Daniel Fiß, co-head of the Identitarian Movement (IM) in Germany had been working for an AfD MP, Siegbert Droese, in the German Federal Parliament.1 The Identitarian movement in Germany is currently being monitored by the German Constitutional Protection Agency (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, BfV) since 2016. According to the German weekly ZEIT1 :
In order that his employee can enter the Bundestag, Droese has applied for a Bundestag ID for Fiß. According to information from ZEIT ONLINE, this application has not been granted so far, because the Bundestag police are still examining whether Fiss poses a security risk. Daniel Fiß 'political roots lie in the neo-Nazi scene in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. He was first a member of the Young National Democrats, the junior organization of the NPD, and ran on right-wing demonstrations. In the past five years, while studying politics in Rostock, he became a leading figure in the Identitarian Movement and became a member of the federal executive committee.
Daniel Fiß appears in the "Russophile" far-right orbit of Manuel Ochsenreiter, Yuri Kofner, Patrick Poppel and others. In a picture by Yuri Kofner on Facebook advertising an edition of Jürgen Elsässer's cross-front magazine "Compact", from October 2015, Daniel Fiß is tagged besides Manuel Ochsenreiter, Kai Homilius, Martin Sellner, Patrick Poppel, Alexander Markovics and Jürgen Elsaesser.
On June 17, 2016, Fiß appeared on an IM rally in Berlin, alongside figurehead of the Austrian Identitarian Movement, Martin Sellner.2
Daniel Fiß on the microphone alongside Identitarian leader Martin Sellner to his right. Screenshot of a Youtube video by the Jüdisches Forum.
In April 2019 it became known that Fiß had been financially supported by another AfD politician, AfD's co-chair Dennis Augustin.
Augustin also financially supported one of the group's leaders, Rostock's Daniel Fiß. A research portal has now published a bank statement from Fiß. The paper shows that Augustin paid him around 1,200 euros last September... Augustin said Fiß has a graphic design agency. The payment was purely professional. The AfD Co-Chief also sees no violation of the applicable incompatibility decision within the AfD, which excludes cooperation with the [Identitarian] movement. The payment would be not political, but there would exist personal acquaintances. That the account statement was published, Augustin called a "dirty trick" and a criminal act. Augustin did not answer, whether the payment to Fiß was unique or whether regularly cash flows to that account.3
In August 2020, Fiß took part in a mass demonstration of Corona deniers, 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.4 On a picture he can be seen together with fellow Identitarian, Mario Müller, a key figure behind the infamous Identitarian clubhouse Kontrakultur Halle.
The neo-Nazi Mario Müller (center) at the August 29, 2020, Querdenken demonstration. Behind him co-head of the Identitarian movement in Germany, Daniel Fiß.
- 1 a b Kai Biermann, Astrid Geisler and Tilman Steffen, "Identitären-Chef hat Job im Bundestag," Zeit Online, 4 April 2019, https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2019-04/rechtsextremismus-identitaere-bewegung-afd-daniel-fiss-bundestag.
- 2"Aufmarsch der völkisch-nationalistischen "Identitären Bewegung" (IB) in Berlin," Jüdisches Forum on YouTube, June 21, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY3lM47s7B8.
- 3 "AfD-Landeschef Augustin: Zweifelhafte Überweisung," NDR, 5 April 2019, https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/mecklenburg-vorpommern/AfD-Landeschef-Augustin-Zweifelhafte-Ueberweisung,afd2264.html.
- 4Twitter post by Rechercheplattform zur Identitären Bewegung, August 31, 2020, https://twitter.com/IbDoku/status/1300479139535872004.