One evening in 2017, a young woman sits in a pub in London, with a group of people at her table that could be mistaken for students or a sports club. The woman's name is Julia Ebner, but she introduces herself under the name "Jennifer." The people she meets are members of the right-wing extremist “Identitarian Movement.” Martin Sellner, the head of the Identitarians from Austria, is also there. Ebner is an extremism researcher at the University of Oxford. She has been researching the new right undercover for years, online and at real meetings.
The people in the pub don't have tattoos of swastikas or riding boots. Although the “Identitarian Movement” emerged from the neo-Nazi milieu and spreads right-wing extremist conspiracy theories, it tries to appear moderate to the outside world. “They are more the so-called Nipsters, i.e. Nazi hipsters,” says Ebner. "People who are dressed in a cool and trendy way and already represent right-wing extremist ideologies, but don't immediately let it show."
In the podcast “Inside Austria” we talk about who supports the “Identitarian Movement” in Austria and Germany. Who its members are and who donates money to the movement.
In the weekly podcast “Inside Austria”, SPIEGEL and STANDARD look together at the big and small scandals in Austria. Together with journalists from both editorial teams, we reconstruct cases and events that affect the country. We look into the political abyss, follow the investigations surrounding the Sebastian Kurz case and his ÖVP and provide information about an important Austrian topic of the week.