Terrible news coming out of Hanau, Germany — just east of Frankfurt — where a right-wing extremist went on a rampage and murdered nine people — all of immigrant background. The man then evidently murdered his own mother and then shot himself. Like other neo-Nazi terrorists such as Anders Brevik in Norway, the man left behind a manifesto that outlines in detail his motivations. The full text has not been released, however he also had uploaded a video in YouTube where he warns Americans (in English) about underground military facilities where children were being abused and tortured. The insane ramblings are similar to the bizarre conspiracies spewed by the QAnon movement embraced by many fervent supporters of Donald Trump:
German police were examining a video the gunman might have posted online several days before the attack in which he detailed a conspiracy theory about child abuse in the United States, a German news agency reported. The authenticity of the video couldn’t immediately be verified, but the YouTube account was under the same name as the website containing the gunman’s manifesto.
In the video, the speaker said he was delivering a “personal message to all Americans” that “your country is under control of invisible secret societies.” In a slow and deliberate voice in accented English, he said there were “deep underground military bases” in which “they abuse, torture and kill little children.”
He made no reference to the far-right fringe QAnon movement in the U.S., but the message was similar to the movement’s central, baseless belief that U.S. President Trump is waging a secret campaign against enemies in the “deep state” and a child sex trafficking ring run by satanists and cannibals.
The video has been deleted, but evidently the man expressed his hope that President Trump would take some sort of action.
I always considered these conspiracy theories to be too preposterous to be taken seriously, but now we see they can really lead to tragedy.