The Idar-Oberstein case shakes the country. But it also highlights what the pandemic is doing to society.
Idar-Oberstein / Berlin – It’s a feeling of discomfort. The person sitting next to you on the train, demonstratively without a mask. A customer at the bakery without mouth and nose protection, without distance – but with angry words about the corona policy. What to do?
Many have been asking this question again and again for more than a year. And now after the Idar-Oberstein crime, probably even more. The trenches seem deep. Between those who feel oppressed by the measures taken to fight the pandemic. And those who follow the common rules to protect themselves and others. It’s about vaccinations, conspiracy theories – and masks. Probably because of this, a 20-year-old man was shot.
How could it come to this?
For the social and legal psychologist Pia Lamberty, the opponents of the corona policy are nothing completely new. “From my point of view, this ideological conspiracy milieu was rather loosely dispersed before. In the pandemic we suddenly had a common enemy, ”says Lamberty, who is the managing director of the Center for Monitoring Analysis and Strategy (CeMAS). “Corona united this scene.”
What exactly were the thoughts of the perpetrator when he wanted to buy a six-pack of beer at a gas station on Saturday evening and put on his mask? One can only speculate about that. What made him decide to leave without a beer, come back about an hour later with a revolver and shoot the gas station employee? He rejects the Corona measures and has “seen no other way out” than to set an example, the 49-year-old later told investigators.
“The mask is in itself something neutral, it is a protective measure and it was stylized as an absolute enemy in the pandemic by conspiratorial ideological forces, by right-wing extremists,” explains Lamberty. “It is now a symbol of an apparent oppression on the one hand, but on the other hand it is also a form that you can stage yourself as an apparent resistance fighter.”
Corona makes social subgroups visible
For many, the mood has felt heated for months. At the beginning of the pandemic, sociologists had the idea that Corona could make people humble and weld them together. Today, many feel little of this. Is society divided into corona deniers and others? “Societies are never completely united, there are always subgroups. And I think Corona just made it even more visible, ”says Lamberty.
She and her colleagues had already done studies before the pandemic: “And then you could already see that the belief in conspiracies is accompanied by an increased propensity for violence.” If you now talk about the crime in Idar-Oberstein, you also have to talk about how much violence it already existed for the past year and a half. “The attacks on the press, the attacks on vaccination facilities, aggression in the supermarket, in doctors’ offices, mobile vaccination teams that need police protection – there is something in society all the time that, in my opinion, has never been taken seriously enough.”
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution observes so-called lateral thinkers
The security authorities also see growing radicalization among critics of the Corona policy. There was early talk of an infiltration of the protests by right-wing extremists or self-declared citizens of the Reich who do not recognize the Federal Republic. In the meantime, parts of the so-called lateral thinker movement are also being observed by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, as the Federal Ministry of the Interior announced in April. Since the scene is very diverse, a separate category was created for it with the name “Constitutional Protection-Relevant Delegitimization of the State”.
This allows the domestic secret service to collect data on certain people from the scene. The reason for the step is not the criticism of the Corona measures, as Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) and Constitutional Protection chief Thomas Haldenwang emphasized in the spring, but the radicalization of parts of the movement. Seehofer cited a growing readiness to use violence in demonstrations.
The Interior Ministry currently sees the killing in Idar-Oberstein as an isolated case. The act shows “a dramatic degree of brutality in society,” said a spokesman on Wednesday in Berlin. “According to all the findings that we have so far, it is an individual case” – although it was an extreme individual case.
“Clear red line in conspiracy myths”
Malu Dreyer, Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, also described observations on Wednesday that members of this scene were becoming increasingly radicalized and did not shy away from acts of violence. “Anyone who justifies or even welcomes a murder prepares the ground for new violence,” said the SPD politician. The Internet is not a legal vacuum. “Hate kills.” The Prime Minister emphasized: “We discuss with people who have worries, but we also draw a very clear red line on conspiracy myths, violence and agitation.”
For Lamberty, a first step would be a policy “that clearly states that thinking outside the box is a problem and does not play it down as criticism.”
The discomfort in everyday life
But how do you react if someone does not wear the mask or even acts aggressively? “I don’t think everyone is in imminent danger now and it’s important to be clear about that,” says Pia Lamberty. “You can say something – but you should always keep an eye on your own safety.”
The question is also who should actually enforce the mask requirement. “Is that really something that you can expect from a cashier – or maybe you need other approaches?” That could be a security person in the store, for example. So far, people have often been left alone with this. “This act not only has the effect that a person had to die, but it also does something to society.” Dpa
