ABSTRACT

This chapter offers some concluding remarks and a summary about the lessons learned regarding right-wing terrorism from this study. Based on the most extensive empirical database on right-wing terrorist actors and incidents in Germany so far, the primary material available for international right-wing terrorism research was substantially enlarged. Consequently, it is possible to assess some previously existing theories and concepts about right-wing terrorism and to formulate new ones. In this way, the present study has added a highly important collection of data and analytical deliverables to the study of organized right-wing violence and the nature as well as characteristics of rightwing terrorism to the academic study of political and clandestine violence. Right-wing extremists and terrorists have consistently proved to be a sincere threat to Western societies’ internal security and have caused bloodshed and fear over many decades since the end of the Second World War. Compared with the threat posed by the Extreme Right, the risks posed by other forms of terrorism such as anarchist, jihadi or left-wing terrorism partially remain limited and sporadic, although of course the impact of single incidents such as the 9/11 attacks have caused a much more severe number of casualties and damage at a single point in time and influenced global political conflicts, policy changes and economic instability. This is something right-wing terrorist have not yet achieved, although in the 1980s many Western countries (e.g., Germany, Italy, the United States) saw themselves challenged by widespread and organized right-wing terrorism with some exceptionally violent attacks being committed. Right-wing terrorism, in contrast to other forms of political violence, seems to be a long-term and consistent threat being rooted in political cultures, conflicts, socio-demographic changes and many additional aspects of the affected countries. While this study does not suggest reprioritizing the assessment and grading of which form of political violence and terrorism constitutes the most severe and imminent threat for Western countries, it is nevertheless suggested that the common public, political and security agencies’ perception of rightwing terrorism has been underestimated and has inadequately addressed the threat from the Extreme Right. With the material presented in this study, it becomes clear that right-wing extremist groups and actors are embedded in a radical contrast society (see Koehler 2015) based on an ideology in which

violence has an essential function for the individual and collective identity. This ‘contrast society’ was defined by Koehler as:

mechanisms involved within the social system (including infrastructure and ideology) of interaction between Radical Social Movements and their surrounding societies. This mechanism starts with the Radical Social Movement’s goal to redirect the Target Society towards the (ideologically) desired direction and change it into the ideologically purified version of the Target Society. This includes the alternative societal environments created as well as the ideological niches within the positive Target Society already influenced. Thus, these Contrast Societies are the habitats of ideologies incompatible with their Target Societies’ dominant ideologies.