Nationalist Front

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The Nationalist Front (NF) was a German right-wing extremist party founded in 1985 , which was banned as an unconstitutional organization in 1992. The goal was never to be successful in elections, but rather to penetrate youth culture and recruit active cadres to build a national socialism . The Nationalist Front was one of the first right-wing extremist organizations in the Federal Republic to attempt to establish contacts with the GDR skinhead scene and to politicize it in the spirit of National Socialism.

history

After the ban on the People's Socialist Movement in Germany / Labor Party (VSBD) and the imprisonment of Friedhelm Busse in 1982, Busse supporters founded the National Front / Bund Social Revolutionary Nationalists (NF / BSN) as the VSBD successor organization in Munich in September 1983 . In 1984 the NF / BSN was renamed the Nationalist Front .

On November 16, 1985, the NF was constituted in Steinhagen near Bielefeld as a nationwide party. Bernhard Pauli was the founder and first chairman of the party . Pauli was previously a member of the National Democratic University Association , the Solidarist Offensive (SOL) and the VSBD.

After internal disputes at the beginning of 1986 Pauli was replaced as chairman by Meinolf Schönborn , a former Bundeswehr officer who had been expelled from the National Democratic Party of Germany in November 1984 . Schönborn remained chairman of the NF until the ban.

In 1989 the NF had organizational bases in Bielefeld, Munich, Bremen and Berlin . The first contacts to the GDR were made in 1986 at the latest, when the NF magazine wrote about the close contacts to Oranienburg. After the political change, NF bases were established in Oranienburg , Eberswalde and Königs Wusterhausen , all of them small towns in the Berlin area. The national revolutionary and anti-capitalist variant of right-wing extremism propagated by the NF fell on fertile ground, especially in the GDR, where the center of the party quickly shifted after the fall of the Wall.

Even when the party was founded, the structure of the party was based on training individual cadres and guiding these clandestine groups. After the political change in the GDR, the Nationalist Front used its already established contacts in the GDR skinhead scene, brought its activists to training in West Germany, whereupon they returned a few months later and built right-wing extremist groups in the GDR.

Basically, the NF did not attach any importance to elections and so in its history only stood in three elections, two of which were local elections: the 1991 elections in Bremen (0.03%), the 1992 local elections in Berlin (0.31%) and the District elections in Kelheim 1992 (1.29%).

In 1992 there were serious internal conflicts, which were sparked by the question of the formation of so-called National Action Commands (NEK), which were closely based on the Freikorps of the Weimar period . There was a split into two wings. The opponents around Andreas Pohl (former drummer for Kraft durch Froide ) organized an extraordinary party congress on August 8, 1992 in Kremmen in the Berlin area, at which Pohl was proclaimed chairman. Meinolf Schönborn took legal action against this putsch. In court he was granted the right to continue running the NF. As a result, Pohl and his followers left the NF and founded the Social Revolutionary Workers' Front (SrA).

On November 27, 1992, the NF was banned by the Interior Minister at the time, Rudolf Seiters ( CDU ), because of its " affinity with National Socialism " and its " aggressive and combative " agitation. At the time of the ban, the NF had local groups in Detmold , Bremen and Braunschweig .

Content profile

The NF program was based on the ideas of the brothers Gregor and Otto Strasser . The party saw itself as part of a "worldwide movement of social revolutionary liberation nationalism" . Anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist propaganda against “the bigwigs” as well as against capitalist and communist systems were part of the national revolutionary demagogy. Since Germany is “subject to foreign decision-making power in its people's fate” , so a demand of the NF Ten Point Program, “for the peaceful future of Germany the anti-imperialist national liberation from foreign power and its German henchmen” would be necessary.

The ideological core of the NF formed xenophobia and anti-Semitism , based on ethnic - racist ideas. The NF ten-point program demanded: “ Commitment to the preservation of the people's identity, the values ​​of life and the character of the German nation, an emphatic fight against the system of national self-dissolution, against further foreign immigration and for the repatriation of foreigners. This struggle is at the same time a commitment for the self-realization of the German people in their own people's area as well as a commitment for the self-realization of the foreigners whose identity is threatened. "

Further demands were about the " breaking of interest bondage " (according to Gottfried Feder ) or the establishment of a "solidary national community" .

organization

According to its self-image, the NF was an “ideologically closed cadre party ” . Potential applicants were carefully examined before they had to complete a six-month probationary period, which included a compulsory basic seminar. Further training and further education meetings followed afterwards.

According to their own statements, the party structure followed the “principle of democratic centralism” . In this "strict hierarchy of command" the guidelines were given by the organization management. The center of the party was in Bielefeld. One level below was the division manager , below that the local group leader . The bottom step was the base . Geographically, the NF was divided into the areas north , south and center . In purely formal terms, there was also an east area , which combined the areas beyond the Oder-Neisse line .

From 1985 to 1987 the NF published the publication Klartext nationwide , which was a youth magazine for the Young National Democrats from 1981 to 1985 . From 1988 to 1990 the NF published news from the scene that led to the 1991 revolt . From 1989 until the ban, the Aufbruch appeared as an internal circular every six weeks . In addition, there were numerous regional publications by the NF local groups such as Wille und Weg (West Berlin), Kelheimer Observer , Volkskampf or Hetzer .

For young people from the age of 14 there was the NF apron organization Jungsturm Germany , which was later not affected by the ban. Even the Förderkreis Junge Deutschland , which was founded by Schönborn during his time with the National Democrats and later acted as a catchment basin for NF sympathizers, was not affected by the NF ban.

financing

Part of the NF's financing came from the proceeds of the Klartext Verlag , managed by Schönborn . The publisher sold newspapers, training materials, stickers, badges, T-shirts and music CDs. The publishing house and the NF training center were located in a house bought by Schönborn in 1986 in Bleichstrasse in Bielefeld. In 1989 the NF bought another house in Detmold-Pivitsheide. In 1991 the house in Bielefeld was given up and Detmold became the main center of the NF including the publishing house.

Political activities

Central activities were the member training courses , which took place in our own training centers or in cooperation with other right-wing extremist organizations such as the Artgemeinschaft - Germanic Faith Community for a way of life in keeping with the nature .

The NF activists participated in various demonstrations and marches, so as to Rudolf Hess memorial marches or events hero commemoration for fallen members of the SS. In 1991 the NF was the initiator of a campaign “End the Holocaust” . The military sports camps that have taken place annually since 1986 were seen as a sign of their supporters' readiness for violence.

The party issued several printed matter aimed at spreading its ideology mainly among young people. This included the party newspaper Klartext , the fanzine news from the scene , and the magazine Revolte - newspaper of the nationalist movement.

In December 1988 NF member Josef Saller carried out an arson attack on a house in Schwandorf , where mostly foreigners lived. Four people, Osman Can (49), Fatma Can (43), Mehmet Can (11) and Jürgen Hübener (47), were burned or suffocated.

The NF as an object of secret service activities

Like other right-wing extremist organizations, the NF was the target of intelligence surveillance. From 1983 to 1985 Norbert Schnelle worked as an undercover agent for the North Rhine-Westphalian State Office for the Protection of the Constitution . He was initially a member of the Young National Democrats around Meinolf Schönborn and later joined the NF with him. Schnell was involved in several crimes and warned his comrades against house searches. For his information he received 14,400 DM. The NF was co-financed with this fee.

It was only a few years later that the North Rhine-Westphalian Office for the Protection of the Constitution succeeded in placing another undercover agent near Schönborn. From March 1991 Bernd Schmitt from Solingen was assigned to the NF and its National Task Force (NEK). Schmitt built a paramilitary cadre organization called the German High Performance Martial Arts Association (DHKKV) based on the NEK model . Three of the four perpetrators of the Solingen assassination came from the ranks of the DHKKV .

The Lower Saxony State Office for the Protection of the Constitution also installed an undercover agent in the NF in 1992. From April 1992, the then unemployed former skinhead Michael Wobbe , who had actually turned away from the right-wing extremist scene, was assigned to Schönborn and the NF. Within a few weeks, the undercover agent became the NF's head of security . The undercover agent was still active after the NF was banned, reported on Schönborn's underground activities and, on behalf of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, acted as a travel cadre to set up other groups and collect donations. Allegedly he collected about 60,000 DM. For his activities within the NF he initially received 300 DM - later 700 DM per month plus bonuses and expenses, which occasionally amounted to up to 5,000 DM per month. The undercover agent was released in September 1993. In a 1996 interview he himself admitted that without his activities various crimes would not have been committed.

In 1989, the Military Shield Service (MAD) smuggled an undercover agent into Schönborn's NF. The soldier Michael P. was supposed to report on possible planned attacks by the NF on barracks of the Bundeswehr and the Allies. The undercover agent quickly found Schönborn's trust and supplied the NF with the latest military maps as well as several dozen beds from Bundeswehr stocks for the NF training center. Through the MAD, the NF also received training material for engineer units as well as relevant regulations for blasting training. When the undercover agent was to begin military training in the Middle East on behalf of Schönborn, he quit. In February 1990, the Bundeswehr soldier was transferred to Canada and later to the USA . In 2002 he was granted asylum in the USA because his safety in Germany could not be guaranteed.

Known members

Web links

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Ralph Gabriel. Ingo Grastorf, Tanja Lakeit, Lisa Wandt, David Weyand: Futur Exakt - youth culture in Oranienburg between right-wing extremist violence and democratic engagement . In: Hajo Funke (ed.): Series of publications on politics and culture . tape 6 . Verlag Hans Schiler, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-89930-074-2 , p. 74 ff .
  2. ^ Richard Stöss, Die extreme right in the Federal Republic , Westdeutscher Verlag 1989, p. 162
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Purtscheller, Aufbruch der Völkischen: das brown Netzwerk , Picus Verlag 1993, p. 305
  4. ^ Richard Stöss, Die extreme right in the Federal Republic , Westdeutscher Verlag 1989, p. 162
  5. ↑ Wolfgang Benz, Right-Wing Extremism in the Federal Republic , Fischer Verlag 1992, p. 312
  6. ^ Report of the arson attack ( Memento of October 6, 2002 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ^ Commemoration of Osman, Fatma Can, Mehmet and Jürgen ( Memento of May 23, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) publikative.org of December 18, 2011
  8. ↑ Ralf Gössner, Geheime Informanten , Knaur 2003, p. 145
  9. ↑ Ralf Gössner, Geheime Informanten , Knaur 2003, p. 88
  10. ^ Frank Neubacher, Xenophobic Arson attacks: a criminological-empirical study of perpetrators, the background of the crime and judicial processing in juvenile criminal proceedings , Forum-Verlag Godesberg 1998, p. 51
  11. ^ Rehkopfs Reisen , Der Spiegel 13/1996 of March 25, 1996, page 65f
  12. ↑ Ralf Gössner, Geheime Informanten , Knaur 2003, p. 151f
  13. ↑ Jochen Bittner, The Spy Who Went into the Cold , Die Zeit 20/2002, May 8, 2002 online .
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