Institute for State Policy

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The Institute for State Policy (IfS) is a private institution which, according to its own statements , is intended to serve as an organizational and action platform for new right educational work. It is considered the think tank of the New Right . The IfS is listed as a suspected right-wing extremist case by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution .

The institute is associated with the non-profit association for state politics .

history

The institute was founded in May 2000 by Götz Kubitschek , Karlheinz Weißmann and the lawyer Stefan Hanz. The founders belong to the environment of the weekly newspaper Junge Freiheit , with which the institute worked closely until 2014. Together with the IfS, Kubitschek founded the publisher edition antaios , which he runs. The institute and publishing house were initially based in Bad Vilbel (Hesse), and since 2003 both have been based in Schnellroda (Saxony-Anhalt). In December 2012 a Berlin branch of the institute was opened.

Edition Antaios (since 2012 Verlag Antaios ) has been selling the magazine Sezession as well as thematic “studies” and “special issues”, for example on Pegida, since 2003 . In 2010 there was also the author blog Netz-Tagebuch Sezession im Netz (sezession.de). On the occasion of the 50th edition of the Secession , Kubitschek organized a "conservative media fair" called "Zwischenag" for October 6, 2012 and again in 2013 in Berlin. Then he handed the organization over to Felix Menzel .

In 2009 there was a conflict between the IfS and Junge Freiheit about the expression "New Rights". While Dieter Stein , editor-in-chief of Junge Freiheit, has since rejected this as a self-designation, the IfS stuck to him. There were also differences over the right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD): While Junge Freiheit supported the AfD, Kubitschek rejected it because of Bernd Lucke's course . As a result of these differences, Karlheinz Weißmann resigned as head of the institute in April 2014. From October 2014 Kubitschek supported Björn Höcke in the internal party power struggle of the AfD .

As the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution confirmed to Spiegel and the taz in April 2020 , the IfS is under observation by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution , which declared it a suspected right-wing extremism case . There are “clues for efforts against the free democratic basic order”. Months earlier, the President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang, accused the institute of “breaking down ideological taboo areas in political discourse”. The Federal Office can now use intelligence resources against the institute.

In various sources, the IfS is incorrectly referred to as the Institute for State Research . However, nothing is known about an intended close by name to the affiliated institute of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin, now the Humboldt University , led by Reinhard Höhn and dissolved in 1947 .

Goals and events

The institute describes the “state political order” as its core topic, divided into five “work areas”: “State and Society”, “Immigration and Integration”, “Politics and Identity”, “Upbringing and Education” and “War and Crisis”. To this end, it organizes conferences (“academies” and “congresses”). Some of them are held in Berlin ("Berliner Kolleg"; "Staatspolitische Salons") and weekend seminars ("Collegium Dextrum").

The IfS tries to promote the “young academics” of a “people-conscious” political elite with regular “summer and winter academies”. These events serve the exchange and stronger networking in the right-wing extremist scene. The IfS is thus developing ideology and strategy in order to connect national conservatives and right-wing extremists and to increase their influence on current political debates. Its events are attended by people from a broad spectrum of new right-wing politics, including functionaries and activists of the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) and its youth organization Young National Democrats (JN) as well as the Identitarian Movement . Former NPD members such as Florian Röpke, Arne Schimmer and others have or had direct connections to the IfS.

Secession magazine and weblog

secession
Sezession.svg
description Theory magazine
First edition 2003
Frequency of publication bi-monthly
Sold edition 3,000 copies
(own information)
Editor-in-chief Götz Kubitschek
editor Institute for State Policy (IfS)
Web link Secession in the network
Article archive Digital booklet archive
ISSN (print) 1611-5910

Since April 2003 the IfS has published the journal Sezession and the Wissenschaftliche Reihe as well as since 2011 the Berliner Schriften zur Ideologischekunde . Until the end of 2006, the Secession appeared as a quarterly periodical, since number 16 of February 2007 every two months. The website accompanying the magazine (sezession.de) was converted into a blog on February 2, 2009 .

After evaluating numerous articles in the journal Secession on the subject of religion, the social scientist Samuel Salzborn came to the conclusion that for the journal Christianity represents the “own” and Islam represents the “foreign”, but Judaism represents the “other”, which is therefore from a possible identity of essence is excluded. For Islam, which had Secession developed a "fear full fascination" Jews, however, provide for the magazine, so Salzborn, "everything into question, for which the secession argue, and are thus in the anti-Semitic idea then identical to the modernity , the Enlightenment and all universalistic worldviews ”.

Management and editing

Since April 2014, Weißmann's former colleague Erik Lehnert has been running the institute alone.

Götz Kubitschek is the editor in charge of the Secession . Other editors are his wife Ellen Kositza, Erik Lehnert and Wolfgang Dvorak-Stocker . The latter is managing director of Leopold Stocker Verlag and publisher of the journal Neue Order , which is judged by critics to be a “bridge-building organ to right-wing extremism” with an “anti-Semitic tendency”, in which articles by clearly right-wing extremist authors are also regularly published. Weißmann and Kubitschek were members of the German Guild at the time the institute was founded .

Classifications

New rights

The federal government attributes the “New Right only right-wing extremists and their groups and publications”, regardless of “the fact that such publications and institutions see themselves as part of a so-called New Right, defined according to other criteria.” In the answer from the year In 2007, in response to a major request from the parliamentary group Die Linke, the federal government did not assign the IfS publications to the New Right or the extreme right-wing spectrum, as there were no actual indications of “targeted and purposeful efforts against the free democratic basic order”.

In contrast, the contemporary historian Volker Weiß sees no substantive differences between the institute with its institutional environment and the NPD with its environment. Since this also claims the label “new law”, the relationship to the IfS is a question of “presentation and level”. A sharp separation of the protagonists is not possible. There is more that connects than that which divides. He therefore also includes the institute of the “extreme German right”.

The attempts of the IfS to promote the formation of theory and intellectualization in right-wing extremism together with similar institutions have so far been classified as unsuccessful and more of a self-presentation. Apart from individual cases, the IfS did not succeed in disseminating its own political content beyond the area of ​​youth cultures, parts of the fraternities and associations of expellees in society.

Further

In the cases in which the state offices and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (VS) commented on the institute and its environment, their assessments remain cautious. The State Office for the Protection of the Constitution of North Rhine-Westphalia noted in 2002 that the IfS was referring to anti-democratic ideologues, especially those of the Conservative Revolution . However, in its annual report, since the “ Junge Freiheit judgment ” of 2005, it no longer provides information about any intelligence observations and their results. In 2020 it became known that the IfS is a suspected case of the VS because of its connections to the ethnic “ wing ” of the Alternative for Germany and other right-wing extremists.

According to the sociologist Matthias Quent , the IfS has a "hinge function between the extreme right and the democratic right". The institute's ideological point of reference is "the anti-democratic, anti-legal and anti-liberal 'conservative revolution'". According to the information of the co-founder Kubitschek, the self-imposed mandate was to wage an “intellectual civil war” for the “existence of the nation”.

In contrast, for the political scientist and former, long-time head of division in the right-wing extremism department at the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Armin Pfahl-Traughber, the staff at the Institute for State Policy and the authors of Junge Freiheit are exemplary for a new, right-wing form of “intellectual armament” that differs from the "Fundamentalism variant", to which NPD-orientated people respond, delimit with a "mimicry variant". One only gives oneself more moderately “in order to be able to have a broader impact on the public”.

The historian Volker Weiß sees a parallel to the ethnic-national camp in the Weimar Republic in considering the Young Freedom and Institute. There was competition for leadership between “fascism-loving young conservatives and the NSDAP”, but overall more common ground than difference. That repeats itself.

The ReX prevention project of the North Rhine-Westphalian Current Forum, supported by the State Center for Political Education in North Rhine-Westphalia, sees “new right institutions such as the 'Institute for State Policy'” as a “danger”, especially because their concept “Effect [...] on the neo-Nazi and subcultural spectrum ”, as“ the 'National Socialists', the 'Autonomous Nationalists' and the 'National Anarchists' indicated ”.

literature

  • Helmut Kellershohn : An institute for the ideological arming of the CDU: The German Guild and the establishment of the “Institute for State Policy”. In: DISS journal. 8/2001.
  • Helmut Kellershohn: Resistance and Provocation: Strategic Options in the Area of ​​the “Institute for State Policy”. In: Stephan Braun , Alexander Geisler, Martin Gerster (eds.): Strategies of the extreme right - backgrounds - analyzes - answers. 1st edition. Springer, Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 978-3-531-91708-5 , pp. 259-289.
  • Helmut Kellershohn: The Institute for State Policy and the Young Conservative Hegemony Project. In: Stephan Braun et al. (Ed.): Strategies of the extreme right - backgrounds - analyzes - answers. 2nd Edition. Springer, Wiesbaden 2016, ISBN 978-3-658-01983-9 , pp. 439-467. doi: 10.1007 / 978-3-658-01984-6 20
  • Stefan Winckler: The democratic right. Origin, position and change of a new conservative intelligence. Peter Lang / European Science Publishing House, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-631-53435-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Imprint of the institute's website
  2. ^ Right-wing extremist think tank again charitable , Zeit Online , May 8, 2020
  3. ↑ Anton Maegerle, Daniel Hörsch: “'The battle for heads' has begun. Pioneers, strategies and pioneers of right-wing networks. ”In: Stephan Braun, Daniel Hörsch (eds.): Right- wing networks - a threat. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2004, p. 119
  4. ↑ Wolfgang Gessenharter, Thomas Pfeiffer (ed.): The new right: a threat to democracy? Wiesbaden 2004, p. 36.
  5. ↑ Ines Aftenberger: The New Right and Neorassism. Graz 2007, p. 39.
  6. ↑ Helmut Kellershohn: Resistance and Provocation: Strategic Options in the Area of ​​the “Institute for State Policy”. In: Stephan Braun et al. (Ed.): Strategies of the extreme right. Wiesbaden 2009, p. 259.
  7. ^ Criticism of Ludwig: "Your appearance has a system". In: Märkische online newspaper. December 19, 2012.
  8. ↑ Rainer Benthin : On the way to the center. Public strategies of the new right. Campus, 2004, ISBN 3-593-37620-2 , p. 200.
  9. ↑ Marc Felix Serrao: Where brains throw up. "The Internet chatterbox from its worst side": A new German Internet portal is looking for a right-wing intellectual identity and does not tolerate any contradiction. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . May 17, 2010.
  10. ↑ Sebastian Höhn: Right-wing trade fair “Zwischenentag” in Berlin: The New Right Networks. In: Berliner Zeitung . October 6, 2013.
  11. ^ Meeting of the New Right: A Mass for Salon Racists. In: Malfunction reporter . October 10th, 2013.
  12. ↑ Stephan Braun et al. (Ed.): Strategies of the extreme right. Wiesbaden 2016, p. 260.
  13. ↑ a b Helmut Kellershohn: “It's about influencing people's minds” - The Institute for State Policy. (bpb, July 7, 2016)
  14. ↑ Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt, DER SPIEGEL: Protection of the Constitution: Kubitschek's think tank turns into right-wing extremism "suspected case" - DER SPIEGEL - politics. Retrieved April 23, 2020 .
  15. ↑ Konrad Litschko: In Verfassungsschutz-Visier taz.de, April 23, 2020
  16. ↑ Lutz Hachmeister: Heidegger's Testament. The philosopher, SPIEGEL and the SS . Propylaen Verlag, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-549-07447-3 .
  17. ↑ Soren Kohlhuber: Retro fever. When neo-Nazis take back the East German streets . epubli, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-7467-0420-3 .
  18. ^ Daniel Al-Kayal: On the topicality of Polanyi. About globalization, the unbundling of markets and the double movement of society in the 21st century. In: Academia. Institute for Political Science, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, 2019, accessed on April 28, 2020 .
  19. ↑ a b Fabian Virchow, Martin Langebach, Alexander Häusler (eds.): Handbook for right-wing extremism. Springer, Wiesbaden 2017, ISBN 978-3-531-19085-3 , pp. 196 and 300
  20. ↑ Stephan Braun et al. (Ed.): Strategies of the extreme right. Wiesbaden 2016, p. 206 ; Martin Langebach, Michael Sturm (ed.): Places of remembrance of the extreme right. Springer, Wiesbaden 2015, ISBN 978-3-658-00131-5 , p. 114.
  21. ↑ sezession.de (PDF)
  22. ^ Marc Felix Serrao: Right-wing intellectuals on the Internet - Where brains throw up. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . February 2, 2009.
  23. ↑ Samuel Salzborn: “Understanding of Religion in Right-Wing Extremism. An analysis using the example of the new right theoretical organ secession ”. In: Martin Möllers, Robert von Ooyen (ed.): Yearbook public safety 2014/15 , p. 297
  24. ↑ Christian Demand (Ed.) Merkur - German journal for European thinking. Issue 8, Klett-Cotta, August 2015, p. 110, fn. 2
  25. ^ Opinion of the DÖW (= Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance ) on Leopold Stocker Verlag. News from the far right. August 2004. (online) .
  26. ^ Karl Pfeifer: Bridge Builder: "New Order" in Graz. on: hagalil.com , April 29, 2005.
  27. ↑ Printed matter 16/4675 of the Bundestag, p. 42. (PDF; 869 kB).
  28. ↑ Volker Weiß: Modern Antimodern. Arthur Moeller van den Bruck and the change in conservatism. Paderborn 2012, p. 370.
  29. ↑ Verfassungsschutz report for the year 2002, p. 111 ( Memento from January 10, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) State Office for the Protection of the Constitution of North Rhine-Westphalia.
  30. ↑ Right-wing extremism: Constitutional Court approves “Junge Freiheit”. In: Der Spiegel. June 28, 2005 (online)
  31. ↑ Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt: Protection of the Constitution: Kubitschek's think tank becomes a right-wing extremism "suspected case". In: Spiegel Online . April 23, 2020, accessed April 23, 2020 .
  32. ^ Matthias Quent: Institute for State Policy (IfS). October 2013, entry in: Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth (Ed.), BIK Netz. Prevention network against right-wing extremism, glossary, article Institute for State Policy ( Memento from September 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ).
  33. ↑ Documentation of the conference without borders: the international dimension of right-wing extremism. Networking - strategies - countermeasures. 2013 (online) .
  34. ↑ Volker Weiß: Modern Antimodern. Arthur Moeller van den Bruck and the change in conservatism. Paderborn 2012, p. 370.
  35. ↑ project ReX - promotion of tolerance through Rechtsextremismus- prevention, see: aktuelles-forum.de .