Telegraph blogger Harry de Quetteville’s post on Holocaust denier Sylvia Stolz’s conviction this week gives the impression that German Neo-Nazis are not on the same level as the ‘real things’. He thinks
The behaviour of these Neo-Nazis – signed up to groups with names like Blood and Honour, Hammerskins, and Aryan White Pride – may be inexcusable, but there seems little denying that they flourish where they do because it's from there that both the jobs and the young women have fled … When I met members of Germany's far-right NPD party last year, they mostly banged on about economic issues, and moaned about immigrants.
Of course they did. But they do that precisely to give a better image of their faction to the public and portray themselves as a mainstream party focussed on normal grievances. As the Guardian reported in an in-depth expose of the BNP a year or so ago:
BNP activists are also now discouraged from using any racist or anti-semitic language in public, in order to avoid possible prosecution. In a BNP rulebook, issued only to activists and organisers, they are instructed that they should avoid acting in a way which fits stereotypes of the far right, and "act only in a way that reflects credit on the Party".
It’s just a front – there’s not much difference in truth.
PS Check out the comments at the bottom of Quetteville’s post. Some tasty rubbish flying around there.
Cherwell 24 is not responsible for the content of external links
