Leipzig corona riot

"Lateral thinkers" celebrate withdrawal of the police. Screenshot from elmsfeuer video

It is not only right-wing extremists who are active in the gross german delusional movement that began on 7. November marched in leipzig and rioted. A critical interjection

Leipzig, on the evening of 7. November: right-wing extremists march and riot on the leipziger ring – and once again there is talk of the "loss of control" the police, who are suddenly withdrawing from the violent corona demonstrators, after they – once again – marched with far too little force.

In social networks there are reports of completely overstretched and overrun police forces, unhindered attacks on members of the press and extremely aggressive moods. Sometimes police officers were pelted with pyrotechnics and bottles. The crowd following the violent right-wing extremist vanguard as police forces are driven back runs into the thousands.

NPD cadres and well-known neo-nazis were also present. Similar to the situation during the storming of the reichstag in berlin, the police command provided the right-wing extremists with their mass-appealing images through passivity and understaffing.

The leipzig nazi scandals were only the end of the rude rally of the "corona rebels" or "lateralist", which was able to take place in total disregard of even the most elementary security precautions in the middle of a fully developing pandemic wave due to a decision of the OVG bautzen – and was only broken up by the police after several hours. By the way: according to the research service correctiv, judges of the OVG bautzen also sit on the editorial board of the sachsische verwaltungsblatter, in which disinformation about the corona pandemic has been published before.

Ignored warning calls

The disaster, a far-right superspreader event of the first order, was foreseeable: even before the demonstration, which was actually banned, and the riots, which once again saw saxony police "overwhelmed" seemed, the alarm bells were ringing. The city is facing "gross right-wing mobilization since legida" before, anti-fascists declared in local newspapers. It circulated in the brown scene "appeals with partly very threatening use of language", warned authorities. Attacks on leftist structures, violent and subversive parties were propagated.

The private address of thuringia’s prime minister bodo ramelow, who was critical of this movement, is now circulating in the scene, which senses a morning breeze after the latest acts of islamist terrorism. Even the saxonian verfangsschutz, which otherwise does not exactly shine by consistent action against the right-wing danger, warned of a "massive" arrival of violent right-wing extremists from all over germany.

Nevertheless, it is important to differentiate here. Not all lateral thinkers are simply right-wing extremists who seek to realize their authoritarian and fascist aspirations by exploiting the crisis. It can even be amed that a large part of the demonstrators rejected this designation. This is not only the case because nazi efforts are formally banned in the federal republic – and consequently even many nazis do not want to be dubbed as such, at least openly.

Sometimes the movement sees itself precisely as a bastion of democracy, as a vanguard of the basic law, rejecting extremism and – together with right-wing extremists – opposing the "merkel dictatorship" ankampfe. The organizers of the demonstration pay lip service to democracy on their internet presences, even if they have moderators from right-wing extremist telegram groups in their organizational contexts.

There is a system to this absurdity: the fact that one of the most serious right-wing extremist rallies in recent times can take place under pseudo-democratic slogans, that confused burghers and flaming nazis can demonstrate together, can be seen from the way ideology functions in late capitalism. Ideology as a system of justification of existing power and domination is not based on mere lies or fantasies. Ideology is distorted consciousness that isolates parts of reality – in particular, in periods of crisis, the harsh consequences of increasing capitalist contradictions – into a false construct of thought that helps to legitimize what exists.

Ideology and crisis

This gives rise to the assertiveness of ideology in times of crisis, which drives fascist movements as openly terrorist crisis forms of capitalist rule. This will be explained by a short example. The absurd seeming vaccination fear of the often called "covidioten" is based precisely on the true sense of the power of capitalist lobby groups, on the general feeling of heteronomy in late capitalism – but at the same time it legitimizes the business practices of the pharmaceutical industry, for which vaccine development is a bad business. The real scandal is that for decades the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical companies have invested virtually no money in research into new vaccines.

Also, the demand for the end of the lockdown, which is understood as an attack on democracy (masked compulsion!), is ideology in this sense: the necessity of the gross reduction of social exchange results objectively from the fight against the pandemic – and at the same time capitalism cannot tolerate social standstill, since this – as a kind of global strike – threatens the system in its foundations. The servile willingness to work for capital literally to the death is transformed within the "querdenker" sold as an act of revolt. Submission to the existing, which is in decay, appears as rebellion: here ideology comes into its own.

It concerns with the "querdenker" thus an opportunistic rebellion, an authoritarian revolt – a pseudo-revolt that executes the system logic in the crisis and is consequently tolerated or even demanded by the brown-state apparatus of the federal republic of germany. Once again: the "querdenker" demand what capital wants, they are opportunistic in the highest mabe – and at the same time they imagine themselves as fighters against any freely invented conspiracies, which are hallucinated as the cause of the increasing capitalist distortions. (for more on this, see: the crimes of bill gates) .

The term "lateral thinker" alone "lateral thinker" is unmasking, it has neoliberal roots. In the heyday of neoliberalism in germany, when hartz IV and agenda 2010 were whipped through by red-green, their propagandists were often seen as courageous lateral thinkers, who "breaking up encrusted structures" and "vested interests" have finally been made to pay. The dismantling of the welfare state in the federal republic was propagated with an apparent progressive rhetoric – this was one of the "innovations" of the then government schroder/fischer. Today’s contrarians are – in the sense of the extremism of the center – only a feral form of their neoliberal predecessors.

One risks nothing – and at the same time acts as a rebel. The demonstrators in leipzig are to be taken seriously in their dangerous melange of deluded burgers and organized nazis. They are laughable and dangerous at the same time in their delusion – precisely because the increasing irrationality of their views mirrors the irrationality of capital, which is becoming more and more obvious in the crisis process.

But to take this movement seriously does not mean to take seriously all the delusions it produces in the sense that they could form the basis of a discussion. It is necessary to understand this phenomenon of "corona rebels" it is important to consider this phenomenon not only as an object, as an object of social study, but with its objective function within the state apparatus. It is an ideological and political symptom of an underlying social malaise, i.E., the implied social contradictions that increase in times of crisis and bring to light such opportunistic revolts. The supporters of this movement do not need to be picked up "", but to be confronted offensively with their objective function within the dynamics of the crisis, as long as they are not yet ideologically consolidated right-wing extremists.

Prafascism and ignorance

And this objective function is that of prafascism, concretely of a fascist movement in its formation phase. This is illustrated by the relationship between the "lateralist" and "corona rebels" to the state power of the federal republic, in particular to the right-wing extremist networks in the state apparatus, which according to the latest investigation results include thousands of civil servants – and which are regarded by the movement as a potential alliance partner.

Especially in relation to the alleged struggle for democracy and the basic law, which the movement upholds after auben, the function of crisis ideology as a fascist flow heater becomes clear. For in fact, while one can talk about the "merkel dictatorship" the movement is objectively fighting for the establishment of a crisis dictatorship, it is absorbed in the quest for the establishment of authoritarian rule. Popular, for example, is the widely propagated idea of the "change of sides" of the police, who were joined together with the delusional movement in order to "merkel dictatorship" to finally put an end to it through a coup.

The violent overthrow of an elected government, carried out in collaboration with parts of the state apparatus, forms a central narrative of the movement’s celebrities, such as the vegan conspiracy ideologue and youtube chef attila hildmann, who in confused coup fantasies calls on the bundeswehr and the police to establish a military dictatorship – of course only to put an end to the alleged merkel dictatorship and the terrible mask coercion. The rapidly growing reichsburg scene is also known to deny the legitimacy of the federal republic of germany.

Hildmann defends himself by the way with all power against being called a nazi or right-wing extremist. In a threatening gesture against his critics, he loved to be photographed with members of the right-wing extremist turkish grey wolves, who have recently been banned in france. Whoever continues to call hildmann a right-wing extremist will probably have to deal with his right-wing extremist buddies from the grey wolves. This seems to be the logic of this staging.

Sometimes the scene demonstrates – largely unchallenged by germany’s brown-starting authorities – directly in front of german military installations, in order to animate the soldiers for a coup. One asks the "dear soldiers" for help, the home front is calling them, it was said at an event organized by the authoritarian "corona rebels" in front of the julius leber barracks in berlin. The prafaschistische german crisis ideology, which found its youngest exponent in the vegan grey wolf sympathizer hildmann, amounts thus to a democratic suicide from fear of the death of the democracy.

As laughable as the actions may seem, the right-wing extremist networks in the bundeswehr, whose massive weapons thefts were recently denounced in a campaign by the center for political integrity, are very real. Just as real is the world crisis of capital, which does not spare the federal republic of germany and consequently calls for corresponding authoritarian reflexes in the state apparatus.

The striving for such an authoritarian option in the federal republic – this in reaction to the clearly looming, coming crisis thrusts – forms the central, practical-political core, on which the delusion of all the "lateral thinkers" and "corona rebels" is objectively heading towards.

As already mentioned at the beginning, not all supporters of this crisis ideology, which in its consequence wants to eliminate the remnants of bourgeois democracy in the federal republic by a coup d’etat, are convinced right-wing extremists. So far, the principle of in dubio pro reo still applies.

Tomasz konicz published on this topic the ebook fascism in the 21st century. Century.