Reconquista Germanica
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The Reconquista Germanica (RG) is an extreme-right channel running on the
Discord Discord is an instant messaging and Voice over IP, VoIP social platform which allows communication through Voice over IP, voice calls, Videotelephony, video calls, text messaging, and digital media, media. Communication can be private or take ...
application, which was set up to disrupt the German election of 2017. The group has over 5000 users. The goal of the group is to ‘ensure the strongest possible showing for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the Bundestag’. It is managed according to hierarchical structures using military language and alt-right vocabulary. The
Süddeutsche Zeitung The ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' (; ), published in Munich, Bavaria, is one of the largest and most influential daily newspapers in Germany. The tone of ''SZ'' is mainly described as centre-left, liberal, social-liberal, progressive-liberal, and ...
cites 5000 users on the RG Discord channel. They have been instructed to create as many Twitter accounts as possible and to re-tweet as much as possible the material on the RG Discord channel. Thus the impression of RG representing a majority point of view may be created. The goal is not so much to convince their opponents, but to provoke, humiliate and insult them. Other strategies used in social media include representing oneself as a refugee or to pretend publicly that there is no longer a war in Syria. During one day in September 2017 seven of the hashtags defined by RG reached the top 20 trending hashtags in Germany. The RG vets potential members carefully through several layers of interviews and social media background checks to weed out spies, however the organization was infiltrated by the NGO
Institute for Strategic Dialogue The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) is a political advocacy organization founded in 2006 by Sasha Havlicek and George Weidenfeld, Baron Weidenfeld, George Weidenfeld and headquartered in London, United Kingdom. Activities ISD's core ...
(ISD). The RG and Internet trolls have, according to the ISD, dictated social media conversations and influenced top trending hashtags.


Connections to other groups

According to
Julia Ebner Julia Ebner (born 1991) is an Austrian researcher and author based in London. She has written the books ''The Rage: the Vicious Circle of Islamist and Far-Right Extremism'', ''Going Dark: the Secret Social Lives of Extremists'' and ''Going Mainst ...
, who studied the group, there are links between RG and the AfD. Further, German broadcaster ARD has documented organizational links between AfD youth organization "Junge Alternative" and the RG. The self-proclaimed "Commander-in-Chief" of RG, who uses the code name "Nikolai Alexander", has acknowledged close connections with Russia, and stated the group would not have been possible in its actual form without Russian assistance.


References

{{reflist Alternative for Germany