Kandel ist überall ("Kandel is everywhere")1 is a German far-right campaign that since 2018 is organizing demonstrations throughout Germany, trying to frame immigrants for violence against women. The imprint of the Kandel website identifies AfD politician Christina Baum2 3 as responsible for the initiative. The donation account runs under the name Bürgerwille e.V. – Verein für Verfassungstreue ("Citizen’s Will - Association for Loyalty to the Constitution").
Facebook banner of Kandel ist überall.
Kandel is a small town in Rheinland-Pfalz, where on December 27, 2017, an Afghan asylum seeker had stabbed his ex-girlfriend, Mia, to death. The incident has been used as main anchor when the Kandel campaign was launched. Ever since, under the hashtag #kandelistüberall, the initiative has been organizing rallies all over Germany, which have been joined by a variety of far-right groups.
Christina Baum, who obviously set up Kandel ist überall as an indirect AfD campaign, liaises with stout fascists. Chat protocols by a former employee of Baum, Marcel Grauf, with another AfD politician, Heiner Merz (Baden-Württemberg state parliament), were leaked by the small but renowned weekly Kontext in May 2018.4 They provide insight into a hate-filled and inhumane world of thought by a man who despises democracy, Jews and foreigners. The chat correspondences span over a period of more than four years. Protagonists are employees of popular AfD politicians, various members of the New Right, NPD officials, and members of right-wing student associations, especially the duelling fraternity Germania Marburg, of which Grauf himself is a member. All the personal messages combined form a universe of intellectual fascism, which aspires a Europe of nation-states headed by a strong leader.
In his internet correspondence, Grauf expresses his admiration for Adolf Hitler and Mussolini, as well as his approval for the mass murderer Breivik and right-wing terrorism in general. The chat protocols are soaked with xenophobic, anti-Islamic and anti-Semitic statements. Africans are called "negroes," Arabs "sand niggers," Muslims are generally attested "subhuman behavior," which was due to their "race." Handicapped people are called “mongos" (from mongoloids). Money problems could be solved by taxation of Jews, said Grauf, who asked a friend in February 2016, if he would prefer to rape Sophie Scholl or Anne Frank. Here are just two quotes4 :
I am so much looking forward to a civil war with millions of death people. Women, and children. I don’t care. The main thing is that it will start soon …. It would be so nice. I want to piss on corpses and dance on graves. SIEG HEIL!
By now we have so many foreigners that a holocaust would be about time.
Grauf got the AfD job with the help of his fraternity friend Philip Stein, also a member of Germania Marburg.4 Stein is part of the network around publisher Götz Kubitschek, the most important figure linking the AfD and the New Right.
2018
Lineup of "Kandel is Everywhere" rallies in spring 2018.
In the end of February 2018, the first rallies were held in Kandel and other German cities by a conglomerate of far-right groups and parties, among them members of AfD, NPD, Pegida, the Identitarian Movement, as well as far-right biker clubs, to demonstrate against Angela Merkel’s asylum policy. Various AfD sub-groups such as the "Russian Germans in the AfD,"5 and "Russian Germans for the AfD" ran ads to join the campaign, and posted videos of participants.6
The density of Kandel demonstrations in 2018 was considerable, as evident in the lineup of events in spring of that year. Clashes with counter-demonstrators of the Antifa have been reported already on one of the first demonstrations in Kandel on March 3, 2018.7
During the rallies in Kandel the German Identitarian movement was visibly present among the participants.8 During one of the demonstrations one could see an IM banner, reading: “Remigration! Multi-Culti has failed."
Members of the Identitarian Movement at an anti-immigrant "Kandel is Everywhere" demonstration in Kandel, 2018.
On April 9,2018, AfD MP Dietmar Friedhoff, who was election monitor at the Russian presidential election that year, held a speech at a Kandel is everywhere event in Hannover, where rallies have taken place every second Monday at the central Opera Square.
2020
In August 2020, Kandel ist überall sympathizers took part in a mass demonstration of Corona deniers in Berlin, among them hardcore neo-Nazis, Reich Citizens (Reichsbürger), Identitarians, anti-vaxxers, adherents to the Qanon conspiracy theory, and other proponents lured into the "crossfront" under an anti-scientific and conspiracist umbrella.9
Kandel ist überall sympathizers at the August 2020 Querdenken demonstration.
Links
- Kandel ist überall on Twitter
- Kandel ist überall on Telegram
- Kandel ist überall on Facebook
- Website of Kandel ist überall
- 1Kandel ist überall, http://kandel-ist-ueberall.de/.
- 2Christina Baum, www.baum-christina.de/.
- 3Facebook page of Christina Baum, https://www.facebook.com/Dr.Christina.Baum/.
- 4 a b c Anna Hunger, "'Sieg Heil' mit Smiley," Kontext Wochenzeitung, May 9, 2018, https://www.kontextwochenzeitung.de/politik/371/sieg-heil-mit-smiley-5077.html.
- 5https://www.facebook.com/russlanddeutscheinderafd/posts/2066327086968903.
- 6https://www.facebook.com/AfDrus/videos/941730095974783/.
- 7https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x19hqIDh-E0
- 8Facebook post by the Identitäre Bewegung, https://www.facebook.com/identitaere/posts/2138111262873588.
- 9Twitter post by Rechercheplattform zur Identitären Bewegung, September 1, 2020, https://twitter.com/IbDoku/status/1300710249180147712.
