Kopp Verlag is a German publisher based in

Rottenburg am Neckar Rottenburg am Neckar (; until 10 July 1964 only ''Rottenburg''; Swabian: ''Raodaburg'') is a medium-sized town in the administrative district (''Landkreis'') of Tübingen in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It lies about 50 kilometres (31 miles) s ...

. It publishes books and an online news website notably in the field of right-wing

esotericism Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas a ...

populism Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group against " the elite". It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment. The term developed ...

and

extremism Extremism is "the quality or state of being extreme" or "the advocacy of extreme measures or views". The term is primarily used in a political or religious sense to refer to an ideology that is considered (by the speaker or by some implied share ...

, as well as

pseudoscience Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or falsifiability, unfa ...

and

conspiracy theories A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources: * * * * The term has a nega ...

. Other topics include wellness, outdoor equipment,

survival skills Survival skills are techniques that a person may use in order to sustain life in any type of natural environment or built environment. These techniques are meant to provide basic necessities for human life which include water, food, and shelte ...

and

self-defense Self-defense (self-defence primarily in Commonwealth English) is a countermeasure that involves defending the health and well-being of oneself from harm. The use of the right of self-defense as a legal justification for the use of force in ...

Topics and publications

Founded by the former policeman Jochen Kopp,Anna Hunger, Brücke nach rechts, in: Kontext Ausgabe 160, 26/27 April 2014, S. 1. the company ships up to 25,000 books per day and has about 60 employees, according to its own account. Among the topics addressed by Kopp's books are

ancient astronauts Ancient astronauts (or ancient aliens) refers to a pseudoscientific hypothesis which holds that intelligent extraterrestrial beings visited Earth and made contact with humans in antiquity and prehistoric times. Proponents suggest that this ...

ufology Ufology ( ) is the investigation of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) by people who believe that they may be of extraordinary origins (most frequently of extraterrestrial alien visitors). While there are instances of government, private, and f ...

, the

phantom time hypothesis The phantom time hypothesis is a historical theory asserted by Heribert Illig. First published in 1991, it hypothesizes a conspiracy by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III, Pope Sylvester II, and possibly the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII, to f ...

creationism Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation. Gunn 2004, p. 9, "The ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'' says that creationism is 't ...

astrology Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of Celestial o ...

geomancy Geomancy (Greek: γεωμαντεία, "earth divination") is a method of divination that interprets markings on the ground or the patterns formed by tossed handfuls of soil, rocks, or sand. The most prevalent form of divinatory geomancy invo ...

Germanic mythology Germanic mythology consists of the body of myths native to the Germanic peoples, including Norse mythology, Anglo-Saxon mythology, and Continental Germanic mythology. It was a key element of Germanic paganism. Origins As the Germanic language ...

Islamism Islamism (also often called political Islam or Islamic fundamentalism) is a political ideology which posits that modern states and regions should be reconstituted in constitutional, economic and judicial terms, in accordance with what is ...

Freiwirtschaft (German for "free economy") is an economic idea founded by Silvio Gesell in 1916. He called it ' (natural economic order). In 1932, a group of Swiss businessmen used his ideas to found the WIR Bank (WIR). Structure Freiwirtschaft consists of thr ...

and "

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...

and

gender mainstreaming Gender mainstreaming is the public policy concept of assessing the implications for people of different genders of a planned policy action, including legislation and programmes. Mainstreaming offers a pluralistic approach that values the diversi ...

". In addition to ''Kopp exklusiv'', an eight-page newsletter, the company publishes ''Kopp Online,'' a website with articles and previously also videos covering the abovementioned topics. Articles of note include one by Eva Herman approving of the 2010

Love Parade disaster On 24 July 2010, a crowd disaster at the 2010 Love Parade electronic dance music festival in Duisburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, caused the deaths of 21 people from suffocation as attendees sought to escape a ramp leading to the festival ...

as a response by "other powers" to the "shameless display", one by

Udo Ulfkotte Udo Ulfkotte (20 January 1960 – 13 January 2017) was a German journalist and conspiracy theorist who maintained that journalists (including himself) and leading newspapers published material that had been fed to them, or bought, by the CIA an ...

about how the 2011 ''E. coli'' outbreak was supposedly spread by "oriental" farmhands waging a "fecal jihad", and one by Gerhard Wisnewski about the supposed transsexuality of

Michelle Obama Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (born January 17, 1964) is an American attorney and author who served as first lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. She was the first African-American woman to serve in this position. She is married t ...

.''Verschwörungstheorien: Das Geschäft mit der Angst''
Spiegel Online 22 May 2015. In addition to its own books and media, Kopp also sells books by other publishers as well as food and survival equipment.

Reception

According to Stefan Kaiser in ''

Spiegel Online ''Der Spiegel (online)'' is a German news website. Before the renaming in January 2020, the website's name was ''Spiegel Online'' (short ''SPON''). It was founded in 1994 as the online offshoot of the German news magazine, ''Der Spiegel'', wit ...

'', Kopp publishes conspiracy theorists alongside "serious" anti-European authors such as the professors Joachim Starbatty, Wilhelm Nölling,

Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider (born 11 July 1940, in Sitno, Szczecinek County, Hütten bei Gellin, Province of Pomerania (1815–1945), Province of Pomerania, Germany (now Sitno, Szczecinek County, West Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland) is a Profes ...

and Dieter Spethmann. In 2010, ''

Die Welt ''Die Welt'' ("The World") is a German national daily newspaper, published as a broadsheet by Axel Springer SE. ''Die Welt'' is the flagship newspaper of the Axel Springer publishing group. Its leading competitors are the ''Frankfurter Allg ...

'' described Kopp Verlag as a company specializing in "esotericism, conspiracy theories and disinformation", and the

Schwäbisches Tagblatt The ''Schwäbisches Tagblatt'' is a daily newspaper for Tübingen, in print since 1945, as well as the publishing house that prints it. With 40,820 paid subscriptions in 2012, it is the newspaper with the highest circulation in the district of Tü ...

characterized its range as encompassing "

, the 'Germanic New Medicine' of the spirit healer

Ryke Geerd Hamer Ryke Geerd Hamer (17 May 1935 – 2 July 2017) was a German ex-physician and the originator of Germanic New Medicine (GNM), also formerly known as German New Medicine and New Medicine, a system of pseudo-medicine that purports to be able t ...

and supposed revelations about the Communist background of ecologism or the Islamization of the West". The ''Gemeinschaftswerk der Evangelischen Publizistik'' described Kopp's authors in 2010 as a "who-is-who of German conspiracism", including several authors espousing right-wing and esoteric ideologies. The '' FAZ'' referred to the Kopp-Verlag in 2015 as part of a growing "industry of fear",''Die Angstindustrie''
FAZ, 17 January 2015. and ''Spiegel Online'' wrote in 2014 that the publisher's "business model of fear" made it, with its "mixture of right-wing populism, anticapitalism and taboo-breaker's attitude" a pioneer of the zeitgeist of anti-political correctness. On October 29, 2016, the publishing house held another congress in Augsburg, this time on the topic of geopolitics. Speakers were Udo Ulfkotte, Wolfgang Effenberger, F. William Engdahl, Peter Orzechowski and Daniele Ganser.

Authors

Among the Kopp Verlag's authors are the following:

References

* Ulrike Heß-Meining: ''Right-Wing Esotericism in Europe''. In: Uwe Backes, Patrick Moreau (Hrsg.): ''The Extreme Right in Europe. Current Trends and Perspectives'' (= ''Schriften des Hannah-Arendt-Instituts für Totalitarismusforschung''. Vol. 46). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen u. a. 2012, , S. 383–408, hier: S. 402 f. * Anna Hunger: ''Gut vernetzt – Der Kopp-Verlag und die schillernde rechte Publizistenszene''. In: Stephan Braun, Alexander Geisler, Martin Gerster (Hrsg.): ''Strategien der extremen Rechten: Hintergründe – Analysen – Antworten''. 2. aktualisierte und erweiterte Auflage, Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 2015, , S. 425 ff.

External links

Footnotes

{{Authority control Book publishing companies of Germany Companies based in Baden-Württemberg New Right (Europe)