Daniel Koehler
Daniel Koehler is the founding Director of the German Institute on Radicalization and De-Radicalization Studies (GIRDS), Fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism and Editor in Chief of the JD Journal for Deradicalization. He also advises the Ministry of the Interior in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, on guiding the state-wide CVE activities. Daniel has long practical experience in deradicalisation counselling and program design. He recently published his first two monographs: Understanding Deradicalization: Methods, Tools and Programs for Countering Violent Extremism (2017) and Right-Wing Terrorism in the 21st Century: The ‘National Socialist Underground’ and the History of Terror from the Far-Right in Germany (2017) with Routledge. In 2016, he was appointed to be the first court expert on deradicalisation in the United States of America at the Federal District Court Minneapolis, where he gave witness on individual defenders to inform the sentencing process and trained probation officers, as well as other federal agents, in CVE coordination. As a co-founder of the Mothers for Life network, the only global family network of parents affected by violent extremist radicalisation, he is very active in building innovative CVE structures around the world. His research focuses on quality standards in deradicalisation/CVE, family counselling, CVE as counter-terrorism, and right-wing terrorism.
In the past several years, the United States has witnessed a concerning rise in far-right extremism and terrorist violence. Attackers in Oak Creek, Charleston, and Pittsburgh emerged from an increasingly emboldened radical right, which has grown in size and ambition in recent years. The Atomwaffen Division—a small, neo-Nazi terrorist organisation—is part of this movement. This […]
On the night of 26 November 2008, ten Kalashnikov-wielding terrorists attacked Mumbai. They stuck simultaneously at five locations, shooting dead 140 Indians and 25 foreign tourists. American and British passport-holders were executed in two luxury hotel complexes.[1] At a Jewish cultural centre, Israeli nationals were tortured before being killed. A fourth location, a café frequented […]
Introduction In recent years, there has been much debate over the role organised crime plays in the commission of terrorism, and vice versa. In this Perspective, I explore the dichotomy that exists between the contention that organised criminals and terrorists are exceptionally similar, against the counterargument that their strategic aims (that is, profit versus political […]