Description
The presence of foreigners and the role they play in conflicts abroad has increasingly become part of the public discourse. This has most recently been portrayed in the cases of fighting both for and against the Islamic State, but also with the creation of the Ukrainian Foreign Legion after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Both contexts have resulted in questions regarding continuation and escalation of the conflicts, but also what happens when these individuals decide to return to their home countries. Narratives help provide an understanding of the relationship between different actors: In this case between the state, society, and the returnee. This paper aims to understand how the German state and the media have reacted to citizens returning from various conflicts abroad. From neo-Nazis in the 1990s to those who joined the Islamic State, the paper asks to what extent these different returnees were perceived as belonging to their home state? By looking at examples across multiple ideologies and time periods, the paper provides an important contribution to understanding the differences in threat perception and how this affects a returnee’s place in society – if it does at all.
