New York Times: “When insurrectionists stormed the Capitol in Washington this month, far-right extremists across the Atlantic cheered. Jürgen Elsässer, the editor of Germany’s most prominent far-right magazine, was watching live from his couch. ‘We were following it like a soccer match,’ he said. Four months earlier, Mr. Elsässer had attended a march in Berlin, where a breakaway mob of far-right protesters tried – and failed – to force their way into the building that houses Germany’s Parliament. The parallel was not lost on him. ‘The fact that they actually made it inside raised hopes that there is a plan,’ he said. ‘It was clear that this was something bigger.'”

“And it is. Adherents of racist far-right movements around the world share more than a common cause. German extremists have traveled to the United States for sniper competitions. American neo-Nazis have visited counterparts in Europe. Militants from different countries bond in training camps from Russia and Ukraine to South Africa. For years far-right extremists traded ideology and inspiration on societies’ fringes and in the deepest realms of the internet. Now, the events of Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol have laid bare their violent potential. In chatter on their online networks, many disavowed the storming of the Capitol as amateurish bungling. Some echoed falsehoods emanating from QAnon-affiliated channels in the United States claiming that the riot had been staged by the left to justify a clampdown on supporters of President Donald J. Trump. But many others saw it as a teaching moment – about how to move forward and pursue their goal of overturning democratic governments in more concerted and concrete ways. It is a threat that intelligence officials, especially in Germany, take seriously. So much so that immediately after the violence in the United States, the German authorities tightened security around the Parliament building in Berlin, where far-right protesters – waving many of the same flags and symbols as the rioters in Washington – had tried to force their way in on Aug. 29.”