{"id":9665,"date":"2023-01-01T16:26:19","date_gmt":"2023-01-01T16:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=9665"},"modified":"2023-01-01T16:26:19","modified_gmt":"2023-01-01T16:26:19","slug":"the-bizarre-far-right-coup-attempt-in-germany-explained-by-an-expert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=9665","title":{"rendered":"The bizarre far-right coup attempt in Germany, explained by an expert"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“The plot originated out of a movement called the Reichsb\u00fcrger \u2014 literally, \u201cReich citizens.\u201d They believe that every German state since World War I has been illegitimate, a corporation rather than an authentic government, and thus feel entitled to ignore its laws. It\u2019s not the first time the group has been implicated in a violent incident. In 2016, one alleged member killed a Bavarian policeman<\/a>; in 2020, Reichsb\u00fcrger adherents participated in an attempt to storm the German capitol<\/a> during a protest against Covid restrictions. But a sizable armed cell plotting a coup takes the dalliance with violence to a whole new level (even though Heinrich isn\u2019t much of a prince<\/a>).”
…
“What [the Reichsb\u00fcrger] are saying is the last valid German state was under the Kaiser, basically an aristocratic form of government. Every German state that came into existence after that is invalid for different reasons, but they\u2019re all invalid. They\u2019re all illegitimate. Basically, what they are trying to recreate, what they are trying to go back to, is essentially a monarchical system \u2014 the monarchy [that] ended in Germany with the defeat in World War I.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a consequence, they do sometimes attract these failed aristocrats who are still aggrieved about the end of the monarchy over 100 years ago. I think it makes sense, from their ideological point of view, to say, \u201cThe new head of state has to be some kind of prince, has to be some sort of person with an aristocratic line.\u201d” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The German security agencies only really got interested in this phenomenon of the Reichsb\u00fcrger, or sovereign citizens, in 2016 \u2014 [when] a policeman was killed in Bavaria because they wanted to search the property of a supporter of the movement. Suddenly, people started asking questions: Why was that policeman killed? Why did the guy have a weapon? What was that search about?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result of that, for the first time we discovered that there was such a thing as the sovereign citizen movement [in Germany]. Security agencies started digging, and at the beginning of 2016, they said, \u201cThey have a few hundred supporters.\u201d Only two or three years later, they actually came to the conclusion that they were probably up to 20,000 supporters across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s not because, in those three years, the number increased so much. It\u2019s because no one had looked for them and categorized them as a separate category before. It became obvious that there was a whole movement that had existed beyond that, that hadn\u2019t been looked at before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then [the pandemic] came. The lockdowns and the rules around masks and vaccinations were, of course, a complete boon for the movement.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“the second most used language in QAnon chat rooms on Telegram is German. The second most translated language of QAnon videos and documents is German. I myself follow a lot of German QAnon Telegram channels; a lot of people seem to be very fascinated by it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know of any personal, physical connections between leaders of the movements, but there certainly seems to be a lot of inspiration. Once they understand and accept that a lot of this comes out of an American context, they are trying to find ways to translate it into a German context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In August 2020, there was an attempt to storm the Reichstag<\/a>, the German parliament. It was in the context of a demonstration \u2014 100,000 people in the streets of Berlin. Some of these Reichsb\u00fcrger were actually trying to enter the building, just like the Capitol [on January 6]. They basically afterward said that they\u2019d been convinced that Donald Trump was in town, that he\u2019d secretly flown to Berlin in order to liberate Germany. This was one of those rumors that was spread on QAnon follower Telegrams.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

” We have a very fixed idea of what a far-right extremist looks like, because of our history. A far-right extremist is a neo-Nazi; anything that doesn\u2019t fit into that box of neo-Nazi or fascist, we have problems with, and we don\u2019t recognize. Up until they [the Reichsb\u00fcrger] killed that policeman in Bavaria, most intelligence agencies basically had them under the category of nutcases, crazies. But they had their own far-right, albeit separate, ideology \u2014 a very strange ideology.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2022\/12\/9\/23500307\/germany-coup-prince-heinrich-qanon<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The plot originated out of a movement called the Reichsb\u00fcrger \u2014 literally, \u201cReich citizens.\u201d They believe that every German state since World War I has been illegitimate, a corporation rather than an authentic government, and thus feel entitled to ignore its laws. It\u2019s not the first time the group has been implicated in a violent incident. In 2016, one alleged member killed a Bavarian policeman; in 2020, Reichsb\u00fcrger adherents participated in an attempt to storm the German capitol during a protest against Covid restrictions. But a sizable armed cell plotting a coup takes the dalliance with violence to a whole new level (even though Heinrich isn\u2019t much of a prince).”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“What [the Reichsb\u00fcrger] are saying is the last valid German state was under the Kaiser, basically an aristocratic form of government. Every German state that came into existence after that is invalid for different reasons, but they\u2019re all invalid. They\u2019re all illegitimate. Basically, what they are trying to recreate, what they are trying to go back to, is essentially a monarchical system \u2014 the monarchy [that] ended in Germany with the defeat in World War I.
\nAs a consequence, they do sometimes attract these failed aristocrats who are still aggrieved about the end of the monarchy over 100 years ago. I think it makes sense, from their ideological point of view, to say, \u201cThe new head of state has to be some kind of prince, has to be some sort of person with an aristocratic line.\u201d” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“The German security agencies only really got interested in this phenomenon of the Reichsb\u00fcrger, or sovereign citizens, in 2016 \u2014 [when] a policeman was killed in Bavaria because they wanted to search the property of a supporter of the movement. Suddenly, people started asking questions: Why was that policeman killed? Why did the guy have a weapon? What was that search about?<\/p>\n

As a result of that, for the first time we discovered that there was such a thing as the sovereign citizen movement [in Germany]. Security agencies started digging, and at the beginning of 2016, they said, \u201cThey have a few hundred supporters.\u201d Only two or three years later, they actually came to the conclusion that they were probably up to 20,000 supporters across the country.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not because, in those three years, the number increased so much. It\u2019s because no one had looked for them and categorized them as a separate category before. It became obvious that there was a whole movement that had existed beyond that, that hadn\u2019t been looked at before.<\/p>\n

Then [the pandemic] came. The lockdowns and the rules around masks and vaccinations were, of course, a complete boon for the movement.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“the second most used language in QAnon chat rooms on Telegram is German. The second most translated language of QAnon videos and documents is German. I myself follow a lot of German QAnon Telegram channels; a lot of people seem to be very fascinated by it.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know of any personal, physical connections between leaders of the movements, but there certainly seems to be a lot of inspiration. Once they understand and accept that a lot of this comes out of an American context, they are trying to find ways to translate it into a German context.<\/p>\n

In August 2020, there was an attempt to storm the Reichstag, the German parliament. It was in the context of a demonstration \u2014 100,000 people in the streets of Berlin. Some of these Reichsb\u00fcrger were actually trying to enter the building, just like the Capitol [on January 6]. They basically afterward said that they\u2019d been convinced that Donald Trump was in town, that he\u2019d secretly flown to Berlin in order to liberate Germany. This was one of those rumors that was spread on QAnon follower Telegrams.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

” We have a very fixed idea of what a far-right extremist looks like, because of our history. A far-right extremist is a neo-Nazi; anything that doesn\u2019t fit into that box of neo-Nazi or fascist, we have problems with, and we don\u2019t recognize. Up until they [the Reichsb\u00fcrger] killed that policeman in Bavaria, most intelligence agencies basically had them under the category of nutcases, crazies. But they had their own far-right, albeit separate, ideology \u2014 a very strange ideology.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1123,727,1146],"class_list":["post-9665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-coup","tag-germany","tag-right-wing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9665"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9666,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9665\/revisions\/9666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}