1/ „Wir haben uns aufgrund dieser Krise zusammengefunden“ (Johanna Findeisen, 2020)
Yesterday’s arrest of Findeisen, Prince Heinrich XIII‘s Russia liaison, is a reminder that it is a mistake to refer to Heinrich‘s plot as a ‚Reichsbürger‘ Plot. Doing to …
spiegel.de/politik/reichs… 2/… Doing so inadvertently turns the plot into a colourful,exotic and ultimately insignificant endeavour. Their self-designation is ‚Patriotische Union‘ (Patriotic Union) and they believe, not unreasonably so,to bring different protest movements together.
amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/12/16…

As Putin radicalised,he started to refer to specific Tsars more frequently &crucially references to Alexander I,Alexander III &Ivan the Terrible increased.
Betw. 1999&2008, 23 % of references were to the three men;the figure for 2014-2021 is 41 %.
From @nielsdrost's dissertation. "The presidency of Medvedev has been a turning point in the instrumentalization of history.From the war w Georgia(2008)onwards,imperial history starts to be seriously used as a validation tool for foreign&domestic Russian policy" - another takeaway from @nielsdrost's dissertation

1/ The thwarted alleged plot to overthrow the German gov't has echoes of the Hitler Putsch & of 'Aufbau'
It centres around
a) the fmr head of the dynasty once ruling 1 of the German Reich's states,
b) a paratrooper, 2278th in line to succeed King Charles III,&
c) a AfD politician 2/ Just as in the case of 'Aufbau',the alleged Reichsbürger coup was planned by an underground network of high aristocrats & rightwing extremists &it was predicated on the dream of a new Russian-German nationalist & antisemitism alliance.
Cf this section from'Becoming Hitler'

1/ 'Swing Tanzen Verboten' - Conventional wisdom has it that it is an urban myth that posters were put up in public venues in Nazi Germany announcing a prohibition of Swing dancing.
Well, in this case, conventional wisdom got things wrong: 2/ In fact, several Gaue (districts) issued prohibitions for people to dance Swing:

1/ Normally I resist Hitler comparisons w. modern leaders, as they tend to be facile, & I think that Putin is best understood through the lens of 18th&19th c. Russia. Yet his annexation speech follows the same structure & uses the same justifications as Hitler’s 1920s speeches… 2/ As Hitler did in the 1920s, Putin’s speech is quasi-millennial & quasi-post-colonial in character, laying out the reasons for the current mysery - Anglo-Saxon deception - & laying out a way of how the world can be restored & how sovereignty & a life in liberty can be restored

1/5 Scott Appleby’s #IFSB2022
'Religion & conflict' keynote: “Violent religious extremists &
nonviolent religiously inspired peacemakers & agents of healing &
reconciliation often hail not merely from the same religious tradition but
sometimes from within the same rel. ecosystem” 2/ Following Scott Appleby’s intriguing keynote, our @aberdeenuni @CASSIS_Bonn @KeoughGlobalND panel saw intriguing discussions of human agency in conflict & repair from conflict that is motivated, inspired, & guided by religion; & of
self-sacrificial redemptive militance, …

1/ To understand Russia’s staged referenda, it is worth looking back at Nazi elections. In a forthcoming book, @RichterHedwig looks at Nazi plebiscites & I look at the orthopraxy of National Socialist illiberal democracy of National Socialism as a political religion ... 2/ @RichterHedwig's chapter reveals how autocrats masterfully & to devastating effect instrumentalise elections & plebiscites. She lays out why autocrats have little choice but to do so in an age of mass politics and democracy. It's here where I see strong convergence w. Putin...

1/ The fall of German historical literacy, attitudes towards Russian/Soviet aggression & the war in Ukraine: Here is a short 🧵on diminishing German engagement w. past Russian/Soviet aggression, which seems a specifically German phenomenon, if ngram data is to be trusted 2/ Since the mid-2000s, there seems to have been a steep fall in engagement w. the darker side of the Russian past. This is also supported by falling engagement with 'Stalin' and the June 17, 1953 uprising.