Hundreds of people at an anti-lockdown protest
stormed the steps of Germany’s parliament building, the Reichstag.
In a group of Covid deniers and anti-vaxxers,
fascists were waving the imperial German flag
in place of the banned swastika.
For the country that spawned the Nazis,
these scenes highlighted the dangers of the volatile, conspiracy-addled
far-right fringe that’s grown over the last decade.
Do you want a total pharma dictatorship?
From QAnon to the Reichsbürgers,
a far-right group which sees itself at war with the state,
conspiracy theories have got a hold on Germany.
In the end, we win.
[Decade of Hate]
My name’s Tim Hume, and I cover the rise of the far right in Europe.
It’s a job that’s taken me a lot to Germany for my reporting for VICE.
These events in Berlin were incited by a woman called Tamara Kirschbaum,
a leading figure in the country’s thriving QAnon scene.
Tamara called on the protesters to swarm the steps of the Reichstag,
whipping the crowd into a frenzy by saying Donald Trump was in Berlin
and that, for some reason, this meant that their movement had won.
In Germany, the American Q conspiracy theory has gained a huge following,
more than in any non-English speaking country.
This march in Berlin is mostly against coronavirus restrictions,
but there are a lot of QAnon supporters here.
QAnon wasn’t the only far-right conspiracy theory movement
at the Reichstag that day.
When QAnon arrived in Germany,
it was also spread by people from the Reichsbürger movement.
I mean, they share the same enemies. That’s democracy.
Reichsbürger or Citizen of the Reich
is an umbrella term for a uniquely German strain of
gun-hoarding, far-right conspiracy theorists.
They say the modern German state is illegitimate,
a puppet regime established by foreign occupying powers
at the end of World War II to exploit the Germans.
Its 19,000 hardcore followers, mostly middle-aged, male, and white,
believe that the pre-war German Empire or Reich still exists
and that they’re its rightful representatives.
Some declare their properties to be sovereign republics,
issuing their own passports or currencies
and refusing to pay taxes.
There are certainly some people who are disappointed
and dissatisfied with their economic status,
and they look for scapegoats.
Almost like a religious cult,
it sucks in and radicalizes.
The belief that there’s no official state
comes often from a situation of poverty,
of oppression by the government
if they lose their job, have no perspective on their lives,
and so they turn to the belief that they are not responsible for it.
These days, one of the key figures in the scene is Nikolai Nerling,
a former primary school teacher
who was one of the protesters on the Reichstag steps that day.
He's gained a large following online
for his provocative videos documenting far-right protests
and pushing his racist ideology.
His gateway into the world of conspiracy theories
had been YouTube videos about Sandy Hook, about 9/11.
And then he kind of went down the rabbit hole.
It led him to explicitly far-right conspiracy theories
and ones about German history.
He is notorious for his constant provocations,
including frequently questioning the history of the Holocaust.
He’s aligned himself with Holocaust deniers,
and he once demonstrated with a sign reading,
“The history of the Holocaust is a story full of lies.”
They use conspiracy theories
because it’s easier to spread hate through them.
If you are openly racist, many people will object.
But if it’s embedded in this conspiracy theory,
then it’s much harder
or more people are believing in that and using it.
The European migration crisis of 2015 electrified Germany’s far-right.
More than 20,000 arriving in Germany in the past three days.
Chancellor Angela Merkel says
Germany is ready to take in 800,000 people this year.
The German government opened the country’s borders to asylum seekers,
most from Muslim countries.
That decision sparked the backlash that turned an anti-immigrant party
into the largest opposition force in the German parliament,
unleashed a large and often violent anti-Islam protest movement,
and triggered a new wave of violent extremism.
A deadly terror attack in a town east of Frankfurt.
A heavily-armed attacker ranting about Jews
tried to force his way into a synagogue
in the eastern city of Halle.
Against this backdrop of rising right-wing extremism in Germany,
suddenly the paranoid, gun-hoarding, anti-government Reichsbürgers
don’t seem so harmless after all.
What’s even more of a worry is that secret Reichsbürger cells
are being uncovered in the police and the military.
Fourteen hundred cases of far-right extremism among soldiers,
police officers, and intelligence agents
have been documented over the past three years.
Not ideal, given their access to weapons and specialist training.
I think people within the Reichsbürger movement
perceive themselves as the warriors for the German people
and essentially for the good against the evil conspiracy
that’s currently allegedly going on.
So this is what even motivates people from the military
and also from police forces, single individuals
to identify themselves with this whole Reichsbürger ideology.
In 2020, the pandemic and resulting lockdowns
led to an explosion in conspiracy ideology.
The pandemic has left people scared,
shut in their homes with nothing to do,
and turning to the internet for answers.
It's unlike anything we've known before.
People who consider themselves ordinary Germans
are suddenly marching alongside right-wing extremists.
We know that people who experience a lack of control
are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories.
They’re looking for answers that science can’t give yet,
so they turn to hocus-pocus and conspiracy theories
and the myths and the stories behind it.
This scramble for explanations
can act as a pipeline to far-right, especially anti-Semitic, beliefs.
These ideologies tend to discriminate against minorities,
be it Jews who are allegedly behind the conspiracy
or other individuals
who are supposed to pull the strings behind the curtain.
These conspiracy beliefs are linked to distrust
and prejudice against those on top,
people or groups that are perceived as powerful,
and this leads to action.
We know that from different kinds of studies
that refusal of democratic measures, violence, anti-Semitism
can lead to action.
Far-right movements like that have always transformed themselves.
And at first, it was mass immigration,
the so-called asylum crisis.
And after that, when corona stops, there will be other crises,
for instance, climate change,
so we cannot fight the far-right
just by waiting for the end of corona.
We have to take countermeasures.
We have to strengthen counter- narratives against conspiracy theory,
against anti-Semitism, against racism,
and far-right ideology.
The fear is that for the strongest believers,
these conspiracy theories will exert an almost religious hold on them
and will leave them beyond the reach of reason or logic
or family or friends.
Deprogramming them will be a huge challenge.
It’s a matter of belief,
and you can’t convince a believer of anything
because this belief is not based on facts.
It’s based on a deep-seated need to believe.
And this is what we must understand to be able to help.