Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution on the CSD attack: “It’s about inhumanity.”

taz: Mr. Koehler, after the Islamist attack on the Berlin CSD at the end of July, there was a discussion about who posed the greater danger to queer people: Islamists or right-wing extremists. What do you say?

Thorge Koehler: Unfortunately, both pose a very great danger. There was the terrible attack in Berlin, but also in the last two or three years there have been violent protests against CSD events and attacks on queer people by right-wing extremist youth groups. In addition, there are planned actions that were prevented in advance or failed for other reasons.

taz: And because of this, the Islamist threat to queer people was forgotten by the general public?

Koehler: That could be because right-wing extremist violence has generally increased again recently and was very visible. However, Islamist anti-queer hostility was omnipresent on social media and has increasingly shaped Islamism in recent years - since the so-called Islamfluencers emerged.

taz: The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution names queer hostility in Islamism and right-wing extremism for the first time in its 2022 report - why so late?

Koehler: It is true that anti-queer sentiment has always been part of these ideologies, as has misogyny. But only in recent years have their protagonists specifically used the topic for recruitment - using a reverse radicalization strategy.

Koehler: In the past, extremist groups often addressed topics that initially had nothing to do with extremism. For example, problems in the education system or experiences of discrimination among Muslim women who wear headscarves. It was only in the third, fourth, fifth step that it was said: Well, now we should talk again about the depraved values ​​here. And then the anti-human positions came to the fore. Today, extremists are more likely to immediately and directly address issues that reveal anti-pluralist views – and are already virulent among young people.

Koehler: There are a large number of young people who have a very anti-pluralist stance. This year, the Lower Saxony Criminological Research Institute surveyed students in Schleswig-Holstein. 17.4 percent of those surveyed expressed derogatory attitudes towards homosexual people, more than in 2018. The devaluation of homeless people and people with disabilities also increased after this survey.

Koehler: No. The Bertelsmann Foundation had already published a study in 2017 entitled “On Discomfort with Diversity,” which showed that almost 39 percent of those surveyed had above-average sympathy ratings for anti-pluralist statements. Right-wing extremists and Islamists have jumped on exactly such trends. A development that causes us great concern.

taz: What exactly is so worrying about it?

Koehler: On the one hand, there is the fact that there are anti-pluralistic attitudes among young people, that they have already caught on to basic ideological patterns that cannot be reconciled with our democratic values. It's no longer about criticism of the existing conditions, but about misanthropy. The more drastic and degrading the depiction, the more people it will reach. And we're sometimes talking about children well under the age of 14, depending on when their unaccompanied media consumption began. On the other hand, extremist organizations have become significantly more flexible and faster. They can gain significantly more followers via social media than was previously the case.

Born in 1987, fully qualified lawyer, has headed the Bremen State Office for the Protection of the Constitution since May 2023.

taz: But both anti-queer sentiment and social media have existed for much longer.

Koehler: I believe that the digitalization push in the wake of the corona pandemic has eliminated real-world correctives, i.e. encounters with people and other positions. When we look at evidence that points to possible terrorist activities or radicalization, we realize that these are sometimes very young people who have not set foot outside the door for months unless they have completed compulsory schooling. In some cases, these people have little or no social connections outside of their digital environment. This in turn increases their vulnerability – a vicious circle.

taz: When does anti-queer sentiment become a case for the Office for the Protection of the Constitution? It is only so compatible because it underlies our social order - as does the devaluation of women.

Koehler: Unfortunately you are right. We take action when people are systematically degraded, when they are not granted the same rights as other people because of their sexual identity or orientation, and when attempts are made to spread this anti-human ideology. And of course even more so when it leads to concrete acts, in the worst case involving violence. To prevent this, we are also monitoring ideological arsonists, for example right-wing extremist groups or Salafist preachers.

taz: Wouldn't you then have to pay more attention to Christian fundamentalists? They often agitate against homosexuals and trans people.

Koehler: We do that when it happens systematically and there are organizations and structures behind it. Two free church communities are being monitored in Baden-Württemberg. It is quite possible that these will not be the only ones in Germany.

taz: But you also observe individual Islamist perpetrators - in Bremen we have a pastor who, among other things, described "practiced homosexuality" as a "crime worthy of death".

Koehler: If religious arguments are used to pursue political goals that are directed against human dignity, democracy or the rule of law - then we always look at it. Like Christianity, Islam can also be interpreted in feminist terms. However, there are also many conservative Islamic scholars internationally who believe that homosexuality is something forbidden. And they are not considered extremists in their respective countries, and they are highly respected in parts of the Islamic community.

taz: Are there cases in which right-wing extremists and Islamists act together because of their ideological overlap?

Koehler: Real-world joint events are the exception. The ideologies are too contradictory for that. However, there are memes on social media that are spread by both right-wing extremists and Islamists, and in some cases they are modified or supplemented. In the first draft we see an Islamist fighter who opposes everything that the modern Western world stands for from their perspective, for example homosexuality. And then there is the further development of this meme, where a crusader is depicted next to the Islamist fighter.

Koehler: Right-wing extremists use the crusader as a symbol of the “resistance fighter” when they want to justify their ideology on religious grounds. Incidentally, in such memes there is often a connection with anti-Semitism: a spider appears above everything that is labeled “Judaism” or “Israel”. And both the right-wing extremist assassin fan scene, which propagates extreme violence and glorifies assassins, and some groups from jihadist Islamism use swastika symbols, support the Holocaust and worship Hitler.

taz: One explanation for the increase in anti-queer crimes is that queer people have become more and more visible in public. Is that correct?

Koehler: Extremism thrives on demarcation and enemy images. This is particularly the case among young people who are looking for orientation and security: What is right, what is wrong? The idea of ​​belonging to an exclusive group that sets itself apart from a supposedly “depraved society” is also attractive for some people. The moment something becomes present in everyday life, such as homosexuality or nonbinarity, there are more points that I can rub against. If this is perceived or conveyed as a threat, the pressure to act increases.

taz: And who turns to which ideology? The children and grandchildren of migrants to Islamism and the others to right-wing extremism?

Koehler: No, that cannot be said in general terms. Quite a few migrate from one extremism to the next and become more radicalized in the process; there are even more forms. What is unfortunately increasing are the cases in which the ideology is no longer in the foreground, but only the violent, the inhumane.