VThe chirping of ogel mixes with the sounds of the piano, while Leni walks through a field full of poppies in a flowered dress. “Hello everyone, welcome back to my channel,” she says a few seconds later after this epilogue to her video. She sits cross-legged on a bed, in the background photos hang on a chain of lights, a houseplant climbs from a shelf. On her social media channels, Leni talks about how to style her long blonde hair, shares baking tips and presents her latest fashion finds. Leni is an influencer like any other – but not only. Because of the “not only” and in order not to help her gain popularity, the young student is called “Leni” in this text. One user commented that Leni’s content was reminiscent of Götz Kubitschek, a political activist of the New Right: “so familiar, so confident”. Another writes: “Congratulations on your bachelor’s degree – are you actually still active in the Dresden Identitarian Movement?”
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Leni often wears her blond hair in two strict braids, and she has painted her lips in a delicate pink. Under her photos, she writes about her definition of femininity, her connection to her German homeland and discusses whether a “traditional woman” is allowed to study. What Leni does on social media and especially on Instagram is what she calls her “project”. A project that, from an aesthetic point of view, fits into the perfect Instagram world of fashionably dressed people, animal boys and dream beaches. But also a project that has been touted several times by Martin Sellner, the head of the Identitarian Movement (IB). According to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, IB Germany is a “guaranteed right-wing extremist endeavor” and represents a national concept of the state that contradicts the Basic Law. Leni has acted as a speaker for the group in the past, adorned the first row of their marches and, in search of young recruits, stood with a poster near the university in Bonn. In 2017 dozens of identities tried to break into the Berlin Ministry of Justice and blocked the building after their failure – Leni smiled in the photos of the action.
