Neo-Nazism comprises all social, political, and militant ideologies and movements that have professed or idealized Nazism, whether in whole or in part, since the end of World War II in 1945. Neo-Nazi individuals and organizations employ their ideology to promote what they perceive as the racial or ethnic supremacy (often White supremacy) of their own group; to incite or engage in hatred or discrimination against demographic minorities (often antisemitism and Islamophobia); and, in some cases, to establish a fascist state (, "Fourth Reich").Gay, Kathlyn (1997) Neo-Nazis: A Growing Threat. Enslow. p. 114. . Quote: "Neo-Nazis ... use fear and violence in their efforts to destroy minorities. Their goal is to establish a "superior" society."(emphasis added)Staff (ndg) "Ideologies: Neo Nazi" Southern Poverty Law Center. Quote: "While some neo-Nazi groups emphasize simple hatred, others are more focused on the revolutionary creation of a fascist political state." (emphasis added) Also common in neo-Nazi circles is engagement in historical negationism and propagation of conspiracy theories—not limited to absolving or glorifying the Nazi Party or those who inspired or are thought to have inspired Adolf Hitler and other prominent Nazi figures—such as Holocaust denial and Jewish war; White genocide and Great Replacement; and "cultural" Marxism.
While mainly concentrated in the Western world, neo-Nazism is a global phenomenon and has organized representation in several international networks. However, it is not exclusive to people of European origin—many similar supremacist movements among local racial or ethnic groups in non-Western regions have been observed adhering to tenets of or inspired by neo-Nazi ideology. Much of this manifests in adopting original Nazi ideological doctrine and practices, including racism, ultra-nationalism, ableism, homophobia, and conspiratorial anti-communism, among others.
Neo-Nazis regularly display Nazi symbols and express admiration for the actions of Hitler's Germany before and during World War II. In a number of Western and non-Western countries (and especially in Germany), neo-Nazism is prohibited by laws specifically targeting Nazi ideology, in addition to general laws against hatred and discrimination. Likewise, among these countries, Nazi-related symbols are also banned as part of a long-running effort of de-Nazification that began with the Allies of World War II.*
Definition The term neo-Nazism describes any post–World War II militant, social or political movements seeking to revive the ideology of Nazism in whole or in part.*
Lee, Martin A. 1997. The Beast Reawakens. Boston: Little, Brown and Co, pp. 85–118, 214–34, 277–81, 287–330, 333–78. On Volk concept, and a discussion of ethnonationalist integralism, see pp. 215–18*
The term 'neo-Nazism' can also refer to the ideology of these movements, which may borrow elements from Nazi doctrine, including ultranationalism, anti-communism, racism, ableism, xenophobia, homophobia, antisemitism, up to initiating the Fourth Reich. Holocaust denial is a common feature, as is the incorporation of Nazi symbols and admiration of Adolf Hitler.
Neo-Nazism is considered a particular form of far-right politics and right-wing extremism.What is right-wing extremism? Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, n.d., retrieved 4 December 2017 (in English)
Esotericism
Neo-Nazi writers have posited a spiritual, esoteric doctrine of race, which moves beyond the primarily Darwinian-inspired materialist scientific racism popular mainly in the Anglosphere during the 20th century. Figures influential in the development of neo-Nazi racism, such as Miguel Serrano and Julius Evola (writers who are described by critics of Nazism such as the Southern Poverty Law Center as influential within what it presents as parts of "the bizarre fringes of National Socialism, past and present"), claim that the Hyperborean ancestors of the Aryans were in the distant past, far higher beings than their current state, having suffered from "involution" due to mixing with the "Telluric" peoples; supposed creations of the Demiurge. Within this theory, if the "Aryans" are to return to the Golden Age of the distant past, they need to awaken the memory of the blood. An extraterrestrial origin of the Hyperboreans is often claimed. These theories draw influence from Gnosticism and Tantrism, building on the work of the Ahnenerbe. Within this racist theory, Jews are held up as the antithesis of nobility, purity and beauty.
Ecology and environmentalism Neo-Nazism generally aligns itself with a blood and soil variation of environmentalism, which has themes in common with deep ecology, the organic movement and animal protectionism. This tendency, sometimes called "ecofascism", was represented in the original German Nazism by Richard Walther Darré who was the Reichsminister of Food from 1933 until 1942.
History Germany and Austria (1945–1950s) The final leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) was Martin Bormann, who died on 2 May 1945 during the Battle of Berlin. As his remains were not discovered until 1973, fringe theories claimed that he survived and fled to South America (as did numerous Nazis). Similar theories assert that Hitler faked his death and lived for a number of years in South America.
The Allied Control Council officially dissolved the NSDAP on 10 October 1945, marking the end of "Old" Nazism. A process of denazification began, and the Nuremberg trials took place, where many major leaders and ideologues were condemned to death by October 1946, others committed suicide.
In both the East and West, surviving ex-party members and military veterans assimilated to the new reality and had no interest in constructing a "neo-Nazism". However, during the 1949 West German elections a number of Nazi advocates such as Fritz Rössler had infiltrated the national conservative Deutsche Rechtspartei, which had five members elected. Rössler and others left to found the more radical Socialist Reich Party (SRP) under Otto Ernst Remer. At the onset of the Cold War, the SRP favoured the Soviet Union over the United States.
In Austria, national independence had been restored, and the explicitly criminalised the NSDAP and any attempt at restoration. West Germany adopted a similar law to target parties it defined as anti-constitutional; Article 21 Paragraph 2 in the Basic Law, banning the SRP in 1952 for being opposed to liberal democracy.
As a consequence, some members of the nascent movement of German neo-Nazism joined the of which Hans-Ulrich Rudel was the most prominent figure. Younger members founded the modelled after the Hitler Youth. The stood for elections from 1953 until 1961 fetching around 1% of the vote each time. Rudel befriended French-born Savitri Devi, who was a proponent of Esoteric Nazism. In the 1950s she wrote a number of books, such as Pilgrimage (1958), which concerns prominent Third Reich sites, and The Lightning and the Sun (1958), in which she claims that Hitler was an avatar of the God Vishnu. She was not alone in this reorientation of Nazism towards its Thulean-roots; the , founded by former SS member Wilhelm Kusserow, attempted to promote a new paganism.
In the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) a former member of SA, Wilhelm Adam, founded the National Democratic Party of Germany. It reached out to those attracted by the Nazi Party before 1945 and provide them with a political outlet, so that they would not be tempted to support the far-right again or turn to the anti-communist Western Allies. Joseph Stalin wanted to use them to create a new pro-Soviet and anti-Western strain in German politics. According to top Soviet diplomat Vladimir Semyonov, Stalin even suggested that they could be allowed to continue publishing their own newspaper, Völkischer Beobachter. While in Austria, former SS member Wilhelm Lang founded an esoteric group known as the Vienna Lodge; he popularised Nazism and occultism such as the Black Sun and ideas of Third Reich survival colonies below the polar ice caps.
With the onset of the Cold War, the allied forces had lost interest in prosecuting anyone as part of the denazification. In the mid-1950s this new political environment allowed Otto Strasser, an NS activist on the left of the NSDAP, who had founded the Black Front to return from exile. In 1956, Strasser founded the German Social Union as a Black Front successor, promoting a Strasserite "nationalist and socialist" policy, which dissolved in 1962 due to lack of support. Other Third Reich associated groups were the HIAG and Stille Hilfe dedicated to advancing the interests of Waffen-SS veterans and rehabilitating them into the new democratic society. However, they did not claim to be attempting to restore Nazism, instead functioning as lobbying organizations for their members before the government and the two main political parties (the conservative CDU/CSU and the Nazis' one-time archenemies, the Social Democratic Party)
Many bureaucrats who served under the Third Reich continued to serve in German administration after the war. According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, many of the more than 90,000 Nazi war criminals recorded in German files were serving in positions of prominence under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. Not until the 1960s were the former concentration camp personnel prosecuted by West Germany in the Belzec trial, Frankfurt Auschwitz trials, Treblinka trials, Chełmno trials, and the Sobibór trial. However, the government had passed laws prohibiting Nazis from publicly expressing their beliefs.
"Universal National Socialism" (1950s–1970s)
Neo-Nazism found expression outside of Germany, including in countries who fought against the Third Reich during the Second World War, and sometimes adopted pan-European or "universal" characteristics, beyond the parameters of German nationalism. The two main tendencies, with differing styles and even worldviews, were the followers of the American Francis Parker Yockey, who was fundamentally anti-American and advocated for a pan-European nationalism, and those of George Lincoln Rockwell, an American conservative.Some of the fascistic old-guard from the pre-war ultra-nationalist movements were more skeptical of the benefits of the Rockwell-Jordan uniform scene. Oswald Mosley of the Union Movement described Jordan as, "a midget trying to walk in the boots of giants." Meanwhile, Yockeyism leaned more to the left than the "official" fascistic Pan-Europeanism of those which would become the European Social Movement. The latter associated with Mosley, Maurice Bardèche and others upheld a strictly "neither East, nor West", third position in regards to Soviet and American power.
Yockey, a neo-Spenglerian author, had written Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics (1949) dedicated to "the hero of the twentieth century" (namely, Adolf Hitler) and founded the European Liberation Front. He was interested more in the destiny of Europe; to this end, he advocated a National Bolshevik-esque red-brown alliance against American culture and influenced 1960s figures such as SS-veteran Jean-François Thiriart. Yockey was also fond of Arab nationalism, in particular Gamal Abdel Nasser, and saw Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution as a positive, visiting officials there. Yockey's views impressed Otto Ernst Remer and the radical traditionalist philosopher Julius Evola. He was constantly hounded by the FBI and was eventually arrested in 1960, before committing suicide. Domestically, Yockey's biggest sympathisers were the National Renaissance Party, including James H. Madole, H. Keith Thompson and Eustace Mullins ( of Ezra Pound) and the Liberty Lobby of Willis Carto.