Germany: A Dangerous Mixture of Islamist and Right-Wing Extremists
Author(s): EMAN Network
Over the past decades, various forms of extremism have been manifested in Germany, ranging from extreme Islamism to far-right and neo-nazism. According to the Federation of American Scientists, “since September 11, 2001, more German citizens have died as victims of Islamist terrorist attacks than in the entire history of domestic violence by the Red Army Faction (RAF), a German terrorist group that operated for over thirty years.” The 21’ annual report of Germany’s domestic secret service (Verfassungsschutz) report highlights that the number of Islamist extremists in Germany has surged to 28,715 in 2020. A case in point is the German Muslim Brotherhood, which witnessed an increase to 1,900 in 2020 from 1,730 in 2019. Although Islamist extremism has made it to the news headlines over the past two decades, the report emphasised that right-wing extremism is “still the greatest threat to security in Germany.”
It is noteworthy that the majority of the German Salafist organisations are believed to be backed up by their ideological partners in countries as far as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, and Syria, despite many of those countries’ governments making efforts to clamp down on Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist extremists. As of April 2018, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) reported that 25,810 supporters of Salafi-Jihadism supporters were living in the country, with 760 being considered capable of violent acts. This is mainly due to the fact that Germany has witnessed a significant spike in refugees arriving from multiple countries in Africa and the Middle East, with around 44 percent coming from Syria, Iraq, and Nigeria. In 2016, the German authorities processed an all-time high of 760,000 asylum applications. However, between January and October 2019, this number dropped to 110,000 asylum applications, which also represents a significant 40 percent decrease from the previous year.
Immigrants in Germany, as in other European countries, are at risk of being radicalised and brainwashed by the domestic Salafist jihadists operating on German soil, of which there are an estimated 11,00 extremists. Daesh for instance has been accused of using migratory channels to bring militants into Germany and recruit vulnerable immigrants. The German government estimated that about 1,000 foreign fighters departed Germany in April 2018 to aid terror groups in Syria and Iraq.
While Islamist extremism has been viewed as the greatest threat to Germany in the past two decades, there is no denying that the far-right has shown alarming signs of high violent activity since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. In June 2021, the former Minister of Interior, Horst Seehofer, said there were an estimated 33,300 far-right extremists in 2020, a 4 percent surge from the previous year. According to the 2021 annual report, it is estimated that 40 percent of German far-right extremists favour the use of violence for political purposes.
The German Interior Minister, Nancy Faeser, said in March 2022 that far-right extremist networks constitute the greatest threat to German democracy. The extreme right in Germany is gaining momentum, according to German intelligence. By March 2022, authorities tracked down approximately 13,000 right-wing extremists who were deemed potentially dangerous. In 2020, Germany had reached its peak level of far-right extremism since 2001. According to a study released by the German Interior Ministry in May 2021, Germany reported 23,064 far-right offences in 2020, accounting for more than half of all politically motivated crimes and representing a 6 percent rise over the previous year. Similarly, the number of violent hate crimes increased by 19 percent, according to the ministry.
Recently, German intelligence detected an increase in chatter among German neo-Nazis who were planning to travel to Ukraine following the Russia-Ukraine war to fight alongside Ukrainian forces in a fight they view as anti-communist – using messaging and narratives identical to those deployed by the Nazi propaganda machine against the Soviets during the Second World War. In March 2022, the German Interior Ministry revealed that the majority of far-right German extremists that travelled to Ukraine have returned. Additionally, the Ministry claimed that it has managed to block the route for right-wing extremists who are willing to travel to war zones. Similarly, the Intelligence agency chief, Thomas Haldenwang, stated that “it is unlikely that German far-right extremists could go to fight in Ukraine and return well-trained and prepared to carry out attacks on state institutions in Germany.” The bigger concern for the German intelligence agencies is the radicalisation within Germany.
In an effort to counter German’s major far-right extremism threat, Ms Faeser proposed a 10-point plan that will make it easier to fire extremists working in law enforcement and within security services. She further stated that “we will not allow our democratic constitutional state to be sabotaged from within by right-wing extremists.” According to Professor Hajo Funke, CVE/CT expert, “the attempts to uncover right-wing extremism have suffered because state-level authorities, who must play essential roles in fighting the threat, are generally less attuned to it.”
