Geology for angry citizens and dragon riders: Ulrich Siegmund's "bourgeois" horror cabinet#
One must pay almost cynical respect to Ulrich Siegmund, the radiant figurehead of the AfD state association of Saxony-Anhalt, which is highly officially classified as a secured right-wing extremist by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. He has finally and relentlessly revealed what the much sought-after label "bourgeois" in the new-right echo chamber actually means: it is the fine art to push the liberal-democratic basic order into the shredder with one hand, while courting with the other hand those actors who seriously believe that fire-breathing lizards dominate true historiography.
In a world that is far too complex for the delicate, intellectually manageable minds of the AfD leadership and, above all, full of annoying, critically demanding journalists, Siegmund has created his own hermetically sealed media reserve. Genuine journalistic classification? Well-founded questions about folkish fantasies of omnipotence? An unbearable nightmare for people whose political concept is based on memorized hate slogans. Today's truth-resistant patriot instead relies on unregulated influencer platforms, where facts are no longer even ignored, but completely replaced by fever dreams.
Supervised viewing in the digital swamp#
Who needs editorially edited articles when you can stream the pure intellectual vacuum live for hours? Performance: "Activist Man" and "Utopia TV". These low-flying journalists broadcast Siegmund's campaign events, sometimes for hours and completely unfiltered, on the net. It is supervised watching for advanced, pure propaganda, which is poured like liquid lead directly into the brain of the radicalized target group, without the mind or even a historical context ever being able to interfere. Siegmund interacts completely openly with these channels, hears their contributions and basks in the uncritical, clumsy applause.
But let's take a closer look at the mental state of this network, especially at the "activist man". This gentleman is not only a remnant of the already completely derailed lateral thinking movement, but also operates in spheres where even hard-boiled esotericists would scream. We are talking about an actor who has completely unironically spread theories about "mud fossils" in the past. But that's not all: In this intellectual repository, the physical existence of the biblical sea monster Leviathan and embodied dragons is propagated in all seriousness. Yes, you read that right. What belongs together grows together: people who are firmly convinced that mountains are in truth fossilised giants and mythical creatures do the basic media work for a top politician who wants to govern an entire federal state. If you believe that a secret world elite controls the weather, why not also believe that Smaug the Terrible will soon torch the state parliament in Magdeburg?
The fluid transition to Holocaust denial#
One could dismiss this absurd dragon folklore as a tragicomic circus number if the foundation were not so abysmal black-brown and incendiary. Because the "activist man" does not stop at mythological mythological creatures and geological thin shit. The same actor, whose media reach is gratefully used by the AfD for the election campaign, demonstrably maintained contact with Ursula Haverbeck. As a reminder, Haverbeck is not just any sprightly pensioner with eccentric views, she is the most prominent, fanatical and repeatedly convicted Holocaust denier in the Federal Republic of Germany.
This is exactly where the AfD's ridiculous bourgeois mask collapses. A politician who allows himself to be filmed and celebrated by people who seamlessly navigate between mud-fossil madness and the deepest, most disgusting anti-Semitism of a convicted Nazi glorifier is not a concerned citizen. It is the strategic door opener for the absolute historical and democratic total failure.
The Identitarian Film Afternoon and the Buyable Double Standards#
In order to package this highly toxic mixture of madness and fascism in a visually appealing way, Siegmund reaches deep into the brown box of tricks. He hires the "Filmkunstkollektiv" for professional video production and media support. This sounds like harmless indie cinema from Berlin-Kreuzberg, but according to sound analyses, it is nothing more than the extended arm of the Identitarian Movement in terms of personnel and ideology.
As a reminder, this is precisely the extreme right-wing group with which the AfD officially maintains a strict incompatibility decision. But rules and resolutions in the AfD are apparently only intended for the election program and the cameras of the unpopular system press. The solution to this dilemma is hard to beat in terms of cynicism: you simply commission the Identitarians as external service providers. If you pay them with hard euros, right-wing cadres suddenly mutate into completely neutral business partners. In this way, the incompatibility decision with party funds is completely washed away and the subcultural infrastructure of the hipster fascists is financed along the way. In their eyes, it is not promoting ideology, it is just good business.
The network around Ulrich Siegmund is not a political project, it is an incendiary panopticon of horror that no longer even tries to hide its contempt for democracy, science and historical facts. Civil society in Saxony-Anhalt – and throughout Germany – must not make the mistake of dismissing this troupe as harmless clowns. Behind the ridiculous façade of mud fossils and dragon myths, a hard-hitting, well-funded extreme right-wing infrastructure forms that reaches deep into the circles of Holocaust deniers. Anyone who looks the other way while these people are organizing is complicit in the intellectual and moral suicide of society.