Opinion | Germany has a QAnon problem, and it’s not going away anytime soon

The ideological ground for conspiracy theories was already fertile in Germany long before QAnon came along. For years, the most prominent purveyor of mass paranoia was a distinctly local group known as the Reichsbürger (Citizens of the Reich). Domestic intelligence services estimate its membership at around 20,000. The Citizens of the Reich deny the legal existence of the current Federal Republic of Germany, arguing that it never signed a legally binding peace treaty to restore its sovereignty following postwar occupation by the Allies. In their eyes, their country is therefore still occupied by U.S. and Russian troops. They see in Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin hero figures who are trying to help the German people break their supposed shackles and become an independent state.

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