ABSTRACT
This section interrogates historical prefigurations of anti-immigrant online vitriol following sexual assaults that occurred during the 2015 New Year’s Eve in Cologne. The study of the post-Cologne inventory of European far-right memes and internet portals draws on anti-miscegenation iconography and narratives that reach back to European imperialisms. Apart from cataloguing fairly well-documented dehumanizing representations of non-white men, it brings about an ambiguous figure of a white woman. While white women typically symbolize national dignity, they, too, have been perceived as unpatriotic traitors and stakes in biopolitical warfare on democratic institutions. After Cologne, online trolling closely resonated with some politicians’ calls for more surveillance, arming citizens, expulsions of immigrants, and attempts at political recuperation of feminism on the far right.
