"Srebrenica 2.0"

Identitarians long for genocide at Vienna party

Identitarians at a rally in Vienna

(Bild: APA/EXPA/MICHAEL GRUBER, Krone KREATIV)

Reporters from Germany have spent months infiltrating the far-right Identitarian Movement (IB). The research documents a worrying glorification of violence. The journalists' travels also took them to Vienna, where the mass murder of Muslims was called for at a party.

The investigative journalists from the RTL channel spent four months researching the secluded circles of the Identitarian movement. They were able to record members of the neo-Nazi scene unfiltered. Time and again, the focus of their research was Austria's capital city, Vienna.

During an "activist weekend" in the red-white-red metropolis, the undercover reporters documented brutal fights in a makeshift boxing ring. Martin Sellner, the unofficial head of the Identitarian movement, incited the crowd for a "remigration" demonstration the following day. The RTL journalists documented the extremists' latent willingness to use violence.

Martin Sellner is a regular guest at the FPÖ's annual academics' ball.

(Bild: AFP/Alex HALADA)

A rally of the IB movement in Vienna. (archive picture)

(Bild: APA/EXPA/MICHAEL GRUBER, Krone KREATIV)

Woman calls for "Srebrenica 2.0"
Conversations during a party in Vienna ruthlessly exposed the prevailing mindset. One man told the journalists that 1995 had been a "good year" because it was the year of Srebrenica, "the genocide against Muslims". A woman who maintains good contacts with the AfD went even further: "Germany needs a Srebrenica 2.0!"

The excerpt described in the video:

Another party participant assessed the genocide as follows: "Was very awesome. 8888 victims allegedly." The eighth letter in the alphabet is an H - "88" stands for "Heil Hitler" in neo-Nazi circles.

Genocide claimed thousands of victims
Srebrenica marks one of the darkest chapters in recent European history. The former Bosniak (Muslim) UN protection zone was captured by Bosnian Serb troops under the command of Ratko Mladić on July 11, 1995.

Thousands of Muslims were murdered in Srebrenica.

(Bild: AFP/ELVIS BARUKCIC)

As a result, around 8,000 Bosniaks, men and young people, were brutally murdered in the area surrounding the small town. The International Court of Justice defined the Srebrenica massacre as genocide in 2007.

FPÖ adopts IB doctrine
At the "Remigration" demonstration in Vienna, the reporters met several AfD members. Further worrying statements were made. The young woman, who was already fantasizing about the mass murder of Muslims, found the Holocaust "very cool". She had previously relativized the organized genocide of the Nazis: "It wasn't six million Jews. There were at most 175,000 gassed Jews. The Holocaust took place differently."

When it comes to "remigration", there are also links to the FPÖ, which has adopted the style of the Identitarians in its election manifesto. The right-wingers fantasize about a mass deportation of foreigners in violation of international law. The self-proclaimed People's Chancellor Herbert Kickl, a term from the Nazi era, also wants to create a "legal situation" for the withdrawal of citizenship.

Kickl in 2023 about the IB movement: 

In the past, the FPÖ party leader has repeatedly lacked selectivity regarding the Identitarian Movement. He attested that the secured far-right group was an "interesting project worth supporting". In several interviews, he described it as an "NGO" - like Greenpeace, only "from the right". So far, he has not seen a need for red lines.