Episode 4: The Past, Present and Future of Germany’s Far Right

In our first episode of 2024, Bellingcat’s Michael Colborne and Kolina Koltai spoke to Dr. Kathleen Blee. A sociologist at the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Blee has spent decades researching far-right movements in the United States, and spoke with us about the often-underdiscussed roles of culture and emotion on the far right. She is the co-author of “Out of Hiding: Extremist White Supremacy and How it Can Be Stopped” published by Routledge in 2024.

Germany is not exactly some unknown country, and its far-right scenes are deeply intertwined with and inspire other European and international scenes. But for much of the English-speaking world, what goes on in Germany’s complex, complicated and sometimes contradictory far-right scenes often gets lost in translation (or not translated at all). That’s why I spoke with Una Titz from the Amadeu Antonio Foundation to walk the rest of us through the past, present and future of Germany’s far right.

Issues around the environment, ecology and climate change don’t necessarily underpin much of the far right’s activities around the globe these days. But is this going to be the case in the future? Bellingcat’s Michael Colborne spoke with Sam Moore and Alex Roberts, the authors of ‘The Rise of Ecofascism: Climate Change and the Far Right.’ (Polity, 2022), to understand how the far right understands and relates to nature and the environment, and what we can expect from the far right in the future amidst continued environmental degradation and the rising impacts of climate change.

I spoke for this episode with Sofija Todorović, the Belgrade-based program director at the Youth Initiative for Human Rights, a network of NGO across the Western Balkans. We spoke about the difficulties faced by the LGBT community in Serbia — including the country’s attempts to ban the Europride march in the capital, Belgrade — how anti-LGBT rhetoric and actions fit into the broader political context, and the threat posed by the far right and its allies in the mainstream.

In this episode I spoke with Dr. Eviane Leidig about women on the far right. We discussed Dr. Leidig’s fascinating research on female far-right influencers and media personalities and the diverse roles of women in far-right groups.