Juling, Dominik (2023) Reichsbürger: an old German ideology in new clothing? Illiberalism Studies Program Working Papers (16). Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies, The George Washington University, Washington, DC.
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
On December 7, 2022, thousands of police raided more than 150 properties in Germany in a large-scale raid. Twenty-five of the 54 suspected members and supporters of the Patriotische Union were arrested on charges of forming a terrorist organization that planned to carry out an armed coup against the constitutional order of the Federal Republic of Germany. German investigators came across the clandestine Patriotic Union network during arrests of members of a similar group in April 2022. Led by businessman Heinrich XIII, Prince Reuss, the conspirators—including soldiers, police officers, and a judge—aimed to forcibly replace the incumbent government with a new political system. These individuals share the ideological foundation of the so-called Reichsbürger (“citizens of the Reich”) ideology, as well as influences from QAnon.[1] The large-scale raid, as well as the network and its intent to stage a violent coup, were exceptional in Germany’s post-war history: the raid was the largest anti-terrorism operation in the history of the Federal Republic.[2] There are only a few in-depth analyses of the German Reichsbürger movement. For this reason, this article includes my own observations of rallies and public Reichsbürger events, as well as my monitoring of the scene online and on social media. The relevance of an analysis of the Reichsbürger movement is illustrated by three emerging dynamics: 1) the increasing networking of the German extreme right since the beginning of the protests against governmental measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic; 2) the increasing influence and numerical growth of this extreme-right scene over approximately the last ten years; and 3) the simultaneous growth of comparable movements with similar ideologies around the world, especially in Austria and the US.
| Item Type: | Monograph (Working Paper) |
|---|---|
| Official URL: | https://www.illiberalism.org/online-papers/ |
| Additional Information: | © 2023 IERES |
| Divisions: | LSE |
| Subjects: | J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe) J Political Science > JC Political theory H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology |
| Date Deposited: | 03 May 2023 15:36 |
| Last Modified: | 15 Sep 2023 23:59 |
| URI: | http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/118782 |
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