Neo-Nazism
Neo-Nazism comprises all social, political, and militant ideologies and movements that have professed or idealized Nazism, whether in whole or in part, since the end of World War II in 1945. Neo-Nazi individuals and organizations employ their ideology to promote what they perceive as the racial or ethnic supremacy of their own group; to incite or engage in hatred or discrimination against demographic minorities ; and, in some cases, to establish a fascist state. Also common in neo-Nazi circles is engagement in historical negationism and propagation of conspiracy theories—not limited to absolving or glorifying the Nazi Party or those who inspired or are thought to have inspired Adolf Hitler and other prominent Nazi figures—such as Holocaust denial and Jewish war; White genocide and Great Replacement; and "cultural" Marxism.
While mainly concentrated in the Western world, neo-Nazism is a global phenomenon and has organized representation in several international networks. However, it is not exclusive to people of European origin—many similar supremacist movements among local racial or ethnic groups in non-Western regions have been observed adhering to tenets of or inspired by neo-Nazi ideology. Much of this manifests in adopting original Nazi ideological doctrine and practices, including racism, ultra-nationalism, ableism, homophobia, and conspiratorial anti-communism, among others.
Neo-Nazis regularly display Nazi symbols and express admiration for the actions of Hitler's Germany before and during World War II. In a number of Western and non-Western countries, neo-Nazism is prohibited by laws specifically targeting Nazi ideology, in addition to general laws against hatred and discrimination. Likewise, among these countries, Nazi-related symbols are also banned as part of a long-running effort of de-Nazification that began with the Allies of World War II.
Definition
The term neo-Nazism describes any post-World War II militant, social or political movements seeking to revive the ideology of Nazism in whole or in part.The term 'neo-Nazism' can also refer to the ideology of these movements, which may borrow elements from Nazi doctrine, including ultranationalism, anti-communism, racism, ableism, xenophobia, homophobia, antisemitism, up to initiating the Fourth Reich. Holocaust denial is a common feature, as is the incorporation of Nazi symbols and admiration of Adolf Hitler.
Neo-Nazism is considered a particular form of far-right politics and right-wing extremism.
Esotericism
Neo-Nazi writers have posited a spiritual, esoteric doctrine of race, which moves beyond the primarily Darwinian-inspired materialist scientific racism popular mainly in the Anglosphere during the 20th century. Figures influential in the development of neo-Nazi racism, such as Miguel Serrano and Julius Evola, claim that the Hyperborean ancestors of the Aryans were in the distant past, far higher beings than their current state, having suffered from "involution" due to mixing with the "Telluric" peoples; supposed creations of the Demiurge. Within this theory, if the "Aryans" are to return to the Golden Age of the distant past, they need to awaken the memory of the blood. An extraterrestrial origin of the Hyperboreans is often claimed. These theories draw influence from Gnosticism and Tantrism, building on the work of the Ahnenerbe. Within this racist theory, Jews are held up as the antithesis of nobility, purity and beauty.Ecology and environmentalism
Neo-Nazism generally aligns itself with a blood and soil variation of environmentalism, which has themes in common with deep ecology, the organic movement and animal protectionism. This tendency, sometimes called "ecofascism", was represented in the original German Nazism by Richard Walther Darré who was the Reichsminister of Food from 1933 until 1942.History
Germany and Austria (1945–1950s)
The final leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party was Martin Bormann, who died on 2 May 1945 during the Battle of Berlin. As his remains were not discovered until 1973, fringe theories claimed that he survived and fled to South America. Similar theories assert that Hitler faked his death and lived for a number of years in South America.The Allied Control Council officially dissolved the NSDAP on 10 October 1945, marking the end of "Old" Nazism. A process of denazification began, and the Nuremberg trials took place, where many major leaders and ideologues were condemned to death by October 1946, others committed suicide.
File:Otto Ernst Remer portrait.JPG|thumb|upright=.8|Otto Ernst Remer, Wehrmacht general and leader of the postwar Socialist Reich Party
In both the East and West, surviving ex-party members and military veterans assimilated to the new reality and had no interest in constructing a "neo-Nazism". However, during the 1949 West German elections a number of Nazi advocates such as Fritz Rössler had infiltrated the national conservative Deutsche Rechtspartei, which had five members elected. Rössler and others left to found the more radical Socialist Reich Party under Otto Ernst Remer. At the onset of the Cold War, the SRP favoured the Soviet Union over the United States.
In Austria, national independence had been restored, and the Verbotsgesetz 1947 explicitly criminalised the NSDAP and any attempt at restoration. West Germany adopted a similar law to target parties it defined as anti-constitutional; Article 21 Paragraph 2 in the Basic Law, banning the SRP in 1952 for being opposed to liberal democracy.
As a consequence, some members of the nascent movement of German neo-Nazism joined the Deutsche Reichspartei of which Hans-Ulrich Rudel was the most prominent figure. Younger members founded the Wiking-Jugend modelled after the Hitler Youth. The Deutsche Reichspartei stood for elections from 1953 until 1961 fetching around 1% of the vote each time. Rudel befriended French-born Savitri Devi, who was a proponent of Esoteric Nazism. In the 1950s she wrote a number of books, such as Pilgrimage, which concerns prominent Third Reich sites, and The Lightning and the Sun, in which she claims that Hitler was an avatar of the God Vishnu. She was not alone in this reorientation of Nazism towards its Thulean-roots; the Artgemeinschaft, founded by former SS member Wilhelm Kusserow, attempted to promote a new paganism.
In the German Democratic Republic a former member of SA, Wilhelm Adam, founded the National Democratic Party of Germany. It reached out to those attracted by the Nazi Party before 1945 and provide them with a political outlet, so that they would not be tempted to support the far-right again or turn to the anti-communist Western Allies. Joseph Stalin wanted to use them to create a new pro-Soviet and anti-Western strain in German politics. According to top Soviet diplomat Vladimir Semyonov, Stalin even suggested that they could be allowed to continue publishing their own newspaper, Völkischer Beobachter. While in Austria, former SS member Wilhelm Lang founded an esoteric group known as the Vienna Lodge; he popularised Nazism and occultism such as the Black Sun and ideas of Third Reich survival colonies below the polar ice caps.
File:Otto Strasser crop2.jpg|thumb|Otto Strasser, leader of the German Social Union, returned from exile to Germany in the mid-1950s.
With the onset of the Cold War, the allied forces had lost interest in prosecuting anyone as part of the denazification. In the mid-1950s this new political environment allowed Otto Strasser, an NS activist on the left of the NSDAP, who had founded the Black Front to return from exile. In 1956, Strasser founded the German Social Union as a Black Front successor, promoting a Strasserite "nationalist and socialist" policy, which dissolved in 1962 due to lack of support. Other Third Reich associated groups were the HIAG and Stille Hilfe dedicated to advancing the interests of Waffen-SS veterans and rehabilitating them into the new democratic society. However, they did not claim to be attempting to restore Nazism, instead functioning as lobbying organizations for their members before the government and the two main political parties
Many bureaucrats who served under the Third Reich continued to serve in German administration after the war. According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, many of the more than 90,000 Nazi war criminals recorded in German files were serving in positions of prominence under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. Not until the 1960s were the former concentration camp personnel prosecuted by West Germany in the Belzec trial, Frankfurt Auschwitz trials, Treblinka trials, Chełmno trials, and the Sobibór trial. However, the government had passed laws prohibiting Nazis from publicly expressing their beliefs.
"Universal National Socialism" (1950s–1970s)
Neo-Nazism found expression outside of Germany, including in countries who fought against the Third Reich during the Second World War, and sometimes adopted pan-European or "universal" characteristics, beyond the parameters of German nationalism. The two main tendencies, with differing styles and even worldviews, were the followers of the American Francis Parker Yockey, who was fundamentally anti-American and advocated for a pan-European nationalism, and those of George Lincoln Rockwell, an American conservative.Yockey, a neo-Spenglerian author, had written Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics dedicated to "the hero of the twentieth century" and founded the European Liberation Front. He was interested more in the destiny of Europe; to this end, he advocated a National Bolshevik-esque red-brown alliance against American culture and influenced 1960s figures such as SS-veteran Jean-François Thiriart. Yockey was also fond of Arab nationalism, in particular Gamal Abdel Nasser, and saw Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution as a positive, visiting officials there. Yockey's views impressed Otto Ernst Remer and the radical traditionalist philosopher Julius Evola. He was constantly hounded by the FBI and was eventually arrested in 1960, before committing suicide. Domestically, Yockey's biggest sympathisers were the National Renaissance Party, including James H. Madole, H. Keith Thompson and Eustace Mullins and the Liberty Lobby of Willis Carto.
Rockwell, an American conservative, was first politicised in the anti-communism and anti-racial integration movements before becoming anti-Jewish. In response to his opponents calling him a "Nazi", he theatrically appropriated the aesthetic elements of the NSDAP, to "own" the intended insult. In 1959, Rockwell founded the American Nazi Party and instructed his members to dress in imitation SA-style brown shirts, while flying the flag of the Third Reich. In contrast to Yockey, he was pro-American and cooperated with FBI requests, despite the party being targeted by COINTELPRO due to the mistaken belief that they were agents of Nasser's Egypt during a brief intelligence "brown scare". Later leaders of American white nationalism came to politics through the ANP, including a teenage David Duke and William Luther Pierce of the National Alliance, although they soon distanced themselves from explicit self-identification with neo-Nazism.
In 1961, the World Union of National Socialists was founded by Rockwell and Colin Jordan of the British National Socialist Movement, adopting the Cotswold Declaration. French socialite Françoise Dior was involved romantically with Jordan and his deputy John Tyndall and a friend of Savitri Devi, who also attended the meeting. The National Socialist Movement wore quasi-SA uniforms, was involved in streets conflicts with the Jewish 62 Group. In the 1970s, Tyndall's earlier involvement with neo-Nazism would come back to haunt the National Front, which he led, as they attempted to ride a wave of anti-immigration populism and concerns over British national decline. Televised exposes on This Week in 1974 and World in Action in 1978, showed their neo-Nazi pedigree and damaged their electoral chances. In 1967, Rockwell was killed by a disgruntled former member. Matt Koehl took control of the ANP, and strongly influenced by Savitri Devi, gradually transformed it into an esoteric group known as the New Order.
In Franco's Spain, certain SS refugees most notably Otto Skorzeny, Léon Degrelle and the son of Klaus Barbie became associated with CEDADE, an organisation which disseminated Third Reich apologetics out of Barcelona. They intersected with neo-Nazi advocates from Mark Fredriksen in France to Salvador Borrego in Mexico.
In the post-fascist Italian Social Movement splinter groups such as Ordine Nuovo and Avanguardia Nazionale, involved in the "Years of Lead" considered Nazism a reference. Franco Freda created a "Nazi-Maoism" synthesis.
In Germany itself, the various Third Reich nostalgic movements coalesced around the National Democratic Party of Germany in 1964 and in Austria the National Democratic Party in 1967 as the primary sympathisers of the NSDAP past, although more publicly cautious than earlier groups.