Mass Shooting in Germany

[Storr]

"Eight people were killed and five others injured after an unknown attacker opened fire on a shisha bar in the city, according to the reports."

Evidently this has happened in Hanau, which is ~25km east of Frankfurt.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51567971

[urutzizu]

Suspects still on the run. They attacked two shisha-bars.

Gang-feuds between Arab clans have been on the rise recently (similar to the bombings in Sweden) so might be that, though with the recent arrests of far-right terrorists I wouldnt be surprised of such a thing either. Either way, it will be a political football. Cant wait.

[Meclazine for Israel]

What is a shisha bar ?

[Tender Branson]

The number of dead is now 11 and 5 more are seriously injured.

The attacker is dead, he's apparently a German.

The victims are mostly foreigners.

What is a shisha bar ?

A smoking bar, mostly frequented by foreigners and/or hipsters.

[parochial boy]

https://www.rts.ch/info/monde/11106474-dix-morts-dans-deux-fusillades-en-allemagne-le-suspect-retrouve-mort.html

Suspect had apparently previously expressed far right opinions and the anti-terror police are investigating a « xenophobic motive »

[Middle-aged Europe]

With the military victories against ISIS in Syria and Iraq on one hand and the assassination of CDU politician Walter Lübcke, the Synagoge shooting in Halle, and the current events in Hanau on the other hand I'm inclined to say that we've reached the point where the likelihood of a right-wing terrorist attack occuring in Germany exceeds the likelihood of a Islamist terrorist attack.

Professionally, I've been dealing with hate speech, racism, dehumanization of perceived enemies and political radicalization on the Internet as part of my job(s) since at least  2008/09. You wouldn't believe how many crackpots and/or assholes exist out there. Therefore, I'm certainly not surprised by this course of events. If anything this is a cause for resignation since all prevention strategies against right-wing radicalization have been insufficient for at least the past 15 years.

It has been brewing for a very long time, since before the rise of ISIS even occurred. During the 2000s, we already had the racist murder spree of the NSU, but this seems only like a prelude now. So while events like the Breitscheidplatz Islamist attack in 2016 may have helped fuel the fire, the roots certainly go further back. They've always been there, hiding and waiting for their time to come. And this time, apparently, is now.

[CumbrianLefty]

Yes, it seems the automatic assumption many make that "it was a brown person" when news like this breaks may certainly need to be revised soon if that isn't the case already

[President Johnson]

It's already evident the attacker was a sick and deranged thug, who believed in a number of conspiracy theories and had a racist motive. The far-right is a cancer on all societies of the Western world.

[Tender Branson]

Germany has a Neo-Nazi problem.

[Tender Branson]

According to his manifest, the perpetrator was a Trump supporter (of which there are not too many in Germany).

He also posted weird conspiracy theories in it.

[parochial boy]

This isn't like, new though is it? I have seen a fairy steady trickle of articles across the press in different European countries about the rising number extreme right violent groupuscules in Germany, that the German institutions still aren't taking seriously because they're still caught up in the mentality that "terrorism" means the Baader-Meinhof gang or whatever. This is stuff that is getting coverage in the likes of the NZZ, not just the left-wing press by all means. And so now it's three far right attacks in under a year, and, even nothwistanding the AFD's frankly absurd takes, it still seems like the mainstream institutions in the country are only really slowly waking up to the issue. It's all the more strange, and sad, seeing as the general attitude towards immigrants in Germany probably is more open and accepting than the norm is in Europe.

[Sir Mohamed]

Germany has a Neo-Nazi problem.

Almost the entire West has a neo-nazi problem, that's for sure. It has never been gone in most European countries and the US, but kept under the surface. Demagogues like Mr. Trump and Mr. Salvini put right-wing talkingpoints and outright racism into the mainstream of the political conversation. As if racism and xenophobia was just some sort of political opinion. On the contrary, the political establishment is many of these countries failed to address issues of globalism and immigration, especially the downsides of these. Combined with the internet, where it's easy to spread hate speech and conspiracies in an anonymous fashion, has lead to a very problematic political climate.

[Middle-aged Europe]

If anything saying the Internal Security Services are Ignorant of far-right terrorism is understating it.

And Hans-Georg Maaßen as head of the Federal Constitutional Protection office was one of the worst and most high-ranking offenders in that regard. In light of the right-wing terrorist attacks that have occurred in 2019 and 2020 Horst Seehofer should be ashamed that he protected that guy for so long and let almost the grand coalition break up over it. The increasingly controversial statements Maaßen has made since his ouster only confirmed that the view that he doesn't see right-wing extremism as particular problem because he's fairly right-wing himself. His successor Thomas Haldenwang - although he's also in the CDU - has been a vast improvement over Maaßen. At least Haldenwang he isn't some right-wing hack who tries to implement his personal agenda.

Appointing former Central Council of Jews secretary-general Stephan J. Kramer as head of the State Constitutional Protection office in Thuringia was also a pretty innovative idea because here you can at least be certain that he takes neo-Nazism seriously (well, and Islamism probably as well).

[parochial boy]

It's all the more strange, and sad, seeing as the general attitude towards immigrants in Germany probably is more open and accepting than the norm is in Europe.

I am not sure why people in the rest of the World think this tbh. Is it a 2015 holdover? I can absolutely not see this supported either by personal experience, nor by opinion polling (where we consistently rank way behind most Western countries, like the UK for instance, that same UK that just elected Boris Johnson). Germany also has a very deeply ingrained ethnic definition of "Deutschsein" (Germanness/German Identity) that goes far deeper in society than just the AFD (If interested I can elaborate a bit on this), as opposed to a Values based national Identity (US,CA) or a linguistic (FR) one.

Huh, my frame of reference was principally ithe comparison with France and Italy. I'm genuinely a bit surprised that the French would have more liberal views on immigration. They seem to have some national crisis about some arcane issue involving "the Muslims" on a monthly basis; and anecdotal of course, but East Asian friends have mentioned that they generally find the French the hardest to deal with in terms of racism. But then again, I interact with French culture much more, and am probably more familiar with their own particular neuroses than I am with the Germany's.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Surveys can be deceptive about such things.

[Beezer]

The coverage of this has been interesting to say the least. The guy was clearly insane. Breivik posted a political manifest, the German shooter talked about how he managed to somehow turn around the German football team and turn it into a contender once again while also addressing the issue of CIA mind control. But it is politically expedient to lay the blame at the feet of the AfD.

[Middle-aged Europe]

The coverage of this has been interesting to say the least. The guy was clearly insane. Breivik posted a political manifest, the German shooter talked about how he managed to somehow turn around the German football team and turn it into a contender once again while also addressing the issue of CIA mind control. But it is politically expedient to lay the blame at the feet of the AfD.

At which point becomes "insane" too insane to link it to political ideas any longer though? Adolf Hitler believed that Jews were a genetically inferior race who secretly controlled not only the American banking system but also the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and therefore all the Jews had to be exterminated. Was this already "too insane" or still "sane enough"? And if this was too insane does this mean the Nuremberg trials shouldn't have him executed had he survived the war? At that point it becomes an increasingly philosophical question.

The perpetrator of Hanau also said that people of Middle Eastern/Islamic descent should be extermined and then he took a gun and specifically murdered ten people of Middle Eastern/Islamic descent. This obviously wasn't some random killing where he didn't care any longer whom he shoots.

[Beezer]

I don't know, someone who claims that he's been spied on from birth by the CIA while also asserting that his ideas somehow influenced Hollywood movies and the strategies of the German FA is clearly on another level of crazy as your run of the mill "the Jews are running the media" conspiracy theorist.

The media coverage is also quite noteworthy specifically because in similar incidents perpetrated by radicals from other ideological camps, the "mentally unstable" narrative is trotted out right away.

[Tender Branson]

The coverage of this has been interesting to say the least. The guy was clearly insane. Breivik posted a political manifest, the German shooter talked about how he managed to somehow turn around the German football team and turn it into a contender once again while also addressing the issue of CIA mind control. But it is politically expedient to lay the blame at the feet of the AfD.

At which point becomes "insane" too insane to link it to political ideas any longer though? Adolf Hitler believed that Jews were a genetically inferior race who secretly controlled not only the American banking system but also the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and therefore all the Jews had to be exterminated. Was this already "too insane" or still "sane enough"? And if this was too insane does this mean the Nuremberg trials shouldn't have him executed had he survived the war? At that point it becomes an increasingly philosophical question.

The perpetrator of Hanau also said that people of Middle Eastern/Islamic descent should be extermined and then he took a gun and specifically murdered ten people of Middle Eastern/Islamic descent. This obviously wasn't some random killing where he didn't care any longer whom he shoots.

To be „fair“ ... he also said in his pamphlet that the Philippines should be exterminated, a large Catholic country.

So, it’s not just Muslims he was concerned about.

[CumbrianLefty]

White right wing killers are always "insane loners" - I get it.

(it was the same here with Jo Cox's killer)

This is never true of brown people though, even though Islamist extremists make a point of targeting the mentally ill to carry out their atrocities.

[Tender Branson]

Deal with it, Nazis:

https://twitter.com/zdfheute/status/1231199811849924614