Ku Klux Klan West Germany

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The Ku Klux Klan West Germany was a short - lived right - wing extremist and neo-Nazi organization in the Federal Republic of Germany . It was the first offshoot of the US Ku Klux Klan in Germany.

history

At the end of the 1970s / beginning of the 1980s, a number of violent and terrorist right-wing extremist organizations were founded in Germany, including the German Action Group around Manfred Roeder , the National Socialist Action Front around Michael Kühnen and the People's Socialist Movement in Germany . Murry M. Kachel was a sergeant in the US Air Force at the time and founded a German branch of the Ku Klux Klan as the “European Organizer”. From the United States , he imported training and propaganda materials for the clan, including bomb-making instructions. His nickname was "The Exalted Cyclops". Initially only within the US Army, German neo-Nazis began to mingle with the individual Klan members, who came from the Wiking Youth and the NPD , among others . In Mainz, an activist founded an “information office for the Ku Klux Klan Germany”. For German neo-Nazis, among other things, the writings on race theory and the instructions on armed struggle were of interest.

The Klan tried to intimidate mostly African American members of the US Army. There were several cross burns, including at the Bavarian US garrison and near the US airfield in Bitburg . But German locations were also affected, for example in the Carl-Schurz-Kaserne in Bremerhaven . In addition, attacks on African-American and Jewish members of the US armed forces increased in 1980.

Stern journalist Gerhard Kromschröder uncovered the background in an undercover story and made the establishment of the first Ku Klux Klan on German soil public. The Ku Klux Klan was then the subject of a request to the German Bundestag . However, the problem was largely ignored, although the security authorities were aware that two offshoots of the clan, which also included German citizens, had been founded on Rhineland-Palatinate soil. The Ministry of the Interior of Rhineland-Palatinate imposed a blackout and the organization of the US armed forces was initially silent. Further attacks became known, for example two US soldiers were poisoned with strychnine . A total of about 30 soldiers were monitored. Tile was moved back to the United States. When exactly the Ku Klux Klan broke up is unclear. Some sources speak of 1991, but 1981 is more likely.

literature

  • Gerhard Kromschröder : Views from the inside: traveling as a Nazi, rocker, shoplifter and staunch Catholic . Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn Verlag 1982. ISBN 3-8218-1102-1
  • Barbara Manthe: German American Friendship . In: The Right Edge . No. 159 (March / April), 2016, pp. 14/15 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Barbara Manthe: German American friendship . In: The Right Edge . No. 159 (March / April), 2016, pp. 14/15 .
  2. ^ German Bundestag. 9th electoral term: Printed matter 9/635 of July 3, 1981: Written questions with the answers of the Federal Government received in the week of June 29, 1981