entire state groups to other right-wing parties such as the Centre Party.
Famous quotes containing the words law and, law, order, offensive and/or party:
“They are the lovers of law and order who observe the law when the government breaks it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The law is only one of several imperfect and more or less external ways of defending what is better in life against what is worse. By itself, the law can never create anything better.... Establishing respect for the law does not automatically ensure a better life for that, after all, is a job for people and not for laws and institutions.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“While I am in favor of the Government promptly enforcing the laws for the present, defending the forts and collecting the revenue, I am not in favor of a war policy with a view to the conquest of any of the slave States; except such as are needed to give us a good boundary. If Maryland attempts to go off, suppress her in order to save the Potomac and the District of Columbia. Cut a piece off of western Virginia and keep Missouri and all the Territories.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Hats divide generally into three classes: offensive hats, defensive hats, and shrapnel.”
—Katharine Whitehorn (b. 1926)
“Whether a party can have much success without a woman present I must ask others to decide, but one thing is certain, no party is any fun unless seasoned with folly.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)