Nationalist Front

Nationalistische Front (Nationalist Front) was a minor German neo-Nazi group active during the 1980s.

Founded in 1985 by Meinolf Schönborn the group, which had no more than 150 members, was characterized by its support for Strasserism rather than more usual forms of Nazism.^[1] The Nationalist Front - League of Social Revolutionary Nationalists had been formed in 1982 from the ashes of the banned Volkssozialistische Bewegung Deutschlands/Partei der Arbeit. This organisation was the basis for a merger with a number of smaller groups to from a new NF. ^[2]

Based primarily in Bielefeld, the group had a largely Pagan membership, hosting fire rituals and similar ceremonies. The group also performed cross burnings and forged links with Dennis Mahon, the head of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Tulsa, Oklahoma. ^[3]

The group also became noted for its armed wing, the National Task Force (Nationales Einsatzkommando - NEK) ^[4] which was set up in 1991 with the help of Otto Ernst Remer and Herbert Schweiger. This group was blamed on a number of attacks, including burning a man to death in the mistaken belief that he was a Jew and the arson of an asylum seeker hostel in Dolgenbrodt, near Berlin. ^[5] Firmly anti-Semitic, the NF was also associated with Jürgen Rieger, the well-known German Holocaust denier who was a speaker at a number of its events ^[6].

Its support for the Nazis led to the group being banned by the Federal Ministry of the Interior in 1992 along with the German Alternative of Michael Kühnen and the National Offensive of Michael Swierczek.^[7] The group was succeeded by a number of organisations including Direct Action Middle Germany and the Social Revolutionary Workers Front, all of which were banned.

References

1. ^ C. T. Husbands, 'Militant Neo-Nazism in Germany', L. Cheles, R. Ferguson & M. Vaughan (eds.), The Far Right in Western & Eastern Europe, London: Longman, 1995, p. 337
2. ^ C.T. Husbands, 'Militant Neo-Nazism in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1980', L. Cheles, R. Ferguson & M. Vaughan (eds.), Neo-Fascism in Europe, London: Longman, 1991, p. 99
3. ^ M.A. Lee, The Beast Reawakens, p. 336
4. ^ 'Double-radicalization of RWE from the late 1980s and the role of Holocaust denial'
5. ^ M.A. Lee, The Beast Reawakens, pp. 336-7
6. ^ 'Frankenstein meets Dr. Mengele in London' Searchlight magazine article
7. ^ C. T. Husbands, 'Militant Neo-Nazism in Germany', L. Cheles, R. Ferguson & M. Vaughan (eds.), The Far Right in Western & Eastern Europe, London: Longman, 1995, p. 337