Immortals (right-wing extremism)

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The Immortals were a campaign carried out by neo-Nazis that was used across Germany. Similar to a flash mob, a number of up to 300 participants formed who wore white masks, usually at night and then with torches, carried out a march that broke up after a few minutes. This method was first used by the Spreelichtern , a group within the resistance movement in southern Brandenburg that was banned in June 2012 . These marches were followed by a media staging on the Internet that sought to achieve a broad impact.

Occur

The right-wing extremists usually wore white theater masks when they performed surprisingly at public festivals or during nightly parades. They marched through the grounds in formations of around fifty to a hundred people and chanted right-wing extremist slogans. Most of the time they disappeared as suddenly as they came. The nightly performances in particular were reminiscent of the National Socialists' torchlight procession .

The masking was intended to prevent individuals from being accused of specific actions or statements. The intention is thus similar to that of the black bloc of the Antifa or the autonomous nationalists .

propaganda

The völkisch ideology is expressed in the speech of the impending “death of the people” and the group's model of action, which has been processed in the media. They documented their actions in professionally made videos which they distributed on right-wing extremist websites. They also use social media platforms for dissemination.

Only in 21 places were there such marches before the ban, mostly with a few dozen participants. However, since the videos have been edited, it seems to viewers that the number of participants has been significantly higher. The images suggest that thousands were marching through the streets with the aim of abolishing democracy.

Emergence

The torchlight marches of the immortals go back to the Spreelichter , a right-wing extremist Brandenburg group within the so-called resistance movement in southern Brandenburg , some of whose members were also active in the NPD youth organization Young National Democrats . "Democrats bring us the death of the people" was their slogan. In a position paper they wrote: "It's about propaganda - about propaganda that unequivocally recognizes and names the system as the reason why our people are approaching their death."

The group first appeared in Lübbenau in 2006 . Other early appearances took place in Bautzen , Altenburg , Frohburg and Kohren-Sahlis , near the manor, which the neo-Nazi Karl-Heinz Hoffmann ran as a right-wing extremist educational institution.

The form of action of carrying out flash mobs in white mask is not a right-wing extremist invention. It was borrowed from the actions of a left group called The Superfluous .

According to the Potsdam political scientist Gideon Botsch , the remarkable thing about the immortals is "that the right-wing extremists have tapped into new media and new forms of action and have thus partially broken through their marginalization by the mainstream."

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Brandenburg report for the protection of the constitution 2011 . P. 20 ff. (PDF, 11.2 MB).
  2. ↑ a b Johannes Radke: Flash mobs against democracy . In: Die Zeit , accessed July 6, 2012
  3. ↑ Djamila Benkhelouf, Robert Bongen: How right-wing extremists use the media ( Memento from July 5, 2012 in the Internet Archive ). Norddeutscher Rundfunk , June 29, 2012, accessed July 6, 2012.
  4. ↑ Johannes Radke: The end of the Nazi mask show . In: Die Zeit , June 19, 2012, accessed July 6, 2012.
  5. ↑ Patrick Gensing: Superfluous, not immortal . In: Publikative.org , June 8, 2012, accessed July 6, 2012.
  6. ↑ Marc Brandstetter: According to the report in the NPD-related Postille: "The Immortals" now also in MV? In: Endstation Rechts , May 28, 2012, accessed on July 6, 2012.