"The New Right – The Delusion of the Homogeneous People" (3sat): Yesterday's ideas redesigned

A theme evening on 3sat is dedicated to the New Right and its historical models.

A not unknown phenomenon in cultural journalism is the critic nui. Certain forms and contents inevitably repeat themselves over time. Repeats and reminiscences are in the nature of things. Irritation can arise from a spontaneous mood or a fundamental attitude. The weariness congeals into sentences like “you already know everything”, “you know that”. It should be noted that this diagnosis does not necessarily apply to all those interested in culture. And generations are growing who also have a right to information.

This is especially true for political issues that can have a significant impact on society. So if last Wednesday the report “ZDFzoom: Attack from the right – How enemies of democracy fight for influence” could be seen and this week 3sat puts a small focus on the same topic, then that is not an oversupply, but only to be welcomed, especially since Different aspects are negotiated in the contributions.

“The New Right” (3sat): Unfortunate ideas with a long history

In her forty-five-minute documentary film “Die Neuerechte” (3sat), the author Nadja Kölling goes into the historical development of this anti-democratic ideological direction, which in recent years has taken advantage of refugee problems and pandemic fears, among other things, in order to loudly boast and attract people .

Corresponding ideas and relevant strategies can already be found in the Swiss Armin Mohler, born in 1920, who withdrew from service in the domestic army and instead illegally entered Germany to join the SS. He went through a national training and then studied art history and philosophy. For his dissertation, which was hardly sufficient for his academic standards, he devised a German right-wing conservative movement which, despite related ideological positions, had supposedly always kept its distance from the National Socialists, a fama that he himself contradicted in old age.

Mohler was originally a supporter of the journalist Ernst Jünger, who made him his private secretary. Jünger despised parliamentarism and glorified the war, but rejected Hitler and his gang for snobbish and aesthetic reasons.

“The New Right” (3sat): Correspondent in the right spectrum

After falling out with Jünger, Armin Mohler became a correspondent in Paris and reported for the German newspapers “Zeit” and “Christ und Welt”, among others. In France, too, he sought and found contact with representatives of a worldview based on the far right and remained connected to these circles when he was based in the Federal Republic and became speechwriter for the CSU politician Franz Josef Strauss. As a publicist, he wrote for “Welt” and the controversial “Deutsche National-Zeitung”, among others.

Nadja Kölling traces Mohler’s path through the right-wing conservative, nationalist, anti-democratic currents of the next decades, shows connections, names the ideological sources that still determine the way today’s actors think. The baton was passed on directly: When Mohler died in 2003, the right-wing ideologue and publisher Götz Kubitschek gave the funeral speech. Which brings us to the present, at marches in which Kubitschek acts in league with the AfD right-wing populist Björn Höcke and with Martin Sellner from the Austrian Identitarian Movement.

“The New Right” (3sat): Right-wing subversives on the rise

The documentary “Die Neuerechte” (3sat) sharpens the eye for Mohler’s heirs, who tie in with his radical positions, including those directed against conservative democrats and against Christianity, and follow his strategic considerations in order to draw attention to themselves in the socio-political context make and influence public discourses. Yesterday’s ideologues are given a modern, partly youth-oriented appearance and today, thanks to digital distribution channels, they can be widely and very specifically distributed.

It has become easier for right-wing subversives since conspiracy entrepreneurs, political mystics and eccentrics have come out into the public eye, come up with outlandish ideas and cheap solutions to complex problems and do not shy away from solidarity with extreme opponents of democracy and their trivialization. Paradox enough: These colorfully spotted protest groups irrationally complain about the dictatorship, which is supposed to be creeping in through measures to contain the corona pandemic, and join forces with circles that abolish democracy and also journalistic media such as public broadcasting by all means want to establish an authoritarian regime. You use the word “freedom” and do the opposite.

The documentary is followed by the “3sat topic talk” on the question “What is right?” With the philosopher and historian Jan-Werner Müller, the journalist Solmaz Khorsand and the journalist and cultural scientist Alexander Kissler. Vivian Perkovic will lead the discussion. (Harald Keller)