After all, direct-action militants and voters go together: as Karl Richter put it in 2011, they make up ‘two edges of the same sword, both fighting for the Volk ’ in the movement of ‘national resistance’ ( Verfassungsschutzbericht 2011, 89). At this level, the actions of militants can be felt - in threats of vandalism and arson. In some communities, the NPD may rely on a steady 20% of the votes (Brandstetter 2012, 9). On the communal level, it can be a factor indeed. The NPD has gained around 350 mandates in county elections, receiving - twice running - the 5% of votes in Mecklenburg- Vorpommern and Sachsen needed to take a place in the Landtag. It did not garner more than 1.3%-1.5% of the vote in the 20 federal elections (around 560,000 individual votes), and has only around 6,000 formally registered members.Ħ These poor returns disguise the party’s substantial local presence, however. Nonetheless, the party has - like similar parties in other countries - increasingly moved towards parliamentary respectability. The NPD has, in fact, continued to acknowledge and collaborate (to some extent) with local, loosely organised hooligan forces such as Freie Kameradschaften and Freie Kräfte ( Verfassungsschutzbericht 2012, 93). 1ĥ This German party - like extremists elsewhere - has had to tread a thin line between attracting loosely organised, violence-prone militants, and the more respectable voters from whom the pary gains a parliamentary presence. This, of course, has changed in subsequent years but in the early ‘teens, the NPD did command some ideological centrality. Nor did Germany - in contrast to neighbouring countries such as Holland, Austria, Denmark, and Switzerland - produce a major right-wing populist party systematically willing to tap the vote potential of xenophobia. One-time competitors had either declined into political insignificance (e.g., the so-called Republikaner) or been subsumed into the NPD (Deutsche Volksunion). The NPD was, during these years - and despite its small size - preeminent on the German far right. The far-right party Alternative für Deut (.)Ĥ Our case history is the media of the National-Democratic Party of Germany (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands, or NPD), with an emphasis on the years 2010–2013.
These narratives and visuals, together with the triggers themselves, help reinforce the environmentalist slant held, by those same media, such that it becomes integral to the central neo-Nazi message of racist xenophobia. The resultant actions are re-presented, with appropriate tone, narrative, and visuals, in the neo-Nazis’ media. These promote a variety of reader roles: whether you are a concerned consumer, back-to-earth gardener, worried parent, animal-lover, or anti-globalisation activist, you can be included in the right-wing environmentalist coalition. Their triggers range from suggestions for everyday practices to political action and drawn-out descriptions of ritualised group performances. Both frames are combined in a narrative of ‘irreparability’, effectively linking the visuals and narratives of militant xenophobia to biocentric environmentalism.ģ We are equally interested in how the neo-Nazi media seek to trigger environmentalist action. Nostalgia imbues neo-Nazi visions of what must be protected. Fear concerns threats to the German people, and the need for militant action against its enemies. The first is the frame of fear and anger the second, that of nostalgia and love. We are particularly interested in two emotional media frames.
In this chapter, we will look at how neo-Nazi websites and print media wed the slogans, symbols, visuals, and narratives of the radical patriot to those of the home-land-loving environmentalist, and how this combination results in a surprisingly coherent set of complementary media messages (or media ‘frame’).Ģ We are interested in the symbols, slogans, narratives, and visuals used to package the combined environmentalist/right-wing extremist message. Indeed, environmentalism and militant xenophobia seem oddly compatible.
Neo-Nazi politicians espouse many standard environmentalist planks neo-Nazi websites condemn pollution neo-Nazi youth spend time cleaning parks. Is one to imagine skinheads biking, in formation, bringing their milk-cartons to recycling centres? Well, no, not exactly: but many neo-Nazi parties have an environmentalist side to their party platforms. 1 The idea of an ecologist neo-Nazi seems, at first, ridiculous.
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