Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic of Germany

Right-wing extremism (also: extreme right, right-wing radicalism, neo-fascism; self-designation mostly national rights ) in the Federal Republic of Germany includes political endeavors, people and organizations that represent racism , nationalism , anti-Semitism , xenophobia , Islamophobia and other forms of discrimination . These are summarized as group-related enmity , the certain groups of people the human rightsand excludes them from an ethnically or racially understood German national community . It is directed against the free democratic basic order (FDGO) of this state.

Special features in the new federal states are also explained from the earlier right-wing extremism in the GDR . According to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), there were 24,100 right-wing extremists in Germany in 2018 .

main features

→ Main article : Right-wing extremism # term

The term “right-wing extremism” is missing in the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany , but was derived from the principles of “ defensive democracy ” anchored in it , which under certain circumstances allow a partial withdrawal of basic rights and organization bans. The Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) banned the Socialist Reich Party (SRP) in 1952 and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1956 . Since then, the Federal German Office for the Protection of the Constitution has described political efforts that are directed against the basic principles of the free-democratic basic order as radicalism , and since 1974 as extremism . In legal terms, he defines this primarily as active hostility towards democracy aimed at eliminating the existing social order. Reports on the protection of the constitution mention nationalism, racism, anti-Semitism and authoritarianism as particular ideological characteristics of right-wing extremism .

According to this, right-wing extremists rate people according to their belonging to a “ race ”, “ ethnic group ” or “ nation ” and thereby deny certain groups human dignity and basic human rights. Instead, they strive for an ethnically or racially supposedly homogeneous “people's community” in a dictatorial state system that is to be guided by a unified leader will, so that no separation of powers , democratic participation and power control are necessary.

Since the 1970s, German research has criticized the deficiencies in this definition of the authorities. It does not allow any analysis of political developments and does not capture the diversity of right-wing currents, population sentiments, the transitions between right-wing extremism and right-wing conservatism and the historical change in the social “center”. The treaty revisionism of the Weimar Republic , for example, was considered moderate and supported by a majority. According to today's definition, he would be right-wing extremist. "What counts as right-wing extremism is subject to social, political and scientific discourse and power relations."

However, the BfV has hardly changed its catalog of characteristics for right-wing extremism. In 2018 he defined it as follows: “Right-wing extremism is understood to mean efforts that are directed against the fundamental equality of people as specified in the Basic Law and that reject the universal validity of human rights. Right-wing extremists are enemies of the democratic constitutional state, they have an authoritarian understanding of the state, which is pronounced up to the demand for a state based on the leader principle. The right-wing extremist view of the world is characterized by an overestimation of ethnic affiliation, which among other things results in xenophobia. The prevailing view is that belonging to an ethnic group, nation or 'race' determines the value of a person. Anti-Semitism is an open or immanent component of all right-wing extremist efforts. Individual rights and social advocacy groups step back in favor of collectivist 'people's community' constructs (anti-pluralism). "

Research based on the term extremism confirms these characteristics. The “ideology of inequality”, which derives different values ​​and legal claims from differences between people, is considered to be the decisive commonality of all right-wing extremists and the main difference to left-wing extremism .

In German right-wing extremism, a distinction is made between three inseparable areas:

• parliamentary oriented parties;
• action - oriented neo-Nazis , including youth groups from right-wing extremist parties, comradeships , right-wing extremist skinheads , right-wing extremist hooligans and right-wing terrorist groups ;
• an intellectual new right with its own media, publishers, institutes and networks.

With regard to the legal position of Germany after 1945 , the old and new rights differ : The old right sees the Federal Republic as identical in international law to the German Reich and relates positively to the methods of rule and the ideology of National Socialism . It plays down the Nazi state or glorifies it as a role model and denies the Holocaust . The New Right, on the other hand, recognizes the Federal Republic as the successor state of the German Reich and tries to find new political concepts within this framework. Its representatives take up ideas of the Conservative Revolution from the Weimar Republic and relativize the Holocaust and other Nazi crimes. Both currents tie in with German militarism .

The right-wing extremist parties are more strongly advocating reactionary Greater German nationalism, strive for an authoritarian nation-state , want to restrict pluralism and the separation of powers, and compete with one another. The neo-Nazis represent the racism of White Supremacy and often work together across borders. They are based partly on the extermination anti-Semitism of Adolf Hitler , partly on the so-called “left”, “social revolutionary” wing of the NSDAP around the SA founder Ernst Röhm and the brothers Otto and Georg Strasser , who were defeated by Hitler. This division is a German peculiarity; it did not prevent German neo-Nazis from organizing joint actions for the 100th “ Führer Birthday ” (April 20, 1989). Both directions strive for a "Fourth Reich" founded on an alleged "higher race" of the " Aryans " and are openly anti-Semitic, anti-democratic and violent.

German right-wing extremists traditionally exclude certain groups as "others", "strangers" or " enemies of the people " from the "national community", which is exclusively linked to them by ancestry and blood ties: including foreigners (especially workers and migrants of Turkish origin ), asylum seekers , refugees, Jews , Muslims , Dark skinned people, disabled people , homosexuals , homeless people , punks and left-wing youth. The Volksgemeinschaft ideology, like the selection of most of the excluded and attacked groups, is part of the National Socialist tradition. A link and focus of right-wing extremist ideology is still anti-Semitism, which after 1945 expressed itself primarily as hostility to the State of Israel ( anti-Zionism ).

The acceptance and use of violence are at the core of right-wing extremism and are part of its ideology. A quantitative and qualitative increase in right-wing extremist violence has been observed in West Germany since the 1980s. Only since the wave of right-wing extremist violent crimes in reunified Germany did research pay more attention to their structural and socio-political conditions, their dependence on constellations of interests and their societal “soundboard”, which legitimizes them directly or indirectly.

Parties

overview

Since 1945, the influence of West German right-wing extremism has primarily been linked to election successes and the number of members of right-wing extremist parties. Up to 1990, roughly three ascents and descents were recorded, in each of which such a party led the right-wing extremist camp: 1949 to 1952 the Socialist Reich Party (SRP), from 1964 the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), from 1971 the German People's Union (DVU ) and from 1983 also The Republicans (REP). Unlike in other European countries, no right-wing extremist party established itself permanently in parliaments in the Federal Republic.

Political party	founding	Greatest election success	Largest membership	resolution
WAV	1945	BTW 1949: In Bavaria: 14.4%		1953
NDP	1945	KTW Hessen 1948: 3.4%		1950
DKP-DRP	1946	BTW 1949: in Lower Saxony 8.1%		1950
SRP	1949	LTW Lower Saxony 1951: 11.0%	~ 10,000 (1949)	1952
DRP	1950	LTW Rhineland-Palatinate 1959: 5.1%		1965
NPD	1964	LTW Baden-Württemberg 1968: 9.8%	~ 28,000 (1969)
DVU	1971	LTW Saxony-Anhalt 1998: 12.9%	~ 22,000 (1990)	2011
REP	1983	West Berlin 1989: 7.5% European elections 1989:> 7%	~ 23,000 (1990)

Parties 1945–1960

As a result of the historical experience with the Nazi regime, the Allied Control Council dissolved all Nazi organizations in 1945, banned them and initiated a denazification of officials of the Nazi regime. The allied occupation statutes only allowed the establishment or re-establishment of political parties according to strict guidelines. For this reason, no direct successor organizations to the NSDAP could initially be formed. Some of their supporters tried to infiltrate bourgeois parties, which they in turn involved. Another part founded independent organizations, which ideologically tied more closely to the nationalism of the DNVP .

In 1949, after the allied licensing requirements were abolished, new right-wing extremist parties quickly formed. Because of the continued possible organization bans, they formally committed to the Basic Law. They unanimously rejected the division of Germany , but answered the “ German question ” in different ways: Some wanted to restore German unity based on the strength of the Western powers. Others supported neutralist concepts and rejected ties to the Western powers and the Eastern bloc . National Bolshevik positions, on the other hand, played no role.

The Economic Development Association (WAV) in Bavaria and the National Democratic Party (NDP) in Hesse soon broke up due to internal conflicts and remained splinter parties. The German Conservative Party - German right-wing party (DKP-DRP) achieved with a mixture of German national, conservative-monarchist and Nazi programmatic in the federal election in 1949 five parliamentary seats, one of them for Adolf von Thadden . After that, the party leadership excluded the National Socialist wing. Its representatives founded the SRP as a collecting tank for staunch National Socialists. It quickly found around 10,000 members and reached eleven percent in the state elections in Lower Saxony in 1951 and 7.7 percent in the 1951 state election in Bremen . After it was banned in October 1952, it was dissolved. The reasons for the prohibition of the BVerfG remained decisive: The SRP sees itself as a successor party to the NSDAP and has a clear affinity to National Socialism. This shows their leadership, their glorification of Hitler and other Nazi leaders, their ideological connection between nationalism and socialism , their recourse to elements of racism and social Darwinism . They see the " Third Reich " as continuing and thus consider the German government system to be illegal. They strive for the restoration of this empire as a "leader democracy" and "folk community".

German Reich Party (DRP)

After that, former SRP supporters tried to infiltrate the German Party (DP) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP), both of which already had strong nationalist wings. They also exerted influence on the German Community (DG) and the German Reich Party (DRP), which was created in 1950 from the merger of DKP-DRP and NDP. The SRP entrances formed the National Socialist DRP wing, but could not prevail against the authoritarian-conservative majority. The DRP received 1.1 percent of the vote in the 1953 Bundestag election and only 0.8 percent in the 1961 Bundestag election . The main reason was the successful integration of many former National Socialists into the CDU under Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer .

During the Cold War , the US secret services unofficially supported the founding of anti-communist, including right-wing extremist organizations such as the Bund Deutscher Jugend . Former members of the SS , SD , Gestapo , Abwehr and the Wehrmacht were employed without any problems when the Gehlen Organization , from which the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) emerged . According to current research results, 58 of 137 (42.3 percent) employees of the higher service in the Foreign Office were formerly in the NSDAP in 1950 . In 1954 there were 325 of the current 900 employees.

From 1950 the mutual aid community of the members of the former Waffen-SS , the Wiking-Jugend , the Kyffhäuserbund and Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten were re-established. A right-wing extremist publishing and publishing system emerged. The division of Germany and expulsions from the former eastern regions favored the integration of right-wing extremists into associations of expellees . As a result of the Denazification Final Act of 1951, around 90 percent of the Nazi state employees who had been classified as “ followers ” were reinstated.

The right-wing extremist scene split up due to the SRP ban in 1952 and continued to decline in the economic boom from 1955 onwards. In 1959, however, anti-Semitic crimes and acts of violence against Jewish institutions (such as swastika graffiti on synagogues and tombstones) skyrocketed . At the Eichmann trial in 1961, their number rose again. It was then that the Independent Workers' Party (UAP) , which still exists today, came into being .

1960-1990

In 1963, an electoral alliance between the DRP and DP overcame the five percent hurdle in Bremen's general election . As a result, Adolf von Thadden, who had risen to become DRP chairman, was able to found the NPD on November 28, 1964. She was bourgeois-nationally conservative, raised moderate political demands and pursued a mimicry strategy in order to unite the divided right-wing extremists and to be accepted in the spectrum of German parties. Most representatives of earlier right-wing extremist parties joined it; In particular, former DRP representatives were given management positions. Friedrich Thielen was elected chairman for the moderate external image . In 1967 von Thadden took over the party leadership. The NPD program called for a strengthening of national awareness, German reunification, including the Polish areas on the other side of the Oder and Neisse, strikes bans and the allocation of jobs to Germans first. It denied the war guilt of the Nazi regime and demanded that the Nazi trials be stopped. Although the NPD demarcated itself from National Socialism, the origin, speeches and press reports of its representatives, as well as the anti-democratic party structure, showed right-wing extremist continuity.

With the first recession and the grand coalition in 1965, the major people's parties lost their power of integration. The NPD had many municipal and regional electoral successes. Between 1966 and 1969, a total of 61 NPD MPs moved in in seven of the eleven state parliaments. In the 1969 Bundestag election , however, the NPD narrowly missed entry into the Bundestag. After that, it steadily lost members and voters. In 1971 von Thadden resigned from the presidency. Since then, the NPD has hardly played a parliamentary role.

German People's Union (DVU)

The publisher Gerhard Frey founded the Association of the German People's Union (DVU) in 1971 as a catchment basin for the crumbling right-wing extremist scene . Although it gained 22,000 members by 1990, these were mostly passive readers of Frey's publications, participants in thematic “action groups” and visitors to the annual mass rally in Passau . The DVU had no clear program, no internal party democracy, no organized state associations and did not run for elections. From 1985 Frey approached the DVU to the NPD and called for their election. In 1987 he converted the DVU into an electoral party and agreed with the NPD to alternate with promising candidates and to call for the election of the other party. The NPD should supply the activists, Frey should print and pay for the campaign material. The short DVU program consisted of unclear nationalist slogans and general socio-political demands (more jobs, secure pensions, protection from crime). Frey deployed DVU candidates nationwide, the DVU headquarters formulated applications. At the end of 1990 he ended the less than successful cooperation with the NPD. In 1991 the DVU moved into the state parliament in Bremen and in 1992 in Schleswig-Holstein. In 1998 it achieved the best result of a right-wing extremist party at state level in Saxony-Anhalt with 12.9 percent.

The Republicans (REP)

In 1983 the party Die Republikaner (REP) was founded from former disappointed supporters of the CSU Bavaria. Since 1985, its new chairman, Franz Schönhuber, has implemented a right-wing extremist course based on the French National Front . The REP retained a right-wing conservative external image, formally distinguished themselves from the NPD and DVU and removed right-wing extremist statements from their program. In 1994 Schönhuber broke the delimitation decision and met with Gerhard Frey. He was then replaced by Rolf Schlierer . This continued to portray the REP as a non-extreme party, although he followed Schönhuber's course and the positions of REP and DVU hardly differed. After leaving the party, he expressed sympathy for Italian fascism and the Strasser wing of the NSDAP. Unlike the DVU, the REP had functioning regional associations, especially in southern Germany. It often competed directly with the DVU in elections, but only received more votes than this in Berlin in 1989 and in Baden-Württemberg in 1992. Its membership fell from 23,000 (1990) to 15,000 (1996).

Since 1980 the NPD tried unsuccessfully to win over new voters with “citizens' initiatives to stop foreigners”. Nevertheless, she achieved financial stability in 1984 with the reimbursement of election campaign costs. In 1989 it reached 6.6 percent in the Hessian local elections in Frankfurt am Main and grew to 7,000 members.

1990-2000

However, after German reunification in 1990, the NPD again lost many members. At the 1991 federal party conference, it split; the previous chairman Martin Mußgnug joined the newly founded German League for People and Homeland (DLVH) with his supporters and some DVU and REP members , which the right-wing extremist camp tried unsuccessfully to unite . The new NPD chairman Günter Deckert wanted to get an independent NPD and returned to its previous program (exclusion of foreigners and historical revisionism). He was replaced by Udo Voigt in 1995 as a result of several prison sentences . This stopped the wave of resignations with around 3,500 members and emphasized socio-political issues in order to spread national revolutionary and national socialist ideology. The anti-capitalist demagogy of the NPD aims at fears of crisis and relegation and is primarily intended to appeal to young people from the lower social classes. The party gave up its earlier demarcation from neo-Nazis and skinheads and amassed it in its youth organization Young Nationalists (JN), which received strong influence on the party leadership. Since 1996, the NPD has gained new members, especially in eastern German states, around 1,000 in Saxony alone. For a demonstration against the first Wehrmacht exhibition in 1997 and an NPD event in 1998, it mobilized around 4,000 right-wing extremists each, more than since 1970. In 2008, the NPD lawyer Jürgen Rieger generated media interest with real estate deals in favor of the NPD. There were conflicts in the cooperation between the NPD and free comradeships. However, anti-Semitism remained their unifying ideological element. Common hot topics of the NPD, DVU and REPs are foreigners, asylum law , immigration and naturalization . They all raise bold xenophobic demands for a “freeze on foreigners”, stricter deportation laws, the abolition of constitutional guarantees for asylum seekers and the like.

From 2000

Since 2002, the right-wing extremist scene has been occupied with left-wing issues, including the opposition to the Iraq war , protests against the Hartz IV laws and criticism of globalization . At the same time, it insisted on a völkisch national socialism . In 2004, the DVU, NPD, German Party (DP) and Free Comradeships signed a “ Germany Pact ” to join forces. Several right-wing extremist parties at the same time had electoral successes and were able to repeat them. The NPD moved into the Saxon state parliament in 2004 and into the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state parliament in 2006 . The DVU moved into the Brandenburg State Parliament in 1999 and again in 2004 . The NPD and DVU increased their cooperation with neo-Nazi groups. In 2007, members of the REP, NPD, DLVH and DVU founded the citizen movement pro NRW , and in 2010 an umbrella organization called “ Pro-Movement ”, to which the citizen movement pro Germany party also belongs. At the end of 2010, the DVU was absorbed into the NPD and thus strengthened its dominance in the right-wing extremist camp. After the termination of the “Germany Pact”, the NPD claimed a pioneering role in “ national resistance ”. In the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt in 2011 , which the NPD state chairman Matthias Heyder described as the “fateful choice for the entire national movement in Germany”, it remained below five percent.

The small parties Dierechte (founded in 2012) and The III. Weg (founded in 2013) emerged from forbidden or repression-threatened camaraderie networks to gather their strengths. The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), founded in 2013, emerged similar to the REP as a national populist party that distinguished itself from right-wing extremism and quickly moved into several state parliaments. In the summer of 2015, the national conservative ousted the economically liberal party wing. In the course of the refugee crisis in Germany in 2015/2016 , the AfD became further radicalized. Leading representatives came forward with ethnic-racist statements. In doing so, they brought the AfD closer to the ethnic-racist Dresden demonstration alliance Pegida . AfD and Pegida reject further influx of migrants and especially of refugees, represent blanket Islamophobia , resentment against the European Union , parliamentary democracy, the established parties and the media (“ lying press ”).

The AfD is approaching right-wing extremism on several levels. It did not comply with the exclusion of members of the NPD and the DVU, which is anchored in its statutes. It accepted members of the anti-Islamic small party Die Freiheit , the REP, Pro NRW and from right-wing conservative to right-wing extremist fraternities . Before the 2017 federal election, she only delimited herself tactically from groups “that are considered right-wing extremists in the eyes of the mainstream media”; the participation of individual AfD members in such groups does not have to be addressed or punished by the party. She appeared together with the right-wing extremist identities . Top AfD representatives stated that the AfD would support “reasonable” NPD proposals in state parliaments. In its program, the AfD calls for human rights for immigrants to be restricted with conditions, the right of asylum guaranteed in the Basic Law to be abolished and replaced by a “right of grace”. It places the principle of equality in Article 3 of the Basic Law against legal harmonization efforts and against same-sex marriage , i.e. against the equal treatment of different sexual orientations. She also wants to restrict religious freedom for Muslims and the ideological neutrality of the state. In doing so, it calls into question essential basic principles of the German constitution. Accordingly, AfD MPs and members in internal group chats repeatedly make right-wing extremist, racist, homophobic, misogynistic, violence-glorifying and inciting statements, such as that a “creeping genocide ” against the Germans is in progress or that Muslim women are “women in garbage bags”.

At the Political Ash Wednesday 2018, supporters of AfD, Pegida and the “Identitarians” chanted well-known right-wing extremist slogans such as “traitors” for leading politicians, “deportation” for members of the Bundestag of Turkish origin, “homeland, freedom, tradition - multicultural terminus” and others. For the extremism researcher Steffen Kailitz , this shows "that the AfD is increasingly developing into a reservoir for right-wing extremists". Since the dismissal of the former party chairwoman Frauke Petry , a right-wing extremist tendency has dominated the AfD, which is working “completely openly and openly” with Pegida and identities. Since the federal board around Alexander Gauland stopped a party exclusion procedure against Björn Höcke , the völkisch-nationalist wing around Höcke and André Poggenburg have been driving the rest of the AfD in front of them. Right-wing extremists now "clearly" dominated the AfD regional associations in Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. Political scientist Frank Decker sees the line to right-wing extremism and anti-constitutionalism being crossed if the AfD is based on an allegedly ethnically homogeneous, pure German people. The radicalization and the advance of right-wing extremist forces in the party could be observed since 2015 and the taking of this path was already mapped out in the early stages. At least 27 employees of the AfD parliamentary group were classified as right-wing extremists according to media research in March 2018. Markus Frohnmaier (federal chairman of the AfD youth organization Junge Alternative für Deutschland ) equates the AfD with “the people” and announced: “When we come, we will clean up.” Political scientist Carsten Koschmieder sees such statements as a challenge to democracy and as a plea for a totalitarian regime . The AfD is working on " abolishing the liberal pluralistic democracy". The AfD can be described as a right-wing extremist party; their attempt to ban this failed in court in April 2018.

For the Amadeu Antonio Foundation , the AfD is “the successful NPD”. It should no longer be “played down as right-wing populist”, warned the foundation's managing director Timo Reinfrank in 2019. At the municipal, state and federal level, the party takes action against initiatives, associations and people that it dislikes. What is required are “a clear consensus among the democrats”, a demarcation from the AfD and the offensive representation of pluralistic and democratic basic values.

Neo-Nazism and right-wing terrorism

→ Main article : Neo-Nazism  and right-wing extremist networks

1960s

West German neo-Nazism emerged from the 1960s. The founding of the National Democratic Party of Germany (short name: NPD) in 1964 was a visible sign of this at the end of the Adenauer era , in which right-wing national forces had been absorbed and integrated into the CDU until then .

Theodor W. Adorno analyzed the then new political force to the right of the CDU and the renewed völkisch-national ideas in a lecture on April 6, 1967 in Vienna. He stated: "And the people in Germany seem to live in a constant fear for their national identity, a fear that certainly contributes to the overvalue of national consciousness."

1970s

After the NPD missed the Bundestag entry in the 1969 Bundestag election, its leadership wanted to continue the tactically moderate legalistic course. A strong minority, on the other hand, wanted to fight the democratic system of the Federal Republic with militant and spectacular actions. In October 1970, activists from the previously disbanded NPD “steward service” and “ Young National Democrats ” formed the “ Action Resistance ” against the socially liberal Ostpolitik and the associated recognition of the Oder-Neisse border . Attempts to use this topic to overcome the internal conflicts of the fragmented right-wing extremist scene have failed. Friedhelm Busse was expelled from the NPD because of his participation in crimes of this group . Thereupon he founded the “Party of Labor” (PdA) in 1971, which in 1975 was renamed the People's Socialist Movement in Germany / Party of Labor (VSBD / PdA). She referred to the Strasser wing of the NSDAP. Some members went into illegality.

Militant neo-Nazi groups emerged from the “Action Resistance”. The former National Socialist and Holocaust denier Manfred Roeder founded the German Citizens' Initiative (DBI) in 1971 . He saw himself as a “Reichsverweser” in the succession of Hitler and Karl Dönitz , organized neonacite meetings called “Reichstag” at his “Reichshof” and together with the former Auschwitz gardener Thies Christophersen distributed holocaust-denying writings. Both were convicted of sedition, but continued their activities from abroad. From 1979 " German Action Groups " carried out terrorist attacks. Because Roeder had planned this, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison. By 1982 the number of active German neo-Nazis rose from around 400 to 1050.

Michael Kühnen had been active in the NPD and the JN since 1969, then in the "Aktion Neuerechte" and the "Aktiongemeinschaft Vierte Party". In 1977 the Bundeswehr fired him for such activities. From then on he became the most important ideologist, organizer and strategist of West German neo-Nazism. In November 1977 he founded the “National Socialist Action Front” (ANS), which received media attention through provocative appearances (for example with holocaust-denying posters, black uniforms and demands for “justice for Hitler”). As a result, the ANS recruited new followers and formed sub-groups in several federal states.

1980s

After serving a prison sentence, Kühnen united the ANS in 1983 with a "military sports group" and other neo-Nazis to form the National Socialists / National Activists Action Front (ANS / NA). This was banned in the same year. At Kühnen's behest, almost all of its 270 members joined the Freedom German Workers' Party (FAP), which grew to 500 members by 1987, but lost 350 of them by 1991. They were mostly young, low-income men from lower social classes. As a result of an internal dispute about whether homosexuality was a private matter or a hostile abnormality, the FAP broke up. The then founded community of ideas of the New Front (GdNF) failed to achieve its goal of a uniform cadre organization. At times Kühnen worked closely with Gary Lauck , who distributed neo-Nazi propaganda material in Europe through the NSDAP Organization (NSDAP / AO) based in Canada .

Neo-Nazi skinheads

The neo-Nazi scene became increasingly militarized and developed into right- wing terrorism . In the Oktoberfest attack (September 26, 1980) 13 people were killed and another 211 injured. Suspected members of the military sports group Hoffmann murdered the couple Shlomo Lewin and Frida Poeschke on December 19, 1980 . Frank Schubert (VSBD / PdA) shot dead two Swiss border officials on December 24, 1980. Since 1980, more and more "Naziskins" have formed among the German skinheads . Because the media reported more often about their acts of racist violence, the public also equated apolitical skinheads with neo-Nazis. A new field of recruitment opened up in the hooligan scene , such as the Borussia front . Since the suicide of Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess in 1987, neo-Nazis have regularly marched on the day of his death. This was accompanied by an increase in neo-Nazi criminal offenses and violence.

From 1987 to 1989 the West German neo-Nazi groups lost around 600 of their 2,100 members. The turning point and peaceful revolution in the GDR opened up new recruiting opportunities for them. The political right interpreted the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the GDR as the "global implementation of the national principle". From the 1990s onwards, it benefited from an increase in power as a result of the cooperation between West and East German skinheads and neo-Nazis.

1990s

A scene of right-wing extremist small groups had also developed in the GDR since 1960; the federal government had ransomed some of their leaders imprisoned in the GDR . As early as January 1990, the National Alternative was founded in East Berlin from well-known West Berlin neo-Nazis and East German skinheads. They occupied houses and renovated them in order to organize marches and demonstrations from there. From December 1989 Michael Kühnen founded the East German local branches of the Bremen German Alternative and in July 1990 organized a DA party congress with 120 activists in Cottbus . Internal east-west conflicts led to its detachment; In 1991 he died. The DA grew under Frank Huebner to 350 members in the east, mainly schoolchildren, but was banned nationwide in December 1992 with ten other larger neo-Nazi groups. After a temporary standstill, neo-Nazi groups in the east regained their popularity in 1995, especially among young people with a low level of education and from lower social classes. Together with skinheads, they pursue the concept of “ nationally liberated zones ”, which the NHB had drafted in 1991: They occupy open spaces in towns in structurally weak regions, dominate the streetscape, intimidate people perceived as opponents or strangers, even with bodily harm, and thus try to go to the right - to create state-free spaces and a right-wing extremist everyday culture. This was achieved in Mahlow (Brandenburg), Muldenstein (Saxony-Anhalt) and other East German towns.

In 1992, the authorities also banned right-wing extremist demonstrations and events, and confiscated propaganda material and weapons. Courts sentenced some neo-Nazis to sometimes long prison terms. As a result, the existing groups came closer to each other and gave up their previous competition. Since 1994, they have formed right-wing extremist networks built up from grassroots groups , which exchange ideas via nationalist fanzines and arrange for short-term actions via info telephones, mailboxes and the Internet (see right-wing extremism on the Internet ). This is where the anti-antifa came into being , which specializes in the publication of addresses and living conditions of political opponents and militant acts of violence against them. In the whole of Germany in the 1990s, some conspiratorial " free comradeships " were formed, which are only held together through actions and mobilize for it. As there is no formal membership, legal action against them is difficult.

Since around 1995 the symbolism in the neo-Nazi youth culture has changed . They looked for right-wing extremist symbols and signs that are not punishable, but could continue to serve as identifying marks for the initiated and provocations for opponents. These include numerical codes as the number 18 for "AH" ( "Adolf Hitler") and from Germanic mythology and neo-paganism originating Black Sun , the Thor's hammer or the slogan Odin instead of Jesus . The “ Autonomous Nationalists ” orient themselves in their style of clothing and the forms of action on left-wing autonomists .

The German protection of the Constitution and researchers close to it denied the existence of right-wing terrorist groups for years, although the authorities have registered an increasing risk of right-wing terrorist attacks since the organization bans of 1992. Christian Worch openly threatened it at the time. The NSDAP / AO distributed a four-volume manual on guerrilla warfare and improvised bomb construction led by “revolutionary cadres” . At first, many neo-Nazis did not accept these plans; the creation of arms stores, "military sport", ideological preparation for a "national uprising" and current acts of violence were largely unconnected. At the time, experts saw a lack of support and consensus in the right-wing extremist camp for the establishment of a “Brown Army Faction”.

2000s to 2020s

In 2004, the BfV described in an internal study the cooperation between Combat 18 and the Thuringian Homeland Security (THS), but nevertheless claimed that there were no right-wing terrorist groups in Germany because they lacked leaders, hierarchies and support groups. Calls for armed struggle were made only by individuals.

Because of such misjudgments, the terrorist group “ National Socialist Underground ” (NSU), which emerged from neo-Nazism in Jena and the THS in 1998 , remained undetected until the two main perpetrators committed suicide in November 2011 and the confessional videos were announced by accomplice Beate Zschäpe . The NSU murdered at least nine migrants in the Ceska series of murders until 2007 and committed the police murder of Heilbronn as well as 43 attempted murders, three explosive attacks and 15 robberies. Supporters included members of the NPD, neo-Nazis from Saxony, Blood and Honor , Hammerskins , the White Brotherhood of the Erzgebirge and the HNG. The NSU murders were known to the right-wing extremist scene by 2010 at the latest; the unsuccessful search for perpetrators by the police was ridiculed.

The right

2012 Christian Worch founded the Minor party 's rights as a competitor or replacement for NPD. Until 2013 it consisted mainly of former members of the banned Dortmund National Resistance . In the local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2014 , the party won a seat on the Dortmund city ​​council for Siegfried Borchardt . On election night, he and about 25 neo-Nazis tried to storm the election party in Dortmund's town hall. Several people were injured. Dennis Giemsch , who took over the seat of the city council, asked the city administration publicly in November 2014 about the number and residences of Jews in Dortmund. The request was sharply rejected as evidence of the party's inhuman, perfidious anti-Semitism. Some party members belonged to a terrorist cell in Nuremberg and Bamberg and were arrested in 2015, with the police finding weapons, explosives and labels of unconstitutional organizations. Worch saw no reason to exclude her and distance himself.

Banner at a demonstration of the neo-Nazi III. Wegs in August 2015 in Fürth

In 2013, former NPD functionaries and activists of the forbidden comradeship Free Network South (FNS) founded the neo-Nazi small party Der III. Way to continue the FNS under the protection of party privilege. By 2017, the party had reached 22 bases and three of the four planned regional associations, mainly in Bavaria, Berlin, Brandenburg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony. She uses the topic of asylum for propaganda against refugees, the German "elite" (politicians and media) and all "supporters of the anti-people politics of the federal government, which promotes a systematic exchange of our people with foreigners who are alien to their species and culture". In 2016, for example, with a defamatory postcard campaign, she urged the “ foreign infiltration proponents ” to leave the country “towards Africa”. According to the BfV, participation in elections only serves as a means of developing a neo-Nazi cadre.

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Ingolstadt Public Prosecutor see connections between the III. Weg and the arson attacks on asylum seekers' homes in Germany in 2014 and 2015 : On site, the party is creating a targeted mood for criminal offenses and commenting on them benevolently after they have been committed, for example in the Franconian Vorra . In 2015 the III. Away on Google Maps a map of German asylum seekers' homes with the heading “No asylum seekers in my neighborhood”. Google took the card off the network after protests.

As a result of the further increase in right-wing extremist crimes since the NSU trial , because of the riots in Chemnitz in 2018 , the Walter Lübcke murder case in 2019, threats to local politicians, journalists and volunteers, recent "enemy lists" and the agitation of the scene against the right of asylum and asylum seekers, BfV and Military Counter-Intelligence Service (MAD) restructured and its staff increased in order to intensify monitoring of the right-wing extremist scene. Since the murder of Walter Lübcke, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution has wanted to deal with “submerged” right-wing extremists (sleeper principle) and make blocked files on them more easily accessible.

In October 2019 the terrorist attack in Halle , in which two people were killed. The perpetrator's aim was the murder of Jews who wanted to celebrate Yom Kippur that day in the synagogue in the Paulusviertel .

In February 2020, after observing a conspiratorial meeting, a dozen right-wing extremist members of the S. group were arrested after they had agreed to commit massacres and attacks on mosques in Germany in order to provoke a civil war.

The racially motivated attack in Hanau in 2020 followed on February 19 , in which eleven people were shot. On February 20, it became known that an unidentified person had already installed an explosive device "with serious effects" at the entrance to the Mittelbau-Dora memorial site (Thuringia) in January (a motive was not known according to the investigating authorities). On February 21, Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer , at a joint press conference with Federal Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht , described right-wing extremism as the “greatest threat in our country” and spoke of an “extremely high risk situation”.

At the end of February 2020, state security seized several young people who had spread right-wing extremist propaganda in Stargard Castle in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . In response to the attacks in Halle and Hanau and others, the establishment of the so-called Central Office for Hate Crime was announced to the Berlin public prosecutor .

At the beginning of May 2020, the President of the Thuringian Office for the Protection of the Constitution said that in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany in the right-wing extremist scene, "clearly more concrete approaches for a ' völkisch-national revolution' 'are now recognizable" and the virus "as an opportunity for the collapse of globalized liberalism and democracy ”. Under the pretext of demonstrating against the corona restrictions, right-wing extremists, Kramer said, would try to gain a broader connection with society; occasionally, however, “targeted assassinations and attacks to further 'weaken the system' are also being discussed”.

Also in May 2020, the political scientist warned Gideon Botsch from the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies at the presentation of the annual report of the Federation of victim counseling centers VBRG that by corona crisis could continue to increase Jewish hatred and xenophobia. A “whole mess” of conspiracy myths is now hanging on the Corona issue, for example the belief in an alleged conspiracy with the aim of “exchanging” the population in Germany and other western countries and establishing a dictatorship. The “very rapid dynamic of the heating up” gives rise to “ fear of new right-wing terrorist waves of radicalization”.

In June 2020, at the instigation of Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, the National Socialist association North Eagle was banned.

Armament

The level of armament among right-wing extremists is above average. 800 of the officially known right-wing extremists have a gun license in 2020. In 2016 there were almost half as many.

New rights

→ Main article : New rights

From around 1970, in response to the defeat of the NPD and the New Left, a current with intellectual aspirations emerged that was based on anti-democratic theorists of the Weimar period ( conservative revolution ). It rejects the liberalism, pluralism and multiculturalism of the "open society" in favor of ethnic-national homogeneity, advocates ethnopluralism instead of biological racism and, as a diverse network without party affiliation, strives for social discourse sovereignty. It is understood as a subset of right-wing extremism or a bridge spectrum to right-wing conservatism, which modernizes right-wing extremist ideas and transports them to the center of society. The aim is a “ cultural revolution from the right” based on the model of the French Nouvelle Droite , which wants to undermine the democratic constitutional state, bring about a right-wing extremist reinterpretation of terms and values ​​and gain the opinion leadership for it.

The journalistic network of the New Right also includes older print media such as Gerhard Frey's National-Zeitung , which received new topics from 1980, the monthly Nation und Europa (since 1951), which strives for a pan-European extreme right, the magazines " Criticón " (since 1970 ), " Junge Freiheit " (since 1986), " Staatsbriefe " (since 1990) and " Sleipnir " (since 1996). The Grabert publishing and the publishing company Berg serve a wide range of right-wing esoteric , historical revisionism and ethnic gedeuteter Germans credit history. You publish the magazines "Germany in Past and Present" and "German History". Added to this is the Society for Free Journalism (since 1960), which promotes a right-wing extremist lecture and book market, and right-wing extremist training centers such as the Thule Seminar (since 1980) and Horst Mahler's German College (since 1994).

Right-wing extremist parties, neo-Nazi groups and the New Right have been moving closer together since 2000 and are actively networking. This was particularly evident in large-scale marches on the anniversaries of the air raids on Dresden , in which more and more members of the entire right-wing extremist spectrum participated. A convergence has also been observed between the rocker scene and the right-wing extremist skinhead scene.

The Institute for State Policy, founded in 2000 by Götz Kubitschek and Karlheinz Weißmann , initially competed with the “Junge Freiheit” as a theoretical center for the New Right, especially for resistance and violence discourses. It developed into an education and training center for the right-wing extremist Identitarian Movement , fraternities , the Young Alternative and neo-Nazis. Since 2015 Kubitschek has also been a speaker at Pegida and its Leipzig branch, Legida . He is close to the völkisch-racist wing of the AfD and is friends with its representative Björn Höcke . Kubitschek, Höcke and the Compact editor Jürgen Elsässer are “delimiting the right-wing spectrum” ( Andreas Speit ) and are increasingly removing the claimed distance between the New Right and neo-Nazism. Today neo-Nazis speak of “ethnicity” instead of “race”. In the AfD, on the other hand, the initially claimed delimitation from NPD positions and representatives has in fact been dropped. Some AfD MPs employ NPD members and give NPD magazines unreserved interviews. In view of this trend, some experts consider the distinction between the old and the new right to be misleading and outdated.

State apparatus

Right-wing extremist attitudes in state authorities such as the federal and state police, the armed forces , the judiciary and the protection of the constitution are not statistically or systematically recorded in Germany. Since around 2015, incidents involving right-wing extremists and the beginnings of right-wing extremist networks in state authorities have become more frequent. Since 2016, some criminologists, social scientists and journalists have been investigating this phenomenon more intensively. They criticize the lack of job-specific surveys that allowed the responsible supervisory bodies and ministries to stereotypical defensive reaction patterns, such as “the same standard set of unfortunate individual cases”.

police

Bavaria

In November 2018, a student filed a complaint against an officer of the Bavarian police for rape . In January 2019, the investigators found a WhatsApp group of 42 former and active members of the support command (USK) of the Munich police in his and other mobile phones . In it, they shared a video that showed the brutal use of a taser and another that denounced Jews as anti-Semitic. In addition, a USK official had pictures with swastika graffiti saved on his cell phone, which should not appear in the chat. Furthermore, two US clerks are said to have deliberately injured two colleagues during the taser training with the stun gun. The USK has been known since the 1980s for its often brutal operations in demonstrations of the anti-nuclear movement . Several cases of police violence from the USK had been reported and punished. In May 2014, a USK official stuck two stickers with neo-Nazi slogans on his police bus: “Good Night left side” and “ Organize anti-antifa ...”. The USK often had to protect neo-Nazi marches. In 2016, USK officials carried out a body search of protesters against a Nazi meeting, during which they had to strip naked and be degraded. The European Court of Human Rights later found one victim to be right. The current case only became known in March 2019. The Interior Ministry said four USK officers were immediately suspended and eight were transferred. The service inspectors did not provide any specific follow-up actions. By March 2020, eleven US clerks were forcibly transferred, 15 disciplinary proceedings were opened, and one was punished for sedition. Two criminal proceedings on suspicion of violation of official secrets are still ongoing.

Berlin

In 2015, the right-wing extremist blog "Halle Leaks" published excerpts from the investigation files of the Berlin police with the names and addresses of visitors and residents of an occupied house on Rigaer Strasse . At that time they also checked whether police officers could have leaked the data. The perpetrators were not found and the investigation was discontinued. At the end of December 2017, six left-wing institutions in Berlin, including the house on Rigaer Straße, received a letter with the private data of 42 people from that district: photos of people, names, addresses, nicknames, popular travel destinations, pets and diseases. The photos came from police files, the official register of residents, ID applications and arrests. They were all stored in the database of the Berlin police. The anonymous author or authors threatened to pass the data on to the right-wing extremist Identitarian Movement , Autonomous Nationalists or the police. They assumed that the recipients, who did not know each other, belonged to a tightly organized left-wing radical group and referred to a poster with portrait photos of Berlin police officers that the left-wing portal Indymedia had published four days earlier after the house on Rigaer Strasse had been cleared . It was therefore suspected that police officers illegally disclosed the material to third parties or sent the letters themselves. After a criminal complaint by the Berlin data protection officer, the police handed over the internal investigations to the Berlin public prosecutor. This found out that a detective, responsible for politically motivated crime in the State Office of Criminal Investigation - on the left , had searched the police system for data that appeared shortly afterwards in the threatening letters. Her partner, a police superintendent, had a USB stick with the photos and personal data of the recipients. He had collected them privately for years and then, according to his own account, used them as revenge for Indymedia's "wanted man" for the threatening letters. Since he had previously been used as an undercover agent in the left-wing scene in Berlin and was exposed by leftists, revenge is also suspected. In 2019 he received a fine for a data protection violation and was transferred to Berlin-Friedrichshain , where many of the recipients of his letters live.

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania

In January 2016, the police commissioner Marco G. founded a prepper group called Nordkreuz in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , whose 60 to 70 members prepared with weapons, ammunition and food depots as well as target practice for an expected collapse of the state order on "Day X". Many of them were members of the police and armed forces. Some leaders kept lists of enemies with tens of thousands of names. The group also procured body bags and slaked lime. In 2019, Marco G. received a suspended sentence for his weapons and ammunition collection.

Lower Saxony

In 2016, a former member of the AfD's federal board of directors passed on information from an expert report by the Federal Criminal Police Office that was classified as a classified object, including on the number of refugees, to party friends by email. The man wrote the mail as an administrative officer in the Osnabrück police department. How he got the data remained unclear.

North Rhine-Westphalia

In North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), investigators discovered a chat group in the Aachen- West police station in January 2020 , the members of which exchanged racist images, for example a black man with wide eyes and the sentence “The social welfare office is broke, work will start today” or that Photo of an imperial eagle with a swastika. Investigations have been initiated against three police officers.

In February 2020, the Federal Prosecutor's Office found a right-wing extremist chat group during its investigation into the right-wing terrorist group S. In it, Chief Inspector Thorsten W. (member of the S. group and informant about their terrorist plans), another policeman in the Hamm Police Headquarters and an administrative officer had exchanged right-wing extremist messages for years, such as swastikas, SS runes, skulls, and information about where to take bed linen unobserved Nazi symbols, racist slogans and Nazi propaganda. They joked about trying to shoot foreigners. As media research showed, Thorsten W. had clearly shown his right-wing extremist attitude in his Bockum-Hövel police station and gathered official knowledge about the Reich citizen scene, to which he himself belonged. As a result, State Interior Minister Herbert Reul had external extremism officers installed in all police headquarters in North Rhine-Westphalia in order to make it easier for police officers to report anti-constitutional statements or attitudes of their colleagues. In Essen , however, the wife of the police chief there received this office.

In September 2020, investigators found right-wing extremist photographs on the private mobile phone of a police officer in Essen who is said to have passed on official secrets to a journalist. So far they have only evaluated the memory data of this one cell phone. Just because of this, they came across at least five right-wing extremist chat groups. The oldest existed since 2012; the group with the most pictures was founded in 2015. The chat members distributed 126 image files, including photos of Adolf Hitler and the fictional representation of a refugee in a gas chamber .

On September 16, 2020, around 200 police officers searched 34 offices and private apartments of the police officers involved in Duisburg , Essen, Mülheim an der Ruhr , Oberhausen , Moers and Selm . They confiscated 43 telephones and numerous storage media. 29 suspicious officers and one officer were suspended from duty. Disciplinary proceedings have been opened against them. Almost all of them belonged to a service group at the Mülheim police station, including the group leader. The service group was disbanded. Eleven members are said to have actively posted and sent content relevant to criminal law in the chat groups. They are being investigated for inciting hatred and using symbols of anti-constitutional organizations. The remaining 18 are said to have received the right-wing extremist messages, but not reported them. At least 14 officials involved are to be fired. Reul stated that he was expecting further discoveries and was no longer assuming individual cases. He ordered a special inspection for the particularly affected police headquarters in Essen and appointed Uwe Reichel-Offermann (previously Vice Head of the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution) as a special representative, who is to work out a picture of the situation on right-wing extremism in the NRW police and a concept for its early detection.

Saxony

In May 2015, leftists found a cell phone with logs of chats that police officer Fernando V. had had with neo-Nazis. In it he had informed a criminal with a criminal record of impending police operations against other neo-Nazis and exchanged anti-Semitic conspiracy theses. After it became known, he was transferred to a police college to train police officers. In September 2015, Pegida founder Lutz Bachmann published investigation files from the police, including the address of a suspect in a rape case. He claimed that he also regularly received internal police information that had been labeled as classified information. The data was correct, the source was not found.

In December 2015, a prime suspect of the Freital group testified that he had received information from the local riot police. Possibly because of this, the eight perpetrators were able to plan and carry out their terrorist attacks for six months without hindrance. Investigations into this were only initiated after a victim's lawyer reported them, but ended without result until 2017 because the three suspicious police officers remained silent and their cell phones with the alleged chats could not be found. Only after the Federal Public Prosecutor intervened, the Freital group was arrested in 2016 and later convicted of forming a terrorist organization. The public prosecutor's office in Dresden persistently refused to charge this criminal offense. Therefore, Saxony's Vice-Prime Minister Martin Dulig (SPD) suspected at the time that the Saxony police force “sympathies for Pegida and the AfD are greater than the population average” and added: “Our police officers are the representatives of our state. As employers, we can expect that you have internalized the basic elements of political education. "

In January 2016, the NPD in Leipzig distributed the protocol and photo of a police check of demonstrators against Legida via Twitter , during which weapons were confiscated. The photo came from a police computer. How it got to the NPD remained unclear. In the summer of 2018, Lutz Bachmann and the right-wing extremist small party Pro Chemnitz published the police arrest warrant for an Iraqi who was then on the run and who allegedly murdered a person from Chemnitz. The Saxon judicial officer Daniel Zabel revealed himself as the source and claimed that he wanted to counter media lies by copying and passing on the arrest warrant. He was suspended and then ran as an AfD member for the Dresden city council. Another police officer posted the arrest warrant on Facebook and received a fine for it.

On January 11, 2016, the first anniversary of Legida , up to 300 right-wing hooligans and neo-Nazis attacked the district of Connewitz , which is inhabited by many leftists , armed with iron bars, killers, irritant gas and a hand grenade. They destroyed 23 restaurants, 19 cars, damaged houses and shops, threatened and injured many passers-by and spectators. The attackers came from all over Germany, many were known to the police and belonged to right-wing terrorist groups such as Weisse Wölfe Terrorcrew , Skinheads Saxon Switzerland , "Kameradschaft Tor Berlin", Freital group, the NPD and violent hooligan groups such as the Imperium Fight Team (Leipzig), Faust des Ostens (Dresden) and NS boys (Chemnitz). They had prepared the attack on social media for months, named Connewitz as a target days before and their meeting point on arrival. The State Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Saxony warned of the attack on January 9, 2016. Nevertheless, Saxony's LKA and the Ministry of the Interior claimed in the Connewitz trials from August 2018 that they had not noticed the planning. On the other hand, arriving neo-Nazis had learned from police sources of controls on leftists. Antifa research revealed that Saxon police officers acted as trainers and recruits for the Imperium Fight Team . No cars of arriving neo-Nazis were searched during police checks, although weapons were visible in some. After the attack, the police collected all the discarded objects in a box, covering up DNA traces, leaving balaclavas and weapons lying around, allowing inmates to spend hours on cell phone communication, thereby enabling chats to be deleted by appointment. From the second of around 112 Connewitz trials , the Leipzig district court, after consulting neo-Nazi lawyer Olaf Klemke, only imposed suspended sentences for confessing perpetrators in order to avoid time-consuming interrogations of witnesses. As a result, even previously convicted and organized neo-Nazis and NPD functionaries were classified as followers and only punished with fines. At first, the court did not prosecute violence against people and only invited a victim of violence as a witness after press reports about previous convictions of the accused. The duration of the proceedings should be shortened by pooling charges and not taking full evidence. Trial observers criticized the cooperation of some right-wing police officers and magistrates with neo-Nazis and the exploitation of staff shortages in the Saxon judiciary for the inadequate prosecution of organized political crime.

Numbers and causes

According to media reports, right-wing extremist incidents among the German police have increased sharply in recent years. In response to inquiries from the police authorities of all federal states, Deutschlandfunk received information on around 200 such cases nationwide in 2018 and 2019. These included racist and inflammatory statements, contacts or membership of the "Reich citizens", use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations and other things. The reason for the inquiries were the faxes and e-mails signed with " NSU 2.0 " containing death threats and private data from the Hesse police register that a victim attorney of the NSU trial has received since August 2018. The Frankfurt public prosecutor's office investigated internal colleagues for four months before the case became known. As a result of this scandal, dozens of cases were discovered where police officers had voiced right-wing extremism in chat groups or at parties, collected Nazi devotional items, chatted with neo-Nazis or sent swastikas. The Hessian Interior Minister Peter Beuth , who had known the suspicion against Frankfurt police officers for months but kept silent, denied that it was a right-wing extremist network.

According to a survey by Tagesspiegel , 14 state interior ministries registered a total of at least 170 right-wing extremist incidents among their police officers between the beginning of 2015 and August 2020. These attracted attention, for example with Hitler greetings, anti-Semitic videos and Reich citizenship symbols. The state of Hesse did not provide any information on this, Saxony did not register the cases, Berlin did not provide any exact figures, and some authorities only collected incomplete data. In Bavaria, there were 30 largely unfinished disciplinary proceedings on right-wing extremist incidents, there were 26 cases in Schleswig-Holstein, 21 in North Rhine-Westphalia, 18 each in Baden-Württemberg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, five in Hamburg, two in Brandenburg, one in Saarland and none in Bremen. Internal police chat groups with right-wing extremist content have so far been known in Hesse, Berlin, Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and Baden-Württemberg. None of the 16 authorities registered left-wing extremist incidents.

Police researchers and criminologists explain the findings by stating that the police profession attracts people with authoritarian and right-wing to right-wing extremist attitudes more than many other professions and that the cohesion in the service groups that is necessary for their work means that incidents are rarely reported. After the "NSU 2.0" letters became known in December 2018, the NSU victim lawyer and police trainer Mehmet Daimagüler demanded the following measures from federal and state governments:

• to scrutinize applicants more closely, not only according to their previous convictions, but also after possible contacts with right-wing extremists who are being observed by the protection of the constitution;
• to increase the number of women in the police force in order to reduce excessive police violence;
• to regularly teach human rights training during training and on duty;
• to continue to regularly check the trained officials in personal conversations and through inquiries with the Office for the Protection of the Constitution;
• to withdraw their access to sensitive data if they are observed to be close to anti-democratic groups;
• to discipline right-wing extremists more consistently and more quickly.

Jörn Badendick , a staff representative in the Berlin Police, added:

• "In such cases, every police officer has to get up and say: I'm not going to do that."
• Internal investigation departments should no longer be subordinate to the police themselves, but directly to the public prosecutor's offices.

Representatives of Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen called for independent police officers to be set up at federal and state level , following the example of the Commissioner for the Armed Forces, who could also accept and investigate anonymous reports of deficiencies and misconduct by police officers.

Political scientist Christoph Kopke and criminologist Tobias Singelnstein blame the following factors for the increase in right-wing extremist incidents among the German police:

• The development in the police reflects the development of society to the right "like in a magnifying glass", whereby regional differences are to be expected.
• In Saxony, the CDU-led state government has maintained for decades that there is no problem with right-wing extremism in the state and thus influenced the administration and the police.
• No research contracts on changes in attitudes among German police officers or on institutional racism would be awarded nationwide. The authorities were mostly dismissive of critical questions.
• Applicants with a migration background are rarely trained and hired by the police.
• The established parties had let themselves be influenced by the AfD's moods against refugees in election campaigns and in their deportation policy, so that similar attitudes were increasingly found in the police. Civil servants would have been given more room for maneuver, including for the deportation of well-integrated foreign families, and were making increasing use of this.
• The problem of racial profiling in the case of entry controls independent of suspicion is not yet adequately addressed in police training.
• Despite clear distancing from right-wing extremism, police leaderships and supervisory bodies still do not recognize the problem of structural and institutional racism, but mostly misinterpret it as an accusation of guilt against all officials and defend it.

The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) presented a new study on institutional racism in Germany in March 2020. From 2014 to June 2019, the authors noted a significant increase in racism, Islamophobia, unexplained right-wing extremist attacks and official trivialization of the AfD. They demanded that Germany should include compulsory courses against racism and discrimination, human rights and equal treatment in educational laws and curricula in schools, universities and especially in police training. Police racial profiling has been sufficiently proven, but is still denied, ignored or dismissed as individual cases by German police authorities. Victims of discriminatory and racist violence therefore largely lack confidence in the German police. These and the constitution protection would have to advertise specifically for an exit from extreme circles. The Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency must receive more funds and rights to support victims and to bring an action.

The political scientist Hajo Funke sees the right-wing extremist incidents in German police authorities as a “structural problem” of right-wing networks in state institutions. The security authorities “systematically allowed such tendencies to spread”. The "respective leadership", independent investigations, a functioning judiciary and public pressure are decisive for successful clarification. With the Hessian authorities there is a "lack of political will to clarify" "at all levels, from the police president to the interior minister to the prime minister". That is why the author (s) of the threatening e-mails from "NSU 2.0" have not been caught even after more than two years.

The criminologist Dirk Baier explained that chat groups, as typical echo chambers, also cause radicalization in other ways: “You send each other messages that strengthen your own point of view. Deviating information is no longer acknowledged. ”Sebastian Fiedler ( Bund Deutscher Kriminalbeamter ) called for police officers to be forbidden from setting up chat groups for business purposes on private telephones. Most federal states would not have done anything about this long-known problem for too long. Tobias Singelnstein called for anonymous reporting procedures for internal abuses at the police, because the 'blackening' of colleagues through the official channels is usually rejected there.

armed forces

Right-wing extremist incidents in the Bundeswehr are not registered by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, but by the Military Counter-Intelligence Service (MAD). They document the annual reports of the Armed Forces Commissioner for parliament and the public. The 2018 report named 270 new right-wing extremist suspected cases and 170 reportable events. The MAD criteria only classify soldiers as extremists if they clearly wanted to eliminate the FDGO. Hitler greetings and Wehrmacht devotional items are not included; also, cases reported at unit level are not statistically recorded. Bundeswehr trainers who report such incidents therefore assume that the number of unreported cases is up to ten times as high. The official numbers are far too low, also because many soldiers in the troops are bullied and forcibly transferred if they report comrades. The Ministry of Defense often only reacted to media reports on right-wing extremist incidents in the Bundeswehr. Some noted examples in recent years were:

• The training books in the army "Training close to the action" and "Practicing and shooting" contained numerous soldiers' stories of the alleged heroic spirit of the Wehrmacht , drawing on their guidelines and sources from the Nazi era. They were not revised until 2009 after media reports.
• The soldiers' motto "Loyalty for loyalty" was banned in the Bundeswehr in 2014. However , the saying appeared repeatedly in the Bundeswehr's Afghanistan mission. Paratroopers created the Facebook page “Fallschirmjäger - Green Devils!” And thus placed themselves in the tradition of the paratroopers of the Wehrmacht, known as “Green Devils”, who had committed many massacres of civilians.
• For decades, soldiers laid wreaths for Wehrmacht divisions such as the "Panzer Corps Feldherrnhalle" and the "Panzergrenadier Division Greater Germany" at the annual memorial service for the day of national mourning in the honor grove of the tank troops in Munster . They had committed numerous war crimes during the Nazi era. Invited veterans of the Wehrmacht also took part in the commemoration. In 2012 a veteran played the loyalty song of the Waffen SS to young soldiers on the harmonica. Only when the ARD magazine Kontraste showed this did the Ministry of Defense have the honor grove in Munster removed.
• A soldier in a tank division had been rioting against refugees since 2015 and wanted to put Chancellor Angela Merkel “against the wall” if “the right people” came to power. The case against him was dropped in 2017.
• In 2018, despite the ban on contact, a soldier took part in meetings of the right-wing extremist order of knight cross bearers several times . He was only reprimanded.
• During further training courses, five Bundeswehr trainers expressed themselves discriminating against soldiers of other origins and religions. They were fined, but were allowed to continue training.
• While visiting a disco, a soldier said, when he saw dark-skinned people, that “the blacks should have been shot”. He received instruction and retained access to weapons.
• A sergeant major refused a comrade because he “does not belong to the same race” and “the races should not mix”. He described the MAD's training on right-wing extremism as lying propaganda. He was not released.
• For decades, Luftwaffe Squadron 74 at the Neuburg Air Base glorified Colonel Werner Mölders , who had been involved in the mass extermination of civilians in the Condor Legion since 1936. His name was on airplanes and air force uniforms. A traditional room in the barracks exhibited his personal items, including a knight's cross with diamonds that Adolf Hitler had only given to a few Wehrmacht officers. Mölders' death anniversary was celebrated annually with an honor formation and eulogies at his grave. It wasn't until 2005 that the then Defense Minister Peter Struck had the barracks renamed. However, Mölders continued to be adored locally. For example, a “Mölders Association” with the magazine “Der Mölderianer” and a “Mölders memorial stone” continued the commemoration of the Air Force pilot until 2018. Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen only intervened after renewed reports .
• After their 2017 order to ban Wehrmacht devotional items from barracks and to rename barracks named after Wehrmacht soldiers, most city councils and soldiers in Rotenburg (Wümme) voted to keep the namesake of the Lent barracks, Helmut Lent . They viewed the Nazi perpetrator as a war hero and patriot who carried out his orders, just “on the wrong side”.
• In the Special Forces Command (KSK), members are said to have played right-wing extremist music for a company commander at the 2017 farewell ceremony and showed the Hitler salute. Anti-Semitic and xenophobic statements were repeatedly reported in the KSK. However, the MAD did not examine these suspected cases.
• In the Pullendorf training center for KSK applicants, there were repeated humiliating admission rituals. When these became known, KSK soldiers reported numerous anti-Semitic and racist statements from their comrades in an anonymous letter. One had sent a photomontage by email that showed the entrance gate of the Auschwitz concentration camp through which refugees streamed. Above it was the sentence: "There is room for each of you here." The company commander knew about it, but did nothing about it. It is customary in the KSK that such violations of service are covered up. They wrote anonymously because otherwise they would face harassment and the perpetrators would get away scot-free.
• Sergeant Patrick J. often reported to the MAD radical right-wing statements that KSK soldiers also made outside of the troops on social media. One of them kept talking about a “Jewish gene” and repeatedly insulted comrades as “Jews”. The MAD made sure that the staff office of the Federal Armed Forces dismissed the detectors because his "suitability of character" lacked: he had since 2017 with many messages given , "indicate possible right-wing tendencies and undemocratic behavior in the entire armed forces to want."

Criminal and violent offenses

Capture

The definition system of the German executive bodies (e.g. BKA, police and BfV) for politically motivated crime (PMK) has included not only classic state security offenses but also hate crimes that are hostile to groups . This includes crimes that are "directed against a person because of their political attitude, nationality, ethnicity, race, skin color, religion, ideology, origin, or because of their external appearance, their disability, their sexual orientation or their social status", as well as criminal offenses that are directed against an institution or cause for just such motives. The Federal Criminal Police Office counts criminal offenses as politically right-wing motivated “if references to ethnic nationalism, racism, social Darwinism or National Socialism were wholly or partially the cause of the commission”. The research counts people with a “closed right-wing extremist worldview” as “right-wing extremism potential”. The methods and criteria by which this can be determined is controversial.

Since March 2008, the crime statistics have also recorded unexplained or unexplainable propaganda offenses as politically motivated crimes. For a long time, however, the State Criminal Police Office hardly checked possible right-wing extremist motives in unorganized individual offenders. A review of motives for murder before 2015 resulted in significant upward revisions to the state victim statistics, but was carried out without a uniform methodology. Victim associations and experts continue to assume a high number of unreported cases of such acts.

General key figures

→ Main article : Fatalities from right-wing extremist violence in the Federal Republic of Germany  and right-wing violence in Germany

State-registered right-wing extremists :

Total number

Violent

1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
51,400	50,900	49,700	45,000	41,500	40,700	39,000	38,600	31,000	30,000	26,600
9000	9,700	10,400	10,700	10,000	10,000	10,400	10,400	10,000	9,500	9000
2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020
25,000	22,400	22,150	21,700	21,000	22,600	23,100	24,000	24,100	32,080
9,500	9,800	9,600	9,600	10,500	11,800	12,100	12,700	12,700	13,000

State-registered right-wing extremist crimes since 1990 :

Total number

Acts of violence

1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
	3,884	7,383	10,561	7,952	7,896	8,730	11,719	11,049	10,037
309	1492	2639	2232	1489	837	624	790	708	746
2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
15,951	14,725	12,933	11,576	12,051	15,361	18,142	17.607	20,422	19,468
998	980	1,930	1,870	832	1,034	1047	980	1042	891
2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
15,905	16,142	17,616	16,557	16,559	21,933	22,471	19,467	19,409	21,290
762	755	802	801	990	1408	1600	1054	1088	925

Since 1990, the number of right-wing extremist acts of violence has skyrocketed. There were pogrom-like attacks on collective accommodation and murder attacks on migrants' homes, for example in Hoyerswerda (1991), Hünxe (1991), Rostock (1992), Mölln (1992), Solingen (1993) and Lübeck (1996). The simultaneous asylum debate served as a legitimation background, so that the attackers believed they were in harmony with the majority of the population and politics. Media reports that the attacked had to flee and move from time to time motivated other perpetrators to emulate the attacks. After that, the proportion of older, unemployed and convicted perpetrators, who had also often become right-wing extremists, increased. Since then, it has been criticized that lurid media reports on right-wing extremist violence can have a stimulating effect and encourage imitation. As a result of the wave of government bans in 1992, acts of violence initially decreased somewhat.

According to the reports on the protection of the constitution since 2001, most right-wing extremist acts of violence (in absolute numbers, not in relation to the population) have taken place in the following federal states (abbreviated to ISO 3166-2: DE ):

2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
SN	BB	BB	NW	NW	NW	BB	NW	ST	NW
2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020
NW	NW	NW	-	NW	NW

Hiring potential

The right-wing extremist recruitment potential in the German population was estimated at six to 17 percent up to 2000, depending on the method used. Using its own criteria, the 1980 SINUS study calculated 13, and the Allensbach Institute for Demoscopy in 1984 calculated 6.2 percent of West German right-wing extremists. The scientist Jürgen W. Falter calculated in 1994 five percent right-wing extremists among Germans eligible to vote. A study by the University of Berlin from 1998/99 came to 13 percent for the whole of Germany, of which 12 percent in the west and 17 in the east. It has been shown since 1990 that the fewer immigrants and foreigners live in a region, the higher the voter potential for right-wing extremist parties.

Development tendencies

The BfV only counts members of right-wing extremist organizations and violent right-wing extremists as "right-wing extremism potential". His annual reports estimated their total number nationwide to be at least 21,000 (2014) and a maximum of 51,400 people (1999). As of 2007, the BfV no longer counted the approximately 6,000 REP members. While the total number has decreased by more than half since 1999, the proportion of violent workers increased by more than 50 percent from 1990 to 2000. Among them are a relatively high proportion of East Germans and women.

In 2012, the BfV counted a total of 230 right-wing extremist organizations, of which only three parties (NPD, Pro NRW and Dierechte ). The crime statistics registered from 2005 to 2012 an average of around 17,000 "politically right" motivated crimes, mostly typical propaganda crimes and hate speech as well as personal injury and property damage. It shows acts of violence separately. In right-wing extremist acts of violence, bodily harm predominates, followed by arson , breach of the peace , robbery , resistance to state violence and attempted or committed homicides . According to the Mainz report, around 110 NPD officials, 35 of them in a state or federal executive, committed around 120 such crimes from 2002 to 2012 or were charged with them. Propaganda offenses were not counted. The constitutional lawyer Jörn Ipsen attributes most of the violent crimes to the whole NPD.

According to the data collected by terrorism researcher Daniel Köhler, there were 92 right-wing terrorist groups in Germany from 1963 to 2015, as well as an unknown number of individual perpetrators of the "lone wolf" type who followed the concept of "leaderless resistance" imported from the USA around 1990.

After a temporary decline and stagnation since 2006, the authorities have been registering another sharp increase in right-wing extremist criminal and violent offenses since 2014. In 2016 there was one killing, 18 attempted homicides, 113 arson, over 450 coercion / threats, over 1,300 bodily harm and 12,476 propaganda offenses. In 2016, victim associations recorded at least 1948 right-wing extremist acts of violence in the five eastern German states and nine further deaths nationwide, as the attack in Munich in 2016 was also racially motivated. On average, there are five right-wing acts of violence every day in Germany.

In its 2018 report on the protection of the constitution, the BfV recorded an increase in right-wing xenophobic acts of violence of 6.1% (821 compared to 774 offenses in 2017). There were 48 anti-Semitic acts of violence with a right-wing extremist background (2015: 29; 2016: 31; 2017: 28). The BfV sees this development in connection with the “anti-asylum debate”, agitation against the “multicultural society” and the “Merkel system” for emotionalising and mobilizing. An intensification of the spread of information on social media, the formation of vigilante groups (to protect against threats based on one's own arguments) and, with a slight increase in rallies, a sharp increase in the number of participants (2018: 57,950 compared to approx. 16,400 in 2017 ).

A high degree of fluctuation is observed in the Internet-based forms of communication of right-wing extremist propaganda and agitation , since administrators move deleted presences to other locations or create new ones there. A popular format in the scene is the video weblog ( V-Log ), for example on YouTube . In January 2019 , the YouTube channel “ Der Volkslehrer ” had over 60,000 subscribers who were provided with positions on conspiracy theory or anti-Semitic positions, including Holocaust denial . Typical narratives are “Jewish clique”, “foreign infiltration”, “national resistance” and “creeping extinction of the German people ”as well as undesirable developments in politics and the media directed against the“ patriots ”.

In addition to the traditional large-scale events, there is a trend towards large-scale events that combine music and speeches through to festivals (2018: 270 compared to 259 in 2017). The report of the BfV 2018 also sees a "cross-spectrum networking" through to overlaps with the hooligan , ultra and rocker scene . There is also increasing networking with right-wing extremist groups abroad. In addition, reference is made to the growing importance of the right-wing extremist martial arts scene, which organizes martial arts tournaments such as the “Kampf der Nibelungen” (KdN) (since 2013), “Schild & Schwert” or “Jugend im Sturm”. Attention is also drawn to the importance of ideologically strategic discourses of the right-wing extremist scene on the Internet, social media and through printed products (such as “Pen and Sword”, “Works Codex” or “NS Today”). In the work code, the authors openly and obsessively set out their main goals: “1. Ensuring the survival of the white race, 2. Biological preservation of subracial specifics in characteristic populations (north-west, north-east, south), 3. Preservation of the larger peoples and languages ​​of Europe through secondary settlement projects (...). “In addition, they become more religious, racist, political, secondary and anti - Zionist anti - Semitism observed.

The only nationwide statistic for victims of right-wing violence since 1990 (managed by victims' associations and the Amadeu Antonio Foundation ) currently (March 2020) counts at least 209 murder victims and 12 suspected cases.

A study published in 2020 sees Germany at the top of right-wing terrorism and right-wing violence in a Western European comparison

Fatalities from right-wing extremist violence since 1990 :

according to the Amadeu Antonio Foundation

according to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution

Reich Citizens' Movement and Self-Governing Body

The Reich Citizens' Movement (and so-called self-administrators) have only been specifically observed since 2016, after members of this scene had committed a murder and an exchange of fire, weapons caches and attack plans had been discovered (see police murder in Georgensgmünd 2016) . By then, their number was 1000 nationwide; it is currently estimated at 18,000. Around 1650 of them had a gun ownership card ; 450 of these have been withdrawn since November 2016. Only 59 of around 750 other armed right-wing extremists were revoked. The authorities currently (May 2018) classify only 26 right-wing extremists as "threats" (2012: 4). At the same time, the Federal Public Prosecutor is currently conducting 14 preliminary or criminal proceedings against right-wing terrorist groups such as the Freital group , the Oldschool Society and Nordadler . They all formed without fixed structures in recent years and had not become noticeable before. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution concludes that the authorities are only aware of a few threats, because right-wing terrorists are radicalizing themselves today via the Internet and joining forces outside of existing groups for attacks. A nationwide search has been going on for 501 right-wing extremists in hiding since December 2017. In 2018, the BfV recorded 864 politically motivated crimes (2017: 911), including extortion, resistance, coercion, threats and sedition, as well as 160 acts of extremist violence nationwide (2017: 130), 89 of them in Bavaria.

Identitarian Movement Germany (IBD)

The Identitarian Movement Germany (IBD), which appeared for the first time in October 2012, lists the BfV's 2018 report on the protection of the constitution as a "suspected case" and estimates the number of members at 600 per year (2017: 500). In July 2019, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) classified the Identitarian Movement in Germany as clearly right-wing extremist after a three-year examination and can then monitor it with all intelligence services .

Combat

→ Main article : Initiatives against right-wing extremism in Germany

Initiative banner against neo-Nazis at the town hall of Anklam

Organization bans

→ Main article : List of right-wing extremist organizations banned in Germany

Organization bans derived from the principles of arguable democracy have been issued against right-wing extremist groups more often since the SRP ban of 1952. Since 1949, a total of 16 right-wing extremist organizations have been banned at the federal level and 73 at the state level . This has happened 12 times each in Bavaria and Berlin , not yet in Saarland , Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia .

Organization bans are often criticized as being unsuitable for preventing right-wing extremism because organizations that are banned or threatened by a ban are re-established under a different name or their members join another organization. In addition, the state persecution could strengthen the group feeling of belonging. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution could more easily observe non-prohibited organizations. From the point of view of democracy theory , the use of the means of arguable democracy is a dilemma, since it curtails basic democratic rights .

In 2008 the Federal Ministry of the Interior banned two right-wing extremist organizations for the first time since 2000: the Association for the Rehabilitation of Those Persecuted for Contesting the Holocaust and the Collegium Humanum, which has existed since the 1960s . The first NPD prohibition procedure initiated by the Federal Government (2001–2003) failed, as did the second NPD ban procedure (2013–2017) requested by the Federal Council in 2013 . The BVerfG rejected the NPD ban in 2003 because of the strong enforcement of the NPD leadership with informants , and in 2017 because the NPD did not endanger democracy.

Victim counseling and prevention

Some initiatives are committed to helping minorities and victims of right-wing extremist violence who, in addition to physical and emotional injuries, have also suffered financial damage (victim counseling). In addition, preventive measures are carried out (e.g. through information and awareness-raising events).

Preventive measures can be divided into three categories. Primary prevention is understood to mean measures that attempt in advance to prevent right-wing extremism. Secondary prevention measures try to influence the orientations, attitudes and behavior of risk groups, while tertiary prevention works directly with right-wing extremists.

In counter-initiatives to right-wing extremism, a distinction can be made between state prevention and repression measures and civil society efforts.

Federal Government measures to combat right-wing extremism are currently in the federal program to promote tolerance - Competence strengthen the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs assured. The aim of the program is to promote civil engagement, democratic behavior and the commitment to diversity and tolerance. For this purpose, 24 million euros in federal funds were available annually until 2014. According to the coalition agreement of the 18th parliamentary term of the Bundestag , such programs are to be perpetuated. The state funding practice has been criticized, among other things, for the fact that it supports rather short-term campaigns and concentrates on start-up financing for model projects. The financing of counter-initiatives must be secured in the long term and structurally. The Federal Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Ministry of Justice founded the Alliance for Democracy and Tolerance in 2000 in order to network civil society engagement against right-wing extremism and to give it greater public response .

The Amadeu Antonio Foundation and the Freudenberg Foundation are among the largest . These two provide advice to local action groups with technical expertise and provide financial support. Well-known civil society initiatives that campaign against right-wing extremism nationwide are the School Without Racism - School With Courage , the Net Against Nazis and the International Weeks Against Nazism . To directly support victims of right-wing violence, the Notingang campaign and the Cura victim fund have established themselves at the federal level. The victim fund works closely with local victim counseling. EXIT Germany is the best-known dropout program for right-wing extremists.

Right-wing extremism file

In particular in the follow-up to the “Ceska” murders and the murders of the “ Zwickau Trio ”, there was not a deficit in obtaining information, but in the flow of information and the evaluation of information by the individual federal and state security authorities. The findings, which the Federal , a state police or other involved police after right-wing file-law win from 20 August 2012 may be the transmits the criminal investigations leading prosecutor, if these authorities acted at their request or on their behalf . This can use the transmitted data for purposes of criminal proceedings.

causes

research

In Germany there is no special scientific discipline for researching right-wing extremism. This is researched in different departments, but not in an interdisciplinary manner. Most of the research contributions since 1990 have come from the social sciences and less from political science . Research contributions on the topic use various methodological approaches to examine socialization conditions, the training and work situation of right-wing extremists, the development of right-wing extremist crimes and voting behavior. The subject area is divided into micro and macro phenomena and ideology . Attitudes and behavior are distinguished at the micro level, and unorganized subcultures and organizations (parties, associations, publishers, etc.) at the macro level . A distinction is usually made between fascism, socialization and modernization theoretic explanations for right-wing extremism.

Research on extremism is strongly influenced by totalitarianism theory and is financially and institutionally linked to the interior ministries of the federal states. Their dependence on state authorities, their concept of democracy and their classification of different phenomena are often criticized. Since 2011, some scholars have been accusing her of suppressing right-wing extremist structures, which were partly responsible for the NSU's failure to discover. Above all, the theory of extremism does not adequately capture the overlap between positions of the alleged middle class and the radical right.

Theories of fascism

The fascism-theoretical approach tries to interpret right-wing extremism as a reaction of the capitalist system to crisis situations. This approach, inspired by Marxism , sees fascism as an intensified form of exercising “bourgeois rule”, which in the face of economic crises restricts political freedoms in favor of the economy. This approach has long been discussed in political science, but lost much of its explanatory power with the rise of right-wing extremism in the societies of the countries that emerged from the collapse of real socialism.

Socialization theories

Right-wing extremist attitudes as essential personality traits of an authoritarian character are the basic idea of ​​further publications of the IfS. Helmut Willems confirmed the assumption that an ethnocentric attitude is only part of a comprehensive bundle in which the gender role plays a large role and male chauvinism , violence against women and homosexuals, repression and high expectations of leaders converge.

The right-wing extremism expert David Anbich speaks of a " generation Hoyerswerda ", which "laid the foundations for today's racism and right-wing extremism [...]". With regard to East Germany, “stable right-wing milieus that are still reproducing today” have developed. Those who rioted and attacked migrants at the time share “the collective biographical experience of not only making their racist views heard by means of violence, but also helping them achieve a breakthrough in many places.” Today these people are no longer active as actors of violence, but give “as parents [...] Attitudes and attitudes to the generation that is now acting on the streets ”.

Modernization theories

Approaches that explain right-wing extremism as a reaction to social upheaval, individualization and disorientation are called modernization- theoretical approaches. Its most prominent but also most controversial representative is Wilhelm Heitmeyer . He advocates a theory of disintegration , according to which particularly unorganized young people are regarded as “victims of modernization” who cannot keep up with the rapid pace of social change and who try to deal with this with right-wing extremist violence. In doing so, Heitmeyer refers to the analysis of Ulrich Beck , who described the Federal Republic as a risk society that increasingly dissolves traditional ties, collectives and milieus, assigns life risks more and more to the individual and thus exposes him to increasingly overwhelming experiences of powerlessness. Here right-wing extremist ideologies - Heitmeyer speaks of ideologies of inequality - can take hold with simple pseudo-solutions that reduce the complexity of life, portray strangers and the weaker as scapegoats and thus increase the propensity for violence against such groups. Heitmeyer coined the term “ group-related enmity” for these attitudes . Critics point out that the modernization victim approach finds little confirmation in empirical studies and that people with right-wing extremist attitudes tend to be more likely to show a voluntaristic refusal to accept modern reflexivity.

Empirical Social Research

Empirical social research now divides right-wing extremist attitudes into different political and social fields. A representative study by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation on right-wing extremist attitudes in Germany uses the following attitude patterns:

• Advocating a right-wing dictatorship,
• Chauvinism ,
• Xenophobia ,
• Anti-Semitism ,
• Social darwinism ,
• Downplaying and justification of National Socialism ( historical revisionism )

Additional information

See also

Portal: right-wing extremism  - overview of Wikipedia content on right-wing extremism

literature

Reference books and manuals

• Fabian Virchow, Martin Langebach, Alexander Häusler (eds.): Handbook for right-wing extremism. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2017, ISBN 3-531-19085-7
• Thomas Grumke (Ed.): Handbook right-wing radicalism . People, organizations, networks from neo-Nazism to the middle of society. Leske + Budrich, Opladen 2002, ISBN 3-8100-3399-5 .
• Jens Mecklenburg (Hrsg.): Handbook of German right-wing extremism. Elefanten-Press, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-88520-585-8 .
• Astrid Lange: What the right-wing read. Fifty right-wing magazines. Goals, content, tactics. Beck, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-406-37404-2 .
• Kurt Hirsch: Right from the Union. People, organizations, parties since 1945. A lexicon. Knesebeck & Schuler, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-926901-22-5 .
• Kommunistischer Bund (Ed.): Who with whom? Brown areas between CDU / CSU and neo-Nazis. A reference work for anti-fascists. Buntbuch, Hamburg 1981, ISBN 3-88653-002-7 .

General

• Heike Kleffner , Anna Spangenberg (ed.): Generation Hoyerswerda. be.bra, Berlin 2016, ISBN 3-89809-127-9 .
• Gideon Botsch : The extreme right in the Federal Republic from 1949 until today. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2012, ISBN 3-534-23832-X .
• Andreas Klärner, Michael Kohlstruck (ed.): Modern right-wing extremism in Germany. Hamburger Edition , Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-936096-62-7 .
• Armin Pfahl-Traughber : Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic. 4th updated edition, Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-47244-3 .
• Richard Stöss: Right-wing extremism in transition. Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89892-392-4 (PDF; 917 KB).
• Steffen Kailitz : Political extremism in the Federal Republic of Germany. An introduction. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 3-531-14193-7 .
• Christoph Butterwegge : right-wing extremism. Herder, Freiburg 2002, ISBN 3-451-05229-6 .
• Hans-Gerd Jaschke: Right-wing extremism and xenophobia. Terms, positions, fields of practice. 2nd edition, Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden 2001, ISBN 3-531-32679-1 .
• Wilfried Schubarth, Richard Stöss (Ed.): Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic of Germany. A balance sheet. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2001, ISBN 3-322-97526-6
• Richard Stöss: Right-wing extremism in a united Germany. 3rd revised edition, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-86077-940-0 (PDF; 795 KB).
• Uwe Backes , Eckhard Jesse : Political extremism in the Federal Republic of Germany. 4th, completely revised and updated edition. New edition. Federal Agency for Political Education, Bonn 1996, ISBN 3-89331-260-9 .
• Peter Dudek, Hans-Gerd Jaschke: Origin and development of right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic. To the tradition of a particular political culture. Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden 1984, ISBN 3-531-11668-1 (Volume I), ISBN 3-531-11705-X (Volume II).

Individual areas

• Matthias Meisner , Heike Kleffner (eds.): Extreme security. Right-wing extremists in the police, the protection of the constitution, the armed forces and the judiciary. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 2019, ISBN 3-451-38561-9 .
• Gorch Pieken , Matthias Rogg (Ed.): Right-wing extremist violence in Germany 1990–2013. Sandstein, Dresden 2013, ISBN 3-95498-014-2 .
• Patrick Gensing : Terror from the right. The Nazi murders and the failure of politics. Rotbuch, Berlin 2012, ISBN 3-86789-163-X .
• Andreas Böttger and others (ed.): Victims of right-wing extremist violence. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 3-531-14692-0 .
• Stefan Borrmann: Right-wing youth groups. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-531-14823-0 .
• Ludger Klein: Right-Wing Extremism and Collective Identity. A social psychological study on "The Republicans" and "Young Freedom". University of Kiel, Kiel 2003 (PDF; 3.1 MB)
• Jens-Fietje Dwars , Mathias Günther: The brown heart of Germany? Right-wing extremism in Thuringia. Quer, Jena 2001, ISBN 3-935787-02-2 .
• Thomas Pfeiffer : Media of a new social movement from the right. Ruhr University, Bochum 2000 (PDF; 2.5 MB).
• Helmut Reinalter , Franko Petri, Rüdiger Kaufmann (ed.): The worldview of right-wing extremism. StudienVerlag, Innsbruck 1998, ISBN 3-7065-1258-0 .
• Wilhelm Heitmeyer and others: The Bielefeld right-wing extremism study. First long-term study of the political socialization of male adolescents. 2nd edition, Juventa, Weinheim 1993, ISBN 3-7799-0422-5 .

Federal states

• Florian Finkbeiner, Katharina Trittel, Lars Geiges: Right-wing radicalism in Lower Saxony. Actors, developments and local interaction , Transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2019, ISBN 978-3-8376-4965-9 .

Far right parties

• Robert Ackermann: Why the NPD cannot be successful - organization, program and communication of a right-wing extremist party . Budrich, Opladen 2012, ISBN 3-86388-012-9 .
• Uwe Hoffmann: The NPD: Development, Ideology and Structure . Lang, Frankfurt 1999.

Combat

• Friedrich Burschel, Uwe Schubert, Gerd Wiegel (eds.): "The summer is over ...": From the "uprising of the decent" to the "extremism clause": Contributions to 13 years of "federal programs against the right". Edition Assemblage, Münster 2013, ISBN 3-942885-61-1 .
• Bettina Pauli, Andreas Klärner, Dietmar Molthagen : Study and work book against right-wing extremism. Acting for democracy. Dietz, Bonn 2008, ISBN 3-8012-0381-6 .
• Viola Georgi, Hauke ​​Hartmann, Britta Schellenberg, Michael Seberich (eds.): Strategies against right-wing extremism, Volume 2: Recommendations for action for politics and practice. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 2005, ISBN 3-89204-719-7 .
• Eckhard Jesse, Uwe Backes (ed.): Yearbook extremism and democracy . Nomos, Baden-Baden.

Prohibitions

• Michal Goldbach (Ed.): With legal weapons against the right. On the effectiveness of party and assembly bans. Evangelical Academy Hofgeismar, Hofgeismar 2003, ISBN 3-89281-234-9 .
• Lars Oliver Michaelis: Political parties under the surveillance of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The arguable democracy between tolerance and readiness for defense. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2000, ISBN 3-7890-6695-8 .

Web links

• BfV: Right-wing extremism: symbols, signs and prohibited organizations. October 2018
• Elhakam Sukhni: Right-wing extremism and right-wing populism in Germany - A situation report. RAMSA eV, Cologne 2015
• Protection of the Constitution Brandenburg: Prohibited right-wing extremist organizations. (July 2014)
• Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung: Projects and studies on right-wing extremism
• Right-wing extremism on the National Atlas of the Federal Republic of Germany
• "Courage against right-wing violence"
• IDA-NRW
• Tagesspiegel: Fatalities of right-wing violence. (interactive graphic)
• SWR dossier on right-wing extremism in Germany

Individual evidence

1. ↑ BfV: Facts and Figures - Right-Wing Extremist Personal Potential (general overview). As of December 31, 2018 (excluding the potential of right-wing extremist organizations for foreigners, such as gray wolves ).
2. ↑ Adrienne Krappidel: behavior of right-wing and democratic local politicians: self-perception and perception of voter groups and parties. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2016, pp. 16-18 .
3. ↑ Hans-Gerd Jaschke: Origin and development of right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic. To the tradition of a particular political culture. Volume 1. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 1984, pp. 21-23 .
4. ^ Andreas Klärner, Michael Kohlstruck: Modern right-wing extremism in Germany. Bonn 2006, p. 14.
5. ^ BfV: Glossary: ​​Right-Wing Extremism.
6. ^ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic. Munich 2006, pp. 11-16.
7. ↑ ^{a b} Richard Stöss: Right-wing extremism in a united Germany. Berlin 2000, pp. 36–38
   Everhard Holtmann (Ed.): Polit-Lexikon. Munich 2000, p. 573f. .
8. ^ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic. Munich 2006, pp. 17-20.
9. ↑ Bernd Janssen, Jan Janssen, Sabine Janssen: For human rights - against hatred and right-wing violence. Teaching, upbringing and shaping school culture. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2017, ISBN 3-647-70243-9 , p. 10 .
10. ^ Hans-Gerd Jaschke: Right-wing extremism: Results and perspectives of research. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 1996, ISBN 3-322-97077-9 , p. 196 .
11. ^ Andreas Klärner: Between militancy and bourgeoisie: Self-image and practice of the extreme right. Hamburger Edition HIS, Hamburg 2012, ISBN 3-86854-507-7 , p. 8 .
12. ↑ Gideon Botsch: True Democracy and Volksgemeinschaft: Ideology and program of the NPD and its right-wing extremist environment. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2017, ISBN 3-658-14959-0 , p. 2 .
13. ↑ Gideon Botsch, Christoph Kopke: Continuity of anti-Semitism: Israel in view of the extreme right. In: Olaf Glöckner, Julius H. Schoeps (Ed.): Germany, the Jews and the State of Israel. A political inventory. Georg Olms, Hildesheim 2016, ISBN 3-487-08580-1 , pp. 285-313.
14. ^ Sybille Steinbacher: Right-wing violence in Germany: To deal with right-wing extremism in society, politics and the judiciary. Wallstein, 2016, ISBN 3-8353-4048-4 , p. 9 .
15. ↑ Ralf Wiederer: On the virtual networking of international right-wing extremism. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 3-86226-834-9 , p. 46 .
16. ↑ All figures in the table according to Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic. Munich 2006, pp. 21-39.
17. ^ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic. Munich 2006, pp. 21-23.
18. ^ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic. Munich 2006, p. 24.
19. ^ Richard Stöss: History of right-wing extremism. Federal Agency for Civic Education (BpB), September 12, 2006.
20. ^ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic. Munich 2006, p. 25f.
21. ↑ Ralph Kummer: Development of party-like organized right-wing extremism after 1945. A brief overview of right-wing extremist elections (failed). BpB, March 14, 2007.
22. ^ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic. Munich 2006, pp. 28-30.
23. ^ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic. Munich 2006, pp. 31–33.
24. ^ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic. Munich 2006, pp. 34–36.
25. ↑ ^{a b} Federal Ministry of the Interior: Report on the Protection of the Constitution 2008. 2nd edition 2013, PDF, pp. 53–55.
26. ^ NPD in Saxony-Anhalt - bankruptcy in the choice of fate. Spiegel Online , March 21, 2011.
27. ^ Gideon Botsch: "National Opposition" in the democratic society. In: Fabian Virchow et al. (Ed.): Handbuch right-wing extremism , Wiesbaden 2017, p. 67 .
28. ↑ Ute Schaeffer: Fake instead of fact: How populists, bots and trolls attack our democracy. Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, 2018, ISBN 3-423-43365-5 , pp. 153f. .
29. ↑ Ulf Lüdeke: Expert worried: AfD meeting reveals frightening dynamics - not on stage, but in the audience. Focus, February 16, 2018.
30. ↑ Future of the AfD: Political scientist: Signs point to further radicalization. Deutschlandfunk, November 5, 2018.
31. ↑ Kai Biermann, Astrid Geisler, Johannes Radke, Tilman Steffen: Bundestag: AfD members employ right-wing extremists and enemies of the constitution. Time online, March 21, 2018.
32. ↑ Ulrich Kraetzer: Expert on AfD: "Just a nice paraphrase for ethnic nationalism". Berliner Morgenpost, May 20, 2018.
33. ^ Giessen judgment: AfD can be called right-wing extremist. FAZ, April 18, 2018
34. ↑ Amadeu Antonio Foundation publishes manual on dealing with the AfD. Welt online, August 13, 2019.
35. ^ Theodor W. Adorno: Aspects of the new right-wing radicalism. A presentation. 6th edition, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2019, ISBN 3-518-58737-4 , p. 11
36. ^ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic. Munich 2006, pp. 52–54.
37. ^ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic. Munich 2006, pp. 55-57.
38. ^ Right-wing radicals: Living time bomb. Spiegel, January 12, 1981
39. ^ Norbert Madloch: Right-wing extremism in Germany after the end of Hitler's fascism. ( Memento of October 7, 2005 in the Internet Archive ). (PDF; 1 MB). In: Klaus Kinner, Rolf Richter: Right-wing extremism and anti-fascism. Historical and current dimension. Berlin 2000, pp. 57-214
40. ↑ Antonia von der Behrens: The network of the NSU, contributory negligence of the state and prevented clarification. In: No closing words. Nazi Terror - Security Authorities - Support Network. Pleading in the NSU trial. VSA, Hamburg 2018, p. 201.
41. ^ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic. Munich 2006, pp. 58-61.
42. ^ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic. Munich 2006, p. 61f.
43. ↑ Bianca Klose and others: Right-wing extremist youth cultures: Neo-Nazi orientations in urban space. Using the example of Berlin. BpB, May 8, 2007
44. ^ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic. Munich 2006, pp. 75-78.
45. ↑ Uwe Wenzel, Beate Rosenzweig, Ulrich Eith (ed.): Right-wing terror and right-wing extremism. Current manifestations and approaches of political education practice. Wochenschau Verlag, 2016, ISBN 3-7344-0113-5 , p. 50f. .
46. ^ Sebastian Gräfe: Right-wing terrorism in the Federal Republic of Germany: Between adventure-oriented young people, after-work terrorists and clandestine underground cells. Nomos, 2017, ISBN 3-8487-4515-1 , pp. 209-211 and fn. 620 .
47. ↑ New right-wing party wants to replace NPD. Spiegel Online, July 27, 2012.
48. ↑ "The Right" disappeared from the Internet. NDR, January 17, 2013 (archived at Dokmz.com).
49. ↑ Katrin Figge, Oliver Koch: Ten injured in a neo-Nazi storm on Dortmund city hall. DerWesten.de, May 26, 2014.
50. ↑ Neo-Nazi asks the city council about the number of Jews in Dortmund. Welt online, November 14, 2014.
51. ↑ 2 Thwarted attack - “Dierechte” party does not distance itself from suspects. In: FAZ. 23 October 2015.
52. ↑ Nadja Erb, Hanning Voigts: Neo-Nazis: The third way leads to the right. In: Frankfurter Rundschau. February 6, 2015.
53. ^ BfV: The III. Path. ( Memento from May 23, 2018 in the Internet Archive ).
54. ↑ Masterminds of hatred: As “The III. Weg “heats up the mood against refugees. In: Report Mainz. October 1, 2015.
55. ↑ Kathrin Hollmer: The brown map. In: Jetzt.sueddeutsche.de. 15th July 2015.
56. ^ Julian Staib: The data protection rights of the right-wing extremists. FAZ, September 23, 2019
57. ↑ M. Baumgärtner and others: Investigations against right-wing extremists. "Teutonico" and its terrorist cell. Spiegel online, February 16, 2020; Twelve arrests. Strike against suspected right-wing terrorist cell. Tagesschau.de, February 14, 2020
58. ↑ Explosives found at the concentration camp memorial. Time online, February 20, 2020
59. ↑ Federal Minister of the Interior Seehofer: “We must outlaw racism”. BMI, February 21, 2020
60. ^ Graffiti and right-wing music. Police gather right-wing youth gangs in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Spiegel online, February 26, 2020
61. ↑ Berlin. “Central Office for Hate Crime” aims to combat racist violence. Spiegel online, March 11, 2020
62. ↑ Patrick Gensing : Criticism of Corona Measures: Radical Change www.tagesschau.de, May 5, 2020
63. ↑ Bernhard Junginger: Experts warn: xenophobia could increase further due to the corona crisis. www.augsburger-allgemeine.de, May 12, 2020
64. ↑ tagesschau.de: Dealing with right-wing extremists: The weak state. Retrieved April 6, 2020 . 
65. ↑ Thomas Pfeiffer: "We love the foreign - in the foreign." Ethnopluralism as a discourse pattern and strategy in right-wing extremism. In: Jennifer Schellhöh and others (eds.): Grand narratives of the extreme: New rights, populism, Islamism, war on terror. transcript, 2018, ISBN 3-8376-4119-8 , pp. 35-55, here pp. 36f.
66. ^ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic. Munich 2006, p. 40.
67. ^ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic. Munich 2006, pp. 40-44.
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68. ↑ Ralph Kummer: Development of party-like organized right-wing extremism after 1945. A brief overview of right-wing extremist elections (failed). In: bpb.de. 2007.
69. ↑ Right Angels. In: Spiegel Online. January 5, 2009.
70. ↑ Andrea Röpke: yearbook rights violence. Background, analysis and the events of 2017. Chronicle of hatred. Knaur, Munich 2018, ISBN 3-426-78913-2 , pp. 39–41.
71. ↑ Matthias Meisner, Heike Kleffner (ed.): Extreme security. Freiburg 2019, pp. 9–12.
72. ↑ ^{a b} Sammy Khamis: Controversial for decades. In: Matthias Meisner, Heike Kleffner (ed.): Extreme security. Freiburg 2019, pp. 174–187.
73. ↑ Susi Wimmer: Sexual offense and anti-Semitism: Police scandal in Munich - suspensions in the special unit. Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), March 15, 2019
74. ↑ Incitator in uniform. SZ, March 5, 2020
75. ^ Christian Fuchs, Kai Biermann: Berlin Police. Lawman in the twilight. Time May 20, 2018.
76. ↑ Christian Fuchs: threatening letters from the police. In: Matthias Meisner, Heike Kleffner (ed.): Extreme security. Freiburg 2019, pp. 78–84.
77. ↑ ^{a b} Tom Schimmeck: Right-wing extremism in the police. Too many isolated cases. Deutschlandfunk, December 20, 2019.
78. ↑ ^{a b c} Karolin Schwarz: Data leaks and death threats. In: Matthias Meisner, Heike Kleffner (ed.): Extreme security. Freiburg 2019, pp. 71–76.
79. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Jörg Diehl, Lukas Eberle, Fidelius Schmid, Jean-Pierre Ziegler: Right-wing extremist chat groups of the NRW police: Hetzer on the guard. Spiegel Online, September 16, 2020
80. ^ Right-wing extremism: With the service weapon against "rabble". SZ, September 7, 2020
81. ↑ ^{a b} North Rhine-Westphalia: Right-wing extremist chat groups at the police uncovered. SZ, September 16, 2020
82. ↑ ^{a b} Minister of the Interior on scandal in North Rhine-Westphalia: Reul speaks about problematic "comradeship" in the police. Spiegel Online, September 17, 2020
83. ↑ Matthias Meisner, Heike Kleffner (ed.): Extreme security. Freiburg 2019, p. 10.
    Matthias Meisner: Xenophobia in Saxony. SPD: Policemen sympathize with Pegida. Tagesspiegel, March 3, 2016.
84. ↑ Aiko Kempen: "It's War". The "storm" on Leipzig-Connewitz and the Saxon authorities. In: Matthias Meisner, Heike Kleffner (ed.): Extreme security. Freiburg 2019, pp. 85–96.
85. ^ ^{A b} Fatima Abbas: Hitler salute, anti-Semitic videos, Reich citizenship symbols: at least 170 suspected right-wing extremism cases in the police. Tagesspiegel, September 8, 2020
86. ↑ Frida Thurm: In three steps against right-wing extremist police officers. Time online, December 18, 2018
87. ↑ Heike Kleffner, Matthias Meisner: Like under a burning glass. An interview with Christoph Kopke and Tobias Singelnstein. In: Matthias Meisner, Heike Kleffner (ed.): Extreme security. Freiburg 2019, pp. 120–130.
88. ↑ Tobias Tscherrig: Racism Report: Council of Europe issues Germany with a certificate of poverty. Migazin, March 26, 2020; ECRI report on Germany (sixth round of tests). December 10, 2019 (completed); March 17, 2020 (published)
89. ^ Caroline Walter: Blind spots. The Bundeswehr and how it deals with right-wing extremism. In: Matthias Meisner, Heike Kleffner (ed.): Extreme security. Freiburg 2019, pp. 260–271.
90. ^ Dorina Feldmann et al .: Classification of politically right-wing homicides. Universitätsverlag der TU, Berlin 2018, ISBN 3-7983-2971-0 , p. 24f. .
91. ↑ ^{a b} Jürgen R. Winkler: right-wing extremism. Subject - explanatory approaches - basic problems. In: Wilfried Schubarth (Hrsg.): Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic of Germany: A balance sheet. Wiesbaden 2001, p.63f. .
92. ^ LKA: More right-wing deeds in statistics thanks to the new way of counting. In: world. September 1, 2008.
93. ↑ Helmut Lölhöffel: Corrected right murder statistics. In: look to the right . July 27, 2015 (fee required).
94. ↑ ^{a b c d} Constitutional Protection Report Brandenburg 1999. PDF, p. 18 (1998–1999).
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95. ^ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic. Munich 2006, p. 68f. (Acts of violence 1990–1997).
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96. ^ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic. Munich 2006, pp. 68-71.
97. ↑ Rainer Erb: Do the media make extremism socially acceptable in the first place? In: The Parliament. December 11, 1992.
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98. ^ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic. Munich 2006, p. 107.
99. ↑ Iris Huth: Political disaffection. Volume 3, 2004, p. 226.
100. ↑ Andreas Beelmann, Kai J. Jonas (Ed.): Discrimination and Tolerance: Psychological Basics and Application Perspectives . Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 3-531-91621-1 , p. 288 .
101. ↑ Frieder Dünkel, Bernd Geng (Hrsg.): Youth violence and crime prevention: Empirical findings on experiences of violence among young people in Greifswald and Usedom / Western Pomerania and their effects on local crime prevention. Forum, Godesberg 2003, ISBN 3-930982-95-1 , p. 140 .
102. ↑ 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. 296 .
103. ^ Felix Rauscher: Legal Assessment of Right-Wing Extremist Assemblies. LIT Verlag, Münster 2017, ISBN 3-643-13613-7 , p. 11f. .
104. ↑ Over 120 criminal proceedings in the past 10 years. SWR, March 6, 2012.
105. ↑ Andrea Röpke: 2018 yearbook rights violence. Munich 2018, p. 14f.
106. ↑ Statista.com: Number of politically motivated crimes and acts of violence with a right-wing extremist background in Germany from 2006 to 2016.
107. ↑ BMI: Verfassungsschutz Report 2016 (PDF; p. 24).
108. ↑ Andrea Röpke: 2018 yearbook rights violence. Munich 2018, p. 192.
109. ↑ BMI: Constitutional Protection Report 2018. Berlin 2019, PDF p. 26.
110. ↑ BMI: Constitutional Protection Report 2018. Berlin 2019, PDF p. 46f.
111. ↑ BMI: Constitutional Protection Report 2018. Berlin 2019, PDF p. 47
112. ↑ BMI: Constitutional Protection Report 2018. Berlin 2019, PDF p. 61
113. ↑ BMI: Constitutional Protection Report 2018. Berlin 2019, PDF p. 62
114. ↑ BMI: Constitutional Protection Report 2018. Berlin 2019, PDF p. 63
115. ↑ BMI: Constitutional Protection Report 2018. Berlin 2019, PDF p. 66f.
116. ↑ BMI: Constitutional Protection Report 2018. Berlin 2019, PDF pp. 68–70.
117. ↑ BMI: Constitutional Protection Report 2018. Berlin 2019, PDF pp. 73–75.
118. ↑ ^{a b} Anna Brausam: Fatalities of right-wing violence since 1990 (March 2020).
119. ↑ Jacob Aasland Ravndal, Sofia Lygren, Anders Ravik Jupskås and Tore Bjørgo: Right-Wing Terrorism and Violence in Western Europe, 1990 - 2019 published by the Center for Research on Extremism, University of Oslo, 2020. Available online (PDF file)
120. ^ Kai Biermann: Right-Wing Extremism: Undetected Threat. Time online, May 22, 2018.
121. ^ Frank Jansen: Right-wing extremism in Germany: a good 500 neo-Nazis live underground. Tagesspiegel, December 1, 2017.
122. ↑ BMI: Constitutional Protection Report 2018. Berlin 2019, PDF p. 30.
123. ↑ BMI: Verfassungsschutz Report 2018. Berlin 2019, PDF pp. 82–84.
124. ↑ Alexej Hock: The Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies the identity movement as right-wing extremist. Welt online, July 11, 2019.
125. ↑ Wolfgang Rudzio: The political system of the Federal Republic of Germany. 7th edition, Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2006, pp. 36-38 and 452-454.
126. ↑ Hans-Gerd Jaschke: Longing for the strong state. What causes repression against the right? BpB, May 26, 2002
127. ↑ Wolfgang Frindte, Siegfried Preiser: Preventive approaches against right-wing extremism. BpB, March 2, 2007
128. ↑ Christian Demuth: What to do? And leave what? Conditions for success and obstacles to initiatives against right-wing extremism. ( Memento of May 24, 2018 in the Internet Archive ). In: perspektiven 21 - Brandenburg books for science & politics. Issue 36, December 2007, p. 61f.
129. ↑ Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ): Final report of the federal program Promoting Tolerance - Strengthening Competence. Zarbock GmbH, June 2014
130. ↑ Maximilian Popp: Frustration instead of courage. Spiegel online, September 2, 2013.
131. ^ Fight against right-wing extremism: the federal and state governments agree on a central neo-Nazi file. Spiegel online, November 18, 2011.
132. ^ Draft law to improve the fight against right-wing extremism. Bundestag printed paper 17/8672, February 13, 2012, PDF p. 19.
133. ↑ Christoph Kopke, Wolfgang Kühnel (Ed.): Democracy, Freedom and Security: Festschrift for the 65th birthday of Hans-Gerd Jaschke. Nomos, 2017, ISBN 3-8487-4368-X , p. 142 .
134. ↑ Gero Neugebauer: extremism - right-wing extremism - left-wing extremism: some comments on terms, research concepts, research questions and research results. In: Wilfried Schubarth, Richard Stöss (Hrsg.): Right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic of Germany - A balance sheet. Wiesbaden 2001, pp. 13-37.
135. ^ Marc Brandstetter: The NPD in the 21st century. An analysis of your current situation, your conditions for success and prospects. Tectum, Marburg 2006, p. 27ff.
136. ↑ Christian Seipel, Susanne Rippl: Approaches to right-wing extremism research - an empirical comparison of theories. In: Journal for Sociology of Education and Socialization Issue 3/2000, pp. 303–318.
137. ↑ Juliane Karakayah, Doris Liebscher, Carl Melchers, Cagri Kahveci: The NSU complex and science. In: Juliane Karakayali and others (ed.): Analyzing the NSU complex: Current perspectives from science. transcript, 2017, ISBN 3-8376-3709-3 , pp. 23f. .
138. ^ Armin Pfahl-Traughber: Right-wing extremism. A critical review after reunification. Bouvier, Bonn 1993, ISBN 3-416-02435-4 , pp. 202f.
139. ↑ Helmut Willems: Xenophobic violence. Attitudes - perpetrators - conflict escalation. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 1993, ISBN 3-322-96049-8
140. ^ Patrick Gensing: Stronghold of right-wing extremism. Tagesschau.de, August 28, 2018.
141. ↑ ^{a b} Elisabeth Holtmann: Sociological explanatory approaches on the subject of "violence and xenophobia". In: Dieter Holtmann (Ed.): Potsdam Contributions to Social Research No. 12, October 2001 , pp. 1–3 (PDF; 217 kB).
142. ↑ Norbert Götz: Loser of modernization or opponent of reflexive modernity? Right-wing extremist attitudes in Berlin. In: Journal of Sociology, Volume 26, Issue 6, December 1, 1997, ISSN 0340-1804, pp. 393-413 ( download )
143. ↑ Oliver Decker, Elmar Brähler, Norman Geissler: From the edge to the middle. Right-wing extremist attitudes and their influencing factors in Germany. Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-89892-566-8 , pp. 20f. (PDF; 749 kB).