In this lecture, Annelotte Janse (Utrecht University) will dive into the transnational network of Manfred Roeder in the 1970s. Roeder was best known for his leadership of the Deutsche Aktionsgruppen, a right-wing terrorist group responsible for the first ‘explicitly racist’ and lethal anti-foreigner attacks in West-Germany. Presenting previously unused archival material, Annelotte will show that Roeder’s encounters abroad decisively shaped and emboldened his thoughts and actions regarding the presence of ‘foreigners’ in West Germany. Consequently, it was not just the racist violence of the Deutsche Aktionsgruppen, but also Roeder’s transnational encounters that contributed to the consolidation of a new threat perception that came to dominate the West German right-wing extremist scene of the 1980s.

Using Roeder’s case study, Annelotte highlights the importance of understanding right-wing extremism from a transnational perspective. The emergence of transnational networks between right-wing extremists in West Germany and the United States between the 1960s and 1980s is the topic of her PhD research. Titled ‘The Pursuit of White Security’, the project demonstrates the networked nature of twenty-first-century right-wing extremism and its lethal consequences did not materialise out of thin air. Long before the world wide web created dark corners for keyboard warriors to inspire and encourage the use of terrorist violence, a world white web already existed. Invoking the clarion call for ‘white security’, recent terrorists merely echo the words written, shared, and violently enacted by right-wing extremists across the Western world since the 1960s. Tracing these exchanges and encounters, the project demonstrates that right-wing extremism in West Germany could partially adapt, evolve, and survive because of its international orientation, even when nationalist rhetoric often overshadowed transnational connections.

Organisation: Johannes Dafinger (Abteilung Zeitgeschichte)

Die Veranstaltung findet im Rahmen der Reihe „Geschichte im Gespräch“ statt und ist Teil der Lehrveranstaltung „Europa nach 1945“ von Grazia Prontera.