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The Rushton Report
Right-wing Extremism in the Federal Republic Of Germany 1973-1995A study and analysis of the rise of right-wing politics and attitudes in the FRG over two decades. by Contents
1.1 Copyright This work is the copyright of R. M. Rushton, 1995. Free distribution via electronic media is permitted, provided that neither this copyright notice nor the document as a whole is altered in any way. Permission to distribute this document in printed form must be obtained in writing. 1.2 Introduction The original version of this paper was written as a final year undergraduate dissertation in the Department of German Studies at the University of Birmingham (UK). It is my intention to try to keep this work updated, although I cannot guarantee that updates will be regularly published. The format of the first half of this paper is principally chronological, detailing important events, such as the founding of individual extremist parties and subsequent government legislation aimed at curbing their activities. The second half of the paper concentrates on the present-day scene in Germany, with particular reference to the reasons behind the popularity of the right-wing extremists and certain parties, the radical right-wingers and skinheads and the reaction of the Government and the public. 2.0 CHRONOLOGY In 1973, the founder of the neo-Nazi group Bauern- und Buergerinitiative, Thies Christophersen, published a text entitled Die Auschwitz-Luege (The Auschwitz Lie), one of many such revisionist articles to appear in the 1970s and 1980s, culminating in the infamous Leuchter Report. Also in this year, Joachim Floth founded his Deutsch-Voelkische Gemeinschaft (DVG). 1974 saw the arrival of three new right-wing organisations: the Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann (WSG), the Deutsche Sozialistische Volkspartei and the Unabhaengiger Schuelerverbund. In September of the same year, the Rechtsblock fuer Arbeiter, Bauern und Soldaten was also formed, whilst in November, Gary Rex Lauck, an American revisionist, was arrested and expelled for extolling the virtues of National Socialism. In March 1975, the Bund Freies Deutschland won 3.4% of the votes in the elections for the Berliner Abgeordnetenhaus. In April of the same year, the Kampfbund Deutscher Soldaten (KDS) was formed in Frankfurt am Main. Its main policy was one of Holocaust denial, possibly sparked off by Christophersen's Die Auschwitz-Luege and similar publications. In October, the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands(NPD) was deemed to be an extremist party and to have unconstitutional aims. Proof that banning one party did not prevent the extremists is demonstrated by the fact that in December, Manfred Ohl a former NPD official founded the Nationalrevolutionaerer Bund (NRB). In March 1976 Gary Rex Lauck entered Germany with a false passport and was subsequently arrested in Mainz, before being given a four year jail sentence and fine in July, for spreading Nazi propaganda. He was later expelled from Germany, although he was allowed to return in 1979 to testify at the trial of a neo-Nazi. May 1977 saw Michael Kuehnen, a former lieutenant in the German army, form the SA-Sturm-Hamburg. This marked the start of Kuehnen's career as a neo-Nazi leader. In November he was to found the Aktionsfront Nationaler Sozialisten. In September the Bund Deutscher Maedel (BDM) was formed in Hamburg to follow the ideals laid down by its Nazi namesake. It was in this year that the former Chancellor Willy Brandt called for a crackdown on neo-Nazi activities. Consequently all states were required to submit a report on extremist activity in their regions. In March 1978, the leader of the Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann was sentenced to imprisonment and fined for assembling an arms cache. In 1978 and 1979 the Government banned, or prevented the distribution to minors, of over 50 neo-Nazi publications. On March 17th 1979, the Freiheitliche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (FAP) was founded by Martin Pappe, an unemployed salesman and teacher. During the summer of this year, the Hilfsorganisation fuer nationale politische Gefangene und deren Angehoerige e.V. (HNG) was founded. This was an umbrella group which aimed to provide mainly financial support for neo-Nazis. Considering the benefactors of the work of this organisation, it is quite surprising that it managed to achieve the status of a registered charity. In September, Michael Kuehnen was arrested for inciting racist attacks and was given a four year sentence, during which he wrote Die Zweite Revolution. Glaube und Kampf (The Second revolution. Belief and Battle), extolling the virtues of a Fourth Reich. His sentence was extended by eight months in April 1992, for sending a copy of this book to Thies Christophersen for publishing.<1> In early December Gerhard Frey founded the Volksbewegung fuer Generalamnestie (VOGA). In 1979 and 1980 a Hollywood television series, entitled Holocaust, was screened throughout Western Europe, including Germany. A survey conducted by a West German television company found that 41% of Germans with televisions saw the final episode of the series, and whilst 75% of these were born after Hitler's rise to power in 1933, and so would have been 12 years old at the end of the war, possibly too young to remember the events in any great detail. The survey also found that 81% of those who watched the final episode discussed it with others and that 65% admitted to being "deeply moved" by it.<2> The series was attacked by the NPD's newspaper, the Deutsche Stimme, and the Deutsche National-Zeitung, the newspaper of the DVU, as being Hollywood propaganda, and led to an increase in neo-Nazi activity throughout Germany. In January 1980 Gerhart Baum, the Interior Minister, banned the Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann for being anti-constitutional because of its appeal to the young, although in March, Karl-Heinz Hoffmann took his objections to the Administrative Courtin Berlin, which dismissed the complaint on December 2nd. On September 28th at the Oktoberfest in Munich, a 24lb bomb placed near the entrance, killed 12 people, including the bomber, and injured 312. A neo-Nazi group, initially suspected to be the Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann, claimed responsibility, although it was later discovered that the bomber had left the paramilitary group prior to the attack. On the 24th March 1981, a series of raids on numerous apartments across the Federal Republic, led to the confiscation of a large amount of Canadian and American anti-Semitic material. Wilkinson states that nearly 1,000 homes were raided, although Angelika Koenigseder quotes a figure of about 450.<3> Gary Lauck and Ernst Zündel, a German Revisionist living in Canada, were subsequently arrested and charged with the smuggling and distribution of banned neo-Nazi propaganda. In April tough new laws were introduced, banning the distribution of anti-Semitic propaganda, including Hitler's autobiography Mein Kampf. On October 24th, 156kg of explosives, 13,520 rounds of ammunition and 1kg of the highly toxic potassium cyanide were found on Lueneburg Heath. In November, Franz Schoenhuber published his book, Ich war dabei (I Was There), celebrating his days in the Waffen-SS. This led to him leaving the CSU, although the right-wing Deutsche National-Zeitung pronounced it to be the "book of the year". In its 1981 report, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution declared that crime caused by the right extremists was at its highest level since the end of the Second World War, having recorded 1,824 incidents, an increase of 11% on the previous year. Wilkinson states that:
In January 1982, the Interior Minister, Gerhart Baum, banned the Volkssozialistische Bewegung Deutschlands/Partei der Arbeit (VSBD/PdA), led by Friedhelm Busse, and the Junge Front (JF). In February the Freundeskreis Ulrich Hutten was founded, whilst in March, Friedrich Ring founded the Deutscher Buergerschutz (DBS) in response to growing crime and an increase in the influx of foreigners. In April the Hamburger Liste fuer Auslaenderstopp was formed. January 1983 saw the merger of the Aktionsfront Nationaler Sozialisten with the Nationale Aktivisten (NA), forming the ANS/NA. On April 1st the Deutsche Freiheitsbewegung (DDF) was formed. In November, former CSU-Bundestagsabgeordnete Franz Handlos and Ekkehard Voigt formed die Republikaner with Franz Schoenhuber. On December 7th, the Interior Minister banned the Aktionsfront Nationaler Sozialisten/Nationale Aktivisten and affiliated organisations. Also in this year, Friedhelm Busse was sentenced to three years and nine months imprisonment for numerous offences involving the possession of firearms. On 28th April 1984, the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) in North Rhein-Westphalia first used skinheads for security at its regional party conference. Vehicles were damaged and political opponents injured. In April, Michael Kuehnen founded the ANS-Auslandsorganisation (ANS-AO), as a precursor to a pan-European extremist movement. On May 26th the Komitee zur Vorbereitung der Feierlichkeiten des 100. Geburtstages von Adolf Hitler (KAH) (Committee for the Preparations for the Celebrations of the 100th Birthday of Adolf Hitler) was formed. At its conference in November, the NPD rejected a motion calling for the party to distance itself from the skinhead movement. In January 1985, the FAP and the Wiking-Jugend formed an umbrella organisation for nationalist groups: the Volkstreue ausserparlamentarische Opposition (VAPO). In March, Voigt and Handlos left the Republikaner and set up the Bayerische Republikaner and the Freiheitliche Volkspartei (FVP) respectively. Also in March, the Soziale Volkspartei was formed in Berlin. At the Erste Europaeische Fuehrerthing in Paris on September 1st, many right-wing organisations decide to coordinate their activities on a European level. In November, two further organisations were formed: the Nationalistische Front (NF) and the Deutsche Aktionspartei/Bewegung der totalen Ordnung (DAP). In September 1986, the Gemeinschaft Eisernes Kreuz EK1 was formed by former members of the FAP, whilst on October 12th, the Republikaner won 3% of the vote in the Bavarian regional elections. In November, Gerhard Frey of the Deutsche Volksunion (DVU), founded the Deutsche Volksliste. On March 11th 1987, the former NPD official Guenter Deckert founded Die Deutschen, whilst on April 17th the Koenigstreue Deutsche Volkspartei (KDVP) was formed. In late August, neo-Nazis demonstrated in Wunsiedel, awaiting the funeral of Rudolf Hess. In September, two more extremist organisations were formed: namely the Arbeitskreis Junge Familie and the Sturmvogel - Deutscher Jugendbund. In January 1988, the Deutsch-Nationale Volkspartei (DNVP) was formed. On 5th April, Fred A. Leuchter published the Leuchter Report in the USA. As an engineer and self-pronounced gas chamber expert, he claimed that the mass killings of the Jews in the so-called "extermination camps" could not have taken place. This served to strengthen the beliefs of right-wing extremists, neo-Nazis and Revisionists, that there was no mass-extermination of the Jews under the Third Reich. The Auto- und Buergerpartei (ABD) was founded in September, followed by Die Demokraten in November. On January 2nd 1989, during the campaign for the elections for the Berlin House of Representatives, the Republikaner showed a television advertisement of Turkish children and, in the background, music from the film Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod (Play Me The Song of Death). In the elections later that month, the Republikaner won 7.5% of the votes. However, in June, they won 7.1% of the votes (i.e. two million votes) in the European elections, with a result of 14.6% in Bavaria. In May of that year, the Munich court ordered the withdrawal of a computer diskette containing a program entitled Arier-Test (Aryan Test). In July 1990, former FAP activists formed the Nationale Offensive (NO). After the banning of the Internationaler Revisionistenkongress / Leuchter-Kongress in Munich in March 1991 and the arrest of its organiser Ernst Zündel, 400 delegates protested in the city. On 25th April Michael Kuehnen, "outed" as a homosexual during his three year incarceration between 1985 and 1988, died from an AIDS-related illness. From 17th to 22nd September radical right-wing On March 14th 1992, a Skinhead concert was held near Weimar, with German groups such as Radikahl and Kraftschlag playing alongside American groups such as Bound for Glory. On April 5th the Republikaner won 10.9% of the votes in the regional elections in Badem-Wuerttemberg, whilst in a Berlin district election in May the party won 8.3% of the votes cast. In July, the Foerderwerk Mitteldeutsche Jugend (FMJ) was founded. From August 22nd to 28th there was heavy rioting outside a home for asylum seekers in Rostock-Lichtenhagen, culminating in an arson attack on the home on the 25th. Between August 29th and September 2nd, there was major rioting outside an asylum seekers refuge in Cottbus. On November 23rd one Turkish woman and two Turkish children were killed and nine others injured when neo-Nazis set fire to their refuge in Moelln (Schleswig-Holstein). Four days later the Nationalsozialistische Front (NF) was banned, as was the Deutsche Alternative on December 10th, the Deutscher Kameradschaftsbund (DKB) on the 21st and the Nationale Offensive on the 22nd. The events at Rostock and Cottbus marked the start of a new wave of violence throughout Germany: from September to December 4167 racially motivated incidents were recorded, both the violent and the non-violent, compared with 2169 incidents in the period from January to August.<5> On May 29th 1993, an arson attack on a house in Solingen killed five Turkish women and a girl, sparking off a new surge of extremist violence against foreigners throughout Germany. On August 27th Brandenburg became the first state to ban the use of the Reichskriegsflagge, a symbol used by the neo-Nazis to stir up hatred against foreigners. This move was followed only days later by a similar ban in other states. Joerg Petritsch, a singer with the skinhead group Stoerkraft, was given a two-year suspended sentence for spreading Nazi-propaganda. On October 29th, Cologne police arrested Fred A. Leuchter and charged him with Holocaust denial. On April 14th 1994, when Manfred Kanther, the Interior Minister, published the 1993 Report of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, he stated that he had no intention of banning either the Republikaner or the Deutsche Volksunion (DVU), for fear of driving their 23,000 members underground. Instead, he said, the parties would continue to be carefully monitored by the police. On May 14th, neo-Nazis terrorised foreigners in Magdeburg by shouting "Deutschland den Deutschen" ("Germany for the Germans") and chasing African students into a cafi before beating them with iron bars. On the 17th January 1995, the trial of three men and one woman began in Gross-Gerau. The four are charged with publishing the neo-Nazi booklet Der Einblick in 1993, containing the names and addresses of about 200 political opponents. Despite being withdrawn, some 180 copies are estimated to remain in circulation. The Dignity Report from February 15th 1994 said the following of the publication:
On the 18th January, the Office for the Protection reported that the 1994 figures for right-wing offences in Berlin had risen from 650 in 1993 to 750. On 24th February, the Government eventually banned the FAP, described by Manfred Kanther, Interior Minister, as:
Similarly, in Hamburg, homes of members of the Nationale Liste were raided. On April 20th scores of neo-Nazis were arrested around Germany for rioting to mark Hitler's birthday. In the same week Guenter Deckert, the leader of the NPD, was sentenced to two years' imprisonment by a court in Karlsruhe for Holocaust denial and incitement to racial hatred. On March 23rd, Hamburg police raided the homes of those who had ordered and received neo-Nazi propaganda from the NSDAP-AO. Almost simultaneously Gerhard (Gary) Lauck was arrested by Danish police in Copenhagen. After much legal wrangling, the Danish Supreme Court confirmed on Friday 21st June that Lauck should be extradited to Germany to face prosecution under German anti-Nazi law. 3.0 The popularity of right-wing extremism The main cause for the rising popularity of the right-wing extremist parties in the mid to late 1980s could, as Betz suggests, be almost completely due to the Parteien- und Politikverdrossenheit (party and political apathy), which swept the country. This can be seen in the fact that at the first elections after reunification, those in 1990, ten million of those registered to vote stayed at home. In March 1989, 81% of all Germans and 90% of Republikaner voters questioned in an EMNID poll believed that the politicians from the mainstream parties were "out-of-touch" with the average person. Similarly, 65% of all voters and 88% of Republikaner voters considered the mainstream political parties to be no longer capable of solving Germany's problems. In the same poll, it was discovered that 43% of Republikaner voters had confidence in the party with regard to housing; 40% with regard to unemployment; 18% over the general state of the economy and 80% over immigration. In 1993 48% of Germans were "very worried" that politicians were no longer capable of solving the urgent problems facing Germany, such as immigration and the economy.<7> Similarly, in the states of the former East Germany citizens were, after unification, faced with increasing rents coupled with increasing unemployment. This, in turn, led to an increase in crime, which was subsequently blamed on the foreign population, instead of the new policy-makers: the west German government in Bonn. If the politicians cannot solve these problems, then who can? For as Betz states:
Therefore it can be concluded that a fair proportion of these "floating voters" will be first-time voters. Indeed, the majority of right-wing voters are around 20 years old. Certainly the majority of right-wing extremists are aged between 18 and 30 and are suspected of being responsible for over 75% of extremist violence in 1993. Given this figure, it is not surprising that the largest group among the extremists (33.6%) is that of students and trainees. What is surprising, however, is that the next highest figure is that of the skilled workers and craftsmen, accounting for 28.7% of extremist violence. Evidently, radical right-wing views appear to be something inherent in the younger, educated classes. But why should extreme right-wing views manifest themselves as violence against foreigners? The obvious explanation is racial purity: just as Hitler extolled the Aryan race, modern right-wing extremists see their own racial identity as being superior and something which they want to preserve at all costs. Perhaps one cause of this is an apparent unwillingness of foreigners to integrate into German society. In 1988 the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung conducted a survey amongst young Turks. It found that 65% of males between 20 and 30 years old socialised with Germans, whilst only 26% of their fathers did. Similarly, Petra Kappert, writing in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (25:9:1982), stated that an estimated 50% of Turkish schoolchildren in Germany attend Koran classes: a further example of an unwillingness to integrate into German society and determination to preserve their own culture when abroad.<9> Therefore, the supporters of the radical right may regard foreigners as a threat to their own culture and society. A resurgence of right-wing views could, perhaps, be considered to be an obvious reaction by citizens of a country which lost its own culture and national identity when it lost the Second World War. The occupation of Germany by the allied powers after 1945 led to an influx of English-language literature and film, the latter still being very much in evidence in German cinemas. This loss of national identity can also be seen as a result of the de-nazification process: anyone listening to the anti-Semitic composer Wagner would have been suspected of being a Nazi, as would anyone expressing any form of national pride. 4.0 The Parties 4.1 Die Republikaner As has already been stated, Die Republikaner was formed on the 27th November 1983 by Franz Schoenhuber, as a party politically located between the DVU and the NPD, principally right of centre. However, the major problem facing the German Government is whether Die Republikaner is really, as it states, a coalition of democratic patriots<10>, or whether it is just another right-wing extremist party. On the front of their manifesto for the 1994 council elections in Mainz, the party stated: "We reject extremism and violence in any form!"<11> However, the party's rhetoric inside the manifesto smacks heavily of right-wing propaganda:
Similarly:
Whilst these figures are actual statistics, it is clear that the party is using them to its advantage, if not exploiting them. The social policy of the manifesto was designed to withdraw public finance from foreigners' institutions and even the "anti-fascist / anti-racist" groups, which the party considers to be a cover for left-wing extremists. Such suspicions of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution cannot be helped by statements of the party leadership, for example in 1993, Schoenhuber, talking about a wartime propagandist, stated:
It seems, as the British left-wing magazine The New Statesman & Society claimed in an article entitled "The hydra-headed monster of Germany", that:
Die Republikaner does not outwardly appear to be courting the votes of the extremists and radicals in Germany. Indeed, it even goes so far as to exclude former members of the NPD or DVU from its ranks, but it does seem to be exploiting the political apathy which has swept over the country in recent years. For as Betz states:
Membership of the party grew from 8,500 in 1988 to 25,000 in 1989, but then declined to 15,000 in 1990. The party's increase in popularity after 1989 could be seen to be a result of its relative success in the 1989 European elections, which:
Since 1992, the party has been under observation by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and in eight states the German intelligence services have been called in to investigate it. On Friday March 3rd 1995, Saxony joined the list of states which list Die Republikaner as right-wing extremist and hence anti-constitutional. The Interior Minister of Saxony, Heinz Eggert, said of this:
On presenting the 1993 report of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution on April 14th 1994, Manfred Kanther, the Interior Minister, said that the Government had no immediate intention of banning the party:
4.2 Die Deutsche Volksunion The Deutsche Volksunion e.V. was founded in January 1971, by the Munich publisher Dr. Gerhard Frey. The DVU-Liste D was formed as a new party on March 5th 1987, and took over the entire membership of the DVU, although the Liste D was removed in 1991. The membership in 1993 was estimated by the report of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution to be about 26,000, the same figure quoted in 1992, although Dr. Frey insists that the membership is greater. Dr. Frey publishes two party newspapers: the Deutsche National-Zeitung, which sells for DM1,80, and the Deutsche Wochen-Zeitung/Deutscher Anzeiger, priced at DM2,- , which together had a weekly circulation of 110,000 in 1989. Backes and Jesse compare this figure to the 1986 circulation of the Rheinische Merkur/Christ und Welt, which was 122,000 copies per week.<20> The DVU appears to be in a relatively strong financial position and managed to spend over #7 million21 in the Bremen regional elections in 1987, mainly:
At a rally in Passau on 2nd October 1993, an auditor declared that the last elections had cost the party DM11,000,000, paid for by Dr. Frey.<23> 4.3 The Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands The NPD was created by members of the Deutsche Reichspartei (DRP) on 28th November 1964, under the leadership of Fritz Thielen and Adolf von Thadden. In 1975 the party launched its newspaper the Deutsche Stimme. The overall aims of the party can be best summed up by the NPD regional leader for Lower Saxony, Horst Nolte:
The party clearly sets itself Nazi-style aims, with an ideology similar to that of the DVU, and at the party conference in June 1991, Guenter Deckert, a dedicated Revisionist, was elected party chairman, to replace Martin Mussgnug, who left the party in 1990. According to the 1993 report of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the party owes the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg DM438,000 and the Government DM760,000, exactly the same figures quoted in the 1992 report. The party is required to repay a proportion of the advances made by the Government and the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg for election campaigns, according to paragraph 18 of the Party Law, because of poor results in the 1990 Federal Parliament elections and the 1992 regional election respectively.<25> In 1992 the party was thought to have about 5,000 members, compared with 6,100 in 1991, although the 1993 figure remains the same as that of 1992. The party would possibly be looking to increase its membership dramatically in the next few years, in order either to be in a position to meet its debts to the authorities, or at least to have a greater membership base with which to fight the next elections. 5.0 Militant Groups 5.1 The Skinheads The skinhead movement began in Britain in the late 1960s,in response to the homeless, hippies and the growing number of foreigners entering Britain from the Commonwealth. Theseoriginal Skinheads or "Skins" meted out their violence at, orin the vicinity of, football matches and concerts. However, in1977 a new breed of Skinhead came into existence. The dresscode was the same as before: namely the closely cropped hair,tattoos, jeans, braces, Doc-Martens boots, bomber jackets, andT-shirts. This time, though, the "Skins" were much morepolitically active and developed and nurtured links withBritish right-wing parties. This new generation of Skinheadsoon spread its ideas abroad, principally to the USA, Italy,Austria, France and also Germany. Originally, the movement in Germany attacked left-wingerand foreigners, principally Turks. In the mid-80s, theSkinhead movement in Germany expanded and violence at footballmatches increased. After unification, the "Skins" gainedsupport in theformer East-German states. In 1993 the Officefor the Protection of the Constitution estimated there to beabout 5,600 militant skinheads active in Germany, comparedwith 6,400 in 1992, the majority of whom were aged about 20.According to 1991 statistics, women (called Renees) accountedfor only 3% of the movement (just over 150 people). These,incidentally, are not required to shave off all of their hair: only a bit at the back of the head. Not all "Skins" fall into the category of right-wingextremists: some groups, such as the Red-Skins or SHARP-Skins(Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice), even defend the rightsof foreigners. In an interview published in The GuardianEducation, a 24 year old Berliner and SHARP-member, Martin F.,replied to the question "How should the State react to theracist attacks?":
However, those groups which are right-wing are exceptionally so, with ingrained Machiavellian instincts. Suchgroups are the so-called "Nazi-Skins"; "Fascho-Skins"; "White-Power-Skins" or "Boneheads". In their propaganda, thesegroups use Nazi-symbols, such as the Swastika, and slogans,such as Sieg heil!. Propaganda is also spread in the lyricsof Skinhead music groups, such as Stoerkraft and Radikahl. TheEnglish band Skrewdriver is also popular in Germany. Theirsongs are passed around the Skinheads groups on "democassettes", because of the cost of producing them, althoughsome of the better-known bands are able to have records andcompact disks produced. According to the 1993 report of the Office for theProtection of the Constitution, many Skinheads are adopting amore traditional appearance to avoid retaliation from theforeigners themselves, left-wing extremists, the police andemployers. According to the reports of the Office for the Protectionof the Constitution, the membership of neo-Nazi groups stoodat 400 in 1975, but rose to 1,400 in 1979. The numbers thendeclined until 1983, when there was slow increase inmembership, peaking at 2,100 in 1989 and again in 1991. Suchstatistics reflect the banning of one group and the foundingof another, attracting more members. The peaks in membershipseem to be during periods when there were large numbers ofneo-Nazi incidents: the 1979 peak was followed in August 1980by a fire-bomb attack, which killed two Vietnamese and injuredtwo Ethiopians and in September 1980 by the bomb at the Oktoberfest. However, according to the Infiltration Report of theSimon Wiesenthal Center, the Government figures for membershipof neo-Nazi groups are underestimated:
The chairman of the recently banned neo-Nazi group theFAP, Friedhelm Busse, described by the Simon WiesenthalCenter's Report as someone with "particular power with Germanskinheads" and "an advocate of overthrowing the government"28,expressed the policy of his party at an extraordinary partyconference in Reifenstein/Thueringen on 10th July 1993:
Such rhetoric is specifically engineered to be reminiscent ofthe Third Reich. The reference to work-camps instead ofconcentration camps is an exact copy of Nazi rhetoric: the NSDAP fooled the population as a whole into believing thatthere were no extermination camps. Therefore, it is clear thatthe policies of such a group advocate the use of Hitler'sstyle of Machtpolitik, or power politics, as do otherorganisations, such as the Nationale Liste (NL). Similarly,they want the German borders of the Prussian Empire, asdemonstrated recently by increased neo-Nazi activity in theRussian town of Kaliningrad, formerly the East-Prussian town of Koenigsberg. A publisher from Schleswig-Holstein isbelieved to be behind a neo-Nazi organisation calling itselfAktion Deutsches Koenigsberg. The neo-Nazis have strong international connections withHistorical Revisionists, as was proven during the SimonWiesenthal Center's operation:
This is a prolific school of thought which generatesnumerous articles denying the Holocaust. In 1976 Dr. ArthurButz published his Revisionist work entitled The Hoax Of TheTwentieth Century. This work, according to Wilkinson:
It marked the start of a new style of Historical Revisionism,a style taken up by others, such as David Irving in his bookHitler's War. Perhaps the most infamous Revisionist article is theLeuchter Report of 1988, after its author, Fred A. Leuchter,although this report is considered by historians to be basedupon little or no facts whatsoever. Indeed, Leuchter concedesthat hydrocyanic compounds, caused by the extremely poisonouschemical hydrogen cyanide (HCN) reacting with theinfrastructure of the gas chambers, were to be found atAuschwitz. However, modern advances in communications have enabled the Revisionists, and indeed, the neo-Nazis, to spread theirmessage to a wider audience. There is at least one discussiongroup on the Internet, where Revisionists try to peddle theirideas and beliefs, although these are frequently shattered byhistorians quoting hard facts. One article recently published in the "alt.revisionism"newsgroup of the Internet is an article on "RevisionistMethod", taken from Pierre Vidal-Naquet's book Assassins ofMemory (Columbia University Press, 1992). It states that:
Point number seven in the above list is undoubtedly themost interesting, proffering a seemingly garbled argument for Revisionism. Whilst God may be acknowledged as a metaphysicalbeing, it seems unlikely that this sort of reasoning, whenapplied to the existence of the gas chambers, will suddenlyencourage people to accept Revisionist ideas. Much Revisionist "information" is circulated via moreconventional means through the Noontide Press, The Spotlightand other journals of the Institute for Historical Review(IHR), described by Ken McVay as "the moving force in the movement to deny the Holocaust".<32> This California-based organisation was founded by Lewis Brandon, alias William DavidMcCalden, a founding member of the British National Partyafter breaking away from the National Front in 1975. Wilkinsonsays of the IHR:
After Brandon/McCalden had left the Institute, WillisCarto, the ultra-right-wing funder of the Institute, took overuntil being forced out in late 1994. The Simon WiesenthalCenter stated the following about Carto in its report on theinfiltration of neo-Nazi groups in Germany:
Context Whilst the dynamic rise of right-wing extremism inGermany in the 1980s is peculiar to Germany, given the rise topower of the Third Reich in the 1930s, the entire movementmust be set in the context of the resurgence in such extremismin Europe in general. In other countries, right-wing radicalparties frequently gain significant results in elections, both European and domestic. The Italian party Lega Nord gained 8.7% of the vote inthe 1992 parliamentary elections and 8.4% in 1994. Before the1994 elections, however, Umberto Bossi, the party's leader,entered the party into an alliance with Silvio Berlusconi'sForza Italia, which placed the Lega Nord in a strong positionwith almost twice the seats in parliament, when Forza Italiaformed the government. In France, the Front National has typically fared well inEuropean elections, gaining 11.0% in 1984 and11.8% in 1989.Jean-Marie Le Pen, the party's leader, gained 14.4% of thevotes cast in the 1988 presidential elections, whilst theparty as a whole gained 9.7% of the parliamentary votes in thesame year. Similarly, in the first round of the presidentialelections on April 23rd 1995, Le Pen gained 15% of the votes cast. The Austrian Freiheitliche Partei Oesterreichs has beencontinually successful at the polls, gaining 9.7% in the 1986parliamentary elections and 16.6% in 1990, under theleadership of Joerg Haider. However, in the regional electionsin Vienna in 1991, the party won 22.6% of the votes. The Vlaams Blok party in Belgium, campaigning for acorruption-free government, is expected to make substantialgains at the elections on May 21st 1995. These elections havebeen brought forward by seven months, principally as a resultof the corruption and scandal surrounding the "Cools Affair", following the murder of Andri Cools, the former deputy primeminister, and the subsequent resignation of the foreignminister, Frank Vandenbroucke, and which still threatens tobring down the Secretary-General of NATO and former finance minister, Willy Claes.<35> When such results are compared with those of DieRepublikaner, it can be seen that there is greater publicsupport for right-wing extremist parties in the rest of Europethan that shown for the Republikaner. But still Germanyreceives greater international publicity for virtually anyincident connected with the far-right, which almost certainly reflects the dramatic rise of the NSDAP in the 1920s,transformed from a marginal party into the largest in theReichstag by 1933. In 1992 there were two major infiltrations of theright-wing extremist organisations in Germany by foreignorganisations: the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the SimonWiesenthal Center (SWC). The SWC investigation was, oddlyenough, carried out by an Israeli journalist, posing as anAustralian, who gained the confidence of several neo-Nazifigures in Germany, before compiling a report, with the SWC, acopy of which was forwarded to the German authorities. Thereport states in its findings that:
The report also shows there to be errors with the official estimates of membership of these parties:"
The authorities are able, given sufficient proof, todeclare a party to be anti-constitutional under article 21, paragraph 2 of the Basic Law. This states that:
Such an example of this is the recent ban imposed on the FAP. According to paragraph 33 (Ban of ReplacementOrganizations), article 1 of the Party Law:
Any offending individuals are liable to forfeit certainBasic Rights, in accordance with article 18 of the Basic Law,although such motions have to be initiated by the Bundestag,the Federal Government or a regional government. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution is theofficial organization charged with monitoring the right-wingextremist groups, currently with a budget of over 200 millionMarks. Geoffrey K. Roberts sees this office as"institutionalised wariness" in the light of the 1920s. It hasset up three working parties to investigate the problems ofright-wing extremism: a group on right-wing terrorism; a groupfor special measures for fighting right-wing extremism and the Information Group for the Observation and Combatting ofRight-wing Extremist Violence. The Office for the Protectionof the Constitution can either have a party banned or declaredanti-constitutional, which prevents all members of that partyfrom working in the civil service, which would otherwise allowindividuals a platform to air their extremist views. Perhaps the most obvious and most violent opposition tothe right-wing extremists comes from the one diametricallyopposed group: the left-wing extremists. The militant left-wingers have demonstrated against the right-wingextremists on numerous occasions, most notably after the 1992rioting in Rostock, where the left-wingers were immediatelyarrested when they gathered to attack the right-extremists as they were attacking a home for asylum seekers. Organisedaround the theme Antifaschismus/Antirassismus, there areseveral localised groups which take on the right-wing. In 1993the report of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution recorded 337 violent attacks on the far-right,compared with 390 in 1992. The ordinary citizen has protested vociferously: afterthe rioting throughout Germany in 1992, the masses turned outto show their feelings on the subject in several town andcities across the country, but especially in those placeswhere the rioting had occurred. In Berlin on November 8th1992, the eve of the 54th anniversary of Reichskristallnacht,the Nazi purge of the Jews, 300,000 people, among them FederalPresident Richard von Weizsaecker, protested against right-wingviolence in the Berliner Lustgarten, although thedemonstration was later disrupted by anarchists.<38> Whilst it cannot be denied that right-wing extremism andright-wing violence have increased over the past decade, onemust question the comments of some critics of Germany, thatthe Government has just "stood by and watched". It is adifficult and dangerous situation which has developed inGermany, and the utmost care needs to be exercised in dealingwith it, in order to avoid an escalation of the violence andan increase in the number of subversive groups. The problem with banning individual parties, as has beenfound in the past, is that it simply drives the activities ofthe banned group underground, or else, as with the ANS/NA, the members join a similarly oriented group, such as the FAP.Additionally, as Manfred Kanther, the Interior Minister,stated of Die Republikaner, to ban a party is merely to makemartyrs of those in the party hierarchy. Thus, by not banningthe parties, not only does the Government have a much cleareridea of each individual group and, hence, its membership, butit is also easier for it to monitor the practices of the groups and, to a certain extent, to control them. 1. Backes / Jesse; pp 297-298. 2. Wilkinson; p. 99. 3. Wilkinson; p. 111 and Koenigseder, A.; Zur Chronologiedes Rechtsextremismus; in Benz [ed.], 1994. 4. Wilkinson; p. 172. 5. Otto / Merten; p. 16. 6. The Times, Saturday 25th February 1995. 7. Betz; pp 55-64. 8. ibid.; pp 59-60. 9. Informationen zur politischen Bildung nr. 237: Auslaender;(Bonn, 1992); pp 22-23. 10. Rechtsextremismus in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland -Allgemeine Entwicklung; Landesamt fuer Verfassungsschutz,Baden-Wuerttemberg, 1994; p. 24. 11. Kommunalwahlprogramm der Partei DIE REPUBLIKANER zurStadtratswahl 1994 in Mainz. 12. ibid.; p.1. 13. ibid.; p.2. 14. Schoenhuber auf dem Bundesprogrammparteitag am 26. Juni1993 in Augsburg, in Der Republikaner 7/93; inRechtsextremismus in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland -Allgemeine Entwicklung; Landesamt fuer Verfassungsschutz,Baden-Wuerttemberg, 1994; p. 26. 15. Andreas Juhnke; The hydra-headed monster of Germany inNew Statesman & Society; 4th December 1992; p. 13. 16. Betz; p.136. 17. Roberts; p. 331. 18. German News; Fr. 03.03.95 19:00 MEZ. 19. Roger Boyes; Far-right party saved from ban; in The Times, 15th April 1994; p. 12. 20. Backes / Jesse; p. 107. 21. Roberts; p. 335. 22. Backes / Jesse; p. 296. 23. Verfassungsschutzbericht 1993; p. 125. 24. Niedersachsen-Spiegel - Deutsche Stimme fuerNiedersachsen. 3/93; p. 4; in Verfassungsschutzbericht 1993;p. 126. 25. Verfassungsschutzbericht 1993; p. 130. 26. The Guardian Education; 13th October 1992; p. 12. 27. Simon Wiesenthal Center: Infiltration Report; Findings, B- Estimates of neo-Nazi membership. 28. Simon Wiesenthal Center: Infiltration Report;Personalities - Busse, Friedhelm. 29. Verfassungsschutzbericht 1993; p. 106. 30. Simon Wiesenthal Center: Infiltration Report; Findings, D- International Links. 31. Wilkinson; p. 97. 32. McVay; Holocaust FAQ: Willis Carto & The Institute forHistorical Review; 2.0 Background Information. 33. Wilkinson; p. 97. 34. Simon Wiesenthal Center: Infiltration Report. 35. The Sunday Times News Review, 26th March 1995.3 6. Simon Wiesenthal Center: Infiltration Report; Findings, A- Enforcement of laws. 37. as note 36. 38. Time, November 23rd 1992; pp 42-44. Backes, Uwe / Jesse, Eckhard; Politischer Extremismus in derBundesrepublik Deutschland; (Bonn, 1993). Benz, Wolfgang [ed.]; Rechtsradikalismus: Randerscheinung oderRenaissance?; (Frankfurt a.M., 1980). Benz, Wolfgang [ed.]; Rechtsextremismus in Deutschland. Voraussetzungen, Zusammenhaenge, Wirkungen; (Frankfurt a.M.,1994). Betz, Hans-Georg; Radical Right-wing Populism in WesternEurope; (London, 1994). Dudek, Peter / Jaschke, Hans-Gerd; Entstehung und Entwicklungdes Rechtsextremismus in der Bundesrepublik; 2 Baender;(Opladen, 1984). Heitmeyer, Wilhelm; Rechtsextremismus. Warum Handelt Menschengegen ihre eigenen Interessen?; (Koeln, 1991). Heinemann, Karl-Heinz / Schubarth, Wilfried [ed.]; Derantifaschistische Staat entlaesst seine Kinder: Jugend undRechtsextremismus in Ostdeutschland; (Cologne, 1992). Husbands, Christopher; The Other Face of 1992: TheExtreme-Right Explosion in Western Europe; in ParliamentaryAffairs Vol.45, No.3, July 1992; pp 267-284. Kowalsky, Wolfgang / Schroeder, Wolfgang [ed.];Rechtsextremismus. Einfuehrung und Forschungsbilanz; (Opladen,1994). Leuchter, Fred; The Leuchter Report: The Forensic Examinationof Auschwitz; (London, 1989). McVay, Kenneth N.; Holocaust FAQ: Willis Carto & The Institutefor Historical Review; (Canada, 1994). Usenet news.answers.Available via anonymous ftp from rtfm.mit.edu inpub/usenet/news.answers/holocaust/ihr/part01 and part02.McVay, Kenneth N.; Holocaust FAQ: The Leuchter Report;(Canada, 1994). Otto, Hans-Uwe / Merten, Roland [ed.]; Rechtsradikale Gewaltim vereinigten Deutschland. Jugend im gesellschaftlichenUmbruch; (Opladen, 1993). Roberts, Geoffrey K.; Right-wing Radicalism in the NewGermany; in Parliamentary Affairs Vol.45, No.3, July 1992; pp327-344. Wilkinson, P.; The New Fascists; (London, 1981). The Dignity Report, February 15, 1994; The Coalition for HumanDignity, P. O. Box 40344, Portland, Oregon 97240. Grundgesetz mit [...] Parteiengesetz 1994; (Munich, 1994). Fragen und Antworten zum Rechtsextremismus in Deutschland; Bundesamt fuer Verfassungsschutz (Bonn, 1993). Links- und Rechtsextremismus in Deutschland -Gemeinsamkeitenund Unterschiede- Ideologie, Ursachen, Erscheinungsformen;Bundesamt fuer Verfassungsschutz (Bonn, 1993). Aktuelle Aspekte des Rechtsextremismus; Bundesministerium desInnern (Bonn, 1994). Extremismus und Gewalt in drei Baender; Bundesministerium desInnern (Bonn, 1993-1994).Extremismus und Fremdenfeindlichkeit. Band II;Bundesministerium des Innern (Bonn, 1992). Verfassungsschutzbericht 1992; Bundesministerium des Innern (Bonn, 1993).Verfassungsschutzbericht 1993; Bundesministerium des Innern(Bonn, 1994). Rechtsextremistische Einfluesse auf die Skinhead-Subkultur.Entwicklung - aktuelle Lage - Einschaetzung - Fanzines -Skinmusik; Bayerisches Landesamt fuer Verfassungsschutz(Munich, 1993). Rechtsextremismus in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland -Allgemeine Entwicklung.; Landesamt fuer Verfassungsschutz Baden-Wuerttemberg (Stuttgart, 1994). DVU - Deutsche Volksunion: Organisation - Ziele -Perspektiven; Landesamt fuer VerfassungsschutzBaden-Wuerttemberg (Stuttgart, 1992). Skinheads; Landesamt fuer Verfassungsschutz Rheinland-Pfalz (Mainz, 1994). Rechtsextremismus; Landesamt fuer VerfassungsschutzRheinland-Pfalz (Mainz, 1994). New Statesman & Society; 4th December 1992; p.12ff.The European; 24th-27th June 1993; pp.8-9.Time, 23rd November 1992; pp 42-44. German News Service (GERMNEWS@vm.gmd.de) for the some of the more recent information. Reuters News Service.T Times Newspapers Ltd. United Press International.
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