Archive/File: fascism/germany bg.061294
Last-Modified: 1994/06/22

From: rrizzo@osf.org (Ron Rizzo)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,ne.politics
Subject: Computers Spread the Word for Neo-Nazis
Date: 14 Jun 1994 15:37:08 GMT
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <2tkir4$2st@paperboy.osf.org>
Summary: European Nazis go hi-tech
Keywords: use Internet, bboards, e-mailboxes, fax machines, cellular phones

		COMPUTERS SPREAD THE WORD FOR NEO-NAZIS

Folks,

Attached are 2 articles and a chart from Sunday's Boston Globe describing
how neo-Nazis are using hi tech, particularly computers, to publicize,
organize, and elude the police as they engage in assaults and arson.

Last year German authorities found that neo-Nazis made intensive use of
cellular phones to coordinate riots against "foreigners."  Now the word
is they're making heavy use of fax machines and particularly computer
mailboxes, bulletin boards and networks, including the Internet (see below).
Information exchanged includes recipes for homemade bombs.

And where computers can't, or don't yet, go, neo-Nazis are travelling in
person to recruit and incite.  There is a lot of international organizing   
occurring right now and Nazi activists are often on the road.

European police report many groups are already closely linked both within
and across national borders.  German neo-Nazis believe that this time, to
establish a Fourth Reich, they must not limit the movement to Germany, and
are making a serious effort to establish movements in other countries,
particularly the chaotic and vulnerable countries of eastern Europe and the
former USSR.

Neo-Nazis are also making a big push right now to join legitimate or legal
right-wing political parties already in power or about to win seats in
legislatures (neo-Fascists allied with conservatives in Italy; Die
Republikaner in Germany).

In December, German police discovered a hit list of liberal Germans targetted
for murder in an underground neo-Nazi newsletter.  They now worry that the
neos will turn to terrorism.

(Despite the fact that computer equipment, software and services are much more
expensive in Europe than in North America---big markups---it's European Nazis
who are making the most of computer technology.  Very little is said about
North American neo-Nazis below, perhaps because the subject of the articles
is Europe.  Though some people over the past few years on the net have
cautioned that skins here are getting computer-literate or have partners in
hate who are.  Maybe computer nerds are still viewed as part of the degenerate
enemy by American skinheads.) 

Regards,
Ron


****************************************************************************


[reprinted without permission from 6/12/94 Boston Sunday Globe, pages 1 & 26] 


		NEO-NAZIS SPREADING HATE WITH HIGH_TECH
		  Global Networking Aids German Cells

		          by Elizabeth Neuffer	
			      Globe Staff 	

BERLIN - German neo-Nazis, once viewed as black-booted thugs with little
savvy, have become increasingly sophisticated, forging rightist links
across Europe and using computer networks to spread their call for a
racially pure society.

	With rightists groups burgeoning from Belgium to Russia, German
neo-Nazi leaders are reaching out across the continent, seeking to swap
propaganda, build up sources of financing and boost popularity for their
cause.

	Now equipped with computers, cellular phones and fax machines,
neo-Nazi leaders can reach a far wider audience than they could only a
few years ago.  The technology also enables them to skirt the law,
trading everything from banned copies of Hitler's speeches to RECIPES
FOR HOMEMADE EXPLOSIVES WITHOUT POLICE DETECTION.  [my caps---recall
the arrest made by the FBI last year of American neo-Nazis who were
about to bomb a Seattle gay bar.]

	"Unfortunately, we are faced with right-wing extremism that is
increasing in virulence, viability and brutality," said Joachim Fricker,
of Germany's domestic intelligence agency based in Cologne.

	Such sophisticated networking, law enforcement authorities say,
comes as some neo-Nazis are lining up behind rightist political parties
in this German election year.  When Germans vote today in European Parlia-
ment elections, there will be more than 20 rightists among the candidates.
[Remember Buscaroli from Italy?  I assume the author includes racist ultra-
nationalists as well as bona fide neo-Nazis/Fascists here.  Does anyone know
or have a list or count?]

	Simultaneously, some neo-Nazi groups have GONE UNDERGROUND, STOCK-
PILING WEAPONS AND DEVELOPING A SYSTEM OF ORGANIZED CELLS THAT HAVE AUTHO-
RITIES WORRIED ABOUT TERRORISM.  [my caps---in the Algerian Civil War, the
leftwing National Liberation Front was organized into a command tree of tiny
cells, each of which had a handful of members known to each other.  Only one
member would know the identity of a contact in the cell "above" and one or
more members would know contacts in the cells "below".  This organization
was designed to minimize the amount of information the French colonial
authorities could possibly obtain about the movement when they infiltrated
a cell or captured and even tortured its members.  It seems European neo-
Nazis, like American ultra-conservatives, are borrowing techniques for
organization, publicity and action from across the political spectrum.  See
below.]
 
	Among Europe's rightist movements, Germany's radical rightists are
not the largest.  Police identify about 64,000 rightists, but say only
5,600 are militant extremists,  About 2,000 are hard-core neo-Nazis.  [But
these numbers, and the ones below, may not count the large penumbra of
sympathy and occasional support for Fascist groups that may run into the
tens of thousands.  In Germany, you also have a large middle-aged population
of WW2 veterans whose organizations can be a hotbed of racism and nostalgia
for the Hitler era.]  

	But Germany's extreme rightists are the most violent.  Last year,
there were 1,814 rightist crimes that left eight dead; 17 were killed in
1992.  This year, 563 violent crimes have been linked to rightists, including
six attempted homicides.

	Yet just how dangerous extreme rightists are---either as a political
or violent force---remains the subject of debate.  Law enforcement officials
say the movement is too splintered to be politically viable; in this year's
local elections, rightist candidates suffered humiliating defeats.

	The Kohl government similarly dismisses Germany's neo-Nazis,
describing them as malcontents rather than potential terrorists.  "We have no
organized right-wing crime, there are a lot of young people who like to make
riots," said Dieter Vogel, a government spokesman.  [Surely one of the more
fatuous statements I've heard recently.] 

	But many here, including one former neo-Nazi, disagree.  "There's a
bigger danger in those guys than the government thinks," cautions Ingo
Hasselbach, 26, a former neo-Nazi who quit and wrote a book about the
neo-Nazi scene.  [See shorter article appended below.]

	Far-reaching and complex, the German extreme rightist movement
stretches from disaffected youths in the broken-down cities of the east
TO THE POLITICALLY AMBITIOUS IN BONN.  [my caps]

	There are five rightist political parties represented both in the
European Parliament and state governments; the most prominent is Die
Republikaner, headed by a former SS officer.  There are 10 rightist
militant organizations---four are banned---that organize antiforeigner
demonstrations and distribute banned literature.  And there are hundreds of
teen-agers whose shaved heads and black Doc Martens boots identify them
as part of the rightist "scene."

	Uniting all of them is the cry "Auslander raus"---foreigners out.
Without immigrants, they argue, Germany would not be facing 10 percent
unemployment, a recession and what they see as the dissolution of a culture
renowned for its hard-working efficiency.  Neo-Nazi groups also deny the
Holocaust and preach anti-Semitism, which is illegal.

	"What it means to be right-wing is to believe than Germans are a
superior race and all others are inferior," says Mario Zeidler, a 24-year-
old [with a fine German name] from the former east Germany who has been
a member both of violent right-wing groups and of Die Republikaner.

	Within this far-ranging movement, authorities pinpoint only a few
real leaders.  [I'm surprised they now admit there are any.]  But in today's
computer age, that is enough.  "A minority are sophisticated but they are
the multipliers of information," says Bernd Wagner, a sociologist who works
with right-wing youth.

	Take neo-Nazi leader Christian Worch, head of the banned National
List Party.  Behind the steel door of his apartment in the port city of
Hamburg, Worch talks technology.

	He describes how cellular phones allow illegal demonstrations to be
quickly shifted if the police discover the sites.  He discusses how computers
help spread his belief in "Germany for the Germans."

	"I only have to install a computer mailbox and everybody can contact
our ideas through the phone," said Worch, who advocates no more than 1 million
foreigners and no more than 40,000 Jews in Germany to keep "the race as pure
as possible."  [Even if all east Germans are found jobs, Germany's high-gear
economy may still have a shortage of labor.  Would Worch put the ones he'd
admit in labor camps?]   

	THE PRIMARY NEO-NAZI COMPUTER NETWORK IS THE THULE NETWORK.  ONLY A
YEAR OLD, IT ALREADY HAS 15 MAILBOXES AND ABOUT 2,000 USERS [my caps],
estimates Uwe Kaus, editor of the computer magazine CHIP.  "These guys are
very clever," Kaus says,  "They discuss everything from political theory
TO RELEASING THE ADDRESSES OF ANTIFASCISTS [my caps].  And they have messages,
warnings and special coding which nobody else can read."
	 
	COMPUTER NETWORKS ARE IDEAL FOR THE NEO-NAZIS [my caps].  Computers
grant privacy to those interested in their ideas.  Information about anti-
foreigner rallies can be easily traded.  Books banned here---such as those
denying the Holocaust---can be retrieved from a computer mailbox in another
country.  IN APRIL, FOR EXAMPLE, NEO-NAZI LITERATURE DENYING THE HOLOCAUST
AUTHORED BY BOSTON ENGINEER FRED LEUCHTER WAS LOADED INTO THE INTERNET, A
COMPUTER SYSTEM ACCESSIBLE WORLDWIDE.  [my caps]

	And the police are helpless to intervene, as computer transmissions
are impossible to tap.  [sic.---impractical to tap in the volume and with the
frequency that would be required.]  "Legally it is possible to stop, but
practically it is impossible," said Ernst Uhrlau, a senior police official
in Hamburg.

	Computers now connect neo-Nazis throughout the world.  But where
computers do not reach, people do---and neo-Nazis today spend a lot of time
on the road.  Most recently, German extremists have been reaching out to
Russian right-wingers.  [This is the most dangerous development of all.
Russia, Ukraine and Belorus have perhaps the greatest potential for a
violent racist political explosion, ie, for a revival of Nazism, of any
western states.  Imagine the civil wars in Bosnia and Croatia on a continental
scale.]

	"In the last years, our contacts have grown stronger," Worch says.

	Neo-Nazi Michael Petri had just been to Spain and Denmark and was en
route to Athens to meet fellow neo-Nazis and spread the goal of "national
socialism"---a racially pure Fourth Reich---around Europe.

	"I am of the opinion that we can't reach our goal if we work only in
Germany," Petri said, speaking over his cellular phone.  We need national 
states in the whole world."

	In Holland, Eite Homan of the Dutch Action Front of National Socialists
confirms he frequently meets with Petri, Worch and others.  "We do jobs for
each other," Homan says.  "We have a comradely relationship."

	Indeed, links between European neo-Nazi groups have a practical
purpose.  Extremist literature and videos banned in Germany are published
IN DENMARK [my caps].  Paramilitary maneuvers are held in Austria.

	Because neo-Nazi groups HAVE EXTENSIVE WEAPONS CULTS, LAW ENFORCEMENT
AUTHORITIES HERE WORRY THE RIGHT WING WILL TURN FROM BEATING UP FOREIGNERS AT
RALLIES TO BECOMING AN UNDERGROUND TERRORIST MOVEMENT. [my caps]

	With the retreat of Russian troops from Eastern Europe, weaponry is
easily had, they say.

	So far, there is no evidence to link neo-Nazis to terrorism.  But
German police---who have watched the Red Army Faction, a left-wing terrorist
group, engage in assassinations and bombings here---ARE WORRIED BY SIGNS THAT
THE RIGHT-WING IS LEARNING FROM THE LEFT.  AMONG THE SIGNS: THE DEVELOPMENT
OF  ORGANIZED SMALL CELLS OF RIGHT-WING CADRES IN A MOVEMENT THAT WAS MORE
DISORGANIZED THAN ORGANIZED.

	POLICE WERE STUNNED TO DISCOVER THE DECEMBER PUBLICATION OF A "HIT
LIST" OF LIBERAL GERMAN POLITICIANS, JUDGES, SOCIAL WORKERS AND OTHERS IN AN
UNDERGROUND NEO-NAZI NEWSLETTER.  THE GROUP WAS TARGETTED FOR "FINAL ELIMINA-
TION." [my caps]

	"In their ideology, neo-Nazis are violent," says senior police
official Uhrlau.  "Usually it's just talk.  But there's no guarantee they
won;t say `Let's not talk about it---let's do it, and do it now.'"


***************************************************************************


[reprinted without permission from 6/12/94 Boston Sunday Globe, page 26]

			SOLIDARITY ON GERMAN RIGHT

			    by Elizabeth Neuffer
			        Globe Staff	 

BERLIN - To hear former Waffen SS officer and current Die Republikaner leader
Franz Schonhuber tell it, his party is all about democracy, nonviolence and
love for "Germany, our fatherland."

	So why have leading Republikaner members been sentenced for xenophobic
violence---and why are others now facing charges for falsely arresting
foreigners and beating up an asylum-seeker?

	Die Republikaner, the most powerful of Germany's rightist political
parties, is also its most controversial, raising questions over whether it
really representes conservative voters or is a front for Germany's neo-Nazi
movement.

	In this German election year, the party is poised to win 5 percent of
the vote, the threshhold needed to secure a seat in parliament and make Die
Republikaner a viable political force.

	But a recent spate of resignations from the party---amid charges it
has grown too close to neo-Nazis---has renewed calls for the group to be
banned.  Both Chancellor Helmut Kohl's government coalition and the opposition
Social Democrat Party havge demanded that the party be classified as extreme
rightist, which would open the door for a federal court to rule it is uncon-
stitutional.

	Publicly, Die Republikaner denies connections ot the neo-Nazis or
their openly anti-Semitic, antiforeigner agenda.  But neo-Nazis and former
party members tell a different story.

	"There have always been contacts on a certain level between the
Republikaner and the more militant right-wing groups," said Ingo Hasselbach,
26, who quit a neo-Nazi group and wrote a book about it.  "Right-wingers,
of course, vote for the official right-wing parties."

	Neo-Nazi leader Christian Worch, head of the banned National List
group, is openly urging his membership to voet for Die Republikaner in what
he called an "alliance for Republikaner in Parliament."

	According to Hasselbach, Worch's hope is that the Republikaner offi-
cials will join radical neo-Nazi groups after they are elected.

	Former neo-Nazi member Mario Seidler, 24, recalls being wooed by Die
Republikaner.  "They leaded us with freebies, they gave us free tickets."
Zeidler served as district chairman of Die Republikaner in his town of Erkner.

	Recent resignations suggest that some in the Republikaner are uncom-
fortable with the party's neo-Nazi ties.  Party figure Udo Bosch, a retired
lieutenant colonel, quit earlier this month.  Among other charges, he accused
the party of anti-Semitism.

	As debate rages, nine of Germany's 16 states have the party under
surveillance.  And Germany's domestic intelligence agency is on the lookout.


****************************************************************************


[reprinted without permission from 6/12/94 Boston Sunday Globe, page 26]


WORLDWIDE EXTREME RIGHTIST ORGANIZATIONS

Estimates by police and other monitors.  MANY GROUPS ARE BELIEVED TO BE
LINKED TO ONE ANOTHER.  [my caps]

BRITAIN 

National Party: 2,000 members.  Blood and Honor Skin Front: several thousand
members.  [Oswald Moseley's National Front was the British Fascist organization
in the 1930s.]

BELGIUM

Vlaams Volk [Flemish People]: 3,000 members; 460,000 voters in '91 elections.

FRANCE

Front National: 80,000 members.  Parti Nationaliste Francais et Europeen:
several hundred militants.

UNITED STATES

Ku Klux Klan: 6,000 members; 200,000 estimated sympathizers.  National Social-
ist German Worker's Party/Overseas Organization (Gerhard Lauck): 5,000 members
worldwide.  [Lauck is a major source of Nazi literature for European neo-Nazis
and travels frequently to Europe.  His activities were reported on one of the
major network TV news programs within the last year.]

SPAIN

Cedade: 2,000 members [Not to mention the millions of supporters of Franco's
Fascist Falange regime: in Spain and Portugal, alone in Europe, Fascism tri-
umphed and remained in power for almost 4 decades.]

ITALY

Movimento Sociale Italiano/Destra Nazionale: 60,000 members [The related
National Alliance has 5 cabinet posts in the Italian government and shares
power with 2 other rightwing alliances.  For those of you who know Rome,
the National Alliance headquarters are in the Via Della Scrofa, near the
big tourist areas of Piazza Navona and the Pantheon.]

AUSTRIA

Extra-Parliamentary Opposition Loyal to the People: 800 militants; several
thousand sympathizers.

SOUTH AFRICA

Afrikaaner Weerstandsbewegung: 40,000 members; 5,000 in paramiliaty units.
[Actually, the entire Boer Nationalist Party had very close ties with Hitler
and the third reich through the 1920s, 30s and 40s.  See Ronald Segal's book,
THE RISE OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN REICH (Penguin paperback).]

SWEDEN

White Aryan Resistance: 50-100 militants; several thousand members.  [There's
a photo of some Nazi skins in a recent National Geographic.  When he was a
teenager in the 1930s and 40s, filmmaker Ingmar Bergman and his entire family
were enthusiatically pro-German and pro-Nazi, even though his father was a
Lutheran  minister and chaplain to the Swedish royal family.  (See Bergman's
1st volume of autobiography, THE MAGIC LANTERN).  His older brother, Dag,
was the founder and leader of the Swedish Nazi party.  Even Ingmar believed
that film footage of the Nazi death camps were fabrications, Allied propaganda.
Only a couple of years after the war did he admit to himself they were genuine
and the enormity of his family's sympathies.  Although Sweden was neutral
during WW2, and at least a plurality of Swedes opposed Nazism, a fair-sized
minority sympathized with it.]
 
DENMARK

Danish National Social Movement: several hundred members.

THE NETHERLANDS

Nederlandse Blok: several hundred members.  [2 years ago at a series of
concerts in Boston I sat next to a young Dutch engineer.  At one point he
started talking rather mystically about "homelands" and how most peoples
seemed to have them.  Although he was no neo-Nazi, I was surprised that such
drivel would occupy the attention of someone who was as well-educated & well-
travelled as he appeared to be.]

GERMANY

Four Nazi groups are banned.  Police estimate as many as 80 small groups and
5,600 militant extremists, of which 2,000 are hard-core neo-Nazis.  Legal
rightist groups include: Friedheim Busse: 220 members.  Wotans Volk: 40
members.

LATVIA

Movement of National Independence: 1,600 members

RUSSIA

Liberal Democratic Party: up to 100,000 members.  100 other right-wing extrem-
ist groups with an estimated 20,000 members.

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