ZPS set up a website with pictures of the 1,500 rioters theyâd identified, but visitors to the site could only see 20 pictures at a time. So frantic fascists went to the siteâs search bar to see if theyâd been named.
âThe first thing theyâre doing is using the search function on the website to input their own name, or somebody they know, but who nobody else knows, in order to see if this website really works,â Ruch said, âto see if itâs really possible that we identified 1,500 people.â
The site received a traffic boost after a far-right website linked to it, Ruch said. ZPS built a map of names that appeared in the same usersâ searches. From those searches, alone, they learned the names and associates of approximately 25 rioters they hadnât previously identified.
âWhat we got was quite a network of who knows who, and who else was in Chemnitz,â Ruch said.
U.S. anti-fascists have pulled similar stunts. This summer, undercover activists cozied up to the organizers of a far-right march, and offered to make a website and coordinate T-shirt orders for the event. The website, which did not charge for T-shirts, asked participants for their names and addresses, supposedly to calculate shipping costs. Instead of sending free T-shirts, the activists behind the website published the names and addresses they received.
ZPSâs performances have previously landed it on far-right extremistsâ hit lists. In April, German police arrested a soldier who was suspected of planning far-right terror attacks, which he allegedly wanted to blame on refugees. The man also reportedly kept a list of leftist figures he wanted to murder, among them ZPS affiliates.
A September investigation into the alleged would-be-terrorist revealed a larger ring of suspected extremism among Germanyâs military elite. Germanyâs FOCUS magazine reported that the criminal investigation had uncovered a network of far-right soldiers and officers planning for apocalyptic violence on âDay X,â when they would take over the country.
âItâs terrifying, but I donât want to live in a country where I canât do radical political art,â Ruch said. âWe need to know who this is, who finances it, who the driving forces are.â
good on ZPS for sure but uhhhhhh holy fucking shit that bolded paragraph made my stomach flip upside down