Foreign Correspondent: Aug 31

This week on Foreign Correspondent is “Citizens of the Reich: the rise of Germany’s far right” by reporter Eric Campbell.

In December last year an attempted coup in Germany took that nation and the rest of the world by surprise. But the movement behind the coup, the Reichsbürger group, has been fomenting discontent for decades. This week Foreign Correspondent travels to Germany to take a close look at this far-right ‘sovereign citizens’ movement, many of whom believe they are not bound by German laws. Some are now on trial for shooting police and engaging in acts of terrorism.

Reporter Eric Campbell visits the State of Thuringia, where a self-styled prince allegedly plotted the coup in his royal hunting lodge. He meets intelligence officials who claim the Reichsbürger are now in a dangerous alliance with a far-right political party, the AfD. Its radical policies to end migration and stop action on climate change have made it the second most popular party in Germany. But State Intelligence chief Stephan Kramer, who is Jewish, describes the AfD as ‘Nazis in suits” and says he’ll take his family out of Germany if they come to power.

This is an intriguing and disturbing look at how the far right is surging in support in the one country that has shunned far right extremists since the end of World War II.

8pm Thursday on ABC.