Kopp Verlag is a German publisher based in Rottenburg am Neckar. It publishes books and an online news website notably in the field of right-wing esotericism, populism and extremism, as well as pseudoscience and conspiracy theories. Other topics include wellness, outdoor equipment, survival skills and self-defense.
Founded by the former policeman Jochen Kopp,[1] the company ships up to 25,000 books per day and has about 60 employees, according to its own account.[1]
Among the topics addressed by Kopp's books are ancient astronauts, ufology, the phantom time hypothesis, creationism, astrology, geomancy, Germanic mythology, Islamism, Freiwirtschaft and "gender and gender mainstreaming".
In addition to Kopp exklusiv, an eight-page newsletter,[2] 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 as a response by "other powers" to the "shameless display",[3] one by Udo Ulfkotte 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.[4]
In addition to its own books and media, Kopp also sells books by other publishers as well as food and survival equipment.
The publisher's company founder, Jochen Kopp, was a police officer until the mid-1990s. Then he founded the publishing house and published books about UFOs, secret societies and other conspiracies. Later, the Euro crisis and the global financial system were added as important topics.
Most of them involve conspiracies, sometimes they come from the US Federal Reserve Bank, sometimes from the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, which allegedly wants to bring about the collapse of the financial system.
In 2013 the publisher moved to a larger building.[5]
According to Stefan Kaiser in Spiegel Online, Kopp publishes conspiracy theorists alongside "serious" anti-European authors such as the professors Joachim Starbatty, Wilhelm Nölling, Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider and Dieter Spethmann.[4]
In 2010, Die Welt described Kopp Verlag as a company specializing in "esotericism, conspiracy theories and disinformation",[6] [7] [8] and the Schwäbisches Tagblatt characterized its range as encompassing "ufology, the 'Germanic New Medicine' of the spirit healer Ryke Geerd Hamer and supposed revelations about the Communist background of ecologism or the Islamization of the West".[9] 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.[10]
The FAZ referred to the Kopp-Verlag in 2015 as part of a growing "industry of fear",[11] 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.[4]
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.[12]
Among the Kopp Verlag's authors are the following:
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