Comment by justusw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by justusw | Hacker News Reader

Yep, they come with the whole shebang of self-issuing passports for their empire, and hoarding weapons for the next insurrection. Their fervor for the German Reich is absolutely comedic to Germans, especially the insistence on it having never ceased to exist. On the other hand their readiness to commit violent crimes (including readily assaulting city officials and law enforcement officers) is justifiably causing concern.

These people behave as though grandpa woke up after a 60 year sleep and he doesn’t know yet that Germany lost the war or that the wall has fallen (like that Germany movie Good Bye Lenin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Bye,_Lenin! )

It’s the old trope of a family dinner where the eldest suddenly starts reminiscing how great things in the “3rd Reich” were. If I may draw comparisons then I hear that over in the US the Americans then I hear that similar situations are experienced during a thanksgiving dinner, when a certain relative shows up.

Relics from the past that refuse to disappear.

> Their fervor for the German Reich is absolutely comedic to Germans, especially the insistence on it having never ceased to exist.

There are several such groups, but one of the biggest ones has an absolutely comedic rationalisation why the German Reich still exists and "I'm the one in charge, not those other two dozen clowns who have founded their own Reich governments":

They sent a letter to the American embassy. "If you want me to govern Germany on your behalf, don't object".

And the American embassy even sent back a signed confirmation!

Well, they did not. The Reichsbürger sent his letter as registered mail, the embassy's mail department signed its reception, the German post sent back the "we have delivered your registered mail" stub.

Obviously, this news today is grave and doesn't lend itself easily towards comedy, but parts of the movement are really funny in their denial of reality.

It's like sovereign citizen movements. Reality doesn't matter, and will be tortured until it works the way they want, where they and only they have the magic words to control it.

This is not so comedic as you may think. The supreme constitutional court clarifies in a judgment of the year 1972: The German Reich survived the collapse of 1945 [...] The Federal Republic of Germany is not the legal successor but as a state identical with the state German Reich. (This can be found in the document WD-3-292-07 of the scientific service of the german parliament https://www.bundestag.de/resource/blob/659208/bb1b8014f97412... )

In the US, it used to be Senators casually getting nostalgic about the good old days when segregation was still legal and active. They've mostly all died by now.

The Kongo-Müller (1920-1983) interview (Der lachende Mann, DDR, 1966) is worth a watch —— but only at a time when one is otherwise well-disposed towards the innate good-nature of humanity.

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