“Home,” Greenline Front International Blog, https://greenlinefront.blogspot.com/.
7 “Für Blut Und Boden,” Greenline Front International Blog, http://greenlinefront.blogspot.com/2016/08/fur-blut-und-boden.html.
8 “Manifesto: 10 points,” Greenline Front International Blog, https://greenlinefront.blogspot.com/2016/07/glf-manifesto-10-points_4.html.
9 “Leonardo da Vinci’s Ethical Vegetarianism,” Greenline Front International Blog, http://greenlinefront.blogspot.com/2016/09/leonardo-da-vinci-ethical-vegetarianism.html
10 “Democracy: The Religion of Death—Pentti Linkola,” Greenline Front International Blog, http://greenlinefront.blogspot.com/2016/08/democracy-religion-of-death.html.
11 “William Pierce—‘Who are we?’,” Greenline Front International Blog, https://greenlinefront.blogspot.com/2016/07/william-pierce-who-are-we_44.html.
12 Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Hitler's Priestess: Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth, and Neo-Nazism (New York: New York University Press, 1998).
13 “The Religion of the Strong by Savitri Devi,” Greenline Front International Blog, https://greenlinefront.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-religion-of-strong-by-savitri-devi.html.
14 “Walter Darré and the ‘Lebensgesetzliche Anbauweise’,” Greenline Front International Blog, https://greenlinefront.blogspot.com/2016/07/walter-darre-and-ebensgesetzliche.html.
15 “Alwin Seifert: First German Environmentalist,” Greenline Front International Blog, http://greenlinefront.blogspot.com/2016/08/alwin-seifert.html
16 “The Law of Blood,” Greenline Front International Blog, http://greenlinefront.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-law-of-blood.html
17 Zbyněk Tarant, “Is Brown the New Green? The Environmental Discourse of the Czech Far Right,” in The Far Right and the Environment. Politics, Discourse and Communication, ed. B. Forchtner (Oxon: Routledge, 2019), 201-15.
18 Greenlinefrontde (Greenline Front Germany), “Erste Müllsammlungsaktion,” June 18, 2019, https://greenlinefrontde.wordpress.com/2019/06/19/erste-mullsammlungsaktionen/.
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21 Greenlinefront Deutschland, https://vk.com/public123638406.
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Terrorism and Political Violence
A New Wave of Right-Wing Terrorism
Reem Ahmed and Maik Fielitz
In June 2020, two right-wing extremists faced trial in Frankfurt, Germany, suspected of assassinating the CDU politician Walter Lübcke at his home in June 2019. Lübcke, who openly supported Chancellor Angela Merkel’s liberal border policy at the height of the “refugee crisis” in 2015, has been a symbol of hate within far-right circles and was vilified as a ‘traitor against the people’ (Volksverräter). As the first assassination of a politician at the hands of right-wing extremists in post-war Germany, this case brings together two key elements of transnational far-right narratives; namely, that 1) the state has fallen into the hands of the “enemies” who are facilitating 2) apocalyptic scenarios of the ‘death of the people’ (Volkstod) by welcoming migrants into the country.
A series of non-fatal attacks against politicians and arson attacks against refugee centres over the last years1 have prompted German authorities to take the right-wing threat more seriously; this includes measures such as the Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG) and 89 concrete measures to combat right-wing extremism.2 However, these measures do not adequately address the global characteristics of the recent wave of right-wing terrorism. Hence, while the suspects on trial for Lübcke’s murder have a long neo-Nazi past, there is a risk that future attacks will emerge from a new type of perpetrator rooted in radical online milieus—as seen in the cases of Halle and Hanau. Based on a recently published chapter for the German Peace Report,3 below we summarise our findings on the transnational threat of right-wing terrorism and its digital underpinnings, and conclude with some recommendations.
The narratives of right-wing terrorism
International right-wing terrorism has a long history with apparent peaks in the 1970s and 1980s. In recent years, the number of right-wing terrorist attacks has increased significantly in Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand. Figures from 2019 show that in Western Europe, Germany continues to be the country with the highest rate of fatal and non-fatal right-wing terrorist attacks.4 Today, the majority of fatal attacks are carried out by lone actors, however militant groups still gather for violent actions, often coordinated via messenger apps and social media. While the right-wing terrorist groups of the 1970s and 1980s are only understandable in the context of the Cold War, violence emerging from today’s extreme right is focused on migration, driven by the belief that the native population is supposedly being “replaced”.
Online, such conspiracies are articulated in the form of “white genocide”, and “The Great Replacement”, as well as “ethnic conversion” (Umvolkung) and the above-mentioned “Volkstod”. These ideas are not only based on the narrative that society faces a threat from “violent” foreigners, but also that mainstream “cultural Marxist” politicians are responsible for “inviting” in refugees. These narratives have their origins in fascism, and they are not only propagated by militant right-wing extremists,