Thomas Klikauer for BuzzFlash: Does Europe Have an Anti-Vaxxer Cult Resistance? Just Look at Germany.

Germany too faces the challenge of a strong anti-vaxxer movement. (Marco Verch Professional)

October 28, 2021

By Thomas Klikauer

Germany’s anti-vaccination people – anti-vaccinationists or anti-vaxxers – like to see themselves as Querdenker (e.g. cross-thinkers). Recently, in one of Germany’s leading daily newspapers – Die Tageszeitung – I called them “Schwerdenker” indicating that they find it hard (schwer) to think (denken). I did this for two reasons: firstly, Schwerkdenker rhymes with Querdenker; and secondly, many anti-vaxxers seem to have problems to think clearly and understand what the science is telling them.

German anti-vaxxers refuse to be vaccinated against the coronavirus. They either don’t know or refuse to believe the facts, for example that most Covid-19 patients in German clinics are not vaccinated. They disbelieve that various statistics show this or they think this is part of a grand conspiracy theory – a grand conspiracy fantasy. Worse and lacking hard evidence, German anti-vaxxers like to do five things: they like to deny the existence of scientific facts; they select those facts they like; they also take facts out of context and manipulate them so that they suit their conspiracy theories; they try to misrepresent and distort information; and finally, they reject mainstream media as fake news.

Germany’s anti-vaxx movement also tries, with ever new claims, to create doubt on the protective and preventative capabilities vaccinations have against Covid-19. Their preferred media are Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, etc. Via Telegram and Twitter, for example, anti-vaxx groups share tweets in which it is claimed that intensive care units are only occupied by unvaccinated people because vaccinated people with symptoms are recorded as unvaccinated by hospitals.

As alleged evidence for this myth, German anti-vaxxers like to cite sources that they have created and broadcasted themselves in the infamous information silos and echo-chambers. Many medical facts are misused and manipulated by anti-vaxxers to make them fit their ideology. Facts that do not support their ideology are discarded. In that way, even officially announced and scientifically proven facts can be made to appear to support anti-vaxxers.

Although there are significantly more vaccinated than unvaccinated people in Germany, German anti-vaxxers like to believe the opposite. They also believe that many statistics are blurred. For example, they believe that people could be hospitalized for a traffic accident, then, once they show Covid-19 symptoms, they are re-assigned as Covid-19 sufferers.  

Hence if you test positive, you will immediately be listed as a corona patient in official statistics. The anti-vaxxers claim this even despite facts showing the opposite. In reality, the likelihood that someone is admitted to hospital and at the same time shows additional Covid-19 symptoms is extremely low. Yet, it is a good phantasy to claim that the government is lying.

Because of the success of German anti-vaxxer campaigns, German officials increasingly appeal to unvaccinated people to be immunized and get vaccinated. Yet, many, in fact almost all claims of Germany’s anti-vaxxers about immunization and against the government urging people to get vaccinated make no sense in themselves.

Two-thirds of all Germans disagree with the anti-vaxxers. They have been vaccinated. In fact, between the age of 18 and 59, 71.5% are vaccinated and for those above 60, the number is 86.5%. Undeterred, German anti-vaxxers claim that most, if not all, Covid-19 patients in German clinics are deliberately identified as unvaccinated. They do not consider that this is reflected in the fact that the unvaccinated are the ones who have a higher probability to end up in hospital. In fact, vaccinated people have a nine times lower risk of being hospitalized or dying from Covid-19 than unvaccinated people. Needless to say, the respective vaccination status of each patient can easily be checked and documented.

Beyond that, German anti-vaxxers like to over-emphasize Corona vaccinations’ side effects. For them, the fact that the benefits of vaccination are far greater than its risks is simply reversed. Hence, for German anti-vaxxers, not to be vaccinated is the safer option.

They also deny studies showing that vaccinations are very effective in protecting against severe Covid-19, often by falsifying or manipulating facts to prove their cause. Worse, anti-vaxxers claim that virtually all epidemiologists are part of a mythical global network of dark forces that govern the world. This network includes the WHO, the UN, Bill Gates, Germany’s RKI, the USA’s center for disease control, the governments of all countries, all research institutions that research the coronavirus, most if not all politicians independent of their political orientation, and many more – too many to be listed here.

German anti-vaxxers conveniently eliminate facts. The stubborn resistance to facts by anti-vaxxers can no longer be explained by what is known as cognitive dissonance, i.e. when two facts or ideas are not consistent with each other. In these cases, anti-vaxxers do everything in their power to change these facts until they become consistent with their pre-conceived attitudes, ideas, and ideologies.

It no longer matters to German anti-vaxxers that even in neighboring Switzerland, the proportion of unvaccinated patients in hospitals is also 90%. It is similarly irrelevant to them that Germany’s own expert institute – the RKI – states that protection by vaccination against hospitalization in the 18-59 year-olds is at 92% and in those over 60 year olds, it is 88%. Also denied is the fact that protection against a fatal end is at about 99% in 18-59 year-olds and at 90% among the elderly.

It also does not matter that all medical professionals agree that vaccination saves lives. Even when their own people – German anti-vaxxers – realize their mistakes, hardly any anti-vaxxer is ready to give up their ideology.  Even when it has fatal consequences, they are belittling the five million Corona dead by sarcastically quipping, well, they drop like flies around me.

Anti-vaxxers simply ignore when their very own corona deniers and vaccine antagonists see the light, as the case of a married couple in Germany’s southern state of Bavaria shows. Both came to a local hospital with severe Covid-19 symptoms. The wife said, I was a vaccine opponent, because you heard different things again and again. After the experience of medical treatment in the clinic, however, she pleaded with anti-vaxxers saying, they should be vaccinated.

German anti-vaxxers are aware of what is happening outside of Germany. In the USA, for example, plenty of vaccine opponents have already regretted their rejection of vaccination. After some anti-vaxxers became ill, they too were calling out for protection through vaccinations. Back in Germany and very much like in the USA and elsewhere, people who do not want to be vaccinated remain a tiny but noisy minority. Despite the fact that they are a minority, they have a huge impact on many others because of the confusion they create.

In Germany, about three quarters of people aged 18 and over are fully vaccinated. Of the 12-17 year-olds, it is about a third – Germany has only recently started vaccinating them. Yet, reasons why Germans do not get vaccinated hardly differ between age groups.

There are, for example, irrational fears of long-term effects of vaccines and a certain discomfort about the rapid approval process for the vaccines. Others simply reject the public pressure to vaccinate. They snub the supposed coercion by the government. They also rebuff compulsory vaccination – which, despite claims by anti-vaxxers – Germany does not have.

One reason holding Germans back from getting vaccinated is simply a lack of information on where to find a location to get vaccinated. This lowers vaccination rates and provides another argument for anti-vaxxers as they claim that people don’t want to get vaccinated. More problematic, however is the spreading of deliberate disinformation.

Meanwhile, some German anti-vaxxers are of the opinion that even if they caught Covid-19, they will not become seriously ill. Others become anti-vaxxers out of a dissatisfaction with Germany’s government and its political parties. Roughly 18% of Germany’s unvaccinated express their dissatisfaction with the government.

While there are many differences between the western parts of Germany and former East-Germany, there is virtually no difference between East and West when it comes to anti-vaxxers. Yet, former East-Germany is distinctively more conservative and it has, on the whole, a lower vaccination rate.

As a proportion of its population, the former East-Germany has more Neo-Nazis and more AfD voters. The former East-German states of Saxony and Thuringia remain the true strongholds of Germany’s only right-wing extremist party, the AfD. The AfD, right-wing populists, and Neo-Nazis have a tendency to also be anti-vaxx.

To fight German anti-vaxxers, some suggest to talk to someone who survived Corona or was present during the course of the illness of a friend or relative. Others say anti-vaxxers should talk to a doctor they trust – their GP, for example.

Some say, we should engage with anti-vaxxers even though we can’t understand all the reasons why people don’t get vaccinated. It remains important to listen. It might just save a life or two. Some advise, stay friendly with anti-vaxxers and take the other person seriously, even if this can cost you a lot of strength.

Yet, Corona rules are political and so are Corona apps. It is, for example, highly political when restaurateurs complain about how the fear of the next lockdown leads to them to not finding staff.

Still, German anti-vaxxers are not a movement – they are a tiny group. To some people’s surprise, German anti-vaxxers come partly from the progressive side of politics as some of them tend to support so-called natural healthy living. Some believe in the body’s natural immunization through sunlight, vitamins, etc.).

Many German anti-vaxxers seem to have experienced what one might call a “great alienation” that lead them away from Germany’s traditional political system. Many alienated anti-vaxxers participate in corona protests, the so-called hygiene rallies.

A number of anti-vaxxers show what Adorno once called an Authoritarian Personality having been socialized through authoritarian means. This might explain the closeness between anti-vaxxers and Germany’s right-wing populism, Neo-Nazis, and the AfD. Yet, the AfD has not been able to fully capitalize on anti-vaxxers. The party’s popularity declined slightly by 2% between Germany’s 2017 and 2021 elections.

Beyond right-wing extremists, anti-vaxxers are also defined by a para-religious narrative spiced with occultism and mysticism. For them, the pandemic has added to a confusing life in modernity with unpredictable changes and their life now defined by the coronavirus pandemic. For many of them, it is well beyond their capacity to comprehend.

During the pandemic, many people reached the limits of mental stress. Not surprisingly, organizations like QAnon capitalized on anti-vaxxers. As indicated earlier, German anti-vaxxers often come from the anthroposophical or alternative spectrum, they tend towards holistic and esoteric thinking.

Conservative right-wing extremists and Neo-Nazis are often not merely running along but using the pandemic to actively recruit anti-vaxxers into Germany’s Neo-Nazi orbit. Many of them have been alienated from Germany’s traditional political system. Surprisingly, there are also many from what might be called a petty-bourgeois milieu as well as progressives among the anti-vaxxers. Seemingly, many progressives have no problem with the fact that right-wing symbols are shown at anti-vaxxer rallies.

Some argue that anti-vaxxers came partly from the left but have moved more to the right. About 25% of anti-vaxxer rally participants vote for the Neo-Nazi party AfD. In other words, 75% vote non-Nazi. This might indicate that Germany’s anti-vaxxers represent people from across the political divide. Yet, many anti-vaxxers may not vote at all.

The rejection of democratic elections supports the “great alienation” thesis that says that German anti-vaxxers reject the traditional democratic system, political parties, science, and most of the media. They feel a great distance to mainstream society. Strangely, at German anti-vaxxer rallies, one still sees people with the progressive rainbow flag, but also those carrying Germany’s imperial Reichs-Flag, often indicating Reichsbürger. Symbols of the neo-fascist identitarians are also displayed among vaccination deniers.

Overall, Germany’s opponents of state-organized corona policy represent a broad milieu. Yet, it is a fertile recruiting reservoir for Germany’s right-wing extremists and adjacent Neo-Nazis. While anti-vaxxers cover a vast range of political ideologies, they are united by the protest against the restrictions imposed by the government. What also unites them is their great distance to science. Yet, there is an astonishing number of academics who are involved.

It appears as if higher qualifications do not protect people against conspiracy thinking. One is surprised that academics and even a few medical doctorates tend to interpret the Coronavirus pandemic rather differently compared to the rest of us. About 4% with a doctorate have joined the anti-vaxxers – well above Germany’s 1.2% of people with a PhD. Still, most German anti-vaxxers show lower levels of education. Generally, lower educational achievements make conspiracy thinking more pronounced and more common. Of course, much of this depends on social status as well as on the social milieus in which people move.

The aforementioned key that remains relevant to understanding German anti-vaxxers is their mythical holistic esoteric worldview. This means that a relatively large proportion of anti-vaxxers have a certain tendency towards what they call “holistic thinking”. They criticize commercialism, neoliberalism, capitalism, industrial rationality, and hyper-modernism. They wish to return to a purified and often romantisized nature. These are nostalgic, over-idealized, and quixotic motives reflecting a rejection of the managed, totally rationalized world. It is a reactionary rejection of what German philosopher Adorno calls the “Totally Administered Society”. These anti-vaxxers want to return to a purified and naturalistic world that never existed in reality.

Quite often, the above mentioned mythical holistic esoteric worldview is linked to a hope to find a cure in alternative medicine. In the hallucinations of anti-vaxxers, alternative medicine is seen as being equal to so-called conventional, i.e. science-based medicine. In a second step, their overtly romantic “back to nature and healthy living” ideology is mixed with a mythical demand to return to an original state unspoiled by modernity, science, rationality, and industry. This supports a general strive for a new spirituality of an unspoiled, undamaged, and therefore un-vaccinated life. Rejecting medical science, anti-vaxxers believe that one needs to trust one’s own feelings more than the so-called experts.

Almost self-evidently, this will drive people out of the increased complexity of our society as it calls modernity, rationality, medical advances, and civilizational norms into question. Yet, these believers are not necessarily the downtrodden. It is not necessarily the low-skilled that mark the defining factor. Completely different factors come into play.

German anti-vaxxers believe in a quasi-scientific self–understanding. Many of them, for example, have convinced themselves that there is no good reason for wearing a mask. Masks, in their view, are of no use. Simultaneously, for the apostles of German anti-vaccination, this is always “their” science and “their” recommendations for action, designed to insinuate that there are no objective facts, only what the other side has invented. It is a bit like saying gravity is Isaac Newtown’s gravity – it is not objectively true. It exists only because Isaac Newtown has invented it. The same goes for Einstein, Charles Darwin, etc.

Much of this is adjusted to reflect the feelings of anti-vaxxers, fitting into a belief in a mythical return to pure nature. For many anti-vaxxers, science appears to be connected with politics and the media. They believe that there is something taking place on the backstage that corresponds to some kind of dark interest. Even people with a scientific education have been drawn into this.

Indeed, some German anti-vaxxers have mutated from being anti-authoritarian rebels to become regressive rebels following regressive, conservative, and reactionary ideologies with a relatively high acceptance of AfD themes.

In a 2020 survey on anti-vaxxers, 60% of respondents rejected Germany’s governing coalition of Merkel’s CDU and the social-democratic SPD. They also rejected Germany’s environmental Greens party. For anti-vaxxers, they are all part of the hated establishment. As a consequence, they were looking for so-called anti-establishment and anti-vaccination parties.

The political outlook of some of those anti-vaxxers was initially shaped by a strange version of anti–authoritarianism that was defined by a rejection of the state. This started to be mixed with xenophobic ideas particularly after the 2015 refugee intake. It soon mutated into a particularly pronounced anti-Muslim resentment and also included some forms of social chauvinism.

Some of these anti-vaxxers moved from a spiritual environmental ideology towards the radical right, marrying their anti-modernism with narratives previously only found among AfD supporters. These anti-vaxxers started to believe in the neo-fascist myth of a great transformation including the replacement of the white race by non-whites.

The fact that the inventors of BionTech/Pfizer are Turkish migrants certainly aided their hallucinations. Originally, the anti-authoritarianism of some of German anti-vaxxers had some rebellious elements. But soon, these anti-authoritarian rebels became regressive rebels as they moved deeper and deeper into Germany’s anti-vaxxer scene.