Between “Coloreds” and “Foreigners”: The Effect of Manfred Roeder’s Contagious Encounters Abroad on West German Right-Wing Extremist Perceptions of Threat

Manfred Roeder (1929-2014) is best known for his leadership of the Deutsche Aktionsgruppen, a right-wing terrorist group responsible for the first ‘explicitly racist’ and fatal anti-foreigner attacks in West-Germany. Roeder’s descent into terrorism had a longer run-up of ten years, although it rapidly reached its violent low point in the first half of 1980. Scholars have acknowledged that part of his pathway to violence was Roeder’s international network, and especially the contacts in the United States that he nurtured between 1976 and 1980. Yet they have failed to analyze these international connections in depth. To unpack the significance of Roeder’s visits, experiences, and connections to and in the US, this paper seeks to explore and understand his transnational exchanges and encounters as drivers behind this radicalization and racist violence.

The present study thus aims to enrich our knowledge of the historical rise, workings, and international ties between right-wing extremists. As such, it contributes to historical terrorism studies and research into the extreme right. Drawing from previously unused German archival material, the paper argues that, above all, Roeder’s encounters abroad decisively shaped and emboldened his thoughts and actions regarding the presence of ‘foreigners’ in West Germany. By tracing the rise of this particular threat perception in Roeder’s thinking through his transnational exchanges, the paper also historicizes the right-wing extremist securitization of ‘foreigners’ as a perceived threat that had to be fought with violence. As such, the paper concludes that not just the racist violence of the Deutsche Aktionsgruppen, but also Roeder’s transnational encounters contributed to the consolidation of a threat perception that has dominated the (West) German right-wing extremist scene since the 1980s.Ultimately, then, the paper emphasizes that contemporary dynamics of right-wing extremism are deeply rooted in a larger, historical tradition of transnational exchange and encounters in the past.