The Stahlhelm - Kampfbund for Europe

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The Stahlhelm e. V. - Kampfbund für Europa was a right-wing extremist association which saw itself as the successor to the anti-democratic Veteranenbund Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten from Weimar times and wanted to tie in with its nationalist and militaristic tradition.

history

In 1951 the “Stahlhelm” was re-established in Cologne as a registered association . The former Field Marshal Albert Kesselring , who also became the first chairman of the association, was involved in the establishment. The association initially called itself “Der Stahlhelm e. V. - Bund der Frontsoldaten - Kampfbund für Europa ”. The name refers to the original, from 1918 to 1935, existing anti-republican veterans and military association Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten , which became part of the SA from 1933 .

At the beginning they tried to come to terms with politics. At the beginning of the Cold War , for example, they showed solidarity with Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and promised their support in taking action against communist forces. In particular, members of the CDU and FDP were very impressed by the association. The FDP - member of the state parliament Lothar Steuer spoke at a meeting in Recklinghausen , the CDU - member of the Bundestag Pascual Jordan and the Saarland Minister-President Franz-Josef Röder praised the work of the association.

At the end of the 1950s, however, the association began to organize paramilitary and frightened many patrons and advocates. Many meetings were banned because the members wore uniforms. In 1960 Curt Barth took over the federal leadership who tried to counteract the bans and come to terms with the government. The steel helmet even joined the Association of German Soldiers (VdS) in the 1960s . In the 1960s and 1970s, however, the club had to contend with an immense decline in membership.

On February 28, 1966, the local group in Bad Bergzabern ( Rhineland-Palatinate ) was banned by Interior Minister Peter Altmeier because it "is directed against the constitutional order and the idea of ​​international understanding". The group was only in January 1966 under the leadership of a Bundeswehr - sergeant emerged. At their meetings, in which several Bundeswehr soldiers took part, " National Socialism was portrayed as a great historical act", the resistance fighters of July 20, 1944 were described as cowards and the principle of the Führer was emphasized.

Barth changed his course because of the loss of members and the "Stahlhelm" began to work together with the network of the Deutsche National-Zeitung . In the 1970s, the association therefore made contact with the DVU , NPD and their youth organization Junge Nationalisten . Multiple memberships were not uncommon. Contacts were also made with the right-wing extremist, terrorist environment. Among others, Klaus Kämper from the Working Group of Natural Religious Tribal Associations (ANSE) and Stefan Bliesner , a former member of the FAP , were members of the Stahlhelm. Joint actions with the Wiking youth and groups around Manfred Roeder were held. In 1973 the "Bund der Frontsoldaten" was deleted from his name. In the 1980s, several members of the banned military sports group Hoffmann joined the club. In 1983 the association was granted non-profit status.

In 1983, in Jork near Stade in Lower Saxony, the “Jork Local Group” was founded. From this local group in 1997 the "Lower Saxony State Association" emerged. The central training center was also located here. It was named after Franz Seldte , the founder of the "Stahlhelm" and the later Nazi Reich Minister of Labor .

In November 1997 the “Stahlhelm” founded a national association in Flanders , Belgium. The "helmet" was in this Annual Report of the State of Lower Saxony mentioned for the year 1998th In March 1998, the police in Rhineland-Palatinate discovered extensive arsenals in right-wing circles. During house searches , several machine guns , mines, explosive devices , rifles , ammunition and a tank shell , which were assigned to members of the Stahlhelm, among others, were seized.

The number of German Stahlhelm members was given in 1999 by the Federal Ministry of the Interior as over 100. The Belgian "National Association of Flanders" therefore has a dozen members. In southern Germany there are close relationships with the NPD and in northern Germany with the species community - Germanic faith community . In the Palatinate, Elfrun von Hain was a member of both the Stahlhelm and the Armanen Order . The steel helmet took part in various right-wing extremist demonstrations in the 1990s, including against the Wehrmacht exhibition .

The club began to disintegrate in the early 2000s. The Jork branch had disbanded itself on June 12, 2000. With that the club lost its training center. The federal chairman Günter Druckhammer , who headed the association for years, was in charge . The background was negative press reports about the demonstrations against the Wehrmacht exhibition and the weapons finds, as well as the initiation of investigations against various members of the association. In March 2002 the Landesverband Pfalz was dissolved and the entry in the register of associations was deleted. However, this did not mean the dissolution of the organization. Rather, the remaining members continued under new management, initially as the “Military History Association Palatinate - Stahlhelm 1918” and later as “The Steel Helmet - Association of Frontline Soldiers - Landesverband Pfalz”. In the last few years the association has completely lost its importance. There are only a few internal meetings, so-called appeals , taking place. In 2010, a multi-day meeting of the “Interest Group Drive and Camp” of the Young National Democrats was to take place in the former clubhouse of the Landesverband Pfalz near Altenglan , but this was stopped by the police.

Publications

The central organ, the steel helmet, was one of the main activities of the association. Among other things, the CDU MP Ernst Pascual Jordan (1902–1980) wrote in it.

Ideology and goals

Right-wing extremism expert Hans-Gerd Jeschke called the association in 1984 an "insignificant, completely outdated [e] right-wing extremist denominational community [...] whose existence should, however, serve as a model for militant right-wing extremism." The ideology is of "nationalistic-folkish, anti-Semitic and revisionist ideas ”. The primary goal is the restoration of the so-called Greater German Reich . In addition, Germany's war guilt for the First and Second World War is denied. A cult around the National Socialist politician Rudolf Hess is also part of the ideology. The Holocaust is also denied and a historical revisionist worldview is represented. The group directs its activities primarily inward and avails itself of “soldier-comradely cultivation of customs, militaristic and war-glorifying actions and [advocates] German soldierhood.” In later years one tried also in the turn to more contemporary right-wing extremist forms and propagated a so-called “ Europe of the Fatherlands ”, albeit with Germany as the hegemonic power. The association organized military sports exercises, bivouacs , formal services and performance marches . He awarded his own badge, the "Stahlhelm-Wehrsportkreuz". For some time now, the association has not appeared externally and only uses internal meetings.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Neo-Fascist »Der Stahlhelm e. V. «has dissolved itself! VVN-BdA Stade 2003. From Stade-VVN-BdA.de, accessed on October 19, 2019.
  2. ^ A b Hans-Gerd Jaschke : Origin and development of right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic: On the tradition of a particular political culture, Volume 1 . Westdeutscher Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-322-99709-8 , pp. 116 ff .
  3. ^ Prohibition of associations; here: Local group Bad Bergzabern (Rhineland-Palatinate) of Stahlhelm e. V. - Union of Front Soldiers -. Decree of state law NRW. In: Announcement of the Minister of the Interior of December 20, 1966 - IV A3-222. Recht.NRW.de; accessed on January 23, 2017.
  4. ↑ Hans-Gerd Jaschke : Origin and development of right-wing extremism in the Federal Republic: On the tradition of a special political culture . tape 1 . Westdeutscher Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-322-99709-8 , pp. 123 .
  5. ^ A b Thomas Grumke , Bernd Wagner (ed.): Handbook right-wing radicalism : People - Organizations - Networks from neo-Nazism to the middle of society . Westdeutscher Verlag, 1984, ISBN 978-3-531-11668-6 , pp. 428 ff .
  6. ↑ a b c d e Small question from the MPs Ulla Jelpke, Petra Pau and the PDS parliamentary group from July 12, 1999. Answer from the Federal Ministry of the Interior dated August 6, 1999 . In: BT-Drucksache 14/1446 . 1999 ( Stade.vvn-bda.de ).
  7. ↑ Circular 11./97 of the regional organization Lower Saxony of the "helmet" of 3 October 1997th
  8. ↑ The right margin. In: Circular 1/2000. February 2000. VVN-BdA Kaiserslautern. From VVN-BdA.KL.de, accessed on October 19, 2019.
  9. ^ A b Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Ministry of the Interior, State Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Ed.): Right-wing extremism in key words: ideologies - organizations - activities . June 2001, p. 27 ( Hamburg.de [PDF; 2.5 MB ]).
  10. ^ Ministry of the Interior and for Sport Rhineland-Palatinate (ed.): Verfassungsschutzbericht 2005 . 2006, ISSN  0948-8723 , p. 42 f . ( Jugend.RLP.de [PDF; 1.5 MB ]). Online at Jugend.RLP.de ( Memento of the original dated December 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.jugend.rlp.de
  11. ↑ Karl Peter Bruch : Answer of the Ministry of the Interior and for Sport to the major inquiry of the SPD faction . Ed .: State Parliament of Rhineland-Palatinate - 15th electoral period (=  printed matter 15/3842 ). October 1, 2009, p. 12 ( Complex-RLP.de [PDF; 205 kB ]). Online at Secure.Komplex-RLP.de ( memento of the original from November 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / secure.komplex-rlp.de
  12. ↑ wop: Police stop right-wing extremists. Big effort yesterday against the planned "turn of the year camp" . In: The Rhine Palatinate . December 28, 2010.
  13. ↑ Hans-Gerd Jacket 1984, p. 121.
  14. ↑ a b quoted from a small question from the MPs Ulla Jelpke, Petra Pau and the PDS parliamentary group of July 12, 1999. Answer from the Federal Ministry of the Interior dated August 6, 1999 . In: BT-Drucksache 14/1446 . 1999 ( stade.vvn-bda.de ).