Introduction In Germany the far right continues with the preparation to protest against inflation and rising energy bills in autumn. Some rallys took place, but the bigger ones only were in East-Germany. The AfD hopes to take part in the protests but the part struggles also with problems. Their foundation was a state-funding denied.
Updates in the National Landscape Larger right-wing open to right-wing dominated demonstrations took place in August 2022 mainly in smaller eastern German cities. For example, on August 26, 2022, Nazi singer-songwriter Frank Rennicke performed in front of thousands of people at a right-wing demonstration in Gera, Thuringia.
In mid-August 2022, the Administrative Court in Cologne ruled that the AfD-affiliated “Desiderius Erasmus Stiftung” is not entitled to state funding. The foundation announced that it would appeal to the next instance.
(German: https://www.lto.de/recht/nachrichten/n/vgkoeln-16k252619-16k191620desiderius-erasmus-stiftung-afd-keine-foerderung-vom-bund-gleichbehandlungsgrundsatz/)
At the beginning of August 2022, Max Otte was expelled from the conservative CDU party. Otte was the chairman of the right-wing conservative “WerteUnion”. Despite his CDU membership, he was a candidate for ‘Bundespräsidenten’ of the extreme right-wing AfD.
He had also donated 20,000 euros to the AfD. (German: https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/max-otte-nach-engagement-fuer-die-afd-aus-der-cdu-ausgeschlossen-a-f941543f-2ec9-44f3-96ac-8ad66ca58b34)
Also in August 2022 there were cases of far right attacks or preparations for attacks: * In Lauta (Bautzen district) in Saxony, a 61-year-old man attacked the police during a house search of his property in early August 2022. Besides 13 cannabis plants, the police also found three homemade crude bombs with detonators but without explosives. (German: https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/sachsen/bautzen/bautzen-hoyerswerda-kamenz/polizei-hausdurchsuchung-sprengkoepfe-lauta-100.html)
* In the night of August 16 to 17, 2022, an arson attack was carried out on the constituency office of Family Affairs Minister Paus (Greens). Nearby, the word “NSU” was written on a fence. NSU stands for „Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund“ („National Socialist Underground“) the name of an extreme right-wing terror network that murdered ten people.
(German: https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/brandanschlag-familienministerin-paus-nsu-100.html)
At the end of August 2022 it became known that the neo-Nazi, ex-NPD district council member and suspected Hammerskin Sven Krüger wants to sell his “Thinghaus” in Grevesmühle (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania). The house functioned for over ten years since 2008 as an important right-wing scene, among other things for right-wing rock concerts and Nazi eyewitness lectures. (German: https://taz.de/Neonazi-Zentrum-wird-verkauft/!5873551/)
On August 26, 2022, the far-right Holocaust denier Nikolai Nerling was sentenced by the Berlin-Tiergarten District Court to a nine-month suspended sentence and a penalty payment to the Amadeu Antonio Foundation.
On August 25, 2022, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice) rejected all appeals against the verdict on the right-wing murder of local CDU politician Walter Lübcke in June 2019. The partial acquittal of Markus H., a friend of the main perpetrator Stephan Ernst remained in place. Likewise, Ernst was acquitted in relation to the attack on Ahmed I. – the Iraqi had been attacked with a knife in January 2016 by a person he believed to be Stephan Ernst. Ernst had been sentenced to life in prison for the murder at the end of July. (German: https://taz.de/Rechter-Anschlag-auf-CDU-Politiker/!5873721/)
The open-right and right-wing street protests in Germany, organized primarily by Corona deniers, picked up steam again in late August 2022. For example, 2,500 people demonstrated in Plauen on August 28, 2022.
Transnational Social Media Activity & Propaganda/Narratives In August 2022, the German book “Die Dämonisierung durchbrechen” („Breaking through demonisation“) by Jean-Yves Le Gallou with a foreword by Martin Sellner was published by the far right Jungeuropa-Verlag. Gallou was a member of the European Parliament for the “Front National” and an advisor to Éric Zemmour.
In August 2022, the right-wing Antaios publishing house published „Mut oder Wie man einen Kulturkampf inszeniert“ (“Courage or How to Stage a Culture War”) by François Bousquet with a foreword by the publisher Götz Kubitschek. Bousquet is editor-in-chief of the magazine “Éléments” and the French publisher of Benoist.
Transnational Political and Financial Cooperation Several extreme right-wing journalists from Germany are on the front lines in Ukraine, reporting for right-wing periodicals: Julian Monaco (presumably for the “Jungeuropa” blog), Mario Alexander Müller (“Tumult”), Jonathan Stumpf (“Krautzone”) and Luis Hill. Müller, Stumpf and Hill are on the road together. Journalist Research also revealed in August 2022 that the AfD-affiliated association “Vereinigung zur Abwehr der Diskriminierung und der Ausgrenzung Russlanddeutscher sowie russischsprachiger Mitbürger in Deutschland” (VDAR) supports the pro-Putin journalist Alina Lipp in Russia. Lipp is from Germany and is under investigation for approving a war of aggression. (German: https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/deutschland/parteien/id_100035872/putins-deutsche-kriegerin-alina-lipp-erhaelt-unterstuetzung-von-afd-verein.html)
In mid-August 2022, a group of members of the neo-fascist “Casa Pound” movement from Italy visited Germany. On August 10, they visited Munich and later Nuremberg and were shown around historic Nazi sites by members of “Der III. Weg” around.
(German: https://der-dritte-weg.info/2022/08/stadtfuehrung-fuer-casa-pound-in-muenchen/, https://der-dritte-weg.info/2022/08/stadtfuehrung-fuer-casa-pound-in-nuernberg/)
The AfD is to pay a fine for an illegal party donation in August 2022, according to a decision by the Bundestag administration. The district association of AfD politician Alice Weidel had received a donation of 150,000 euros from a Dutch foundation “Stichting Identiteit Europa” in February 2018. (German: https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/ndr-wdr/afd-spendenaffaere-113.html)
On August 27 and 28, 2022, the extreme right-wing and Flemish nationalist hero commemoration “Ijzerwake” took place in Belgium. From Germany, members of the Burschenschaft Germania zu Köln and an AfD delegation (Matthias Helferich, Maximilian Krah, Irmhild Boßdorf) participated. Originally, an extreme right-wing concert “Frontmacht” was also to take place in Belgium on August 28, 2022. In which also the songwriters Sacha Korn and Phil von Flak were to perform. However, the event was cancelled.