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President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution Thomas Haldenwang
Photo: Fabian Sommer / dpa
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution warns of the spread of the so-called Siege ideology among young right-wing extremists in Germany.
This emerges from the new report for the protection of the constitution for 2021, which Thomas Haldenwang and Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) will present in the morning.
Supporters of this particularly radical trend propagate terrorist attacks against politicians, members of minorities and infrastructure facilities in order to trigger a civil war.
Its mastermind is the US neo-Nazi James Mason, who wrote a collection of texts under the English title Siege (Siege) as early as the 1980s.
In Germany, the report says, several offshoots of international groups dedicated to this ideology have already emerged.
These include the »Nuclear Weapons Division Germany« and the »Fire Warfare Division Germany«.
At least one follower has already begun concrete preparations for attacks, presumably on a synagogue or a mosque.
A few weeks ago, the federal prosecutor's office carried out a large-scale raid against members of the »Nuclear Weapons Division« and another similar terrorist group.
More »violence-oriented« right-wing extremists than ever before
According to the domestic news service, the radicalization of potential assassins often takes place in chat groups in messenger services.
There are sometimes groups with several thousand members "in which violent fantasies such as calls for torture and murder are the order of the day".
Identifying the men and women here who were actually planning attacks is "a major challenge for the security authorities."
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution states in the report that the total number of right-wing extremists in Germany has continued to rise – to 33,900.
Of these, 13,500 are "violence-oriented" - the highest level since this category was introduced.
In the foreword to the report, Interior Minister Faeser calls right-wing extremism “the greatest extremist threat to our free democratic basic order”.
For the first time, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution also deals with the radical protests against corona measures in its annual report.
In order to observe parts of this movement, the authority has created a new, somewhat cumbersome category: »delegitimization of the state relevant to the protection of the constitution«.
In large parts of the protest scene, "conspiracy myths, often with elements of anti-Semitic resentment," are being spread, the office writes.
The state and its institutions are “fundamentally questioned in terms of their legitimacy”, and measures to combat the pandemic are “described as dictatorial”.
Resistance to government decisions is propagated "and calls for violence and in some cases even for murder".
Corona protesters have also repeatedly visited the private addresses of politicians such as Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig, Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach or Saxony’s Health Minister Petra Köpping – this was a “specific attempt at intimidation”.
No concrete figures on the radical corona protest scene
In its report, the domestic intelligence service only named the “lateral thinking” movement by name.
The protagonists occasionally called for the "overthrow of the existing political order" and sometimes called on police officers and soldiers to intervene, writes the office.
"Dear citizens in uniform," an activist is quoted as saying, "You should turn around and arrest the politicians."
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution does not put a figure on the size of the radical corona protest scene.
Apparently he still lacks reliable figures.
