Anti-Antifa

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As anti-Antifa denote German language extreme right , new rights , right populists to some law Conservative targeted, campaign-like control political opposition, they the Antifa or the Antifaschismus assign. It is about researching and publishing private data for the purpose of intimidation and threat. These activities are embedded in ideological advances that strive for discourse sovereignty in public space for right-wing political goals.

In Germany , the first so-called anti-antifa campaign was initiated in 1992 by the neo-Nazi Christian Worch and his colleagues. According to Anton Maegerle and Martin Dietzsch ( Duisburg Institute for Language and Social Research - DISS), anti-anti-fascist campaigns include not only specific acts of violence by neo-Nazis, but also journalistic and scientific activities by intellectual rights.

Emergence

The term "anti-anti-fascism" was first used and coined by an article in the right-wing extremist theory organ Nation Europa from August 1972. Under the title Plea for anti-anti-fascism, a Hans Georg von Schirp denounced anti- fascism as an "ingenious trick to incapacitate humanity" and claimed:

“By the whip-wielding anti-fascists, the slave drivers of modern times, we are driven into the dead end, if not even into the Hameler Berg, with Hü and Hott. The political sector “center to right” can only regain the weight it deserves if it breaks free ideologically and defends itself with the necessary means. In addition to immunity against the ban on fascism, this includes a clear and aggressive vocabulary. "

The NPD functionary Hans-Michael Fiedler, also an author in “Nation Europa”, published the magazine Nachrichten des Studentenbundes Schlesien (later SBS-Nachrichten ) as managing director of the “Studentenbundes Schlesien” from 1985 . Right from the start, it ran an Anti-Antifa section . For years, Fiedler carried out systematic research and regularly published names, addresses, private information and photos in this section, mainly of journalists whom he believed to be anti-fascists, in order to expose and expose their activities.

From 1992 right-wing extremists in the USA , Great Britain , Germany and Austria made the fight against anti-fascists a major focus of action. In February 1992 Louis Beam published his influential article Leaderless Resistance on the Internet and introduced it to a wide range of right-wing groups in the United States in October. His concept coined, among others, the British group Combat 18 (the number code 18 stands for AH: " Combat Troop Adolf Hitler "). It was founded in the spring of 1992 to guard the British National Party and took targeted action against anti-fascists. Her paper " Redwatch " published addresses and telephone numbers of political opponents as well as barely disguised calls for violence, which were followed by a series of attacks and intimidation attempts , based on the model of the anti-Semitic hatred Jew Watch from Texas .

Horst Rosenkranz , speaker at the right-wing extremist Rudolf Hess memorial march , brought the Redwatch method to Austria in the summer of 1992. In his magazine “Facts” he listed left-wing initiatives, their mailboxes and imprints and called for information to be sent to him. The magazine "Die Aula" reprinted his article and added to it. The right-wing extremist "List of Critical Students" called on its readers to collect addresses and information about "anti-nationalists and interbreeding racists" themselves. In March 1993 the “Action Group for Democratic Politics” followed with an appeal in their “Commentaries on Current Affairs”: “Send us addresses of bigwigs, parasites and ideological terrorists, who should see that there is resistance!” Such calls for “resistance” against anti-fascists followed in several European states.

In 1992, German neo-Nazis also adopted the campaign and its methodology. The magazine "Nation Europa" called for the "unmasking" of "domestic enemies". The “National List” (NL) around the Hamburg neo-Nazi Christian Worch published a special issue “Anti-Antifa” in its magazine “Index” and in 1993 the brochure “The Insight”. This unmistakably described the aims, groups to be attacked and methods of the “anti-antifa” work and listed “ enemies of the people ” with names and sometimes addresses. The initiators wanted to redirect the “popular anger” against asylum seekers and foreigners, which had manifested itself in the riots in Rostock-Lichtenhagen in August 1992 , to the “Inländerfeind” (left-wing opponents) and thus made all variants of the right-wing scene an offer of identification. In addition to “fighting the enemy”, they also wanted to unite their own fragmented “national camp” by invoking a position of self-defense against government bans on organization and portraying militant anti-fascists as “stirrup holders of the FRG justice”.

The anti-antifa campaign arose in the direct context of a massive public presence of right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic of Germany from 1990 to 1993. This was evident in everyday street violence, numerous pogroms against refugees and foreigners, the growth of a skinhead scene in East Germany and increasing marches and other neo-Nazi activities. The campaign continued its traditional anti-communism , the relevance of which fell sharply after the end of the GDR , and carried it over to all critics who saw them as “communists” (“Reds”) regardless of their actual attitude and thus their “confrontational power” against them legitimized. After the collapse of the Eastern Bloc , right-wing extremists shifted their traditional external enemy image of communism to parts of society where they saw it continue to live, and increasingly looked for groups in their own country that were “related” to communism. So they made anti-fascism, which actually describes the founding consensus of the Federal Republic, the new enemy image.

aims

The aim of the campaign is to make direct political opponents feel insecure in order to create scope for their own right-wing extremist politics. An essential component is the ideological delegitimization of anti-fascism as the founding consensus of the Federal Republic. The intellectual New Right is therefore primarily dedicated to combating a “left anti-fascist ”, equating in its media like Criticón with “anti- fascism and interpreting this as refuted by the historical defeat of Soviet communism. Since the German reunification in 1990 , this view has been supported by a broad alliance of conservative journalists, political scientists, state and constitutional protectors. As with the former GDR, these often speak of an ideologically imposed “decreed anti-fascism” with regard to the Federal Republic.

The insight wrote in 1992: The left is weak, but hold down the right milieu through denunciations. "Anti-Antifa" should now be hit back. The name with the double "anti" ("against-against") is "kept destructive", but leads to a "certain annoyance in the militant anarcho scene" and therefore makes sense:

“[The goal is] the final smashing of Anarchos , Red Front and Antifa as well as the elimination of all destructive, anti-German and anti-nationalist forces in Germany [...] The Left [poses] as a mass-moving moment in the democratic (dis) order State and society. […] The only agreement with the stupidly programmed German citizen […] remains anti-fascism. [...] Our attention is directed precisely to those people who persistently and violently attack nationally minded Germans, young and older patriots, nationalists of all forms, conservative and stable forces. [...] The insight should be a first step in the opposite direction. […] Yes, gentlemen of letters, professors, judges, lawyers […] are among the warmers of anti-nationalism. [...] We will try to avoid calling for violence in the sense of bodily harm, killings [...]. Each of us has to know for himself how to handle the data made available here. "

In this context, distancing yourself from killings (“avoiding”) tended to act as an indirect invitation to do so.

Right-wing extremists' propaganda strategies include the shortened term "[the] Antifa": they subsume all their opponents under a collective term, including the German judiciary , media, representatives of parties, churches, trade unions and Jewish associations such as the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the International Auschwitz Committee . At the same time they equate this comprehensively defined Antifa with “violence”. The propaganda work Antifa is called violence of 2002 identified “the Antifa” with left-wing extremists and classified democratic antifascists as their “useful bourgeois idiots” in the media and at the “levers of power”. This image of society reflects the anti-democratic attitude and goals of those who demonstrate and use democracy and the rule of law with anti-fascism and fight their opponents with threats, terror and violence.

The neo-Nazi Steffen Hupka made it clear in his paper "Umbruch" around 1994 who the anti-antifa campaign is targeting:

“Anyone who speaks directly or indirectly against the national cause is an enemy of the people. Anyone who agitates against national groups and their views stands against the people, because we represent the people. [Enemies are] Editors and other media representatives, Antifa and possibly certain leftists, employees in city authorities, institutions and initiatives such as the Ordnungsamt, AWO , Post and others who stand out against nationalist people. "

He detailed what should be collected about these people:

"Personal details (name, address, photo), occupation (where employed, position, etc.); Motor vehicle; Got noticeable. When, where and with whom what ?; Polit. and social Activities (e.g. membership in parties, organizations, bowling clubs, etc .; weak point debt, gay, alcoholic, drugs, etc .; psychogram; contacts and connections to other target persons; hobbies, habits, etc. "

He legitimized this comprehensive spying with the right of resistance according to Article 20 of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany : "The rapid decline of the constitutional state forces us as nationalities [...] to resort to self-help " and to prepare for the decisive conflict with our opponents.

Enemy lists are part of the tradition of fascism . In the early Weimar Republic , anti-democratic Freikorps drew up such lists in order to track down and murder opponents, such as the Oberland Freikorps , from which the NSDAP's Sturmabteilung (SA) emerged . Like the National Socialists, anti-anti-fascist groups describe their activities as “enemy education for Germany”, which is absolutely necessary for self-preservation: “One must simply not forget that we are at war.” Since all neo-Nazism sees politics as war, free understanders understand Comradeships their form of organization as a kind of modernized warfare. Your anti-anti-fascist activities should copy the anti-anti-fascist perceived as successful and threatening and turn it around in favor of your own ideology.

The concept of anti-antifa groups from the beginning has therefore included collecting and disseminating personal data from people they consider to be enemies. It is often deliberately left open what violent neo-Nazis should do with such information. Because only if the typical name and address lists are linked to calls for violence, they can be reported and punished as an invitation to criminal acts.

According to right-wing extremism researcher Hajo Funke , the creators are pursuing three main purposes with their enemy lists:

  • To spread fear and terror among those affected,
  • to locate and arrest the listed persons on "day X" of an expected major conflict in order to eliminate or kill them,
  • endangering listed persons directly and immediately. This is especially true for lists with relatively few names.

Many right-wing extremists also use the lists of enemies to practice, actively prepare and fuel the expectation of a future global race war (" Rahowa "). The Turner Diaries by William Luther Pierce , which is internationally known in the scene, propagates a Day of the Rope in the form of a novel , during which tens of thousands of people are hung on the side of the road with signs "I have betrayed my race". to enforce an “Aryan world order” or “world domination of the white race”.

Representative

Anti-antifa activists come from the violent, ideologically established spectrum of action-oriented right-wing extremism. Especially those neo-Nazis who have organized themselves as “Free Comradeships”, “Free Nationalists”, “Autonomous Rights” or “ Autonomous Nationalists ” since 1990 describe the systematic spying on, threatening, intimidating and attacking (alleged) political opponents as their central ideological battlefield .

Right-wing extremist Norbert Weidner , a former member of the FAP , headed a student anti-anti-fascist group at the University of Bonn in the early 1990s . In an interview in 1995, he admitted that he had helped create the 1992 brochure The Insight and thus helped trigger the first German anti-anti-fascist campaign.

The undercover agent Kai Dalek initiated in 1991 after the death of the leading neo-Nazi Michael Kuhnen the "Anti-Communist Action". The group pursued the violent persecution of political opponents and is therefore considered a forerunner of the anti-Antifa. Dalek also took part in the creation of the "Insight" from autumn 1992. Later he rose to the position of deputy head of the community of supporters of the New Front , a successor organization to the National Socialists / National Activists banned in 1983 .

Norman Kempken from Rüsselsheim was the editor of the "Insight" brochure from 1993. A trial for the formation of a criminal association against him and the other creators was discontinued; they received mild sentences in 1995. Kempken remained an anti-antifa activist in Nuremberg .

In 1994 the “Anti-Antifa Ostthüringen” started around Ralf Wohlleben , André Kapke and the undercover agents Tino Brandt and Kai Dalek with the conspiratorial spying on and threatening political opponents. From 1995 onwards, Beate Zschäpe , Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt from the “National Resistance Jena” also participated in their anti-anti-fascist work . In 1998 they formed the National Socialist Underground (NSU) terror group , which murdered ten people by 2006. They also had contacts with the militant neonazine Blood and Honor .

In Berlin, groups from the comradeship scene such as "KS Tor", "Autonome Nationalisten Berlin" (ANB), "Anti-Antifa Potsdam" and the comradeship "Berliner Alternative Süd-Ost" (BASO) have been causing confusion since about 2002 by changing clothes and the symbolism of the Autonomous and appeared as the Black Block at right-wing extremist rallies . In fact, they were looking for direct physical confrontation with anti-fascists in order to revive the anti-anti-fascist campaign of the 1990s, which had abated somewhat before, and to make it attractive to younger neo-Nazis as well. They emerged for the first time on May 1, 2003 with targeted anti-antifa propaganda and soon went over to physical attacks on opponents, as in the propagated Summer of Hate of 2005.

As a leading anti-anti-fascist activist around 2002, Anton Maegerle mentioned:

The Bavarian Constitutional Protection Report 2006 mentioned the Anti-Antifa-Nuremberg (AAN) group with 10 members for the first time. AAN member is, among others, Sebastian Schmaus , who sits on the Nuremberg city council for the citizens' initiative Foreigners Stop (BIA).

For right-wing extremism experts such as Anton Maegerle, Thomas Grumke and Bernd Wagner, the representative of the New Right, Hans-Helmuth Knütter, is regarded as the “leading head of the intellectual anti-antifa” who belongs to the “academic variant of the anti-antifa”. Clemens Heni described Claus Wolfschlag as an “anti-anti-fascist academician”. Other anti-antifa propagandists are Alfred Mechtersheimer and Roland Wuttke from the “Germany Movement”, which presents itself as right-wing conservative but is classified as right-wing extremist.

activities

Academic-ideological legitimation

The Bonn political scientist Hans-Helmuth Knütter agitated against anti-fascism as early as the 1980s. In 1987 he published the book "Antifascism as a means of destabilizing the Federal Republic of Germany". In it he claimed that the Federal Republic was engaged in a civil war that differs only gradually from civil wars waged by the military. He blamed an allegedly “manipulative” use of antifascism by left and left-wing extremists who did not want to fend off right-wing extremism but wanted to defame the political order of the Federal Republic. In 1992 the work acted as a university support for the emerging “Anti-Antifa”.

In the 1990s, Knütter directly supported anti-antifa groups. He legitimized the incipient "enemy education" of neo-Nazi groups with his " Left -Wing Extremism Working Group " founded in 1994 . In this he accepted members of the Association for the Promotion of Psychological Knowledge of Human Beings (VPM), authors of the new right magazine Junge Freiheit , officials of the associations of expellees , representatives of the RCDS and many fraternity members . So this group formed a kind of academic anti-antifa fighting force.

Enemy lists

In 1992, the insight called for “to collect as much personal data as possible about the anti-fascist violent criminals and their supporters up to the bourgeois camp and to document it so that it can be accessed”. In 1993, the paper named meeting places for autonomists and around 250 names, addresses and telephone numbers of trade unionists, Greens and SPD politicians, sorted by city and region. Profiles described the opponents with information about their clothes, relatives, children, partners and comments such as "Approved for shooting". The paper called for "restless nights" to be prepared for them and for them to be "finally switched off".

Since then, anti-antifa groups have formed nationwide. Neo-Nazis sent scouts into opposing Antifa groups and trained them in their language and way of thinking. The data collected about leftists were often stored in computers of right organizations. The Nazi newspaper Die Neue Front praised the computer as a suitable tool for protecting information from the police, such as instructions for building bombs. The neo-Nazis copied the article on data security from a sheet of the Autonomen.

Around 1995, a "Revolutionary Anti-Antifa Cell" from Rhineland-Palatinate with a contact address in the Netherlands published the booklet "Brown Partisan" as the "Voice of the Brown Underground Movement". It contained many names, addresses and photographs of “Reds”, which the authors also included offices and representatives of the Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen party . The profiles were also illustrated with pictures of masked people with firearms. The back of the booklet demanded: “ ZOG smashed! The ulcer on the sick body has to be cut open and squeezed out until the red blood flows out. "

As the “European coordinator” of Gary Lauck's NSDAP organization , the neo-Nazi Eite Hohmann tried to set up a central office for anti-anti-fascist lists in the Netherlands in 1995. The magazine "Die Neue Front", which he edited, published several issues with addresses of unpopular citizens and depicted, for example, the Federal Prosecutor General Kay Nehm with a machine gun on his forehead.

The informant Kai Dalek built up the Thule network around 1995 , initially as a mailbox system for selected "management cadres". The users created around 220 personal profiles of “enemies” (names, addresses and descriptions of MPs, journalists, judges and prosecutors) and let them circulate on their network with the comment: “Addresses are not there to be deleted, but that you deal with it! ”The“ swamp ”is slowly but surely being“ drained ”. They have received “around 10,000 data records” “leaked” and have the entire customer distribution list for “various left-wing posts”.

In December 1999 the Berlin police found a list titled "Wehrwolf", which named 54 politicians with photos and addresses, including the then Federal Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and the CDU General Secretary Angela Merkel. Left groups, Jewish institutions, offices for the protection of the constitution, parliaments and Berlin memorials for victims of the Nazi regime. The latter were marked on a city map. The list mentioned the publication “Reichsruf” by a right-wing extremist from Rhineland-Palatinate, who had already attracted attention for illegal possession of weapons, desecration of Jewish cemeteries, threatening phone calls, terrorist propaganda and “anti-anti-fascist” data gathering. Therefore, the Berlin police investigated the suspected formation of a criminal organization. A few days later the Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office warned the Göttingen “ Autonome Antifa (M) ” of letter bombs from neo-Nazis in the vicinity of Thorsten Heise . The makers of the Berliner Liste and the neo-Nazis from Lower Saxony were not directly connected, but both were involved in the supra-regional anti-anti-fascist campaign. Police authorities in several federal states therefore confiscated large amounts of anti-anti-fascist material. In Göttingen, the BKA found instructions and individual parts for building bombs from four neo-Nazis who were nevertheless not arrested.

Popular with right-wing extremists are direct public threats against criminal prosecutors and reporters that can hardly be distinguished from calls for violence, for example:

  • In 2000, the Holocaust denier Germar Rudolf threatened the Mannheim public prosecutor and committed democrat Hans Heiko Klein in his historical revisionist quarterly for free historical research : He advised Klein to “hold back a little in his own interest”, since the right-wing extremist scene “is now sharpening the pencils and starting To make tally sheets ”.
  • At the end of 2001, the Nuremberg National Resistance threatened investigating public prosecutors in Chemnitz: You should calmly “get entangled deeper and deeper in ineradicable criminal guilt”. With every such measure of the “FRG regime, new names come into our 'customer database' - names of those whom we will then 'look after' very carefully when the tide has turned radically”. They spread the threat on the neo-Nazi mailing list “ The White Wolf ”.
  • In a neo-Nazi rally in Lüdenscheid on 24 February 2001 leaving Timo Pradel (NPD) the names of 20 local politicians and journalists who he a pogrom accused -Hetze against "national German".
  • In the spring of 2001, the Anti-Antifa-Postille Landser published the addresses and telephone numbers of two teachers at a grammar school in Nuremberg who had carried out projects against racism and xenophobia . Their houses were smeared with red paint.
  • Frank Rennicke's Circle of Friends published several times in 2001 the address and telephone number of a public prosecutor in Kornwestheim investigating him .

Since 2001 the “Franconian Action Front” (FAF) around Matthias Fischer (Fürth) and Norman Kempken has been calling citizens with thousands of leaflets to take part in “actions against left-wing violence” and to send data from anti-fascists to a specified mailbox to record acts of violence prepare against them. Until 2004, the FAF continuously published the names and photos of committed teachers, left-wing students and journalists from the Nuremberg area.

The alleged right-wing terrorist Michael Krause, who shot himself on May 27, 2008 after an exchange of fire with police officers, owned 38 weapons and explosives depots all over the country and an "enemy names list" with the names of politicians, police officers, judges and other people who persecuted him should have felt.

Until its self-exposure in 2011, the terrorist group NSU continuously compiled a list of 10,000 names of alleged opponents. The district president Walter Lübcke , who was murdered with a shot in the head on June 2, 2019, was also on it.

In 2011 the website “Nürnberg 2.0” appeared: The name alludes to the Nuremberg trials against the Nazi war criminals. The creators want to bring Chancellor Angela Merkel and other politicians before such a tribunal. To do this, they collect the names of people from politics, media and culture. Blogger Michael M. wrote on the site in September 2011, “Deniers and supporters of Islamization will soon be held accountable. We will record the names of the traitors. Whether it is about little scribes in some editorial offices, about editors-in-chief, publishing directors, lying Islamic scholars who have converted to Islam, politicians - or parties, associations and institutes. ”Anyone who“ works towards Islam ”will find themselves in“ Nuremberg 2.0 “To answer for. Walter Lübcke, who was later murdered, was also on this Internet pillory.

The Autonomous Nationalists have professionalized their enemy lists even after the end of the NSU in 2011 and publish such lists on the Internet for almost every region in Germany. Above all, they make properties of left-wing organizations, left-wing bookstores and cultural centers a target for attacks. More and more professional "anti-antifa" websites were hosted abroad in order to prevent the German judiciary from accessing them. The creators publish photos, addresses and private data of those affected (such as their school, job, club memberships, vita) that are accessible on social networks . While they used to collect information relatively indiscriminately, they now spy out neo-Nazi opponents (journalists, politicians, alternative young people, etc.) as precisely as possible. In contrast to doxing by the left, who primarily unmask and publicly expose right-wing extremists, neo-Nazis publish and disseminate entire profiles with details that mark those affected as victims to be physically attacked and threaten them directly. In the context of the strategy of creating “nationally liberated zones” and penetrating into bourgeois milieus, committed young people were specifically addressed and photographed by right-wing extremists during demonstrations against the right in 2012; the photographs were then published on regional comradeship websites. A right-wing telephone operator obtained the private addresses of alternative young people in Dortmund from the customer data of a mobile phone provider. In Berlin, a right-wing extremist mail carrier took mail to alleged leftists home and analyzed the information he had stolen. A right-wing extremist employee got 184 addresses of political opponents from the database of a tax office. Right-wing lawyers obtain neo-Nazis from trial files the private addresses of witnesses and victims, who may then be threatened with murder. Berlin's autonomous nationalists around Sebastian Schmidtke operated an elaborate list of enemies on the Internet, which offered profiles of around 200 unpopular people, including members of the Bundestag such as Wolfgang Thierse or Wolfgang Wieland . She threatened them all with "a rope around the neck or [a] bullet in the stomach."

For some years now, such lists have been discovered more frequently among German right-wing extremists and right-wing terrorists and known through media reports. The Bundeswehr soldier Franco A. arrested in 2017 had a list of a total of 32 people, objects and organizations as alleged targets, including Anetta Kahane from the Amadeu Antonio Foundation , Anne Helm ( Die Linke Berlin ), Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas , ex-Federal President Joachim Gauck , Thuringia Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow , the Vice-President of the Bundestag Claudia Roth , the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the Central Council of Muslims . Franco A. apparently wanted to hold asylum seekers responsible for attacks.

On January 20, 2015, neo-Nazis from the comradeship scene hacked the customer database of the online mail order business "Impact Mailorder" with around 40,000 names, addresses and telephone numbers. The hackers signed their letter of confession with "Greetings from the National Resistance". The NPD youth organization Junge Nationalisten (JN) in Brandenburg boasted on the Internet: “Tick database cracked ... Here is the list of some anti-fascists. Have fun. ”A“ National Socialist hacker crew ”also confessed to the theft and described it as an act of retaliation. The hackers disclosed 250 customer names and distributed the rest via external download servers. They threatened to publish “10,000 more data” with “every hacker attack from a left-wing origin”.

Since then, right-wing extremists have been disseminating that customer list or parts of it under the misleading name of an "Antifa list". In September 2016, right-wing extremist Mario Rönsch made more than 20,000 names, addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses available for download as Excel spreadsheets on the website “Anonymous.ru” and called for violence against the published people in the accompanying text. On the same page, his online shop “Migrantenschreck” advertised the purchase of weapons and hard rubber ammunition for shooting refugees.

On July 14, 2017, the AfD member of the state parliament, Heiner Merz, distributed around 25,000 names, addresses and e-mail addresses from that customer file as an e-mail attachment. He called on AfD members to “save, distribute and use” the list in order to search for people from their local environment, make them known and denounce them: “There are few limits to the imagination.” The right-wing terrorist group “ Revolution Chemnitz “had data from the customer database. A preliminary investigation into data stealing against Merz has been set.

The Nordkreuz group kept an extensive list of enemies with 24,522 names and addresses of left activists, politicians and well-known artists from all over Germany, mostly from people who campaign for refugees. The data came partly from police computers, partly from public sources, but largely from the customer database that was hacked in 2015. The list became known in July 2018. According to statements of a member recorded by the police, members of the North Cross wanted to use the list to find “left personalities” in order to “liquidate them in the event of a conflict”. According to the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND), the Nordkreuz list includes people from 7963 locations in Germany and abroad:

In the spring of 2018, the police found a hard drive with the former Neukölln NPD leader Sebastian T., which they could only decrypt in December 2019. It contained a list of enemies from 2013 with 30 names and addresses, including local politicians like Anne Helm . Some were already on the list of enemies of the "National Resistance Berlin", which was publicly kept until 2012. Until then, some had been attacked as part of a right-wing extremist series of terror in Neukölln. The police did not inform the named persons until 2020 and therefore received a lot of criticism. Sebastian T.'s PC was confiscated in February 2018. It was only in November 2019 that the police found another file with the names and private data of around 500 people. According to André Rauhut , Head of the Berlin State Security, these included members of the Berlin anti-fascist scene, journalists, politicians and police officers. None of these people is specifically at risk. Up until then, three neo-Nazis in the vicinity of Sebastian T. had been charged with 72 crimes in Neukölln.

In January 2019, a list with around 200 names and addresses of politicians, journalists and activists appeared on the Internet under the title “#WirKriegenEuchAlle (e)”, which was distributed even after the platform was deleted.

Right-wing extremist lists of enemies are directed not only against people who are classified as left-wing or anti-fascists, but also against groups that traditionally devalue and persecute right-wing extremists. In August 2019, an anti-Semitic list of enemies that had existed for years received greater media attention. On the website "judas.watch", anonymous creators publicly collect names of people whom they consider to be "traitors to white people". It is a matter of "making anti-white and anti-Western aspirations clear", outing "insiders" and documenting "Jewish influence". One should pay attention to the word " Judas ". Names of Jewish people are highlighted on the website and marked with a yellow Star of David . Their curriculum vitae and contact details will be published and references to their allegedly “harmful behavior” will be given. Non-public statements by politicians such as Marian Offman on the refugee crisis in Europe from 2015 were also on the site, as were officials from Jewish institutions such as Charlotte Knobloch . Some names were already listed on the “Nürnberg 2.0 Germany” website.

In response to criminal charges and media inquiries about the smear site, the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) stated that collecting and publishing “information about people” is common for politically motivated crime (PMK) and “generally does not involve an immediate or specific risk situation those affected along with it. ”Those affected contradicted: The police should not wait until listed people were harmed, but must have such hate speech blocked.

A call to report " Rassenschande " also appeared on the site . A right-wing extremist in Austria with the pseudonym "Kikel Might" said in an interview: 'judas.watch' is a "database" with the aim of "documenting our enemies, whites and other people in public office", including Jews. The aim is to find “all the filth on our enemies.” The Austrian Ministry of the Interior stated that as long as the site did not explicitly call for violence against the listed persons, “there is currently no explicit threat to the persons concerned”. After the association "Values ​​Initiative" asserted the youth protection regulations in further criminal complaints , the inflammatory page was indexed in search engines and was offline from January 17, 2020. Those affected were relieved and demanded that the people behind the years of anti-Semitic and racist incitement to be found and punished. Three weeks later, on February 23, 2020, the site was online again. In order to avoid criminal liability, the creator (s) only changed the input text to "Doing the Job the Media Refuses to Do". There are currently 30 people and institutions from Munich listed, many of them marked with a yellow Star of David. These include people who campaign for refugees, donate to the Israelite Religious Community, publicly commemorate the Holocaust , take part in Christopher Street Day , represent the Jewish religion or Islam. The public prosecutor's office in Munich is investigating the alleged operator "Kikel Might", who is said to be a computer scientist from Vienna, for inciting hatred.

Acts of violence

Although the authors of the Enemy Lists usually do not directly call for violence, they do not explicitly distance themselves from it and allow their data to be used for acts of violence against individuals and left or alternative projects. The disclosure of private data as part of “anti-antifa” work is therefore often followed by attacks on those affected, for example on the street, on the way to school, on their apartment, window panes, facilities, their cars, threatening messages in the mailbox and other things.

In 1988 the 19-year-old apprentice Josef Saller carried out an arson attack on a house in Schwandorf inhabited by Turkish migrants , in which four people, including children, were suffocated and burned. Saller was a member of the neo-Nazi group Nationalist Front (NF), which had previously drawn up lists of enemies and was later banned. He served 12 years in prison and was then released at the instigation of the right-wing extremist aid organization for national political prisoners and their relatives (HNG; banned in 2011).

The first anti-antifa calls in the early 1990s were followed by a series of bomb attacks, including:

  • four parcel bombs against journalists in Sweden that were defused;
  • a letter bomb that killed the secretary of a left wing group in Denmark ;
  • a letter bomb which was addressed to Arabella Kiesbauer in Munich and seriously injured her secretary (June 1995),
  • Another letter bomb aimed at the Vice Mayor of Lübeck Dietrich Szameit and seriously injured an employee (June 1995). Szameit had previously criticized the sentences against the perpetrators of an arson attack on the Lübeck synagogue (March 25, 1994) as too mild.

The last two letter bombs and others had been sent by the four-time murderer Franz Fuchs . Fuchs claimed to have committed the acts for a "Bavarian Liberation Army"; However, accomplices were not found or not sufficiently sought. At the time, experts observed the combination of anti-anti-fascist work, murder attacks with letter bombs and the establishment of “werewolf” structures in other neo-Nazis as well.

The "Anti-Antifa Ostthüringen" met weekly since 1994 and carefully prepared violent actions according to the call of the "Insight". She committed many attacks on anti-fascists and in 1995 disrupted a memorial service for the victims of fascism in Rudolstadt with a dummy bomb .

Kay Diesner , who shot a bookseller seriously, fatally injured a police officer and seriously injured another in February 1997, had been trained in the use of sharp weapons for attacks in military sports camps by his group Nationale Alternative since 1991 . In addition, he had spied on left-wing youth while doing anti-anti-fascist work, collected data from political opponents, including PDS members, and provoked autonomous violence at demonstrations. The bookstore he attacked was one of the targets that were circulating in the anti-antifa scene.

From 1998 onwards, the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution observed a considerable increase in anti-anti-fascist activities with flowing transitions to right-wing terrorism: The scene was openly considering going underground. It was not until 2011, after ten murders, that the NSU was discovered through its self-exposure.

In East Germany, attacks, for example with cobblestones and death threats against members of the Left Party , whose names were on enemy lists, were found.

In 2006, the NPD board member Jürgen Rieger , who had several criminal records, openly confessed in an interview to the murderous purpose of the enemy lists: “Please wait and see. If the first reporter is killed, the first judge is killed, then you know it's on. Reporter, judge, policeman, you! "

In March 2010, supporters of the Anti-Antifa Wetzlar threw a Molotov cocktail at the house of a church worker who was committed against right-wing extremism. The Limburg Regional Court sentenced the perpetrators to several years in prison for attempted murder.

In October 2010 a former member of the Kameradschaft Aachener Land (KAL) took part in the murder of the 19-year-old Iraqi Kamal Kilade in Leipzig . On June 26, 2011, neo-Nazis carried out five arson attacks on left-wing house projects and a youth center. The website of the “National Resistance Berlin” had previously named all these projects with photos and addresses as “good targets”. Since then, many more of the houses mentioned have been smeared and their windows destroyed.

In 2012, members of the AAN around Nuremberg allegedly carried out more attacks against committed citizens and anti-fascist activists. Cars were damaged, houses smeared, windows thrown in and, finally, a dead rabbit was put in a mailbox. In Fürth, unknown people published a leaflet and defamed a teacher as a left-wing extremist.

After the self-exposure of the NSU and during the ongoing NSU trial , acts of violence by anti-anti-fascist groups continued to increase. According to the Berlin Office for the Protection of the Constitution , from August 2013 “the unreserved focus of provocation and threats to institutions and people who are active against right-wing extremism is. In August they became victims of a regular series of right-wing extremist crimes. "

Since May 2016, shortly after Sebastian T. was released from prison, 55 people committed to anti-fascism have been attacked by neo-Nazis in the Neukölln terror series, for example with death threats, stone throwing, property damage and 16 arson attacks, mostly on cars. Despite several investigative groups, no perpetrator has been convicted so far. An LKA officer responsible for police surveillance met Sebastian T., who was already wanted, in March 2018, but did not arrest him. The person concerned Ferat Kocak attributed such and other errors to "the rights in the security apparatus that are hindering the investigation and ensuring that this series of terrorism has not been cleared up for over ten years" and called for a committee of inquiry.

Countermeasures

In February 2020, the head of the BKA, Holger Münch , argued that the publication of information about suspected political opponents on lists of enemies or deaths should be punished more severely and not just treated as a violation of data protection law. The Mobile Advice Against Right-Wing Extremism Berlin (MBR) reminded that such lists are not mere websites, but right-wing extremist, militant neo-Nazi networks that specialize in anti-anti-fascist work including photographs of opponents and have often led to attacks on them. The groups of those affected have steadily expanded: in the past, lawyers, journalists, anti-fascists and trade unionists were often attacked. Today, people from local and state politics and committed refugee helpers are increasingly on such lists. The mere increase in penalties is the wrong focus. The authorities would have to ex officio block the information for those affected, immediately and fully inform them of the unlawful data collected about them and involve them and the independent civil society advice centers in the analysis of dangerous situations. Enemy lists are often the basis for violent crimes. Those affected should always consider how neo-Nazis could have got their data and how they could better protect private information accessible online.

In June 2020, the federal government decided to criminalize the creation of lists of enemies “which are intended to arouse the willingness of others to commit crimes against the persons concerned”. The SPD only wants published lists that are perceptible as a threat, while the CDU wants to make the non-public creation of such lists punishable.

literature

  • Matthias Mletzko: Discourses of violence and violent acts of militant scenes - differences using the example of “Antifa” and “Anti-Antifa”. Part 1 in: Criminology . August / September 2001, pp. 543-548; Part 2 in: Criminology. October 2001, pp. 639-644.
  • Javier Rojas: Anti-Antifa. A manual about an active Nazi front organization. J. Rojas, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-00-004043-9 .
  • Andrea Röpke , Andreas Speit (Ed.): Brown comradeships. The new networks of the militant neo-Nazis. Christoph Links, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-86153-316-2 .
  • Heribert Schiedel : Cultural politics from the day before yesterday and anti-anti-fascism. In: Wolfgang Purtscheller (Ed.): The right in motion. Clusters and networks of the "new right". Picus, Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-85452-289-4 , p. 100 ff.

Web links

Article on anti-antifa at:

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Anton Maegerle, Marin Dietzsch: "Anti-Antifa" - unifying band from neo-Nazis to the intellectual right. DISS, September 25, 2006
  2. Jan Zobel: People on the edge: NPD: people, politics and perspectives of the anti-democrats. Edition Ost, 2005, p. 99 f.
  3. ^ Federal Government: German Bundestag. Printed matter 12/4866, May 6, 1993 (PDF p. 1); German Bundestag, printed matter 13/1518, May 30, 1995 (PDF p. 3 and 10)
  4. a b Christoph Schulze: Label fraud: The autonomous nationalists between pop and anti-modern. Tectum, Baden-Baden 2017, ISBN 3-8288-3822-7 , pp. 153–155 and fn. 110–111
  5. ^ A b Hans-Henning Scharsach: Strache: In the brown swamp. Kremayr & Scheriau, 2012, ISBN 3-218-00844-1 , p. 276
  6. Stefan Aust, Dirk Laabs: Heimatschutz: The state and the series of murders of the NSU. Pantheon, Munich 2014, ISBN 3-641-09641-3 , p. 128
  7. Uwe Backes et al: Right-motivated multiple and intensive offenders in Saxony. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 3-8471-0374-1 , p. 186
  8. ^ Samuel Salzborn: Right-wing extremism: manifestations and explanatory approaches. UTB, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 3-8252-4476-8 , p. 38
  9. ^ Armin Pfahl-Traughber : Right-wing extremism in Germany: A critical inventory. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2019, ISBN 978-3-658-24276-3 , p. 299
  10. Antifascist collective of authors: Masterminds in the brown net: A current overview of the neo-Nazi underground in Germany and Austria. Konkret Literatur Verlag, 1996, p. 63 f.
  11. ^ A b Friedemann Schmidt: The New Right and the Berlin Republic: Parallel Paths in the Normalization Discourse. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2001, ISBN 3-322-89597-1 , p. 257 and fn. 290
  12. Christoph Schulze: Etikettenenschwindel , Baden-Baden 2017, p. 154 (quotation and omissions therein, ibid.)
  13. ^ A b c Rudolf Kleinschmidt: Case study: The rights and the right. In: Stephan Braun, Alexander Geisler, Martin Gerster (eds.): Strategies of the extreme right: Backgrounds - Analyzes - Answers. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2016, ISBN 3-658-01984-0 , p. 189
  14. Stefan Aust, Dirk Laabs: Heimatschutz , Munich 2014, p. 128 f. ; Neo-Nazis: hunting down targets. Spiegel, January 8, 1996
  15. Stefan Aust, Dirk Laabs: Heimatschutz , Munich 2014, p. 129
  16. ^ Friedrich Paul Heller, Anton Maegerle: The language of hatred: right-wing extremism and völkisch esotericism, Jan van Helsing, Horst Mahler. Butterfly, 2001, ISBN 3-89657-091-9 , p. 180
  17. Christoph Schulze: Etikettenenschwindel , Baden-Baden 2017, p. 148 and fn. 164
  18. Michael Kraske: Der Riss: How radicalization in the east is destroying our coexistence. Ullstein, 2020, p. 165
  19. Julius H. Schoeps (Ed.): Right-wing extremism in Brandenburg: Handbook for analysis, prevention and intervention. Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, 2007, ISBN 3-86650-640-6 , p. 212
  20. Florian Naumann: Terrifying number: More than 1,000 Bavarians are on right-wing "enemy lists" - and they don't know anything about it. Mercury, March 7, 2020
  21. Thomas Grumke: "Solidarity is a weapon." In: Thomas Grumke, Bernd Wagner (eds.): Handbook radical right , Opladen 2002, p.46.
  22. Jan Schedler: Development of Neo-Nazism 1990–2010 ; Sabine Kritter, Fabian Kunow, Matthias Müller: On the stagnation of the Berlin AN. In: Jan Schedler, Alexander Häusler (Ed.): Autonomous Nationalists: Neo-Nazism in Motion. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2011, ISBN 3-531-93219-5 , pp. 20f. and p. 190
  23. Christoph Seils: There is no underground. taz, May 13, 1995
  24. Andrea Röpke, Andreas Speit: Blood and Honor: Past and Present Right Violence in Germany. Christoph Links, Berlin 2013, ISBN 3-86153-707-9 , p. 201
  25. a b c Andrea Röpke, Andreas Speit: Braune Kameradschaften , Berlin 2004, p. 64
  26. Andrea Röpke, Andreas Speit: Blut und Ehre , Berlin 2013, p. 123
  27. Andrea Röpke: In the underground, but not alone. Federal Agency for Civic Education, April 30, 2012
  28. Ulrich Peters: Beginnings of the AN in Berlin. In: Jan Schedler, Alexander Häusler (Ed.): Autonome Nationalisten , Wiesbaden 2011, p. 30 and p. 58f.
  29. ^ A b c Anton Maegerle: Right-wing extremist violence and terror. In: Thomas Grumke, Bernd Wagner (Hrsg.): Handbuch Rechtsradikalismus. People - organizations - networks. From neo-Nazism to the middle of society. Leske + Budrich, Opladen 2002, ISBN 3-8100-3399-5 , pp. 160-162.
  30. ↑ The Office for the Protection of the Constitution 2006 mentions Anti-Antifa for the first time. Netzwerkit.de, January 28, 2008
  31. New attack by neo-Nazis in Fürth? Nordbayern.de, November 29, 2012
  32. ^ Anton Maegerle, Martin Dietzsch: Bonn in sight. The right-wing extremists and the '98 federal elections . In: Tribüne 36 (1997) 141, p. 66.
  33. Clemens Heni: Salon ability of the new right: “National identity”, anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism in the political culture of the Federal Republic of Germany 1970-2005: Henning Eichberg as an example. Tectum, Baden-Baden 2007, ISBN 3828892167 , p. 409.
  34. a b Margret Chatwin: Reach for the sovereignty of opinion. In: Stephan Braun, Ute Vogt (ed.): The weekly newspaper "Junge Freiheit": Critical analyzes of the program, content, authors and customers. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 3-531-90559-7 , p. 256
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  36. Oliver Schröm, Andrea Röpke: Silent help for brown comrades: The secret network of old and neo-Nazis. An inside report. 2nd edition, Christoph Links, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-86153-266-2 , p. 167
  37. a b extremists: "eyes in the back of the head". Spiegel, December 6, 1993
  38. Christoph Schulze: Etikettenenschwindel , Baden-Baden 2017, p. 155 . ZOG is the abbreviation for an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory widespread among right-wing extremists , according to which "Zionists" (code for "Jews") rule western governments.
  39. ^ Rainer Fromm, Barbara Kernbach: Right-wing extremism on the Internet: the new danger. Olzog, 2001, ISBN 3-7892-8055-0 , pp. 120 f.
  40. Stefan Aust, Dirk Laabs: Heimatschutz , Munich 2014, p. 183 f.
  41. ^ Frank Jansen: Neo-Nazis are spying on their opponents and preparing attacks - warning of letter bombs. Tagesspiegel, December 29, 1999
  42. ^ Neo-Nazis in Germany: These right-wing extremist crimes have never really been solved. Watson , July 22, 2019
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  49. ^ A b Karolin Schwarz: Hate Warriors: The new global right-wing extremism. Herder, Freiburg 2020, ISBN 3-451-39670-X , p. 49
  50. ^ Right-wing terrorism: "Enemy lists" existed before the NSU. Deutsche Welle, August 6, 2018
  51. Hacked NPD youth punk shipping? Time / malfunction report , January 27, 2015.
  52. Neo-Nazis publish thousands of addresses of alleged anti-fascists. Time / malfunction report, September 20, 2016.
  53. Ragnar Vogt: E-mail with a call to denounce: AfD MPs distributed list of alleged anti-fascist members. Tagesspiegel, July 13, 2019; Silja Kummer: AfD MP Heiner Merz distributed stolen addresses. Heidenheimer Zeitung , March 14, 2018.
  54. Sascha Maier: 25,000 hacked addresses among right-wing terrorists: AfD member regrets sending the "Nordkreuz" list. Stuttgarter Nachrichten , July 18, 2019.
  55. Right-wing extremism: Terror group Nordkreuz collected data from almost 25,000 people. Focus Online, July 12, 2019; "Nordkreuz" collected 25,000 addresses from political opponents. Tagesspiegel, July 6, 2019.
  56. Thoralf Cleven : More than 25,000 people on right-wing enemy lists. RND / Kieler Nachrichten , July 30, 2018; Uwe Reißenweber: “Nordkreuz” group: According to the BKA there are no death lists. Nordkurier , July 19, 2019.
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