Contemporary social and political discourses often emphasise the security threat of Jihadism towards Europe and the United States as the main terrorist threat. Two decades into the twenty-first century, however, the new threat of right-wing terrorism has emerged as the statistically most prominent form of terror. As these attacks are predominantly carried out through so-called lone wolf tactics, it becomes essential to understand how these actors operate. While there is a growing amount of empirical literature that seeks to understand this phenomenon of lone-wolf terrorism, many follow similar frameworks with explanatory models which are dependent on assumptions and common truisms, such as that lone wolves are loners with depressive personality disorders who are cultivated in a vacuum independent from social ties. This study instead explores group psycho-historical factors through the theoretical framework of Symbolic Convergence Theory, which is applied through discourse analysis. The research thus aims to identify group fantasies and grand narratives which ties these lone wolves to a community on which they depend upon in radicalisation and subsequently, in carrying out the attacks. The findings consequently suggest that the typology of lone wolf terrorism is misleading as the subjects indicate a group consciousness with a cohesiveness which grows stronger as they increasingly interpret a growing danger towards their community dependent on commonly recurring fantasies and narratives.

This thesis focuses on the issue of far-right lone-wolf terrorism in Germany. Lone-wolf terrorism - terrorism perpetrated by individuals, who display no ties to terrorist organizations - is a concept, which is skeptically accepted by many scholars. The main issue with this concept is the emphasis of the "lone" part, especially during the preparation and the attack itself. Scholars, who refuse this concept claim, that in every case, the attacker is a member of a larger group - it can be either ideology-based or it can provide material assistance. Furthermore, lone- wolf terrorism is primarily associated with religious terrorism, probably because of the activities of Islamic state in recent years. However, this thesis approaches lone-wolf terrorism as relevant concept, which refers to a security threat, that is represented by radicalized and hard- to-detect individuals. The thesis focuses on three cases of far-right terrorism in Germany, which were committed by an attacker, that operated alone - Munich shooting (July 2016), Halle synagogue attack (October 2019), and Hanau shooting (February 2020). German society provided significant space for radicalization and spread of far-right ideology, especially because of its friendly politics after the outbreak of refugee crisis. Regarding the cases, the main...