The United States has faced a local coup attempt over the past two years. This week, Germans woke up to headlines that gave them a glimpse of what their American friends felt on January 6, 2021, when Germany saw its largest police-led counterterrorism operation in recent history. Three thousand police officers have searched 130 sites and so far another 25 people have been arrested by security forces on suspicion of attempting to violently overthrow the government.
Some facets of the plot — storming the German parliament and taking members hostage — seem to echo what some rioters had planned for members of Congress on January 6. But although the German terrorist organization was arrested earlier, it can succeed in the footsteps of the Reichstag. construction in the center of Berlin on this occasion, their plans were even more extensive: for at least a year, as they had conspired to identify secure PC structures and communication channels, they carried out firing exercises, plotted the overthrow of the democratically elected government and planned attacks on critical infrastructure such as the force network, to create scenes of civil war. (Coincidentally, the force network in Moore County, North Carolina, had been attacked a few days earlier, leaving about 40,000 people without power. )
That degree of conspiracy would be troubling in itself, to put it mildly. But there is another facet that makes these frustrated right-wing terrorist plots terrifying: it is not a plot devised by the classic neo-Nazis: young, male, unemployed. , on the margins of society. It is a terrorist plot planned through what the German media calls “the bourgeois center” – the middle of society – not its margins. A trial of a former parliamentarian, police officer and military.
Pia Lamberty is a psychologist and executive director of the Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy, a German interdisciplinary nonprofit think tank that combines expertise in conspiracy theories, disinformation, anti-Semitism and right-wing extremism. He explains that many still have misconceptions about what a right-wing extremist looks like or what component of society he belongs to:
“There are a lot of clichés about right-wing extremists. Often, these constitute the reality: right-wing extremists are present in all sectors and spaces of society. Believing that university degrees or a certain social prestige make a user insensitive to radicalization is a fatal and fair misconception. We want to perceive that right-wing extremism is a component of society and emerges from all its components.
The parallels with Jan. 6 are also visual here, where rioters were older and more socially elegant than top-right terrorists to date, according to an Atlantic poll. The men who stormed the Capitol had high-paying jobs, were middle-aged, and a disturbing number were former members of the military and law enforcement.
Much is unknown about the coup in Germany, “especially in regards to the express plans of the teams and the internal dynamics of the group,” says Lamberty.
“However, several participants are not unknown to those monitoring right-wing extremism and have spread myths and conspiracy narratives belonging to the sovereign citizen movement. Some of them have made their vision of the world public on social networks. Often this has not been taken seriously and the danger has been underestimated.
Among them, the terrorist organization had a specific asset: a former parliamentarian and judge on duty, Birgit Malsack-Winkemann. She had been reinstated as a duty judge through the Berlin Administrative Court, after being suspended for her right-wing politics. comments while she is a member of the Berlin parliament for the administration of justice.
Malsack-Winckemann, once a deputy for the right-wing Alternative for Germany, the AfD. The terrorist organization had already doled out vital government posts for itself in anticipation of its success, and Malsack-Winkemann intended to head the new Justice Department. According to media reports, she is an avid sniper, possesses several weapons, and has been described as esoteric by other party members.
As a former MP, she also has intimate knowledge of the parliament’s disposition, which would have been an attempt to bring down the Bundestag. According to Tagesspiegel, Malsack-Winkemann suggested the organization stand firm in its plans to overthrow the government. soon. The Landgericht Berlin – or the Berlin Regional Court – has now suspended it permanently.
In addition to having inside information, the organization has, according to investigators, close ties to the “Reichsbürger” movement, a German edition of the “sovereign citizens’ movement. “Both movements refuse to pay taxes or accept government authority, and have demonstrated a willingness to use violent force, as well as confidence in conspiracy theories. Reichsbürger believed that Germany, instead of being an independent country, was in fact still ruled by the United States; that it is not yet a company (I will not go into the surely unbalanced “reasoning” of this statement).
In short: they sought to overthrow our existing government and identify a new “Reich. “The terrorist organization also sought to renegotiate Germany’s agreement after World War II. The suspects are connected to QAnon-style conspiracy theories, proving once again that they are right. Radical radicalization is a global phenomenon that respects no borders. Two other suspects were arrested in Kitzbühel, Austria, and Perugia, Italy.
The presumed leader of the teams was a guy named Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss (Heinrich XIII Prinz Reuß zu Köstritz in Gerguy) who had dreamed of fitting in the new emperor. He belongs to the old ruling aristocratic circle of relatives from Thuringia, one of Gerguy’s estates, meaning that his “hunting castle” near Bad Lobenstein was excavated along with his other properties. The terrorist organization used to meet at the castle several times, according to data received via MDR Thüringen.
Reuss has been part of the Reichsbürger scene since he held a convention at Switzerland’s “world internet forum” in 2019, in which he claimed that Germany was not a sovereign state but a “commercial structure. “Reuss claimed that foreign powers, namely the “international monetary interest” that includes Rothschild’s circle of relatives, actually started World War I to “end the monarchy,” a narrative that manages to promote several prominent anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
Reuss had already made headlines this year when he attended a summer party with Bad Lobinstein Mayor Thomas Weigelt, who then physically assaulted a journalist seeking to film him and Reuss together. Reuss is also accused of attempting to touch Russian government officials. to his political project.
Nuremberg 2. 0
The German Verfassungsschutz (Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution) estimates in a 2021 report that another 21,000 people belong to the “Reichsbürger” movement, of which it classifies 1,500 as “right-wing extremists. “The report counts another 2,100 people as “willing to potentially engage in violence,” referring to well-known actors on the scene who have engaged in acts of violence in the afterlife or are known for speeches that incite violence.
The number of crimes committed through Reichsbürger has increased over the past two years, reaching 1011 in 2021, adding 184 violent crimes and 500 lately possessing weapons legally. In 2016, a “Reichsbürger” shot and killed a policeman. During a protest against Covid-19 restrictions in 2020, several other people controlled to enter the construction of the Reichstag of the German parliament and charges related to the “Reichsbürger” were arrested.
The terrorist organization appears to have followed QAnon’s prominent ideals about the “deep state. “According to Lamberty, the timing of the attack is no coincidence:
“Especially during the pandemic, we have noticed an increase in the number of sovereign citizens and a merger of their network with QAnon. Conspiracy theories like QAnon bring with them a strong possibility of radicalization: they suggest that the individual is engaging in a struggle opposed to supposedly evil forces. QAnon is highly compatible with the Sovereign Citizen environment. Both ideologies consider the democratic state illegitimate, or believe there is an underlying conspiracy at work. Unfortunately, right-wing extremism is not understood in its fashionable forms. When a conspiracy narrative is at the center of an ideology, other people call it “crazy” instead of taking seriously the risks emanating from those ideologies.
And to the Die Zeit report, one of the suspects posted on a Telegram channel on Wednesday morning (shortly before the raid):
“Everything is going to be turned upside down: existing prosecutors and judges, as well as fitness chiefs and their superiors will be placed in the dock at Nuremberg 2. 0. “
This, of course, alludes to mass executions, in reference to the Nuremberg trials, which led to the conviction and execution of prominent Nazi war criminals. and threaten its perceived enemies: doctors, politicians, public health officials, hospital staff, and journalists.
Many, besides a former soldier arrested in Thursday morning’s raids, have brazenly called for months for “Nuremberg 2. 0. “But since there were no consequences, they felt safe enough to publicly spread their violent judicial fantasies.
The CeMAS think tank notes a massive increase in the use of “Nuremberg 2. 0” on Telegram channels monitored since 2019, reaching a peak in April 2021 with 1280 messages containing mentions of “courts” or “Nuremberg”, which are strongly connected to the Sovereign Movement.
A CeMAS publication analyzes in it the connection of “Nuremberg 2. 0” to one of the central sites of sovereign citizens:
“Since 2012, the online page staatenlos. info mentioned ‘Nuremberg 2. 0’ as a mandatory step ‘to liberate Germany and Europe from fascism and Nazism through the creation of SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force) and SMAD (Sowjetische Militäradministration in Deutschland) courts. law with the application of foreign law for all Nazis and war criminals through the Allied High Commission. “By fascism and Nazism, staatenlos. info refers to the Federal Republic of Germany. According to them, Germany is a “fascist colony”, which will have to be de-Nazified through Russia on the basis of National Socialist laws, in order to be able to answer the “German question” and re-establish a “German fatherland”. The “German question” indicates the territorial unity of Germans in the form of a state and is a central issue in the midst of sovereign citizens, especially among the “Reichsbürgern”.
Because the “Reichsbürger” do not conform to the charter or legislation of the Federal Republic of Germany, they are gently driven to the margins because their ideology provides them with the scheme of authorizing the use of violence. For them, the existing government is illegitimate, an occupying force, so to speak. Violence is justified in its withdrawal, which is presented as self-defense or the liberation of the German people. Like QAnon adherents in the United States, some Reichsbürger have been tempted for murder and attempted murder.
During the pandemic, the Reichsbürger media attracted more people than ever before, with its virulent opposition to government public health protection measures to prevent the spread of the pandemic. The pipeline between anti-vaxxers, esotericists and right-wing extremism can be very brief, as has been demonstrated in recent years.
Inadequate denazification
You may still be wondering how this could have happened too. These events may seem strange from a foreign perspective, which could make Germany’s attempts to accept the horrific history and its role in the Holocaust impressive.
Too often, however, this afterlife story has remained somewhat superficial. Some anti-Covid protesters, for example, wore the Star of David, claiming that anti-vaxxers are just as persecuted as Jews under the Nazi regime: a transparent relativization of the Holocaust. Many of the conspiracy theories surrounding the vaccine have an anti-Semitic core, as does the German word “school medicine,” which was used by the Nazis to debunk what they called “Jewish,” or evidence-based, medicine.
Evidence-based medicine was unpopular with those who favored a false “race science,” hence their eagerness to explore “alternative” medicine, such as homeopathy (which has no effect apart from the placebo effect), which is still very popular in Germany today. Homeopathy, experts warn, can be a vehicle for anti-vaccine sentiments and a gateway to the far right. And yet, to date, it is subsidized through the German fitness system, with 6. 7 million euros in 2020 alone, says the Minister of Health. reading if this deserves to be the case in the future. In parts of German society, pre-existing esoteric ideals provide fertile ground for far-right recruitment, especially in difficult times like a pandemic.
Although the “denazification” of German settlements decreed through the Allies, proved insufficiently extensive. This was basically due to practical reasons: his anti-fascist impulse had to be balanced with his simultaneous attempt to save him from the collapse of the administrative state, so as not to further destabilize an already volatile political scenario after the war.
As a result, many former Nazis who were not in the high command or were very public figures were given away with a tug of ears, or were required to return to the workplace after a while, leading to a continued right-wing ideology. in many German public institutions, especially in and around law enforcement. German law enforcement agencies have long had a challenge with reactionary elements whose movements tend to be presented through conservative and even centrist German politicians as “isolated incidents,” or so-called. called “Einzelfälle”.
In the past three years, security agencies have counted 327 cases of far-right incidents within the German police, army and the Verfassungsschutz (Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution), a figure three times higher than in the government report beyond. The most recent report also highlights links with the Reichsbürger entourage. Experts point to the increased amount of awareness and attempts through agencies to reduce the number of unreported cases.
Merkel’s conservative interior minister, Horst Seehofer, had refused to conduct a study on right-wing sentiments in the police and military, despite warnings from sociologists that he would commission one. For years, Seehofer falsely claimed that there was no “structural problem” involving right-wing elements within law enforcement, although the “isolated cases” continued to multiply.
The head of the Bundeswehr’s Militärischer Abschirmdienst (Military Counterintelligence Service, MAD) warned in 2020 that the army had been infiltrated through right-wing elements, and named six hundred ongoing cases in which suspicions of right-wing sentiments were being investigated. Army special operations unit in particular, the “Kommando Spezialkräfte” (KSK) had been investigated; 20 infantrymen were under investigation recently, while the total number of suspected cases within the KSK is 50.
Whether it’s Nazi symbols on police headquarters, far-right messages in secret newsgroups, swastikas or images of Hitler, politicians have continually claimed that German law enforcement and the military have no structural disorders with far-right elements. For years, journalist and researcher Dirk Laabs has warned of imaginable long-term terrorist attacks through highly trained soldiers. Two years ago, he told Deutschlandfunk:
At that time, the MAD, whose goal is to make sure that no extremist joins the ranks of the Bundeswehr, said: Special operations attract right-wing extremists, because they sit there, have a design, and can live out their convictions that they are bigger than others. It makes sense to carefully check that you’re not hiring the wrong people for this.
But there is another challenge when we are a unit like the KSK: we ask the other people who compose it to do excessive things (. . . ) The officers have told me, ‘You can’t be surprised that there are other volatile people among them. , that’s what we want: other people to do what people in general wouldn’t do. Meaning: constantly risking one’s life in excessive cases abroad. This means that, for years, no one has paid much attention to the variety of applicants for the unit.
According to investigators, the conspirators were willing to use violence to achieve their goals, adding murder. His organization turned out to have split into a “Rat” (Council) that was guilty of the organization and a “wing of the army” that violently sought to overthrow the government. The army wing appears to have been directed through a former colonel who once belonged to Fallschirmjägerbataillon 251 in Calw, which went from being an elite paratrooper organization to the “KSK” special forces unit in 1996.
According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, he was suspended from the Bundeswehr after violating gun laws. Another existing member of KSK’s logistics unit arrested through the special police unit, the GSG9 anti-terrorist unit, which also searched KSK’s premises.
Both strike a blow
Public debate in Germany over the past two weeks has been governed by conservative, right-wing and centrist politicians to stoke concern among enthusiastic but nonviolent climate activists who belong to the “Last Generation” organization. Conservatives warned of what they called an “emerging” RAF weather, referring to the “Rote Armee Fraktion” (often referred to as the “Baader-Meinhof Gang”), a left-wing terrorist organization blamed for asset destruction and several deaths in the 1970s.
As teenagers clung to the streets in a desperate cry for climate justice, right-wing terrorists plotted to overthrow the German government and execute its enemies. and recruiting members into the ranks of the police and army.
It is unlikely, however, that conservative forces will see an explanation for why when it comes to their lack of awareness about transparency and the danger of the far right. A few hours after the national arrests, after the largest anti-terrorist operation in the country’s history, he published an editorial that took only two sentences to reach bilaterality, stating that there is “brutality and conspiratorial thinking (. . . ) not just on the right. “
Germany has a challenge with right-wing extremism, and it is imperative that law enforcement and politicians, despite everything, take it seriously. Because it was just a wake-up call. For now, bloodshed has been avoided. As for the skilled class: if an attempt to overthrow the government is not enough to make them reconsider their positions, nothing ever will be, whether in the United States or Germany.
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