In Charlottesville neo-Nazis are deployed with the Hitler salute and the swastika. The political scientist Thomas Grumke, sees close Connections between American and German extreme Right.
Armed supporters of the ultra-right of the “Alt-Right”movement at the Demonstration in Charlottesville
Deutsche Welle: A parade of right-wing extremists in Charlottesville in the US state of Virginia is escalated at the weekend: A woman was killed and numerous people injured when a car in a counter-demonstration went. We are dealing here with organised violence from the Right?
Thomas Grumke: It is probably a new Mix of well-known figures of the extreme right-wing scene, such as, for example, David Duke, who was already since the 1970s, the Ku Klux Clan is active and younger people, and the feel of the “Old Right”movement, so the alternative Right, to belong. They all share a pronounced racism. The are lots of combinations that are particularly active in the Internet, where they operate a kind of parallel universe. Some take bonds in Nazism, some propagate crude theories, which we also see here in the “new Right” ideas as the “Cultural Marxism”, for example, (Anm. d. Red.: “Cultural Marxism” is a political term of the American new Right, which describes an alleged conspiracy of the “Left”). A good part of the extreme Right in the United States is very ready to use violence. It took me, therefore, not particularly surprising, as the Demonstration in Charlottesville has developed.
The right-wing extremism in the U.S. experienced under President Donald Trump just a Renaissance?
At least the extreme-right scene of the choice Trumps feels very encouraged. Trumps electorate stems in part from the Milieu that the “White Supremacy” – that is, the white supremacy, looks at risk. These people brace themselves against progressive developments such as the recognition of same-sex marriages, a different role of women, Migration.
What are the Links between the extreme Right in the United States and neo-Nazis in Germany?
Of course one is ideologically largely on a line. The extreme right in the USA and Germany are against immigration and against Islam. You strive for a homogeneous society, and the promotion of the idea of the nation-state. The Internet is a lively exchange of ideas. Cooperation is customary to make, for example, shops with each other. A typical music production in right-wing extremist Hardcore-area, for example, is now produced in Scandinavia, in Eastern Europe, pressed, and then marketed in Germany and before it is here, lands on the Index and forbidden, have counterparts in the USA, the music to obtain and bring the Internet back into circulation in Germany.
In place to Meet or the networking runs mainly over the Internet?
Extremism expert Grumke: US-neo-Nazis are ideologically extreme in line with German Law
Already in the 1990s, there was rain visit contact. The now deceased American neo-Nazi leader William Pierce, for example, has moved frequently in NPD circles and NPD meetings, spoken. Pierce had made it very for international cooperation of the law extremenen strong and argued that nationalism had to be back in front of anti-Semitism. If someone asked him for his identity, he said: “white.”
What kind of alliances are there today?
There are Connections between the “Alt-Right”movement and the ultra-right “Identitarian movement” in Europe. They are United by the Conviction of a white supremacist. The Identitarian say they are not Nazis, but to them it is a matter of a white European identity preserve. Richard Spencer, one of the most famous activists of the “Alt-Right”movement, for example, holds very close contacts to the Identity, which are, in particular, in Austria, Italy and France.
Use neo-Nazis in the USA to German Nazi ideology?
At least you can make use of the symbolism: in the US, the Nazi salute or the swastika to be used in order to provoke maximum. With the crucial difference that such Nazi-symbols are not different than in Germany – there is a punishable offence. The extreme right-wing demonstrators at the protests in Charlottesville, who have painted swastikas on their shields, had been arrested in Germany, all because of a so-called propaganda offences.
Right-wing protesters with Nazi flag during a protest in Charlottesville
How is this latest outbreak of right-wing violence in Charlottesville in your assessment of German neo-Nazis?
This new stage of escalation of extreme-right violence in the United States is pursued under neo-Nazis in Germany in any case. Of course, we encouraged each other and motivated. Earlier, in the post-war period, it was clear that the ideology Transfer was always of Europe in towards the USA. The is far different: Even right-wing ideas and symbols from the United States to be imported to Germany.
At the beginning of the 1990s, it was widely used in Germany, for example, the so-called “schoolyard CDs”, with the neo-Nazi young people wanted to recruit about music with right-wing texts. Over the Internet this CD was distributed in the USA under the name of “Project Schoolyard”.
Conversely, the number “14” has been found as a Symbol of American neo-Nazis, in the meantime, also in the case of German right-wing extremists input. The so-called “Fourteen Words” refer to a set of beliefs that is widely used in the United States under the white neo-Nazis: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children” (Anm. d. Red.: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children”). You can also speculate whether the idea of “Leaderless resistance”, i.e., the leaderless resistance, the right-wing terrorist “national socialist underground” (NSU) might motivated. One thing seems for sure: There is a lively exchange of ideas between American and German neo-Nazis.
Thomas Grumke, a Professor of political science at the University of applied Sciences for Public administration NRW. In his Dissertation he dealt with right-wing extremism in the United States.
The Interview was conducted.