The cul­tu­re war is not mere­ly a poli­ti­cal tool of the far right. The ten­den­cy towards the cul­tu­re war also has deep ideo­lo­gi­cal and psy­cho­lo­gi­cal roots. This is par­ti­cu­lar­ly true of pre­histo­ry: topics rela­ting to ear­ly histo­ry are seen within the far right as an indi­ca­tor of radi­cal­i­sa­ti­on. In the public eye, howe­ver, they are per­cei­ved as a harm­less quirk. When, for ins­tance, a poli­ti­cal star like Björn Höcke is bil­led as ‘Hermann the Cheruscan’, this is not seen as embar­ras­sing, but accept­ed as almost nor­mal. This ‘almost nor­mal’ is signi­fi­cant. For the far-right nar­ra­ti­ve of ear­ly histo­ry offers more than just poor archaeo­lo­gy for simp­le minds. It is about the seri­al pro­duc­tion of mea­ning, about the deve­lo­p­ment of a distinct lan­guage. Based on the pro­mi­se of retur­ning peo­p­le to a pri­mal, bar­ba­ric, secu­re and uncon­tra­dic­to­ry exis­tence, völ­kisch core nar­ra­ti­ves are pas­sed on. Early histo­ry is omni­pre­sent in the sce­ne: it plays a cen­tral role in the media, in out­fits, in music, in reli­gio­si­ty, in sym­bols, in cad­re trai­ning, and even in poli­ti­cal pro­gram­mes. What is offe­red is a nar­ra­ti­ve who­se core mes­sa­ges seem to have been fro­zen in 1945. Thus, völ­kisch ‘seed bombs’ find their way into com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on spaces other­wi­se clo­sed to the far right. Seed bombs with a good chan­ce of bea­ring poli­ti­cal fruit. For histo­ry pro­mi­ses to explain how our pre­sent-day socie­ty came to be

The spea­k­er, Karl Banghard, has been direc­tor of the Oerlinghausen Open-Air Archaeological Museum for over 20 years. Prior to this, he was respon­si­ble for the con­s­truc­tion of a medieval cast­le, the Federsee Museum and the new Lake Dwelling Museum on Lake Constance. He stu­di­ed pre­his­to­ric and Christian archaeo­lo­gy, as well as Mongolian stu­dies, in Bonn and Heidelberg.