QAnon, “The Storm,” and its Historical Origin

The world watched in horror as the US Capitol was besieged by people screaming for the hanging of Mike Pence, carrying flex cuffs to take hostages, and erected a gallows outside the building. Embedded within the world of nationalism and conspiracy, these individuals have been radicalizing for decades, only recently reaching the mainstream through a mysterious “Q” character promoting a prophecy known as “The Storm.”

I doubt, however, that many of them understand the full history of what “The Storm” actually means and where it comes from.

The answer is Nazism. Literally, pulled directly from Nazi German history.

Meanwhile, the conspiracies that support QAnon’s positions actually predate the Nazis and trace back to a piece of early 20th century Russian anti-semitic propaganda, of which the Nazi’s used extensively. So then, did the KKK. So too now, does QAnon.

What is it?

For those not familiar with it, “The Storm” is a QAnon prophecy claiming that Donald Trump will rise up and save the day from a global cabal of Satanic Democratic pedophiles that drink the blood of children to maintain youth and longevity.

For those not familiar with it, the Nazi’s used a piece of early propaganda to promote the idea that they were saving the world from a global cabal of Satanic Jewish pedophiles that drank the blood of children to maintain youth and longevity.

This piece of early propaganda is known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and it has served as the foundation for right-wing conspiracy theories ever since its publication in 1903.

The Protocols was a Russian forgery-easily debunked both then and now-that claimed to be a stolen document from a meeting of Jews bent on taking over the world. It followed on the coat tails of decades of Jewish eradication programs in Russia throughout the late 1800s, known as “pogroms.” These eradication attempts led to the deaths of thousands of Russian Jews.

The document was actually written by tsarists in Russia during a time of revolution, attempting to legitimize their own rule against a populist uprising. Tsarists needed to find a scapegoat they could pin blame on for orchestrating the uprisings. If the people believed the revolt was a planned conspiracy against them, they might be less likely to join in.

It was a legitimate “conspiracy to use conspiracy theories” to manipulate the masses and maintain power over the country. Russian history speaks for itself on how well that worked out for them.

The Protocols didn’t stay in Russia. It eventually made it to Nazi Germany and then to America through Henry Ford. It turns out, the “conspiracy to use conspiracy theories” is remarkably effective.

The Protocols was very easily debunked as a forgery. However, as we have seen time and time again, a hoax will always travel farther and faster than any debunking. Arguably, no other hoax has ever had such an impact on world history than this one. The document was just abstract enough to masterfully fit into any time and any place and still be applicable. It contained no proper nouns, no time stamps, no names, no locations, no details, no author…You could take excerpts straight from it and simply re-apply it anywhere and any time.

Which is exactly what QAnon has done.

Language Patterns

Moving from Russian history to early 20th century Germany, this is where “storm” starts to carry very specific connotations. German history is riddled with linguistic connotations of “storm” being used with nationalistic implications dating all the way back to the late 1700’s. It’s deeply embedded in the culture.

In 1910, an arts magazine called Der Sturm (translated as “The Storm”) began publication in Berlin. Der Sturm published pieces pertaining to modern German art and literature. In 1912, they opened a coinciding art gallery, which, in the 20’s, started holding lectures and poetry readings in promotion and celebration of German culture. The publication waned following World War I and eventually shut down in 1932.

Meanwhile, Der Stürmer (translated as “The Stormer”) was a newspaper started in 1923 that rapidly became an integral part of spreading Nazi propaganda. It published vulgar conspiracy theories as well as inflammatory and anti-semitic pieces and attacks against Catholics, communists, monarchists and other societal “others.” Years before Hitler successfully came to power, “The Stormer” was openly discussing the need to “end the Jewish plague.” The editor, Julius Streicher, was eventually executed in the Nuremberg trials for accessory to crimes against humanity.

Around the same time, the Nazi party instituted the Sturmabteilung (SA) translated as “storm detachment” or “storm troopers.” This was their paramilitary group that provided protection to the party and attacked political rivals. The SA was eventually abandoned in favor of the more commonly known “SS” after they grew too powerful, threatening to replace the German army.

Let’s move to the US.

Henry Ford got his hands on a copy of The Protocols and worked to publish the document widely throughout the US. Again, it was debunked time and time again as being a Russian forgery, but the hoax always travels farther than the debunking. The KKK used this document extensively as it offered a hidden danger to “the Aryan races,” a fear easy to exploit. Over the following decades, the document worked to engrain itself in supremacist perceptions within the US, promoting conspiracies that portrayed a mysterious and hidden group as being in complete control of the media, academia and government, working to liberalize everything in order to destroy Christian civilization. It even took the liberty to lay claim to the advent of Darwinism.

Today, they call this “The Deep State” and it is no mystery why modern conspiracies draw so heavily on prominent Jewish characters such as Bernie Sanders and George Soros-a Holocaust survivor.

So, fast forward.

In the early 1990’s the KKK in conjunction with American white supremacists and neonazis, put together a website known as “Stormfront.” White supremacists were the first group to figure out that the internet would be an ideal tool in recruitment and radicalization of the masses. Stormfront peddled rebranded Nazi propaganda that would be palatable for American audiences. The name was chosen specifically and deliberately in relation to Hitler’s Sturmabteilung -Storm Troopers- as well as the notion of a storm providing a “cleansing” to an area.

In 2014, Stormfront was directly linked to the rise in racial hate crimes and their users were linked to hundreds of murders since its inception. In 2016, the site owner reported massive surges in use directly relating to the Trump campaign. In August 2017, the site was dropped for bigotry, discrimination and hatred.

In October 2017, “Q” made their first appearance in broader online discourse threads and it wasn’t long before the prophecy of “The Storm” began to catch on. This wasn’t an accident.

Hitler was an expert on mastering popular linguistic trends in order to provoke a sense of national rebirth while masking brutal and barbaric beliefs underneath. He intentionally created a combination of abstract jargon mixed with insult to the German identity in order to control and direct the population. Linguistically, this process became known as the “Nazification of language” or “Nazi-Deutsch.” “Storm” is an integral part of the Nazi-Deutsch lexicon.

Combined with the “conspiracy to use conspiracy theory,” this is how Hitler managed to convince an entire population that the cause was worth fighting, dying and killing for.

And thus, they became convinced to storm the United States Capitol.

My sincerest thanks to the historians and linguists that assisted in this research.