It is unclear if the Latakia fighting is linked to the “Syrian Popular Resistance,” which declared its existence in a statement Dec. 29, pledging to attack figures affiliated with (the now ostensibly dissolved) Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the leading faction in the forces that took power and formed the transition government in December, purportedly in response to the killing of Shi’ites and Christians since the overthrow of the Assad regime. The statement labeled the HTS-led coalition “Kharijites,” implying that they are heretical. (ISW)

Despite its “secular” veneer, the Assad regime cultivated a support base among followers the Alawite sect of Shia Islam, while the majority Sunnis chiefly supported the opposition, allowing sectarians on both sides to exploit the conflict. (There were, of course some Alawites who broke with the regime.)

The UN human rights office has indeed made note of some cases of apparent reprisal killings of Alawites since the fall of Assad, although it is unclear whether they were targeted for their sectarian affiliation or for being Assad collaborators. It is also unclear who the perpetrators are, and reprisal attacks have been condemned and disavowed by the transition government. (UN News)

Nonetheless, the usually very reliable Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said March 7 that at least 162 civilians had been killed in “field executions” in the context of the new fighting in Latakia. The following day, SOHR said the total number of such summary executions of Alawite civilians had reached 340. The new government is said to have opened a dialogue with Alawite leaders in Damascus to try to de-escalate the situation. (BBC News, PRI)

Israeli land-grab, air-strikes
On Feb. 25, Israel, which has established a “security zone” in Syria’s south, carried out air-strikes on military sites in Kiswah, south of Damascus, and in Daraa province. The strikes came two days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded the “demilitarization” of southern Syria. In announcing the strikes, Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel “will not allow southern Syria to become southern Lebanon.” He warned: “Any attempt by the Syrian regime forces and the country’s terrorist organizations to establish themselves in the security zone in southern Syria will be met with fire.” (EA Worldview)

Kurdish conflict unresolved; Turkish air-strikes
Fighting meanwhile continues in north and eastern Syria between the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). As SDF fighters continue to block the SNA advance on the frontline town of Manbij, Turkish warplanes reportedly carried out air-strikes this week on civilian targets around Kobani, in the heart of the Kurdish autonomous territory of Rojava. (SDF Press Office, BBC News)

Convergence threat, conspiracy theories
Unfortunately, there are fears of a convergence between the conflicts in Syria’s south and northeast. SDF commander Gen. Mazloum Abdi reportedly told a BBC journalist March 5 that if Israel can “prevent attacks against us and stop the killing of our people, we welcome that and appreciate it.” He added:  “We welcome anyone in the world who can help support our rights and protect our achievements… We welcome support from anyone.”

These statements followed BBC journalist Jiyar Gol’s comments that “there are reports of contact between Rojava and Israel,” and that “Israel’s Foreign Minister has repeatedly asked for support for the Kurds in Syria.” (Jerusalem Post)

This will certainly play into the endless conspiracy theories in Turkish nationalist circles that the Kurds are the pawns of a Zionist conspiracy against Turkey and the Muslim world.

The Iran factor
Yet, ironically, the Kurds are also accused of receiving support from Israel’s bitter regional enemy, Iran. The foreign ministries of Turkey and Iran have each summoned their respective envoys for remonstrance after Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan implied that Tehran is backing the SDF—and seemed to threaten to back rebel groups in Iran in retaliation!

In an interview with Al Jazeera Arabic on Feb. 26, Fidan addressed Iran, saying: “If you try to create unrest in another country by supporting a group there, another country might support a group in your country to create unrest for you. Nothing can remain hidden in today’s world. The capabilities you have, others also possess. Therefore, if you do not want stones thrown at your window, you should not throw stones at others’ windows.” (Middle East Eye)

This implied threat may be a reference to Iran’s Azeri ethnic minority, who are closely related to the Turks, and have been facing a harsh crackdown in the Islamic Republic following a wave of protests.

The extensive Iran-backed militia forces in Syria were propping up Bashar Assad, and their status since the fall of his regime is uncertain. The SNA attacks on Rojava over the past years did drive the SDF into a paradoxical tactical alliance with the Assad dictatorship—despite their fundamental disagreement on the question of Kurdish autonomy. The militantly secular and feminist SDF are obviously at even greater odds with Iran’s woman-oppressing, clerical-reactionary regime.

In fact, the SDF is informally allied and ideologically linked with a Kurdish rebel group within Iran, the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK). We may assume that if Ankara decides to make trouble for Iran by backing a rebel group within its territory, it won’t be them.

The SDF have also, of course, been heavily backed by the US Pentagon to fight ISIS, which would make any such tactical alliance between them and Tehran ironic in the extreme. These operations continue even now, with the US Central Command announcing March 8 that it had assisted in an SDF raid that broke up an “ISIS cell” in al-Shuhayl, in eastern Deir ez-Zor province. (Rudaw)

The PKK factor
Another factor that may impact the situation is the recent call by Abdullah Öcalan, imprisoned head of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), for the Kurdish revolutionary movement in Turkey to negotiate a ceasefire and lay down arms. The Rojava leadership is within the ideological orbit of Öcalan and the PKK, and a ceasefire in Turkey could provide greater impetus for the SDF to reach accommodations with the new government in Syria—despite obvious obstacles.

Toward a new constitution: unanswered questions
Syria’s new leadership held a two-day national dialogue conference Feb. 24-5, which authorities hailed as the first step towards drafting a constitution and rebuilding the country. The Damascus meeting was presided over by transitional president Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly head of HTS, when he was known by the nom de guerre Jolani.

But critics protested that the 600-delegate conference did not include any Kurdish officialsfrom the Rojava region. It was also unclear what influence the conference’s non-binding recommendations would have on the new government. (TNH, Al Jazeera)

According to the state news agency SANA (now controlled by the interim government), the conference issued several resolutions, including for the formation of a legislative council, and a commitment to human rights, “transitional justice,” and a guarantee of freedom of expression.

However, no further details were provided, leaving key questions about the new constitution unanswered.

Al Jazeera Arabic reported that the declaration of constitutional principles included a stipulation that Syria’s president must be a Muslim. This will not be welcomed by the militantly secular Rojava Kurds. And there was no word on a question of critical importance to the Kurdish leadership: whether the new Syria is to be centralist or federalist, allowing for survival of the Rojava autonomous zone. (The New Arab)

The Druze factor
The transition government also appears to face a challenge in another restive and traditionally excluded minority—the Druze, in the southern province of Suweida. Protests by local  Druze were reported in Suweida city March 6, apparently led by the local Military Council that took up arms against the Assad regime in its final days. However, there were also reports of internecine fighting between the Military Council and the Men of Dignity, another Druze formation that opposed the Assad regime and appears to now support the transitional government. (Syrian Observer)

The Russia factor
Amid all this, Russia, which had massively backed the Assad dictatorship, is now said to be in talks with the new authorities in a bid to retain its military bases in Syria—principally the airfield at Hmeimim in Latakia, and the naval base at Tartus, in the province of that name just to the south. Surprisingly, it appears that these bases have not yet been evacuated. Reports indicate that when Russian convoys venture out from these bases, they receive an escort from the security forces of the new government. (Syrian Observer, Reuters)

Map: PCL

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Photo of Seoul protests via Twitter

The coup attempt drew harsh criticism from across Bolivian society, from the courts to the ombudsman to the general public—who have continued to show up in Plaza Murillo in huge numbers to support the government. Leaders of neighboring nations, including Brazillian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Chilean President Gabriel Boric, also condemned the attempt.

Last week, Zúñiga said that he would arrest former president Evo Morales if he ran for president again. Morales had previously accused Zúñiga of leading a secret group within the army, called the Pachajchos, that monitors peasant leaders and political opponents.

From Jurist, June 27. Used with permission.

Photo via Twitter

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Book discussed: Darfur’s Sorrow: The Forgotten History of a Humanitarian Disaster by MW Daly, Cambridge University Press, 2010

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19th century map of Sultanate of Darfur via GlobalSecurity

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Photo: governor of Moscow Oblast via Wikimedia Commons

A group of armed men opened fire at a concert hall in a Moscow suburb on the night of March 22, killing at least 133 people and injuring scores more. Video footage posted online showed at least two masked men in camo entering the Crocus City Hall in Krasnogorsk, repeatedly firing assault rifles as they advance. Another graphic video appears to show four men firing into the crowd in the seating area before a fire breaks out. The crowd was waiting for the popular Russian rock band Piknik to take the stage. After a few minutes of shooting, a grenade or an incendiary bomb was apparently thrown, and the venue was engulfed in flame. Footage published by the official TASS news agency showed a column of smoke billowing from the roof of the venue.

Later that day, the Islamic State-Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K, Afghanistan affiliate of the ultra-fundamentalist movement, claimed responsibility for the attack in a post on the Telegram channel of the ISIS media arm, Amaq News Agency. The statement said ISIS-K attacked “a large gathering of Christians in the city of Krasnogorsk on the outskirts of the Russian capital of Moscow, killing and wounding hundreds.” (The Moscow Times, NYT, CBS News, CNN)

Undeterred, Russian authorities are of course blaming the attack on Ukraine. The Federal Security Service (FSB) announced the next day that four suspects had been detained in Bryansk, near the Ukrainian border, and said that they had been attempting to flee to Ukraine. (Jurist, Azerbaycan24, AKI) Russian pro-war social media channels have been (approvingly) posting images of the suspects being tortured and even mutilated by the FSB, including grisly shots of one with his ear cut off. (Trigger warning: The Insider)

Russian Security Council deputy chair and former president Dmitry Medvedev (seemingly the regime’s mouthpiece for the most bellicose verbiage) immediately took to Telegram, saying: “If it is established that these are terrorists of the Kyiv regime, all of them must be found and ruthlessly destroyed as terrorists.”

President Vladimir Putin himself shortly echoed this, saying the “perpetrators of the act of terror, all those who shot and killed people, were found and detained. They tried to hide and were moving in the direction of Ukraine, where according to preliminary information, the Ukrainian side prepared a window for them to cross the border.” (DW, The Guardian)

Putin also pledged revenge: “We will identify and punish everyone who was behind the terrorist attack.” (Al Jazeera)

And Russian far-right oligarch Konstantin Malofeev called for a nuclear strike. “Let’s give the civilian population of Ukraine 48 hours to leave the cities and finally end this war with the victorious defeat of the enemy. Using all forces and means,” Malofeev wrote on Telegram. (WaPo)

Kyiv’s Foreign Ministry responded in a statement, saying: “We consider such accusations to be a planned provocation by the Kremlin to further fuel anti-Ukrainian hysteria in Russian society, create conditions for increased mobilization of Russian citizens to participate in the criminal aggression against our country and discredit Ukraine in the eyes of the international community.”

But the intelligence directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry just as quickly and just as predictably accused the Russian secret services of carrying out the attack. “The terrorist attack in Moscow was a planned and deliberate provocation by the Russian special services on Putin’s orders,” the intelligence directorate said in an official statement, adding that the aim was to “further escalate and expand the war” with Ukraine. (TRT World, Politico)

The mysterious Freedom of Russia Legion, which the previous week had carried out cross-border raids from Ukrainian territory on Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk oblasts, also wasted no time in blaming the Kremlin, saying in a social-media statement hours after the attack: “We accuse Putin’s terrorist regime of today’s tragedy. We have faced similar manifestations of the Kremlin’s dictatorship since the very first days of Putin’s rule and are not surprised by yet another bloody provocation.” (Kyiv Independent, Ukrainska Pravda)

Washington is backing up the notion of ISIS responsibility, and denying a Ukrainian role in the attack. Interestingly, the US had apparently warned Moscow of an impending attack just days earlier. US National Security Council representative Adrienne Watson told CBS News after the attack: “Earlier this month, the US government had information about a planned terrorist attack in Moscow—potentially targeting large gatherings, to include concerts—which prompted the State Department to issue a public advisory to Americans in Russia. The US government also shared this information with Russian authorities in accordance with its longstanding ‘duty to warn’ policy.”

The Security Alert, dated March 7, remains on the website of the US Embassy in Russia. It reads: “The Embassy is monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts, and U.S. citizens should be advised to avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours.”

Yet security at the Crocus City Hall was so lax that masked and camo-clad militants bearing assault rifles could approach and enter the venue with no opposition. This inevitably raises the possibility of a LIHOP thesis. Followers of 9-11 conspiracy theory will be familiar with this acronym for “Let It Happen On Purpose”—as opposed to its more ambitious counterpart Make It Happen On Purpose (MIHOP).

But Putin’s response to the warnings at the time was to dismiss them as “provocative statements” that “resemble outright blackmail and the intention to intimidate and destabilize our society.” (BBC News) This constitutes an insinuation, at least, that Washington was behind, or at least complicit in, the attack.

Let’s review the factors in support of or against these three theses—an ISIS attack, a Ukrainian covert operation, or a Russian “false flag” operation. Or four, if we include the insinuated theory of a US hand in the attack.

Is there anything that might make Piknik a special target for either side? In 2016, the band was barred from performing in Ukraine due to their having played a gig in annexed Crimea. However, the band does not seem to be particularly pro-war or pro-Putin. (RIA Novosti, MSNBC) But then, ISIS presumably had no special beef with Ariana Grande in the Manchester concert bombing in 2017. Killing some 20 English youth seemed to have been sufficient motivation. Russia’s military devastation of Afghanistan in the 1980s doubtless provides an extra incentive for ISIS-K.

Plausible video footage of the attack released by ISIS March 24 appears to further substantiate the group’s culpability. (NDTV)

It’s important to recall that Putin’s rise to power, including his recent rise to outright autocratic power, as well as his various military adventures, have been lubricated every step of the way by terror attacks. The 1999 apartment block bombings in Moscow and two other Russian cities did for Putin what 9-11 did for Bush, igniting a new war with Chechnya, propelling the hardline Putin into the Kremlin—and similarly sparking a frenzy of conspiracy theories. These have been recalled in subsequent terror attacks in the Russian Federation. Certainly, a vicious cycle is at work: blowback for the brutal Chechnya war was seen in the October 2002 deadly siege of a Moscow theater by Chechen militants, in which some 130 hostages were killed.

September 2004 saw the deadly schoolhouse siege in Beslan, in the North Caucasus republic of North Ossetia, which resulted in the deaths of more than 330 people, the majority of them children. This attack was proudly claimed by Chechen rebel warlord Shamil Basayev. But it certainly well served Putin’s quest for total power. Encyclopedia Britannica recalls:

In the wake of these attacks, Putin introduced new and sweeping counterterrorism measures. He also proposed that regional governors—such as those in North Ossetia and Chechnya—no longer be popularly elected but instead be appointed by the president, subject to endorsement by regional legislatures, which the president would be empowered to dissolve if they rejected his nominations on two occasions. The legislation, which was approved by overwhelming majorities in both houses of the national legislature, returned Russia to the unitary system of government that had existed prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Elections for regional governors were restored in response to pressure from below in 2012—by Medvedev, during the period when he was rotated into the presidency as Putin’s proxy to get around constitutional term limits. (Al Jazeera) Putin, restored to the presidency that same year, has recently been taking steps to rein in or remove recalcitrant governors, and has pushed through a constitutional reform allowing him to stay in office indefinitely—both moves part of his consolidating dictatorship.

Which is why who was actually behind the Crocus City Center attack does not really matter overmuch. Just as 9-11—whoever was behind it—served the hyper-interventionist aims of Dubya Bush and his administration, we may be reasonably certain that the carnage in Krasnogorsk will serve the war aims and totalitarian domestic agenda of Vladimir Putin.

Indeed, on March 24, Russia launched massive air-strikes on Kyiv and the whole of Ukraine, clear to the western city of Lviv. (BBC News)

Perhaps the still more apt analogy may prove be to Germany’s February 1933 Reichstag Fire. The lone communist who was executed for the arson, Marinus van der Lubbe, was postumously pardoned by the German state in 2008. But given everything that came next, does the question of his guilt or innocence make that much difference?

We may be at another such historical tipping point now.

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Map: PCL

A roundtable on the revelations on France24 reveals how the lines are predictably drawn. A panel of mainstream journalists and wonks are all fairly noncommittal on the thesis of a Ukrainian hand in the attack, while also raising the alternative theory of a Russian covert operation against their own pipeline as a provocation. The panel’s one dissident is Georges Kuzmanovic of the Sovereign Republic party, a new populist formation in France, whose page on Conspiracy Watch makes clear his pro-Russian proclivities. Kuzmanovic harps on a third thesis: that the attack was a covert operation by the United States. In defense of this accusation, he cites a recent piece by the increasingly questionable Seymour Hersh, with the slightly dishonest title “How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline.”

We say “dishonest” because the headline strongly implies concrete evidence—but there is none, only (exactly as with the NY Times piece) anonymous and therefore uverifiable sources. The piece is nonetheless getting much wide-eyed circulation from online partisans of both the left and right. While Kuzmanovic and his Sovereign Republic appear to be a vague left-right amalgam, the Hersh piece is also credulously plugged in a Feb. 16 editorial in The Nation magazine (supposedly America’s foremost “progressive” voice), which we had to call out on the CounterVortex podcast for its cynical pro-Russian slant.

Hersh’s distortions are deftly exposed by the British blog Bartholomew’s Notes, which keeps a very sharp eye on conspiracy theory and the culture wars. We take the liberty of quoting blogger Richard Bartholomew at length:

Several months on, the suggestion that the pipelines were bombed by the US rather than Russia has now received a boost from Seymour Hersh, who has made his case in a much-discussed 5000-word Substack post. Hersh’s account relies on “a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning”; as added context, he dredges up American controversies from the 1970s (the period appears to be his interpretative filter half a century later), and he includes public quotes from Joe Biden and Victoria Nuland as supposed gotchas. The story has been taken at face value by many, with coverage from [Tucker] Carlson, and pro-Russian Irish MEPs Mick Wallace and Clare Daly raising the matter in the European Parliament. Donald Trump Jr suggests that recent the train derailment in Ohio may be Russian retaliation for the bombing.

The UK’s Daily Mail has also gone all-in, with an article headlined “Did Biden give the order to destroy Putin’s Nord Stream pipeline after Ukraine invasion? Bombshell report claims Navy divers carried out mission to kill Russia’s gas stranglehold on Europe in audacious mission overseen by president”, complete with graphics and maps. One wonders why the word “report” was chosen over “article” – “report” has connotations of formal findings at the end of an investigative process. The Mail‘s hack, one Lewis Pennock, describes Hersh’s essay as “compelling”, and only near the end does he mention that Hersh’s “reporting has previously been criticized for its heavy reliance on unnamed and anonymous sources”.

However, Hersh’s article does not fare well under scrutiny. An OSINT [Open Source Intelligence] analysis of specific details of the supposed “operation” has been published by Oliver Alexander, while Hersh’s underlying assumptions and narrative framing have been picked apart by the historian and energy researcher Simon Pirani. One small detail spotted by the military affairs reporter Wesley Morgan is that Hersh’s source describes the attack planning as a “goat fuck” – an unusual expression that just happens to have appeared previously in Hersh’s reporting. Norway is supposed to have been part of the US conspiracy, and Harald S. Klungtveit, an editor at Filter Nyheter, has further criticisms.

As regards the two “gotcha” quotes, Pirani deals with one:

Hersh refers to a press conference by US president Joe Biden and German chancellor Olaf Scholz on 7 February 2022, where Biden said: “If Russia invades … there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will put an end to it.”

…Biden was answering the question, “did you receive assurances from chancellor Scholz that Germany will pull the plug on this project if Russia invades Ukraine?” Everyone in the room understood, and anyone who views the clip will see, that this is a conversation about whether the United States could convince Germany to nix the project.

And on 22 February, that’s what happened. The Kremlin formally recognised the “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk – the clearest signal yet that it intended to invade Ukraine – and Scholz announced that German approval for Nord Stream was withdrawn. That meant the pipeline could not be used for the foreseeable future.

Any serious account of what led up to the explosions would have to explain this vital reversal of German policy. Hersh does not mention it.

Hersh similarly misleads on Nuland:

More recently, Victoria Nuland expressed satisfaction at the demise of the newest of the pipelines. Testifying at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in late January she told Senator Ted Cruz, “Like you, I am, and I think the Administration is, very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now, as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea.”

This echoes Sergei Lavrov’s interpretation of her comment, which had already been addressed by Newsweek:

Her comment clearly meant that the Biden administration was pleased that the $11 billion Russian-owned pipeline—which the U.S. had opposed for years on the grounds that it increased European reliance on Russian energy—is not being used. Germany halted the recently finished project just before the invasion last February after Russia formally recognized two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine.

The magazine also notes that she previously used the phrase in January 2022, and there’s also an example from March 2022 – in other words, the US administration already regarded Nord Stream as useless and defunct months before the bombings. If something that basic falls apart after a moment’s investigation, why should we believe anything else in Hersh’s piece? And why didn’t the Daily Mail spot this?

It’s doubtful that criticisms or calls for caution will have any effect – one of the best ways to con someone is to flatter them into thinking that they’ve seen through a con, and American denials will feed into this tendency. This may apply to Hersh himself – has he simply made up his source, or is he being manipulated by someone who has come to him with a tall tale that he was predisposed to accept?

The willingness to believe anonymous, unverifiable sources by boosters of ether Hersh or the New York Times indicates that propaganda partisans are deciding what to believe on the basis of political convenience. And while a US, Ukrainian or even Norwegian motive in the sabotage may seem obvious, there are plausible Russian motives too. As Barthomew notes:

In fact, there are several reasons why Russia might have done it, and an analyst named Emma Ashford came up with several suggestions: (1) Putin signaling that he can damage European energy infrastructure at will; (2) Putin “was tying his own hands and that of any future Russian leader by making it harder to back down from the war in Ukraine”; and (3) a “force majeure” basis to counter lawsuits against Gazprom for failure to supply. A further possibility was (4) Russian hawks acting independently of Putin, although Ashford regarded this as “improbable”.

No matter whose “side” you are on here, we counsel: cool your jets and don’t believe the hype.

Map: Wikipedia

Conspiracy of atavism
In an operation code-named Schatten (Shadows), German police on Dec. 7 arrested 25 people in raids across 11 states, who the Office of the Federal Prosecutor says were preparing for a “Day X” to storm the Reichstag building and seize power. Their leader is named as “Prince Heinrich XIII” of the House of Reuss, which ruled over the Principality of Greiz, in what is now the state of Thuringia, from the 12th century until after World War I. (There was an actual Prince Heinrich XIII who ruled Greiz in the early 19th century.) The present-day “Prince” was arrested in Frankfurt, where he evidently runs what his website vaguely describes as a “business interest.”

A second ringleader identified as “Rüdiger von P.” is accused of attempting to recruit members of the security forces for the plot, and organizing an armed wing of the movement for the seizure of power. Active and former members of the military are among those arrested, and contacts are believed to have been cultivated at army bases in the states of Hesse, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. One of those under investigation had been a member of the elite Special Commando Forces (KSK), and police searched both his home and his room at the Graf-Zeppelin military base in Calw, near Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg. Accounts were not clear if this unnamed suspect was among the arrested.

In July 2020, the 2nd company of the KSK was formally dissolved because of suspected links to right-wing extremism.

Definitely among the arrested was Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, a Berlin district court judge who served as a member of the Bundestag with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party from 2017 to 2021.

Also among the arrested is a Russian national, identified as “Vitalia B.,” who prosecutors say was asked to approach Moscow on Heinrich’s behalf. Accounts in the German press have insinuated that Vitalia is the self-styled prince’s girlfriend, although he is said to be married to an Iranian woman. The Russian embassy in Berlin issued a statement saying that it does not “maintain contacts with representatives of terrorist groups and other illegal entities.” (BBC News, NPR, CNN, Jurist, Bild)

Arcane legal theories
In the arcane theories of the Reichsbürger cult, the current German republic has no juridical legitimacy, but is actually a private corporation established by the Allies after World War II. They refer to it as the “BRD GmbH” for Federal Republic of Germany Ltd. (Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung). They want to re-establish the German Reich of the kaisers that ruled from 1871 to 1918—whence their name, “Citizens of the Reich.” This Second Reich came to an end with the establishment of Weimar Republic in 1918, as did the aristocratic principalities such as Reuss-Greiz. Heinrich’s great-grandfather, Heinrich XXVII, was forced to abdicate at this time. (All rulers of the House were named Heinrich in honor of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI, 1191-1197, who gave the family their lands and titles. The numbering system is re-set upon reaching 100.)

The House of Reuss had its land holdings confiscated by the new state of Thuringia in 1920. Various family manors and lodges would later be nationalized under the communist government of East Germany. After German reunification, Heinrich XIII spent years fighting legal battles to regain ownership of these. He apparently succeeded in recovering personal title to a neo-Gothic castle in Saaldorf, Bavaria, which reportedly hosted many Reichsbürger meetings in which the coup plot was planned.

Other members of the Reuss family had recently distanced themselves from Heinrich XIII as his conspiratorial proclivities became clear. Heinrich XIV of Reuss, speaking for the family, dismissed him as a “confused old man.” Misigivings were raised earlier this year when letters began to arrive in residents’ mailboxes in the town of Bad Lobenstein, Thuringia, urging them (in text punctuated with exclamation points and capital letters) to use a website to register for “citizenship” under the House of Reuss.

Others in the movement have been emulating this wackiness. In Wittenberg, Saxony-Anhalt state, one Peter Fitzek has declared himself “King Peter,” and is giving out personally signed identity cards to those who sign up as his “subjects.” (NYT, NYT, Sky News, Daily Mail, DW, AA, The Conversation, Vox)

It is not clear if the “citizenship” registration website is that of the general Reichsbürger movement, Staatenlos.info—meaning “stateless,” a reference to the supposed non-existence of the contemporary German state. This theory is mirrored in the popular folklore on the stateside radical right that the United States has been illegitimately ruled under “admiralty law” since instatement of the 14th Amendment in the aftermath of the Civil War, and has no authority over “sovereign citizens.” This parallel is especially disconcerting given the recent attacks on the power grid across the US that have been attributed to far-right yahoos.

Historical ironies
Despite their rejection of the German state established after World War II, the Reichsbürger cult displays no particular nostalgia for the Third Reich. However, we have noted before that some Nazi-nostalgists have resorted to the imperial flag of the Second Reich as a “surrogate symbol” to weasel around the prohibition on display of Nazi iconography under the Federal Republic. The Reichsbürgers have even appropriated the usual facile anti-fascist posture; their rhetoric has often portrayed the European Union as “fascist.” This would appear to be yet another example of the widespread post-truth phenomenon of fascist pseudo-anti-fascism.

In 2017, a Reichsbürger follower was sentenced to life in prison for the killing of a police officer during a weapons raid on his home in the Bavarian municipality of Georgensgmünd. Germany’s far right has since 2020 received a big boost from the anti-vax backlash, as evidenced by last year’s apparent assassination conspiracy against the president of Saxony state. As much of an historical irony as it may seem, German far-rightists increasingly look to Moscow for sponsorship and tutelage, raising slogans such as “Putin save us!”

Photo of 2013 Reichsbürger rally in Berlin via WikimediaCommons.
Banner reads: “The German people, freed from Napoleon in 1813, freed from EU-fascism in 2013”

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Book discussed: Taiwan’s 400 Year History by Su Beng

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