Neo-Nazism in Germany: Music & Politics

    Update : I wrote this post yesterday. Since then, the raids have received more media coverage: Right-Wing Extremism: Germany Launches Massive Crackdown on Neo-Nazi Music, Deutsche Welle; Police crackdown on neo-Nazi music, ABC.

    Perhaps the closest Australian authorities have come to doing something similar was the arrest of David Pollard (b. December 31, 1983) in June last year. Pollard was responsible for the distribution of nutzi propaganda via his website ‘Noble Front’. Among the items confiscated by police from his property was the Deaths Head CD ‘Feast of the Jackal’ (featuring the No.1 smash hit ‘Swastika’; the swastika “will fly again”, apparently).

    Deaths Head is — or rather, was — a local Melbourne band, and closely associated with both Blood & Honour and the Hammerskins, international neo-Nazi networks. B&H is banned in Germany, but active in Australia. To celebrate the deaths of Australian soldiers in WWII, the two groups are organising a gig in Perth on ANZAC Day later this year; bands playing include Indigenous Hate, Quick & the Dead, and Ravenous.

    Deaths Head and Ravenous member Jesse, a Hammerskin, maintains a channel on YouTube which features a number of Deaths Head videos, as well as two very brief cartoons featuring the decapitation and shooting of ‘Sheky’ the Jew. The band has a MySpace page here.

    Deaths Head is also notable for having provided local oi! band Bulldog Spirit with a drummer, Joel. Doug, the vocalist for Bulldog Spirit, is a big fan of mine, and it was in this spirit that he published what he claimed (erroneously) to be my work address on an online forum frequented by boneheads.

Local German-born nutzi Welf Herfurth — leader of the tiny ‘New Right Australia (and er, New Zealand)’, and the bonehead gang Volksfront Australia — must be crying into his imported German beer this evening (likely to be shared with Novocastrian bonehead and Volksfront co-organiser Douglas Schott), following reports of another crackdown by German police on the radical right in Der Vaterland.

Germany raids over 200 suspected neo-Nazi premises
Reuters UK
March 4, 2009

BERLIN (Reuters) – German police have launched a nationwide search of more than 200 homes and businesses of people suspected of belonging to the country’s extreme right, the Federal Crime Office (BKA) said Wednesday.

“The primary aim of the concerted action by crime fighting authorities is to seize and confiscate prohibited items like music in order to move effectively and extensively against the spread of right wing extremism,” the BKA said in a statement…

The raids come only a few weeks after one of the largest nutzi gatherings in post-War Germany in Dresden, when 5-6,000 fascist wankers jackbooted about the city (with a police escort of several thousand). They also come after former NPD executive member Uwe Luthardt, who recently quit the party, made what is presumably intended to be some kinda ‘revelation’ regarding the NPD’s continued adherence to the incestuous corpophiliac Hitler’s political legacy.

Duh.

The real significance of Luthardt’s confessions lies in the fact that he speaks as a former member, and therefore with some added degree of insight into the party’s ‘true’ nature.

FORMER NPD OFFICIAL SPEAKS OUT
Hitler Salutes, Nazi Songs and Dreams of a New Reich
Spiegel Online
February 25, 2009

Uwe Luthardt was a senior member of the right-extremist NPD. But he quit after three months. In an interview, he describes the NPD as a deeply radical party where Hitler salutes and financial irregularities are common — and which is bent on restoring the German Reich.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: You recently quit the right extremist party NPD. Aren’t you afraid?

Luthardt: The local party leader threatened me. He said a board member doesn’t quit the party, he’s either thrown out or disappears. I replied that I know more about him than he does about me. Since then it’s been quiet. Someone who just quits usually gets a lot of problems, and can find himself waking up in intensive care.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So people who leave are threatened?

Luthardt: It happens. Otherwise the party would have even fewer members. The mood isn’t good at the moment. It’s easy to see that the party is short of money…

Luthardt’s testimony is also useful in the sense that it confirms the already well-known fact that groups like the NPD rely on the nutzi muzak industry for a considerable proportion of their income.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How does the party finance itself?

Luthardt: Through music events among other things, they get money from ticket sales. And then of course through the Festival of Peoples, that generated just under €17,000 in 2007.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: But you have to subtract the money the bands get from that amount.

Luthardt: No. Usually one tells the authorities that the bands get paid. But in reality they just get their expenses back and a receipt for a supposedly paid fee. But that is donated back to the party. And the party can write the donation off their taxes.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why do the bands forego the money they are due?

Luthardt: Out of conviction. It happens in the party too. Whenever I went to Berlin on a training course, we got our transport costs paid but then handed the money back to the party in the form of donations. It’s the same pattern.

(Luthardt notes that NPD chairman Udo Voigt — whom Welf Herfurth unsuccessfully attempted to bring into Australia for a speaking tour in 2003 — partly finances his power base within the party with the help “of money men from South America”. For moaron Welf’s nutzi German kameraden, see: Neo-Nazi ‘national anarchists’ in Germany in the headlines, June 4, 2008.)

Horst Wessel (and other pimps)

In Europe, one of the principal distributors of nutzi muzak is Belgian label Pure Impact. Pure Impact arose from the ashes of German label Rock-O-Rama — on which Skrewdriver released an album (Hail The New Dawn) and single (Invasion/On The Streets) in 1984. It was established by a fascist-sympathising businessman, Herbert Egoldt.

In October [1997] it was revealed that Herbert Egoldt, the notorious distributor of neo-Nazi skinhead music, was operating from the Brussels-based far-right mail order company Pure Impact. Egoldt formerly operated Rock o Rama in Cologne, once the world’s largest supplier of racist material, until police invaded his office and confiscated 30,000 records in 1992. The entrepreneur is now linked with Belgian extremists Peter Swillen, Ludo Henri Crol and Luc Taymans, who have launched Pure Impact in an attempt to revive the neo-Nazi record empire, which in recent years has been taken over by Resistance Records and Nordland…

Pure Impact enjoys wide support within global punk, hardcore and skinhead/bonehead communities, including Australia, and distros both straightforwardly neo-Nazi titles — such as those by Douglas Schott’s band Blood Red Eagle — as well as other, ‘apolitical’ releases. Despite an apparent reluctance to provide a platform for fascism — at least when under the media spotlight — Pure Impact also enjoys the support of MySpace (as do numerous other neo-Nazi distros, bands and political projects).

Part of the rationale for selling ‘apolitical’ product, aside from the added income it generates, stems from the desire to legitimise the business in the eyes of the general public. Various legal and political constraints also produce another response: a softening of ‘the message’. Thus US-based Resistance Records — bought by dead nutzi and author of The Turner Diaries William Pierce in 1999 — touts the virtues of the nutzi band Cut Throat as follows: “Possessing catchy lyrics, haunting vocals, and top-notch musicianship, this California band belongs on mainstream radio. With not-too-blatant lyrics, Cut Throat can easily fly in under the radar and reach a wider audience than most pro-White bands.” (The Turner Diaries are available via Australian Protectionist Party member Martin Fletcher’s website Downunder Newslinks.)

This ‘softening’ process is sometimes necessary, but sometimes not. Thus Belgian band Kill Baby Kill — which travelled to Australia last year to perform at the annual bonehead gathering to mourn the death of Skrewydriver Ian Stuart Donaldson (held at the Beaconsfield Hotel) — also enjoy the support of MySpace. Well, until very recently…

Of course, the links between local nutzis and their European counterparts extend beyond the occasional importation of foreign bodies into the country. It includes exports.

Last year, a True Blue Dinky-Di (Nutzi) Aussie — whose identity has yet to be established — co-operated with the dynamic Danish and German duo Dane Flemming C., 32, and Stephan G., 33, by providing them with True Blue Dinky-Di (Nutzi) muzak. The men, arrested in August, are accused of overseeing the production and distribution of neo-Nazi music under the label ‘Celtic Moon’. Investigators say the pair produced as many as 100,000 copies of the music. Coincidentally, Celtic Moon has close ties to ‘Werwolf Records’: Werwolf Records distributes Blood Red Eagle.

Finally, there is one less distro in Australia: Deadset Music. Its fascist-sympathising owner has sold her interest in the business, and it has now become known as Pug Music; it sells only a handful of racist titles. Filling the gap is new nutzi distro 9% Productions.

    http://www.9percentproductions.com/
    http://www.pugmusic.com/

Compare and contrast!

1) ‘Let’s kick out all the foreigners, then the Germans will have jobs again’ – that’s the basic concept the NPD talks about ~ Ex-NPD member Uwe Luthardt, 2009
2) ‘British Jobs for British workers’ ~ British PM Gordon Brown, Labour Party conference, 2007
3) “TATARSZENTGYORGY, Hungary: Thousands of people, mostly Roma, joined the funeral procession Tuesday of a young boy and his father who were shot dead last week in the latest in a series of attacks on Roma in Hungary… The boy, who police say was 5 years old, and his father Robert Csorba were shot and killed as they were trying to escape their house, which had been set on fire. Two other children were injured in the blaze… There is a growing resentment against the Roma, also known as gypsies, as the economic crisis deepens and jobs are lost. The Roma often remain on the margins, lacking jobs and proper education and living in deep poverty. Critics say they take advantage of the welfare state. The strengthening of the far-right over the past two years, which fights what it says is a rise in “Roma crime,” has also contributed to an increase in antagonism, activists say…” ~ Hungary buries two Roma killed by hate, Reuters, International Herald Tribune, March 3, 2009

Metal Up Yr Fascist Ass

In Atlanta, Chicago black metal band Nachtmystium has been kicked off a bill for alleged nutzi associations. The band denies the allegation, and claims to be ‘apolitical’. Which may well be the case, at least in the sense that they don’t explicitly endorse any particular political viewpoint. If so, the relationship between Nachtmystium and neo-Nazism, as in the case of many other bands, is one of convenience, rather than conviction. Pitchfork:

Chicago black metal band Nachtmystium, originally scheduled to play the fest, were absent from the lineup. According to a statement from frontman Blake Judd– first posted by Brooklyn Vegan and later verified via a press release– Scion’s parent company Toyota kicked Nachtmystium off of the bill because of the band’s alleged associations with Nazism. “A troubling, and unjustly-applied notion that we are, or ever have been, in any way, a ‘Nazi’ band or a political band on any level, is completely absurd and we are disgusted that there is someone out there who really believes we are of this ilk,” he said.

Representatives for the festival and for Scion have not yet responded to questions about the incident.

According to Decibel, these accusations have dogged Nachtmystium for years, due to the fact that their first album, Reign of the Malicious, was released by the NSBM (National Socialist Black Metal) label Unholy Records [a subsidiary of Resistance Records]. As Judd told Decibel in 2006, “In the past, we’ve had some indirect [sic] ties to labels and bands that are part of the NS scene. At one point not too many years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for NS labels or bands to trade and work with non-politically motivated bands and labels because at the end of the day, we’re all trying to promote, release, and be involved with music—all politics aside. Today it seems like there’s less of a connection, at least for me and my label. We don’t oppose people’s right to be ‘NS’ or whatever—that’s a personal choice, and if you live in the USA, you have the right to that opinion. Even though I personally, my band(s) and my label have absolutely no interest in being a part of that scene, I will ALWAYS take their side when it comes to their freedom of speech being imposed upon.”

LOL.

The issue is not ‘freedom of speech’, but providing financial and political support to racism, fascism, xenophobia and homophobia. Upon achieving any real level of popularity, bands which initially embraced fascist politics — including Australian bands like Deströyer 666 and Gospel Of The Horns, and labels such as Modern Invasion (nee Pipe Imported) — frequently seek to disassociate themselves from their past, as such associations become more inconvenient than they are useful.

And of course, anyone unfortunate enough to have to rely upon an ‘apolitical’ rock * to guarantee their rights has already lost them.

Still, placing a hat marked ‘apolitical’ on your head is a very common response when bands perform / record / tour with nutzis, play nutzi venues, or release material on nutzi labels. Such was the case with The Birmingham Hotel — until mid-2008, the subject of “a pretty unsuccessful boycott” — and such is the case with Sydney band T.H.U.G..

Simon T.H.U.G., Dutch neo-Nazi zine Out of Order, 2000. Simon says:

“All my mates were into oi! and white pride as well. I did not know any skinheads that were into oi! and were not white and proud of it. Lefty skinheads would never dare to show their face on the street for fear of getting severely beaten. And that’s the way it should always be…

Best memory was playing a gig in Melbourne, in some pub, can’t remember which, full swing into it and about 30 Maoris drinking in the front bar… I’m sure you can picture what happened. Bedlam. We managed to protect all our gear however. Mic stands make magnificent clubs…

Old time skinheads rule!”

T.H.U.G. played the East Brunswick Hotel on July 19, 2008.

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About @ndy

I live in Melbourne, Australia. I like anarchy. I don't like nazis. I enjoy eating pizza and drinking beer. I barrack for the greatest football team on Earth: Collingwood Magpies. The 2024 premiership's a cakewalk for the good old Collingwood.
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