According to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Baden-Württemberg, the subject of “public hostility and rejection of state institutions” will remain a political and social problem even after the corona pandemic and a possible decline of the “lateral thinkers” movement.
"The actors of the 'lateral thinkers' movement will by no means disappear, even if the Corona issue should hopefully not occupy us in the long term," said Beate Bube, President of the Protection of the Constitution, when presenting the report for the protection of the Constitution for 2020.
Rudiger Soldt
Political correspondent in Baden-Württemberg.
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Those who spread conspiracy myths would not only use the pandemic policy for this purpose, they would, for example, now often warn of a “climate dictatorship”.
The aim of these actors is the "fundamental and broad delegitimization" of the state.
To do this, they used numerous “connectable topics” with a broad impact.
State critics refer to Article 20 of the Basic Law
Interior Minister Thomas Strobl (CDU) said that the criticism of the federal government's infection control measures put forward by the “lateral thinkers” was often just the transmission belt to bring “crude theories” to the people.
It can be observed again and again that academically educated citizens who have so far been completely unencumbered by extremist ideas are now appropriating such conspiracy myths, said Strobl.
According to Beate Bube, there are numerous conspiracy mystics and fundamentalist state critics in the “lateral thinkers” movement who invoke the right of resistance in Article 20 of the Basic Law: “One claims to live in a dictatorship, from which one derives a right of resistance. “Anyone who gets involved in a“ hateful enemy ”could end up becoming violent.
Since the emergence of the “lateral thinker” movement founded in Stuttgart, the experts in the Office for the Protection of the Constitution have also observed a political “dissolution of boundaries” and the emergence of new “mixed scenes”; At the Corona demonstrations and through the Internet, people would come together who never met in everyday life, let alone demonstrate together. Anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism and conspiracy myths are clearly the connecting elements. The destabilizing effect of the propaganda of this "mixed scene" spread on the Internet is reinforced by foreign, state-controlled media such as Russia Today, said Bube.
Since December 9th, 2020, the organizers of “Quer Think711” have been observed by the Baden-Württemberg Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
Leading actors in the movement are networked with “Reich citizens”, “self-administrators” and right-wing extremists.
“As with the refugee movement in 2015 and 2016, it is an exceptional situation that increases the reach and connectivity of extremists.
In particular, conspiracy ideologies are becoming dangerous accelerators of radicalization and blurring the boundaries between the bourgeois spectrum and extremism, ”says the constitution protection report.
Contacts to QAnon
Supporters of the "lateral thinkers" movement also cultivated contacts with the anti-Semitic and subversive "QAnon" movement. The supporters of this movement accuse the politicians of kidnapping and torturing children in order to gain the metabolic product adrenochrome. With this, the politicians wanted to extend their own lives.
Because of the pandemic, foreign intelligence agencies became particularly interested in vaccine development and the medical sector last year. "The counterintelligence has helped to raise the awareness of potentially endangered companies and institutions," says the constitutional protection report. With the company CureVac in Tübingen and four university clinics that have treated and researched many Covid 19 patients, Baden-Württemberg has numerous facilities that are of great interest to foreign secret services. Compared to previous years, the North Korean secret service intensified cyber sabotage and espionage.