ABSTRACT
Collecting accessible and academically valuable information regarding terrorism in general and right-wing terrorism specifically is no easy task. Most sources are of questionable value, circumstantial, or highly subjective and are – as it lies within the nature of terrorism – largely shrouded by secrecy, illegality and invisibility. To obtain reliable data for the unique Database on Terrorism in Germany (DTG) of the German Institute on Radicalization and De-Radicalization Studies (GIRDS), which is the empirical foundation for this book, required therefore a major effort to collect everything with a possible explanatory or informational value and to combine each source with relevant counterparts. In order to achieve the most accurate end result for every dataset (e.g., a specific right-wing terrorist actor) sources from three major categories have been triangulated and crosschecked: governmental sources, press reports and academic sources. Two additional sources of information have been included to augment the datasets where possible: autobiographies (and similar accounts such as interviews etc.) of former terrorists; and internal publications of the Far-Right movement (e.g., strategic manuals, articles written by active terrorists, reflections about events). Both additional sets of information were included with a maximum of caution as they are both not scientifically accessible and verifiable on the one hand and obviously very biased on the other. Legal frameworks for releasing information in Germany vary depending on the scope, institution and content of the information. In general, all published information is subject to privacy and data protection regulation of the states and the federal government (Bundesdatenschutzgesetz). Data protection laws regulate the exchange of personal information (e.g., names, addresses, dates of birth) between governmental institutions and for external release. As a general rule, no personal information can be exchanged or made public without proven “considerable public interest.” What is more, the protection of personal privacy is a very high legal standard in Germany with its foundation in §1 of the German Constitution (Grundgesetz – Basic Law). This means that the protection of personal freedoms and privacy most commonly outweighs the value of releasing personal data of any kind for research, press or other interests. Exceptions are made only for people in “public life,” such as politicians. This privacy protection remains intact for at least thirty years after the death of the person in question.
