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Politician Katharina König-Preuss on years of threats from neo-Nazis

Politician Katharina König-Preuss on years of threats from neo-Nazis

The left-wing politician Katharina König-Preuss has been fighting against the right since she was young. This made her a target for neo-Nazis. Right-wing extremists have threatened her for two decades. In conversation with the star she explains how she deals with the hatred.

Katharina König-Preuss knows only too well the hatred she is met with. She has campaigned against the right since she was young. That’s why she’s been threatened by neo-Nazis for almost as long. Hardly anyone in Thuringia knows as much about the networks in the right-wing extremist scene as she does. König-Preuss has become a target.

She has been a member of the state parliament for the left since 2009. She was one of the main investigators in the committee of inquiry into the National Socialist Underground (NSU). In an interview with the star she explains how she deals with right-wing hate speech online and on the street, why she is not afraid of being murdered by neo-Nazis and why it is not necessary to go to every demonstration against the right.

Ms König-Preuss, can you remember the first time you received hate mail?

In the 1990s, such things were mainly expressed verbally, or combined with physical assaults. I think the first mail came in 2001. Printed out about one and a half A4 pages.

What exactly did this email say?

It was described that you know where I live, where I work, where I go. And that from now on I should be careful what I do and where I move.

What was the occasion? Why did you become a target?

What was very important to me was that my father, as a pastor, had already campaigned against the right in the GDR and I was thus taken into clan custody. I was always “the daughter of…” On the other hand, I acted as a spokeswoman for the action alliance against the right during this period. The threats came from the right-wing scene even then.

How has the situation developed? How much hate mail do you get these days?

That is different. There are weeks when there are no weeks at all and there are weeks when there are four or five every day. So far it’s about 1500.

How many of them did you report?

Mails total of three or four. There were also three letters in which there were calls for murder and two songs by neo-Nazi bands in which I was threatened with death. I never reported insults. Maybe I’m a little weird there, but it was all about the time. An advertisement always takes a lot of time.

One often hears the term “brutalization” of society. Many people who are in the public eye report that hostilities have increased online. In your opinion, were there any milestones that you could use to tie such a development to?

Yes, the migration crisis from 2015 definitely. Suddenly there was more and the style was different. Before that, the threats clearly came from the right-wing scene. Between 2015 and 2017, the so-called “concerned citizens” were added, some of whom were much further below the belt in their use of language. Where the Nazis clearly say, “You should be killed, the concentration camps have to be reopened for you and your family”, the so-called concerned citizens then had requests for rape or very crude fantasies that they wanted to stick needles in somewhere.

Since the corona pandemic, i.e. for about two years, that has changed. From emails to social media channels, especially Telegram. Enemy lists sometimes also go around there. You have to read along in the appropriate groups.

And do you do that to yourself?

I think it’s part of my job. It’s my job to keep up to date with developments in right-wing, right-wing or right-wing extremist scenes and where they are leading, in order to have the most comprehensive analysis possible that doesn’t come three years late, so that I can take on a social warning function.

It’s also a safety issue for me. I can classify what I know and everything I don’t know makes me insecure in everyday life. If I know that I am on a list of things that are being talked about in certain groups, then I can take certain measures and classify certain behaviors, for example on the street or at a demonstration, much better.

So is it selfish too?

Not only. If I find out that there are such lists of enemies, I have made it a habit to inform the people on these lists. This is extremely important for those affected to know. Then they can judge for themselves how to proceed. If you are made public in this way, you also have to take certain security measures – for your own protection, but also to protect your personal environment.

How do such measures look like?

The name is no longer on the doorbell, if you have public appearances, then try as far as possible that the home address or the house is not directly visible from the outside.

Does that calm you down?

If you are marked as an enemy by name with a photo, sometimes with your place of residence in such structures, you have to be aware that something can happen at any time. You don’t know if any of these people will say to themselves: “Today is day X, today I’ll do something.” But don’t let that thought get you down

How do you protect yourself personally?

The public is a tremendous protector. I have a deep conviction that Nazis will not attack me because they cannot assess the backlash. If these people attack refugees, for example, the majority of society is not interested. If I were attacked, there would at least be a temporary scandal. The public would then say: We still have to do a lot more against the right.

Still, the threats against you are very extreme. Neo-Nazi bands have written songs that say, among other things, “You’re going to die horribly, that’s not the question. From the state parliament to the bier.” How did the police deal with it when their faction filed a complaint against this song?

The state’s handling of hate on the internet sucks. Because there is no way to deal with it. In this case, I was invited to a counseling session where I was given safety tips. One example was that I shouldn’t stop my car over manhole covers because an explosive device could be installed there. I found that a bit funny because I don’t even have a driver’s license (laughs).

There were no further measures, despite this clear death threat?

I found out afterwards that the police patrols in downtown Jena, where I live, were probably increased. But it was always said that there was no concrete risk, only an abstract one. Of course, there is no Nazi who says: “Tomorrow at 5.30 p.m. I will be with you and I will shoot you.” That would probably be a real danger. I was able to deal with that situation, but I can imagine that it is very difficult for others to get such an answer to a threat that you perceive yourself.

Even if your biographies are very different: Lisa-Maria Kellermayr, a doctor from Austria, reported something similar. She was massively threatened by opponents of vaccination and critics of Corona and later committed suicide. She was physically approached in her practice. Nevertheless, the police in Austria have rated the case as an abstract threat.

The police should have intervened! She should have assigned two people to protect Ms. Kellermayr. In the context of the corona pandemic, she took on a state task. The state has a responsibility for this death. The consequence of inaction is what the state must be blamed for. It is always said that the state has the monopoly on the use of force and that it transfers it to the police. Then practice it too! Violence doesn’t just start when someone bleeds!

The violence that precedes this, occurring at a very low level, is destructive. It destroys people. In the case of Ms. Kellermayr, it’s actually pure madness, because the violence was visible. And yet the state has not played the role for which it is responsible.

The right-wing scene, and I include the corona denier scene, is trying to destroy the people who position themselves publicly. And what the Austrian state has done in this case is to support exactly that.

You can see again and again where such psychological terror can lead. Why are you still here? What drives you to keep opposing the right?

I realize it makes sense. Giving up is what is wanted. That awakens such a fighting spirit in me: I won’t let that happen. I don’t want them to win.

I worked with Holocaust survivors in Israel for a year and a half and made them a promise that the much-vaunted “never again” really is “never again”. What kind of signal would that send to people who are opposed to Nazis in villages or small towns and are not in public? As long as the Nazis are working on me, they cannot work on others. We must persevere!

Are you holding out?

I’m definitely holding out. I’m hanging on because I have the most amazing husband ever who will do anything to make me committed. I persevere because there are people in my family who are themselves affected by racism. I’m hanging on because the Antifas weren’t believed in the 1990s when they warned about something like the NSU. I have no choice.

What advice do you have for those who aren’t sure if they can hold out?

We – whoever that is in this context – have to create positive moments for ourselves. Nobody else does that for us. And very important: You don’t have to take to the streets against every demonstration by corona deniers. You don’t have to take to the streets against every little Nazi action. I keep seeing people start to break down with this work. Notice when your strength is flagging. Instead of chasing after you again and standing there with the five of you and protesting, you better have a nice evening with the five of you, go to a concert, do something that gives you strength.

Ms. König-Preuss, thank you for this interview.

Source: Stern

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