Germany

[LFC]

There's a big election and Germany's right-wingers are using the same preemptive lies about fraud as the Republicans have embraced.

Björn Höcke, an influential state-level leader for the far-right party Alternative für Deutschland, took the stage at a campaign event in the small city of Burgstädt in Saxony ahead of this weekend’s election. He began his speech with the kind of universal appeal politicians often make in the final weeks of a campaign, encouraging supporters to go out and vote.

But Höcke—head of a radical faction within the AfD known simply as “the Wing” and a man who once described Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial as a “monument of shame” — did not stop there. Not only should the faithful cast their ballots for the party, he said, they should make sure to do it in person and not by mail, which, he alleged, is vulnerable to fraud and manipulation. “Anyone who has an interest in fair elections and secret elections should go to their polling place,” he explained.

Germany heads to the polls this Sunday in an unusually open and unpredictable general election that could determine the country’s direction for decades to follow. For the first time in 16 years, Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has helmed the country since 2005, is not standing again.

The three candidates—Armin Laschet, from Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union, Olaf Scholz from the center-left Social Democrats and Annalena Baerbock of the Greens—are locked in a volatile race for the nation’s highest office. In the final days of the campaign, Scholz’s SPD is in the lead with 25 per cent, followed closely by Laschet’s CDU. The Greens, however, have recently fallen behind.

Parties that advocate for postal voting, Höcke continued—including the Greens and the SPD—were essentially condoning voter fraud. He then brought up the example of an unproven story making the rounds this year about a young Green supporter allegedly casting their grandmother’s vote for the party without her knowledge.

If wide-scale election manipulation could occur in the United States, he said, drawing on the dizzying number of false claims made by President Trump during his 2020 presidential campaign, “then I know that it’s possible in the most important country in Europe.”

“Stay alert, my friends,” he added, at the event on Sept. 11. “This is about our democracy.”

All that's difference is the language and the accent. The fascist assault on a democracy is identical.

[LFC]

Putin managed to buy an important politician in Germany leaving them more vulnerable to Gazprom's whims. Germany has dragged their feet supporting Ukraine. It appears that's because they allowed Russia to put them over a barrel pipeline.

[LFC]

The details of this case are staggeringly like the GOP and QAnon.

Twenty-five people have been arrested in raids across Germany on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government.

The group of far-right and ex-military figures are said to have prepared for a "Day X" to storm the Reichstag parliament building and seize power.

A man named as Heinrich XIII, from an old aristocratic family, is alleged to have been central to their plans.

According to federal prosecutors, he is one of two alleged ringleaders among those arrested across 11 German states.

The plotters are said to include members of the extremist Reichsbürger [Citizens of the Reich] movement, which has long been in the sights of German police over violent attacks and racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories. They also refuse to recognise the modern German state.

Other suspects came from the QAnon movement who believe their country is in the hands of a mythical "deep state" involving secret powers pulling the political strings.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser assured Germans that authorities would respond with the full force of the law "against the enemies of democracy".

Here's a summary of these right-wing fascists.

Who are the Reichsbürger?

• So-called Citizens of the Reich reject Germany's modern democracy and refuse to pay taxes

• Once seen as harmless cranks, they are very active and pose a high level of danger, says BfV intelligence chief Thomas Haldenwang

• Last year they numbered some 21,000, but they have since grown significantly

• 10% are thought to be violent, and antisemitism and conspiracy theories are widespread

And yes, they're utter nutters just like our own domestic hammerheads.

Reichsbürger members have demonstrated alongside anti-vaxxers and Covid-deniers (indeed some share those positions) as well as QAnon supporters during mass street protests in the last few years.

They were there when a mob from a Covid demonstration tried to storm the Bundestag in August 2020.

Many have been surprised at the depth to which conspiracy theories in general have permeated German society - particularly during the pandemic.

And then there's the military / police backgrounds. This is the same threat that the DHS report, launched under George W. Bush, warned us about and has come to pass through the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and 3-Percenters.

As well as a shadow government, the plotters allegedly had plans for a military arm run by a second ringleader identified as Rüdiger von P.

They were made up of active and former members of the military, officials believe, and included ex-elite soldiers from special units. The aim of the military arm was to eliminate democratic bodies at local level, prosecutors said.

Rüdiger von P is suspected of trying to recruit police officers in northern Germany and of having an eye on army barracks too. Bases in the states of Hesse, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria were all inspected for possible use after the government was overthrown, officials said.

One of those under investigation had been a member of the Special Commando Forces, and police searched his home and his room at the Graf-Zeppelin military base in Calw, south-west of Stuttgart.

Another suspect has been identified as Vitalia B, a Russian woman who was asked to approach Moscow on Heinrich's behalf. The Russian embassy in Berlin said in a statement that it did not "maintain contacts with representatives of terrorist groups and other illegal entities".

[goldenvalley]

Dec 7, 2022 17:23:40 GMT LFC said:

The details of this case are staggeringly like the GOP and QAnon.

Twenty-five people have been arrested in raids across Germany on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government.

The group of far-right and ex-military figures are said to have prepared for a "Day X" to storm the Reichstag parliament building and seize power.

A man named as Heinrich XIII, from an old aristocratic family, is alleged to have been central to their plans.

According to federal prosecutors, he is one of two alleged ringleaders among those arrested across 11 German states.

The plotters are said to include members of the extremist Reichsbürger [Citizens of the Reich] movement, which has long been in the sights of German police over violent attacks and racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories. They also refuse to recognise the modern German state.

Other suspects came from the QAnon movement who believe their country is in the hands of a mythical "deep state" involving secret powers pulling the political strings.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser assured Germans that authorities would respond with the full force of the law "against the enemies of democracy".

Here's a summary of these right-wing fascists.

Who are the Reichsbürger?

• So-called Citizens of the Reich reject Germany's modern democracy and refuse to pay taxes

• Once seen as harmless cranks, they are very active and pose a high level of danger, says BfV intelligence chief Thomas Haldenwang

• Last year they numbered some 21,000, but they have since grown significantly

• 10% are thought to be violent, and antisemitism and conspiracy theories are widespread

And yes, they're utter nutters just like our own domestic hammerheads.

Reichsbürger members have demonstrated alongside anti-vaxxers and Covid-deniers (indeed some share those positions) as well as QAnon supporters during mass street protests in the last few years.

They were there when a mob from a Covid demonstration tried to storm the Bundestag in August 2020.

Many have been surprised at the depth to which conspiracy theories in general have permeated German society - particularly during the pandemic.

And then there's the military / police backgrounds. This is the same threat that the DHS report, launched under George W. Bush, warned us about and has come to pass through the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and 3-Percenters.

As well as a shadow government, the plotters allegedly had plans for a military arm run by a second ringleader identified as Rüdiger von P.

They were made up of active and former members of the military, officials believe, and included ex-elite soldiers from special units. The aim of the military arm was to eliminate democratic bodies at local level, prosecutors said.

Rüdiger von P is suspected of trying to recruit police officers in northern Germany and of having an eye on army barracks too. Bases in the states of Hesse, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria were all inspected for possible use after the government was overthrown, officials said.

One of those under investigation had been a member of the Special Commando Forces, and police searched his home and his room at the Graf-Zeppelin military base in Calw, south-west of Stuttgart.

Another suspect has been identified as Vitalia B, a Russian woman who was asked to approach Moscow on Heinrich's behalf. The Russian embassy in Berlin said in a statement that it did not "maintain contacts with representatives of terrorist groups and other illegal entities".

Paranoia is not merely an American psychosis.  And sad to say that sharing of paranoid information is sooo much easier now in the World Wide Web.  It used to take a lot more effort and time to organize or radicalize people.