Sven Thomas Frank

Sven Thomas Frank (* 1943 in Plauen , pseudonym Alexander Epstein) is a German journalist and is considered to be one of the leading figures and founder of a new right in the 1970s.

Life

In the 1950s, Sven Thomas Frank and his parents moved from the GDR to the West. He began studying political science and intellectual history in Erlangen and was a student and employee of Hans-Joachim Schoeps . In 1964 he moved to Berlin to the Free University, where he worked as a doctoral student on his dissertation "Erik Reger and Der Tagesspiegel 1945 to 1954". Among other things, in 1969 he was responsible for the editorial correspondence of the Journal for Religious and Spiritual History (ZRGG) published by Schoeps . Frank is still a member of the Society for Intellectual History founded by Schoeps .

Political activity

After moving from Erlangen to Berlin, Frank founded the Youth Initiative (IDJ) at the end of 1964 , which advocated an offensive anti-Soviet Ostpolitik of the federal government and recruited members under the slogan "German neutrality - unity and freedom for the nation". The student members of the IDJ participated in the university working group Indivisible Germany (HUD). At the beginning of 1969 the IDJ merged with the Extra-Parliamentary Cooperation (APM) founded the year before , which initially functioned as a youth group of the Democratic Club initiated by West Berlin SPD and CDU politicians and directed against the APO . Under the leadership of Frank, who became the “chief ideologist of the national revolutionaries”, the APM radicalized itself, so that at the end of 1970 it broke with the Democratic Club . In the early 1970s, the APM became an important organizational center for the emerging New Right in Germany.

Frank also became a member of the right-wing extremist Ostpolitischen Deutschen Studentenverband (ODS), which published the student magazine actio . In 1970 he worked there with Henning Eichberg in the editorial collective.

In 1970, Frank initiated a temporary merger of APM, ODS and the Bund Heimattreuer Jugend (BHJ), which tried to blow up SPD events, under the name National Revolutionary Youth of Berlin .

In 1970 and 1971 Frank wrote various articles under his real name and under the pseudonym Alexander Epstein in the magazine Junge Forum , founded by the Bund Nationaler Studenten in 1964 , which established itself in Germany as the first independent theoretical organ of the New Right , for example in issue 6 (1971) an essay "On the strategy and tactics of the national revolutionary struggle".

In 1972 Frank and his APM joined the Aktion Neuerechte (ANR). During the disintegration of the ANR in August 1974, Frank transferred the APM to the organization Cause of the People / National Revolutionary Organization (SdV / NRAO) led by Eichberg . In addition to Eichberg, he was one of the leading figures there and, in the 1980s, a member of the editorial team of the magazine Neue Zeit , the central newspaper of the SdV.

Frank ran for the Republicans party in the 1990 federal elections and became its Berlin state manager. In the 1998 federal elections, Frank was the top candidate for The Republicans in Berlin and ran as a direct candidate for the Steglitz / Zehlendorf constituency.

From 1990 to 1992 Frank was a member of the editorial team of Junge Freiheit . He has also been a partner in Junge Freiheit Verlag GmbH since 1990 and since 1995 an eight percent shareholder in Junge Freiheit Verwaltungs- und Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH in Potsdam and thus co-editor of the weekly newspaper.

Publications

• August 13, 1961: Prehistory, political-diplomatic course and lessons for the present. Young Forum No. 3/4 1970

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Hans-Gerd Jaschke, Klaus Schönekäs, New Rights and Right-Wing Extremism in Europe , Springer Verlag 1990, p. 318
2. ↑ ^{a b} Editorial: In this issue , in: The Month, March 1968, p. 2
3. ^ ^{A b} Margret Feit, The "New Rights" in the Federal Republic , Campus Verlag 1987, p. 191
4. ↑ VI. HA, Nl Dovifat, E., No. 437, correspondence in the Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage, June 1969
5. ^ Gideon Botsch, Joachim H. Knoll, Anna-Dorothea Ludewig, Against the Zeitgeist: Studies on the life and work of Hans-Joachim Schoeps (1909-1980) , p. 278
6. ↑ Activity report Gesellschaft für Geistesgeschichte , 2008, p. 80
7. ↑ ^{a b c} Hans-Gerd Jaschke, Klaus Schönekäs, New Rights and Right-Wing Extremism in Europe , Springer Verlag 1990, p. 241
8. ↑ Richard Stöss, Fathers and Grandchildren: Old and New Nationalism in the Federal Republic , in: Aesthetics and Communication, Vol. 9, Issue 32, 1978, p. 49
9. ↑ Karl-Heinz Pröhuber, The national revolutionary movement in West Germany , Verlag Deutsch-Europäische Studien 1980, p. 25
10. ↑ Jan Peters, Nationaler "Sozialismus" from the right , Guhl Verlag 1980, p. 48
11. ↑ Nicolaus Neumann, Jochen Maes, The planned Putsch: The rights in the FRG, their backers and their organization , Konkret Verlag 1972, p. 74
12. ↑ Peter Dudek, Hans-Gerd Jaschke, Origin and Development of Right-Wing Extremism in the Federal Republic , Westdeutscher Verlag 1984, p. 159
13. ^ Nicolaus Neumann, Jochen Maes, The planned Putsch: The rights in the FRG, their backers and their organization , Konkret Verlag 1972, p. 72
14. ↑ Hans-Gerd Jaschke, Klaus Schönekäs, New Rights and Right-Wing Extremism in Europe , Springer Verlag 1990, p. 240
15. ↑ Heiko Langanke, The extreme right in the Federal Republic: Ideas, Ideologies, Interpretations , Argument Verlag 1996, p. 54
16. ^ Fabian Virchow, Fascist Tatgemeinschaft or ideological cadre forge? System opposition strategies of the West German right after 1969 , In: Massimiliano Livi, Daniel Schmidt, Michael Sturm, The 1970s as a black decade , Campus Verlag 2010, p. 244.
17. ↑ Bernd Holthusen, Michael Jänicke, right-wing extremism in Berlin. Current manifestations, causes, countermeasures , Schüren Verlag 1994, p. 123
18. ^ Richard Faber, Hajo Funke, Gerhard Schoenberner, right-wing extremism: Ideology and violence , Edition Hentrich 1995, p. 166
19. ^ NPD and Reps run for election in Berlin , In: Berliner Zeitung of July 14, 1998
20. ↑ Helmut Kellershohn, Das Plagiat: the völkisch nationalism of the "Junge Freiheit" , DISS 1994, p. 58
21. ^ Frank Böckelmann: Who owns the newspapers? The ownership and ownership structure of daily and weekly newspaper publishers in Germany. UVK Medien 2000, p. 404