Perhaps the closest Australian authorities have come to doing something similar was the arrest of David Pollard (b. December 31, 1983) in June last year. Pollard was responsible for the distribution of nutzi propaganda via his website ‘Noble Front’. Among the items confiscated by police from his property was the Deaths Head CD ‘Feast of the Jackal’ (featuring the No.1 smash hit ‘Swastika’; the swastika “will fly again”, apparently).
Deaths Head is — or rather, was — a local Melbourne band, and closely associated with both Blood & Honour and the Hammerskins, international neo-Nazi networks. B&H is banned in Germany, but active in Australia. To celebrate the deaths of Australian soldiers in WWII, the two groups are organising a gig in Perth on ANZAC Day later this year; bands playing include Indigenous Hate, Quick & the Dead, and Ravenous.
Deaths Head and Ravenous member Jesse, a Hammerskin, maintains a channel on YouTube which features a number of Deaths Head videos, as well as two very brief cartoons featuring the decapitation and shooting of ‘Sheky’ the Jew. The band has a MySpace page here.
Deaths Head is also notable for having provided local oi! band Bulldog Spirit with a drummer, Joel. Doug, the vocalist for Bulldog Spirit, is a big fan of mine, and it was in this spirit that he published what he claimed (erroneously) to be my work address on an online forum frequented by boneheads.
Local German-born nutzi Welf Herfurth — leader of the tiny ‘New Right Australia (and er, New Zealand)’, and the bonehead gang Volksfront Australia — must be crying into his imported German beer this evening (likely to be shared with Novocastrian bonehead and Volksfront co-organiser Douglas Schott), following reports of another crackdown by German police on the radical right in Der Vaterland.
BERLIN (Reuters) - German police have launched a nationwide search of more than 200 homes and businesses of people suspected of belonging to the country’s extreme right, the Federal Crime Office (BKA) said Wednesday.
“The primary aim of the concerted action by crime fighting authorities is to seize and confiscate prohibited items like music in order to move effectively and extensively against the spread of right wing extremism,” the BKA said in a statement…
The raids come only a few weeks after one of the largest nutzi gatherings in post-War Germany in Dresden, when 5-6,000 fascist wankers jackbooted about the city (with a police escort of several thousand). They also come after former NPD executive member Uwe Luthardt, who recently quit the party, made what is presumably intended to be some kinda ‘revelation’ regarding the NPD’s continued adherence to the incestuous corpophiliac Hitler’s political legacy.
The real significance of Luthardt’s confessions lies in the fact that he speaks as a former member, and therefore with some added degree of insight into the party’s ‘true’ nature.
Uwe Luthardt was a senior member of the right-extremist NPD. But he quit after three months. In an interview, he describes the NPD as a deeply radical party where Hitler salutes and financial irregularities are common — and which is bent on restoring the German Reich.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: You recently quit the right extremist party NPD. Aren’t you afraid?
Luthardt: The local party leader threatened me. He said a board member doesn’t quit the party, he’s either thrown out or disappears. I replied that I know more about him than he does about me. Since then it’s been quiet. Someone who just quits usually gets a lot of problems, and can find himself waking up in intensive care.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: So people who leave are threatened?
Luthardt: It happens. Otherwise the party would have even fewer members. The mood isn’t good at the moment. It’s easy to see that the party is short of money…
Luthardt’s testimony is also useful in the sense that it confirms the already well-known fact that groups like the NPD rely on the nutzi muzak industry for a considerable proportion of their income.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: How does the party finance itself?
Luthardt: Through music events among other things, they get money from ticket sales. And then of course through the Festival of Peoples, that generated just under €17,000 in 2007.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: But you have to subtract the money the bands get from that amount.
Luthardt: No. Usually one tells the authorities that the bands get paid. But in reality they just get their expenses back and a receipt for a supposedly paid fee. But that is donated back to the party. And the party can write the donation off their taxes.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why do the bands forego the money they are due?
Luthardt: Out of conviction. It happens in the party too. Whenever I went to Berlin on a training course, we got our transport costs paid but then handed the money back to the party in the form of donations. It’s the same pattern.
(Luthardt notes that NPD chairman Udo Voigt — whom Welf Herfurth unsuccessfully attempted to bring into Australia for a speaking tour in 2003 — partly finances his power base within the party with the help “of money men from South America”. For moaron Welf’s nutzi German kameraden, see: Neo-Nazi ‘national anarchists’ in Germany in the headlines, June 4, 2008.)
Horst Wessel (and other pimps)
In Europe, one of the principal distributors of nutzi muzak is Belgian label Pure Impact. Pure Impact arose from the ashes of German label Rock-O-Rama — on which Skrewdriver released an album (Hail The New Dawn) and single (Invasion/On The Streets) in 1984. It was established by a fascist-sympathising businessman, Herbert Egoldt.
In October [1997] it was revealed that Herbert Egoldt, the notorious distributor of neo-Nazi skinhead music, was operating from the Brussels-based far-right mail order company Pure Impact. Egoldt formerly operated Rock o Rama in Cologne, once the world’s largest supplier of racist material, until police invaded his office and confiscated 30,000 records in 1992. The entrepreneur is now linked with Belgian extremists Peter Swillen, Ludo Henri Crol and Luc Taymans, who have launched Pure Impact in an attempt to revive the neo-Nazi record empire, which in recent years has been taken over by Resistance Records and Nordland…
Pure Impact enjoys wide support within global punk, hardcore and skinhead/bonehead communities, including Australia, and distros both straightforwardly neo-Nazi titles — such as those by Douglas Schott’s band Blood Red Eagle — as well as other, ‘apolitical’ releases. Despite an apparent reluctance to provide a platform for fascism — at least when under the media spotlight — Pure Impact also enjoys the support of MySpace (as do numerous other neo-Nazi distros, bands and political projects).
Part of the rationale for selling ‘apolitical’ product, aside from the added income it generates, stems from the desire to legitimise the business in the eyes of the general public. Various legal and political constraints also produce another response: a softening of ‘the message’. Thus US-based Resistance Records — bought by dead nutzi and author of The Turner Diaries William Pierce in 1999 — touts the virtues of the nutzi band Cut Throat as follows: “Possessing catchy lyrics, haunting vocals, and top-notch musicianship, this California band belongs on mainstream radio. With not-too-blatant lyrics, Cut Throat can easily fly in under the radar and reach a wider audience than most pro-White bands.” (The Turner Diaries are available via Australian Protectionist Party member Martin Fletcher’s website Downunder Newslinks.)
This ’softening’ process is sometimes necessary, but sometimes not. Thus Belgian band Kill Baby Kill — which travelled to Australia last year to perform at the annual bonehead gathering to mourn the death of Skrewydriver Ian Stuart Donaldson (held at the Beaconsfield Hotel) — also enjoy the support of MySpace. Well, until very recently…
Of course, the links between local nutzis and their European counterparts extend beyond the occasional importation of foreign bodies into the country. It includes exports.
Last year, a True Blue Dinky-Di (Nutzi) Aussie — whose identity has yet to be established — co-operated with the dynamic Danish and German duo Dane Flemming C., 32, and Stephan G., 33, by providing them with True Blue Dinky-Di (Nutzi) muzak. The men, arrested in August, are accused of overseeing the production and distribution of neo-Nazi music under the label ‘Celtic Moon’. Investigators say the pair produced as many as 100,000 copies of the music. Coincidentally, Celtic Moon has close ties to ‘Werwolf Records’: Werwolf Records distributes Blood Red Eagle.
Finally, there is one less distro in Australia: Deadset Music. Its fascist-sympathising owner has sold her interest in the business, and it has now become known as Pug Music; it sells only a handful of racist titles. Filling the gap is new nutzi distro 9% Productions.
1) ‘Let’s kick out all the foreigners, then the Germans will have jobs again’ – that’s the basic concept the NPD talks about ~ Ex-NPD member Uwe Luthardt, 2009
2) ‘British Jobs for British workers’ ~ British PM Gordon Brown, Labour Party conference, 2007
3) “TATARSZENTGYORGY, Hungary: Thousands of people, mostly Roma, joined the funeral procession Tuesday of a young boy and his father who were shot dead last week in the latest in a series of attacks on Roma in Hungary… The boy, who police say was 5 years old, and his father Robert Csorba were shot and killed as they were trying to escape their house, which had been set on fire. Two other children were injured in the blaze… There is a growing resentment against the Roma, also known as gypsies, as the economic crisis deepens and jobs are lost. The Roma often remain on the margins, lacking jobs and proper education and living in deep poverty. Critics say they take advantage of the welfare state. The strengthening of the far-right over the past two years, which fights what it says is a rise in “Roma crime,” has also contributed to an increase in antagonism, activists say…” ~ Hungary buries two Roma killed by hate, Reuters, International Herald Tribune, March 3, 2009
Metal Up Yr Fascist Ass
In Atlanta, Chicago black metal band Nachtmystium has been kicked off a bill for alleged nutzi associations. The band denies the allegation, and claims to be ‘apolitical’. Which may well be the case, at least in the sense that they don’t explicitly endorse any particular political viewpoint. If so, the relationship between Nachtmystium and neo-Nazism, as in the case of many other bands, is one of convenience, rather than conviction. Pitchfork:
Chicago black metal band Nachtmystium, originally scheduled to play the fest, were absent from the lineup. According to a statement from frontman Blake Judd– first posted by Brooklyn Vegan and later verified via a press release– Scion’s parent company Toyota kicked Nachtmystium off of the bill because of the band’s alleged associations with Nazism. “A troubling, and unjustly-applied notion that we are, or ever have been, in any way, a ‘Nazi’ band or a political band on any level, is completely absurd and we are disgusted that there is someone out there who really believes we are of this ilk,” he said.
Representatives for the festival and for Scion have not yet responded to questions about the incident.
According to Decibel, these accusations have dogged Nachtmystium for years, due to the fact that their first album, Reign of the Malicious, was released by the NSBM (National Socialist Black Metal) label Unholy Records [a subsidiary of Resistance Records]. As Judd told Decibel in 2006, “In the past, we’ve had some indirect [sic] ties to labels and bands that are part of the NS scene. At one point not too many years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for NS labels or bands to trade and work with non-politically motivated bands and labels because at the end of the day, we’re all trying to promote, release, and be involved with music—all politics aside. Today it seems like there’s less of a connection, at least for me and my label. We don’t oppose people’s right to be ‘NS’ or whatever—that’s a personal choice, and if you live in the USA, you have the right to that opinion. Even though I personally, my band(s) and my label have absolutely no interest in being a part of that scene, I will ALWAYS take their side when it comes to their freedom of speech being imposed upon.”
LOL.
The issue is not ‘freedom of speech’, but providing financial and political support to racism, fascism, xenophobia and homophobia. Upon achieving any real level of popularity, bands which initially embraced fascist politics — including Australian bands like Deströyer 666 and Gospel Of The Horns, and labels such as Modern Invasion (nee Pipe Imported) — frequently seek to disassociate themselves from their past, as such associations become more inconvenient than they are useful.
And of course, anyone unfortunate enough to have to rely upon an ‘apolitical’ rock * to guarantee their rights has already lost them.
Still, placing a hat marked ‘apolitical’ on your head is a very common response when bands perform / record / tour with nutzis, play nutzi venues, or release material on nutzi labels. Such was the case with The Birmingham Hotel — until mid-2008, the subject of “a pretty unsuccessful boycott” — and such is the case with Sydney band T.H.U.G..
Simon T.H.U.G., Dutch neo-Nazi zine Out of Order, 2000. Simon says:
“All my mates were into oi! and white pride as well. I did not know any skinheads that were into oi! and were not white and proud of it. Lefty skinheads would never dare to show their face on the street for fear of getting severely beaten. And that’s the way it should always be…
Best memory was playing a gig in Melbourne, in some pub, can’t remember which, full swing into it and about 30 Maoris drinking in the front bar… I’m sure you can picture what happened. Bedlam. We managed to protect all our gear however. Mic stands make magnificent clubs…
Volksfront Australia, like most local neo-Nazi groups, is a foreign import. Established in 1994 in the United States, and named in honour of a racist Afrikaaner mob, the group has recently embraced a few converts Down Under: chief among them (according to rival sect Blood & Honour / Southern Cross Hammerskins) the former German NPD and Australian One Nation Party member Welf Herfurth.
Did I happen to mention that Welf also considers himself an “anarchist”?
This is not the first time Volksfront has had an Australian franchise. In 2004, a young racist named Stuart McBeth (1981–), then the leader of the now defunct ‘Patriotic Youth League’ (PYL) — a risible attempt by Dr James Saleam to extend Australia First Party membership to the under-40s — threw his tinfoil helmet into the ring as an Australian organiser for the United States People’s Front. (Oddly enough, like Welf, Stuart was also a former member of ONP.) McBeth resigned as PYL President shortly after being fired, in late January 2005, from his job as a case officer for the Salvation Army. McBeth was replaced by Lachlan Black, also a former ONP member and, like McBeth, a former ONP candidate.
Last year, however, some hardy souls decided to revive the Front — presumably in order to provide yoof a boneheaded alternative to B&H and the SCHS. In the US, where the franchise is based, relations between Volksfront, B&H, and the Hammerskins have been frosty. Well, kinda. Actually there are two, rival B&H networks: in the US, B&H ~ American Division, is allied with Volksfront, while outside of the US, relations between different groups in different countries are more fractured. (’Blood & Honour USA’, allied to the Australian mob, appears to be defunct.)
In any event, the corpse of Volksfront Australia has shown some signs of life. It also appears that at least some local boneheads aren’t all that happy about it. Thus on Stormfront, a local bonehead, ‘Pitbull38′, recently yap-yapped the following:
Re: Hammerskin Nation and Blood & Honour
HSN & B & H have worked well together for 15 odd years in Oz.
We have been here from the start & built things from the ground up.
VF’s been in Oz for about [a] year and managed to disrespect & piss off the 2 oldest bonehead crews in Australia (to put it very mildly)… certainly not the best way to start things.
Of their leaders, one [Welf Herfurth] runs National Anarchists & New Right (he goes to Asian countries a lot to live with and help the slopes… strange for a supposed WN to travel to Asia so much & without his wife… sure no hanky panky going on there??? Yeah right). He has his fingers in many different pies and is certainly no skinhead & never has been. His stated love for Asian culture, trying to be a politician & trying to appear everything to everyone & his twisted written works are proof of this.
The other guy ([Douglas Schott] singer of Blood Red Eagle) used to be [an] anti-racist/SHARP with his own anti-racist band to boot. A little big-mouthed midget with the ego of Napoleon.
VF leadership have been made aware of these facts & none seem to care, so yeah… sounds like a great NS [National Socialist: ie, Nazi] bonehead crew to me… lol!
VF are outcasts (akin to C18) in Australia as far as SCHS & B & H are concerned. So if you don’t want to be outcasts yourselves, avoid them like the plague.
Unfortunately for Poodle38, Stormfront moderator Lycia had to yank on his chain. Thus the above post now reads simply:
HSN & B & H have worked well together for 15 odd years in Oz.
We have been here from the start & built things from the ground up.
Hammers don’t forgive, but whether or not Poodle38 responds positively to his obedience training remains to be seen.
Incidentally, the next gig organised by Benson & Hedges is scheduled for ANZAC Day in Perf, WA, where a small assortment of boneheads will pay tribute to the ANZACs by celebrating the Nazi war-machine that killed them in their thousands.
Yes: they’re a weird mob.
Volksfront (United States)
As for Volksfront, it, like other bonehead groups, has a violent history. A few highlights:
Jacob Laskey, formerly Volksfront’s Prisoner Affairs Coordinator in Eugene, was arrested in 2005, along with his brother, Gabriel Doyle Laskey, Jesse Lee Baker and Gerald Anthony Poundstone, for throwing rocks engraved with swastikas at a synagogue in Eugene, Oregon, during a religious service in October 2002. They were indicted for conspiracy to violate civil rights and other related charges. Jacob Laskey also faced charges of attempting to intimidate a witness in the case. Jacob and Gabriel Laskey both pleaded guilty in August 2006. Poundstone received 15 months in prison in September 2006 after pleading guilty. Jacob Laskey was sentenced to 11 years and 3 months in prison in April 2007. (Laskey had previously been charged with battery and commission of a hate crime for allegedly beating and threatening an African-American man in December 2000 in Jacksonville, Florida.) Gabriel Doyle Laskey was sentenced to five years probation, as well as six months at the Lane County work release program followed by six months of home detention.
Kurtis Monschke, 20, a probationary unit leader for Volksfront, was sentenced to life in prison on June 4, 2004, for his role in the March 23, 2003, murder of Randall Mark Townsend, 42, in Tacoma, Washington. Prosecutors indicated that Monschke, who has the Volksfront emblem tattooed on his chest adjacent to a swastika that is similar to the one depicted on the main racist skinhead character in the film American History X (1998), instigated the brutal attack in an effort to establish his fledgling crew among higher-ranking members of Volksfront. Emulating a brutal scene in the film, Monschke and his three followers placed Townsend’s open mouth on a railroad tie and stomped several times on the back of his head. Each blow was accompanied with shouts of “white power.” Scotty James Butters, 20, David Nikos Pillatos, 19, and Tristain Lynn Frye, 22, all pleaded guilty and testified against Monschke.
On January 25, 2003, five boneheads attacked a 17-year-old black youth in the parking lot of his residence in Vancouver, Washington. Matthew R. Schmoyer, Carl D. Wolff, Brandon Webb, Jeremy R. Whitten and one other bonehead who was later acquitted had been partying at Schmoyer’s apartment before heading to a Volksfront-sponsored concert near Hillsboro, Oregon, called “Rock Against Communism.” The group was holding the concert to raise legal funds for a Volksfront “comrade” whom they felt was “wrongfully charged with assault.” Whitten was sentenced for misdemeanor assault after striking a plea agreement. Wolff, Webb and Schmoyer were convicted of malicious harassment.
According to the ADL: “The rivalry between Volksfront/Hammerskin Nation and the Vinlanders remains high. An Internet exchange at the racist online forum Stormfront indicated that a prominent Vinlander even cut off the ear of a Volksfront member in St. Louis.” (On the Vinlanders Social Club, seeBurnout: Vinlanders Social Club on the Decline, David Holthouse and Laurie Wood, Intelligence Report, Winter 2008.)
Volksfront was founded in prison by a bonehead called Randal Lee (’Randy’) Krager. In 1989, when he was 15, Krager was arrested along with several other boneheads and charged with racial intimidation for allegedly assaulting three teenagers near a park in Portland, Oregon. During the attack, assailants pummeled a Hispanic girl in the face while shouting, “Why aren’t you white?” Krager was sent to a juvenile detention center.
The next year, he attended the civil trial of White Aryan Resistance leader Tom Metzger — who was being sued by the Southern Poverty Law Center for his role in encouraging the bonehead murder of a black man in Portland — and told a reporter that Metzger was a “cool guy … one of the nicest guys you’d ever meet.”
By the time Krager turned 18, police had encountered him 28 times.
That year, 1992, Krager was sentenced to 27 months in prison for putting an African-American man into a coma with a single punch. During sentencing proceedings, Krager reportedly shouted “Fucking Jew pig!” at court officials.
Krager’s white supremacist beliefs were reinforced in prison. While inside, he networked with boneheads outside, laying the groundwork for his Volksfront neo-Nazi gang. Krager assumed leadership of Volksfront immediately upon his release in October 1994…
There’s been a few ups and downs for Krager and his kkkrew since then, obviously — mostly revolving around violent crime and bad muzak — with a few lives ended and many more ruined, but what Volksfront Australia will achieve is likely to be a lot less. Much will depend on the ability of the German-born yuppie Welf to put a leash on the boneheads belonging to B&H/SCHS — a task which will probably prove to be a good deal more difficult than convincing a handful of teenagers that his peculiar brand of neo-fascism is actually a form of ‘anarchism’.
Above : Fredrick Töben (Adelaide Institute) and Welf Herfurth (ex-One Nation, ex-Australia First Party[?], mathaba.net) annexe Sydney using the MaGiCaL pOwErS invested in Horst Mahler’s flag and on behalf of the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands, January 27, 2005. Unkle Fred was recently released from police custody in London; Herfurth, based in Sydney, has established a tiny fascist groupuscule called the ‘New Right’, consisting of various former members of Stormfront, and — following the lead of British and German fascists — espousing a doctrine he calls ‘national anarchism’. In the UK, the ‘New Right’, lead by Troy Southgate, specialises in Holocaust denial, various other forms of historical revisionism, and the promotion of racism and fascism.
Above : Viking Power Rock &/Or Roll. Members of Blood Red Eagle — (L-R) Jeff, Doug, Kerry & James — on the piss.
The Forum that was considered too kooky and racist even for Pauline Hanson (see below) is apparently considered a thoroughly worthwhile event by others. Thus it is that Helen Caldicott, known as an anti-nuclear activist, has this weekend lent her name to the Inverell Forum — along with the Sydney Forum, one of the two main annual gatherings of the far right in Australia.
Other speakers at this year’s Forum, in addition to the usual assortment of conspiracy theorists, opponents of Big Gub’mint, and advocates of alternative medical practices, included Greg Clancy — who denounced the multicultural menace — and an anxious Anglo-Saxon named Andrew Fraser (who also spoke at the 2006 Forum).
Oddly enough, last year’s Inverell Forum was to feature Pauline Hanson, but she withdrew after being informed she was to share a platform with a neo-Nazi, Welf Herfurth. Herfurth spoke on the subject of the German NPD, of which he was once a member. (Herfurth also spoke at the 2003 Forum on the same topic.)
This year, the political organisation for which Herfurth is the local fueher, the New Right/National Anarchists, held a stall at the Forum.
In 2007, Herfurth was joined by Richard Krege, another Holocaust denialist, who spoke of his experience (in the company of Frederick Toben, currently the subject of legal proceedings) at the infamous conference in Tehran on the subject of the Holocaust. Krege, an engineer, maintains that only 5,000 people died at the death camp at Treblinka, of disease, rather than the 800,000 historians estimate.
In 2006, in addition to Fraser, the Inverell Forum featured convicted criminal Dr James Saleam, who spoke in praise of what he and his white supremacist party, Australia First, terms the ‘Cronulla uprising’.
Still, Caldicott is also going to Sydney to address the 911TruthNow conference, where on March 14 she’ll be speaking on the subject of the use of depleted uranium in weapons, in the Middle East in particular, where millions have served as unwilling guinea pigs in US military experiments. Speaking of which, last year’s Sydney Forum featured a Palestinian speaker, Rihab Charida. She spoke on the subject of Palestine. However, she notes that:
I was not asked to speak at this event by the organisers. Three days prior to the event, a friend who was scheduled to speak asked if I could replace him, as he had other commitments. Stupidly, I agreed without investigating who the Sydney Forum was organised by and for. Therefore, I prepared my talk as a standard presentation about Palestine and went to deliver it with no understanding of the purpose of the Forum…
[Tomislav Sunic's] talk had my friends and myself feeling sick. We realised that we were surrounded by fascists and rednecks. Even then, I didn’t click that the entire event was held for white supremacists. I thought that maybe this was a forum attracting different people (right leaning), including rednecks. Obviously, I now realise it is a forum organised exclusively by and for white supremacists.
To all but the most naive, the function of inviting speakers such as Helen Caldicott and Rihab Charida to address such events as the Inverell and Sydney Forums is to lend them an air of credibility, and to allow their organisers to claim that such events go ‘beyond left and right’ and aren’t the gatherings of the rural and urban-based far right, composed of the kinds of audiences who remark — in reference to Rihab — that ‘She would have been of much better use as a mud flap for my car’. That, and the remnants of an older generation of right-wing letter-writers, precisely the kind who found a home in One Nation.
Dr Helen Caldicott enjoyed mainstream media respect from about the mid-’80s until it became obvious her nuclear devastation fantasies were never going to come true, some time around, oh, 1989. Thereafter she’s largely been limited to the ABC and similarly inclined outlets.
Lately things have become even worse. Next month lefty Helen - one of our new cultural overlords, remember - is listed to speak at a Sydney meeting of the global 9/11 truth movement, which holds that the events of September 11 2001 were somehow faked or the result of a conspiracy led by the US Government.
In the universe of modern crazy, your truthers are at the top of the list. Where normal people see footage of massive jets piling into the World Trade Centre towers, truthers see all manner of clues hinting at unmanned aircraft, substitute flights (where did the passengers go?) and controlled demolition.
Even noted engineering and physics scholars are sometimes drawn in by truther theories on building collapse. Willie Nelson, for example.
So Caldicott, if not actually signing on to the truther fable - and we’re yet to see her speech; she may well do - is at least prepared to lend this group whatever credibility she has left after warning us for decades that all nuclear plants are as unreliable and prone to Aeroflot-style commie bungling as Chernobyl. It’d be sad, except for the fact that Caldicott is possibly the only person on earth whose support might detract from the truther cause.
Get used to it, people. The war is over. We now live in a Helmichael Caldinig country. Say sorry to your atomic duck.
ONE Nation founder Pauline Hanson plans to share a platform with a prominent denier of the Holocaust and a well-known neo-Nazi activist.
Ms Hanson will be a special guest next month at the Inverell Forum, an annual talkfest in the NSW country town that has long been associated with right-wing extremist groups.
Ms Hanson announced in December that she hoped to resurrect her political career by standing as a candidate in this year’s federal election.
She will share the Inverell platform with Richard Krege, an Air Services Australia engineer who recently attended the Holocaust Conference in Tehran. The Iranian government-sponsored conference attempted to disprove the accepted historic fact that six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis during World War II.
Mr Krege is regarded by fellow Holocaust deniers as an expert on the notorious Treblinka concentration camp, in Poland. Although 800,000 Jews and others died there, he claims just 5000 perished of disease and none were killed.
The Inverell Forum website said the gathering would discuss the “current Zionist propaganda campaign designed to condition the public to accept the inevitable first attack on Iran”.
Ms Hanson will also share the platform with Welf Herfurth, a long-time activist with Germany’s neo-nazi National Democratic Party before he moved to Sydney.
Mr Herfurth will address the forum on “what other nationalists outside Germany can learn from the NPD’s practical approach to politics and creating a parallel society”.
Other speakers at the forum include James Cook University academic Bob Carter, a leading global warming sceptic.
Ms Hanson could not be reached for comment yesterday.
The forum will hear how “recent events in Australia have galvanised her once more into taking up the cudgel for patriotic Australia”.
Ms Hanson served a term in federal parliament when she was elected as the MP for Oxley in 1996.
On September 8, 2007, approximately 15-30 individuals, all white, mostly young, and overwhelmingly male, dressed in black clothing and wearing caps, dark glasses and scarves, gathered in a group outside of Sydney Town Hall as part of a public protest against the APEC summit, scheduled to take place elsewhere in Sydney that weekend. The group carried with them three long banners — with slogans reading “Australia: Free Nation Or Sheep Station?”, “Globalisation is Genocide” and “Power to the People, Not Political Parties” which were joined together to form a three-sided bloc, within which those gathered assembled to form a “black bloc”. The group also distributed a leaflet, and claimed to belong to a group known as the “New Right”, one which — as other statements on the banners and on the leaflet stated — consists of “National Anarchists” espousing a “Traditional-European Revolutionary” philosophy. This brief essay examines “New Right” philosophy and its origins in Europe, the emergence of this groupsucule in Australia, and argues that it can best be understood as the latest incarnation in a European-based trend in neo-fascist ideology and practice.
Who or what is the New Right? In Australia, the group was established in late 2005, largely via the efforts of one man, a German-born, Sydney-based businessman named Welf Herfurth. Herfurth has a long history of involvement in the far right, having been a member of the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) prior to his arrival as an immigrant in 1987, and following that a member first of the Democrats, and then of Pauline Hanson”s One Nation Party (ONP), serving as the vice-president of the New South Wales state branch (under David Oldfield) and as President of ONP”s Riverstone branch. More recently, from its inception in 2001, Herfurth has served as MC, and as one of the principal organisers — along with Dr. James Saleam of the Australia First Party (AF) — of the annual Sydney Forum. In this capacity, in 2007, Herfurth helped to arrange the visit to Australia of Croatian fascist Dr. Tomislav Sunic, a key New Right thinker, and in previous years has attempted, unsuccessfully, to arrange for a number of key members of the NPD (Gerd Finkenwirth and Udo Voight) to tour Australia and to address the Forum.
Subjected to a liberal, middle-class upbringing in post-war Germany, as a young man in the 1980s Herfurth rejected his parents’ liberal values to embrace those of the neo-Nazi movement, establishing a role for himself as a fascist militant. Since then, his politics have developed into a more sophisticated version of the crude neo-Nazism of his youth, one which retains an overriding commitment to race and nation, but shorn of the naked bigotry and crude political analysis which remains one of neo-Nazism’s hallmarks. In particular, Herfurth is part of a generation of far right activists heavily influenced by the philosophies of figures such as Alain de Benoist (1943–), a French intellectual who, beginning in the mid- to late-1970s especially, and together with a small group of others centred around the “ethno-nationalist” think-tank GRECE (1968–), reinvigorated post-war fascist thinking. Part of this project consisted of popularising and critically re-examining the ideas of earlier thinkers such as Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) and Julius Evola (1898-1974), and thereby attempting to craft a philosophy that would somehow transcend the divide between the political left and right; all in the name of establishing a new political order in Europe - a “communitarian- one consisting of nation-states, but under the domination of neither the then-Soviet Union or the United States. It was this posture which also fed into the (re-)development of “Third Position- politics within the far right, one which even attracted the intellectual support of nominally Marxist thinkers such as Paul Piccone (1940-2004), editor of the US journal Telos.
Such is, necessarily, a much-simplified version of the political etymology of the New Right. Of most importance in relation to Herfurth and the New Right in Australia and Aotearoa (New Zealand), however, is their embrace of the idea of the transcendence of the left-right divide, and their commitment to elaborating a contemporary form of fascist politics; one attuned to the history of ideas, and one which recognises the necessity of building an extra-parliamentary social movement which is capable of responding to contemporary political realities, especially in the realm of popular culture. And it’s in the realm of popular culture that the idea of “national anarchism” has greatest relevance.
Briefly then, “national anarchism”, at least as it’s understood by the New Right, is the means by which those grouped around Herfurth in particular, and New Right philosophies generally, seek to intervene in political struggle: “National-Anarchism represents the political embodiment of the European New Right — it is the political wing”. Before examining what this means in practice, however, it’s worth also briefly examining the short history of this rather unlikely doctrine.
In the English-speaking world, the figure most commonly associated with “national anarchism” is the English activist, writer and musician Troy Southgate (1965–). A member of the National Front in the mid-80s, Southgate left it in the late ’80s to join the “International Third Position”; left the ITP to form the “English Nationalist Movement” in the early ’90s; abandoned this not especially successful group in 1998 to form the “National Revolutionary Faction”; and following that declared himself to be a “national anarchist”. What this actually means in terms of ideology is a difficult question to answer. However, Graham D. Macklin (”Co-opting the counter culture: Troy Southgate and the National Revolutionary Faction”, Patterns of Prejudice, Vol. 39, No. 3, 2005 [PDF]), for one at least, has tried to do so. He argues that:
When put into its wider context: “national-anarchism” appears as one of many groupuscular responses to globalization, popular antipathy towards which Southgate sought to harness by aligning the NRF with the resurgence of anarchism whose heroes and slogans it arrogated, and whose sophisticated critiques of global capitalist institutions and state power it absorbed, Central to “national-anarchism”, however, is a far older paradigm drawn from conservative revolutionary thought, namely, the Anarch, a sovereign individual whose independence allows him to “turn in any direction.”
In practice, what this means, at least in part, is demonstrated by the emergence of the so-called “black bloc” at APEC in September (from which the “Anarch” Herfurth was conspicuously absent). Specifically — in addition in adopting the name of anarchism to advance a far right agenda — fascists seek to appropriate anarchist imagery and rhetoric. Like Herfurth himself, this tactic appears to have been born in Germany, where in the last 5-10 years, the neo-Nazi movement has increasingly sought to use the radical chic associated with “anarchism” and “autonomism” to recruit youth. (For example, in addition to appropriating fashions associated with anarchists and leftist youth, “autonomous nationalists”? have for some years now formed “black blocs” at public protests).
In Sydney, the APEC “black bloc” was the first public protest attended by the “national anarchists” of the New Right, but given its success - in his online account of the protest, one pseudonymous member writes that “We were tremendously pleased, afterwards, that no arrests had occurred and that none of us had been physically assaulted. We had avoided identification, too”? - it is unlikely to be the group’s last. Further, while the majority of its members appear to have been drawn from Sydney and Newcastle, a few travelled from Melbourne to attend, and it”s possible that others came from other parts of the country as well. It’s therefore possible that there will be other demonstrations in other cities; certainly, the New Right, on the basis of this success (however meagre), has the potential to draw towards it the many competing factions of the extra-parliamentary far right (including remnants of AF and the Patriotic Youth League (PYL), the more straightforwardly neo-Nazi Blood & Honour and the Hammerskins, as well as others) and in turn help stimulate the growth of a reinvigorated, if still tiny, fascist movement in Australia.
Finally, while the New Right’s adoption of “national anarchism” may be considered bizarre, even comical, it nevertheless retains the potential not only to confuse the broader public with regards the nature of contemporary anarchism, its aims and methods, but also to confuse some who may be approaching anarchism as a serious political philosophy for the first time. As to the question of how to respond to the emergence in Australia of a small group of fascists in anarchist drag, it is beyond the scope of this very short introduction to the New Right to address. At a minimum, it would appear necessary to ensure that this confusion is addressed publicly, in both theory and practice, and the sooner, the better.
Further reading: Kevin Coogan’s Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International, Autonomedia, New York, 1999, provides an exhaustive account of the far right in Europe and North America following the end of the Second World War, and much of the background to the emergence of the New Right and associated ideologies and movements in the last few decades, and is highly recommended.
Welf: [threateningly] We Germans aren’t all smiles und sunshine.
Jones: [recoils in mock horror] Oooh, the Germans are mad at me. I’m
so scared! Oooh, the Germans!
[hiding behind Gerbil] Uh oh, the Germans are going to get me!
Welf: Stop it!
Claus: Stop, sir.
Jones: Don’t let the Germans come after me. Oh no, the Germans are
coming after me.
Claus: Please stop the ‘pretending you are scared’ game, please.
Welf: Stop it! Stop it!
Jones: [brief pause, then resumes] No! They’re so big and strong!
Claus: Stop it.
Welf: Stop it, Mr. Jones.
Claus: Please stop pretending you are scared of us, please, now.
Jones: Oh, protect me from the Germans! The Germans…
Welf: Jones, STOP IT!
This weekend, August 25–26, Sydney will be playing host to the Sydney Forum 2007, Australia’s premiere gathering of white racists, fascists and neo-Nazis. As noted previously — 2007 Sydney
Forum (May 23); 2007 Sydney Forum : Phantasy vs. Reality (June 15) — this year’s Forum has had its share of ups und downs, and the main organiser, Dr James Saleam of the Australia First Party (the Forum functions as a de facto annual conference for AF) has had to purge at least one speaker from the list following his successful campaign to have Baron Von Hund / David Innes expelled from first Stormfront and now, it seems, the weird and wacky world of (Australian) “White Nationalism” as a whole.
Notably, Saleam — with the full support of the National Council what runs the show — has also recently engineered the expulsion of a number of AF organisers; while at the same time failing to register the Party for the upcoming Federal election… and er, still working really really hard on gathering evidence to support his application to the Supreme Court to overturn the conviction won against him by the “corrupt” Special Branch in 1991; a marathon effort which is now entering its fourteenth year.
For the seventh year in a row, participants in the event will gratefully receive the strict disciplining only a bona fide German neo-Nazi can provide, in this case ex-NPD and One Nation member Welf Herfurth. Note that Welf gets (brown)shirty if you call him by name, these days preferring the idiotic label of ‘national anarchist’. On which subject, as comrades in the UK have remarked:
The National Anarchists
As an ideology National-Anarchism would appear to be about as logical as the creation of an organisation of Catholic Orangemen [or Aryan Anarchist Skinheads for that matter]. That does not stop Troy Southgate however.
Attempts at finding anyone in the Anarchist movement to speak to them have been unsuccessful (can anyone forget Jamie DeBayo/Damji leaving the Anarchist Bookfair in 1998 head first?) whilst Southgate and co are just a little bit too weird for the rest of the British far-right. More years in no-man’s land beckon.
Do say “National-Anarchism — now that is a brave innovation.” Don’t say “But how can you be a nationalist and an Anarchist?”
The stoopid is multiplied when you read that the mob he’s a part of (’New Right’) — which used to include David Innes, since given the shiny black boot — has for months been exhorting readers to protest the G20 (sic) meeting in Sydney this September. Still, I guess the stoopid is only half as appalling as Mr. Wolf’s denial of the Holocaust. Speaking of which, below is a photo of Welf and Australia’s leading Holocaust ‘revisionist’Frederick Töben; the two are pictured annexing Sydney using the MaGiCaL pOwErS invested in Horst Mahler’s flag and on behalf of the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (January 27, 2005).
In any event, this is how Herr Doktor describes (in addition to himself, blonde-haired, blue-eyed fetishist Andrew Fraser, ex-Confederate Action Party dingbat Perry Jewell and a twat from One Nation) this year’s line-up.
Of filthy foreigners.
SPECIAL OVERSEAS GUESTS: A NEW RIGHT SPEAKER, A SYRIAN SOCIAL-NATIONALIST PARTY SPEAKER
This year, we are expecting two overseas guests.
In the interests of ensuring a quality event, we are not quoting names until the last possible moment.
We are offering a speaker with a deep knowledge and attachment to the movements of a ‘New Right’ character in Europe, someone who has published and spoken in several countries. Our speaker will address us twice on the first day. We are desirous that Australians are introduced to the radical ideas that have re-shaped political movements such that they can better assail the fortress of liberalism.
We are offering a speaker from the Syrian Social-Nationalist Party (SSNP) with up-to-date information on Middle East contention. This secular party, active in several countries, involves both Moslems and Christians, opposes the Islamist movement and the so-called ‘war on terror’ directed at it, locates Israel as the main reason for Middle Eastern contention and the driving opposite to Islamism.
Yeah, so a speaker from the New Reich (same as the) and a Syrian fascist. Oh, and word on the street is that the Forum will also be addressed by a bona fide supporter of Saddam Hussein’s regime, a member of the Ba’ath Socialist Party of Iraq (although whether or not he does so will depend, one imagines, on a number of other factors). In conclusion, it will be a rare honour that’s extended to the lucky venue that hosts this year’s Forum. Last year’s winner was Boris Lees, Secretary, the Estonian House Co-operative Society, and Sydney’s pro-fascist Estonian community, but this year…
—– Original Message —–
From: Adelaide Institute
To: Adelaide Institute
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2007 10:37 PM
Subject: FW: Another lie exposed - much like the ‘HOLOCAUST’ has reality only in memory but not in space and time!
From: Welf Herfurth [mailto:herfurth@iinet.net.au]
Sent: Monday, 5 March 2007 11:53 AM
Subject: Another lie exposed
Another lie exposed… I wonder if the Jewish Board of Deputies and/or Jeremy Jones will step forward and complain about anti-Semitism…
The point here is not that he lied about having been there, the point is that he claimed to be there; used this to became a [sic] “acclaimed historian” and … other people started to quote him as a witness.
Our mate @ndy has written a thingo about our mate Ben “Speed Racer” Weerheym - the Perth-based hip-hopping, part-Jewish neo-Nazi and retirement-home-vandal. O-kay!
Here it is, in all it’s glory:
Sorry, this was just too !nataS to ignore. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: Ben Weerheym! The lying little fascist weasel has reproduced a comment on Melbourne Indymedia regarding the recent protest at local neo-Nazi pub The Birmy, claiming not only that it’s ‘real good’ but written by a sympathetic academic… who was actually there.
Ed: The following article is written by an academic from Melbourne who was present at the protest of self proclaimed “anti-fascists�… [who caused] a public nuisance at… The Birmingham Hotel in [Fitzroy]. This public nuisance and illegal [sic] demo[n]stration was in response to the Victorian chapter of [the] international [neo-Nazi network] Blood and Honour holding a [gig] at the hotel a week [sic] [prior]. The academic in question is rather switched on [Ben the wigger, Ben the Jew… or Ben the hippy?!?] and has some some [sic] real home-truth[s] to tell us… about the bigotry and double standards of the hypocritical far-left. Keep in mind that there are Black Nationalists and Arab Nationalists… but of course we don’t see leftist morons making a fuss about them!
Yeah… maybe, Ben… but what we certainly do see is fascist morons like Boof’Ed making piss-funny attempts at being “all intellectual… ‘n’ that�. In reality, the “academic from Melbourne who was present at the protest� is a British fascist named Aidan Rankin. (According to the site where you can read the full version of his shitty article, Rankin “is co-Editor of New European. His book, The Politics of the Forked Tongue: Authoritarian Liberalism was published in 2002 and is available from New European Publications“.) Further, Rankin wrote this diatribe years ago, and in reference to the BNP and the ANL, not The Birmy and Melbourne antifa! Whoever plagiarised his scribblings simply re-contextualised them, and removed the stuff what was too… hard. Then made the foreign toff travel to Melbourne, where he re-wrote history. Or something.
…a tiny offshoot of the National Front which calls itself Third Way. This is the group which most clearly articulates the way in which the politics of the hard right are shifting.
Third Way, which was founded in 1990 by the Front’s former chairman and vice-chairman, claims to reject “racism and the politics of hate.� But it believes that cultures should, for their own good, be kept apart, and defended from “mass immigration�. Globalisation, the splinter group claims, “reduces us to a rootless, transient population disconnected from its history�, precipitating ecological crisis and encouraging migration. The party’s leader, Patrick Harrington, has made contact with the black separatist Nation of Islam and orthodox Jews pursuing “separate development�. Third Way, like many far right groups, has abandoned overt racist aggression in favour of cultural isolation…
Whichever fascist twat plagiarised Rankin’s work — ooops, “a Melbourne academic� in Weerheym the weirdo’s phantasy — may well come from Melbourne, but the only thing they apparently had to contribute was a question almost as daft as Rankin’s argument:
“You say Fascism implies support for big business, and a large, controlling, central power[,] and talk about beer-swilling yobs?�
Um… the salad?
I’m a beer-swilling yob; I hate capitalism; I hate fascism; and I can spot a dickhead a mile away. Oh, and speaking of dickheads who come from miles away, the gig was also attended by the busy little neo-Nazi bee Welf Herfurth from B&H NSW. Herfurth seems to have assigned himself the role of roving Ambassador for the NPD in Australia — presumably in order to impart the NPD’s considerable organisational experience to local kameraden.
Luke Connors laying into Jeremy Costello on Stormfront made some pretty damn good copy the other day.
We figured, if the lad got that pissed off about an Australia First member not only sieg heiling a Rabbi, but then having such a sheer lack of self-preservation that he would tell a JOURNALIST about it… well, imagine how he would feel about senior Australia First figures organising Blood & Honour gigs.
We thought he’d probably be a bit cheesed off, but we didn’t think that he’d throw in the towel.
Luke Connors resigned from the Patriotic Youth League at 1:14am on Saturday the 11th of March, 2006.
When approached for comment regarding his hypothetical reaction to an Australia First member organising Blood & Honour gigs, Luke wrote:
Before I answer tell me this…..
1. Who is the member?
2. How long ago was this?
You are very likely to get a straight answer If your information is correct {and I have a feeling it is}. I have had just about enough of bloody nazis or half nazis of former nazis making me and everyone around me look bad.
This could very well be the last straw with me for this unfortunate so make sure to back up your statements {amazingly enough you and your friends have been known to stretch the truth a little}.
Lotsa love
Lukey wooky
When told that the guilty party was Welf Herfurth, and the guilty date was the 25th of Feb, he had this to say:
Is he in Australia first?
He is a bit of an interesting customer, I couldnt quite figure him out untill I checked out the German scene more closely, Its a strange place Germany. Welf should know better than to be associated with that B+H stuff, it is as even you have probably figured out, nazi to the core. If Welf is associated with B+H and AF then Australia first should probably have a little chat with him.
…
An ultra conservative militant youth group, thats what we wanted and thats what we thought the Newcastle people could give us. We just wanted to be able to express our views in our own community, one of our founding members in Melbourne had his family flee from the nazis for being outspoken Catholics for Christs sake!! {he has since left for obvious reasons}.
We never wanted a bar of this shit, but when you join something you give it a go, that is the Australian way, but after having to explain the latent tendencies of the Newcastle boys time after time to a multitude of ravening journos {God I hate those bloody vultures} I think that Ive done my part over the past couple of years
…
Dont get me wrong Jim is one of the most dedicated and hard working people I have ever met, everyone makes mistakes and they should not be punished for them for the rest of their lives {David Irvings case being a good example}.
He has inspired me quite a bit but he is all too ready to surround himself with the wrong people {which is not the best thing to do when you have such an incredibly colourful past yourself} I do wish him all the best but untill he has an organisation free of idiotic anti semitism {how many Jews are there in Australia anyway? JESUS CHRIST!} and moves himself away from unreconstructed elements {if you dont know what I mean you need your head checked}, I dont think I can support him any longer.
…
That said Dr Jim is not a nazi, neither are a most of the people in Aus first or the PYL but until the few {influential} Nazis are thrown out most of those good people will toil away for nothing. Its sad but its the way it is.
…
Consider this my resignation to the PYL. Its been great and we did try to do some good things {not from your perspective but thats life, opinions are like arseholes…. } but the actions of a few ended in the discrediting of all. You cant break ranks at a time like that but maybe I should have, thats the benefits of 20/20 hindsight.
…
P.S
If you have a free speech bone left in you {which I personally doubt}, then you will print this letter in full when publishing it, I have little to no faith in you but hey, everyone deserves a chance or two.
Yours in mutual disgust.
Luke Connors
NOTE: We have not printed the whole letter, contrary to the deep, passionate desire of Mr. Connors. There was a bit of irrelevant (but very witty) banter, however nothing here is presented out of context. We feel that Luke will be happy with this result.
Finally, as we do whenever somebody retires from a group, we wish ya the best of luck for the future, mateo. You made a bunch of bad decisions, but now you have the opportunity to get your life back on track. Perhaps take up competitive juggling, or synchronised acrobatics?
Luke Connors, formerly of the Patriotic Youth League, I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of you. (Prime Minister in 2012?)
UPDATE: Luke wishes it to be known that while he has quit the Patriotic Youth League, he still intends to be involved in far-right politics. In his own words, he’s “as retired as the Rolling Stones.”
We read this as meaning that he should have retired 20 years ago, but hey, each to their own.
Senior Australia First figures have been organising openly neo-nazi gigs.
This sordid tale basically deals with the recent activities of Blood & Honour NSW. They held a gig at Newcastle’s Hamilton Hotel on Saturday the 25th of February. As you’ll see below, we knew about this event weeks before it happened. It was alluded to a wee bit in Dan Box’s recent article in the Aus.
First let’s take a squizz at how B&H are going in Germany.
From Reuters (hehe… reuters) :
Police raid suspected neo-Nazi haunts
08.03.06 10.20am
BERLIN - Police raided more than 100 buildings across Germany today in a hunt for suspected members of the banned neo-Nazi group “Blood & Honour”.
In raids in Bavaria, they seized a hand grenade and a 7.65mm calibre pistol, police said. The 32-year-old owner of the live hand grenade said he had bought it “for decoration”.
Bavarian police also seized Blood & Honour memorabilia including 140 t-shirts, more than 30 CDs, numerous magazines, posters, video films, key chains, baseball caps, four PCs and eight mobile phones.
The memorabilia, which the police said could “spread National Socialist (Nazi) and racist ideologies”, is being evaluated by the police.
All Nazi and neo-Nazi regalia and insignia are banned in Germany. Neo-Nazi groups are small but watched carefully by security services.
Simultaneous raids in seven of Germany’s 16 states took place at 6.00am local time (6.00pm Tuesday NZT), the police said in a statement. Of the 119 premises searched, 37 were in Bavaria.
Six German states are investigating suspected members of “Blood & Honour Division Deutschland”, which has been banned in Germany since 2000 along with its youth wing “White Youth”.
The statement did not say if anyone was arrested, but that some 37 suspected Bavarian neo-Nazis were being investigated.
Blood & Honour was founded in 1987 by the British lead singer of the skinhead band Skrewdriver Ian Stuart Donaldson.
Now check this report from last week’s Australian Jewish News:
Newcastle gig recruited neo-Nazis
3/3/06
NAZI watchdog Mat Henderson-Hau has warned that a Blood and Honour concert held last weekend in Newcastle was likely to have been used as a recruiting event for local neo-Nazis.
“This was not just a concert. Blood and Honour packages its events as a very effective tool for recruitment” said Henderson-Hau, who operates the anti-Nazi website fightdemback.org.
Blood and Honour is an international neo-Nazi group that promotes local skinhead bands, organises concerts, spearheads political campaigns and is ultimately a magnet for white supremacists, according to Henderson-Hau.
“In the wake of the Cronulla riots the group is trying to kick-start their activities in NSW, using Newcastle as a launch-pad,” he said.
Henderson-Hau was disappointed that the police had not shut down the event because it “set a dangerous precedent arid further emboldened the cause of Blood and Honour.”
Newcastle Hebrew Congregation was vandalised in April last year with spray-painted swastikas and slogans such as “Jews must die.”
Local police made regular patrols of the synagogue last weekend but Sergent Gerard Lawson said: “We didn’t close [the concert] down because they weren’t breaking the law.”
Shul president David Gubbay said he was happy with the police response, although he added: “It makes me feel very uncomfortable [that such events are being staged in Newcastle].”
Date: Feb 27, 2006 10:25 AM
Subject: BH NSW SHOW 25th FEB
thanks to everyone who made the effort to support us and their local scene
on the saturday night just passed (25th feb). Those who have complained
about the lack of a local scene and put their money where their mouth is and
made the effort to turn up - you people are the reason we want to put these
shows on. to quote ian stuart - you are the diamond in the dust!
The funds raised from this show will go back into the local scene in the
form of future events and equipment purchase to reduce the operating costs
of BHNSW and therefore increase the ability to throw bigger and better
events.
special thanks goes out to Welf, Mark, Christian, James.n, steve and jeff
who all pitsched in and helped out in a massive way and without this help
there would be no gig to attend. actions speak louder than words.
BHNSW and Blood Red Eagle both thank everyone who attend for their support
and we hope to see you all back at the next event.
828.
BH NSW CORE TEAM.
That’s senior Australia First organiser Welf Herfurth on the far right, at the 2005 Sydney Forum.
Before jumping on the Australia First steam train, Welf was the president of the Riverstone (NSW) branch of the One Nation Party. Some years prior to that, he was an executive member of the German neo-nazi National Democratic Party. He also (of course!) has addressed the Holocaust-denying Australian League of Rights on a number of occasions.
It’s good to see Australia First is giving up the pretence of being anything other than neo-nazi scum. We’re big fans of honesty in politics here at FDB.
Also of note is the band which played at this event, Blood Red Eagle, whom the Patriotic Youth League advertised extensively on their website before it was deleted by it’s host for containing racist material.
Australia First says publicly it’s not a racist party. Dan Box went under cover for months to get the real story
——————————————————————————–
March 04, 2006
ONCE a month, the local branch of the Australia First party meets in the backyard of a small house in Tempe, inner-western Sydney, to drink beer, cook sausages and plot the triumph of the white race.
Last Saturday, however, was a “special meeting”, hosted at home by the party’s state co-ordinator, Jim Saleam.
Up for debate was how to turn the rollercoaster of publicity received after the Cronulla race riots into a legitimate political campaign.
While Australia First is commonly described as a neo-Nazi party, publicly the party claims it is not a racist organisation.
It says it is looking to legitimise itself, eyeing the next local council elections in Cronulla’s Sutherland Shire as a starting point.
Privately, the backyard drinkers can’t help themselves.
Speaking to The Weekend Australian, which attended the meeting using an assumed name, Jeremy Costello recalled a recent drive to Bondi, where he saw a rabbi walking down the road.
“We leaned out of the window and shouted ‘Sieg heil! Sieg heil!’,” he said.
Mr Costello says the group is serious about its political agenda, and is more than just a group of like-minded souls. “We’re not a social club. We get together every week to try to do something,” he said.
Ultimately, Australia First hopes to emulate the political success of the British National Party and become the acceptable face of Australian racism.
But baby steps first. A week from today, the party will begin campaigning on the streets of Cronulla for the 2008 council elections. Neil Baird - a former One Nation party treasurer and failed federal election candidate who now sees Australia First as his best shot - will try for local office.
Cronulla, they believe, is their big chance.
The party is proud of its role in what happened on December 11, when they called on “patriotic people” to join “this first great mobilisation of Australians against the terror of multiculturalist ideology and practice in this country’s history”.
It worked. After the riots, Mr Costello said, people started talking about Australia First.
“Before Cronulla we were nothing. That put us on the agenda. That was our breakthrough,” he said.
The Cronulla effect was also felt outside the party. That same Saturday, the city of Newcastle hosted the first Australian “Blood and Honour” white power gig in years, where a local band, Blood Red Eagle, played on a stage decorated with swastikas.
Australia First’s president Diane Teesdale, from Shepparton, Victoria, denies the party is racist.
“Australia should remain predominantly white. That is party policy, but I don’t think that makes us racist,” she said.
Last Tuesday, Dr Saleam was invited to address a meeting of the Conservative Speakers Club in Strathfield, western Sydney.
After his speech, the first question from his audience was: “Jim, how long before we get a decent government, one that will bring back white immigration, national service and get these young punks into line?”
As well as campaigning in Cronulla, the party also hopes to set up branches in Port Macquarie on the NSW mid-north coast and Wollongong, south of Sydney, as well as sub-branches in Sydney’s western suburbs and Campbelltown. Existing branches operate in Melbourne, Adelaide, Newcastle and Brisbane.
Since the December 11 Cronulla riots, other more extreme groups have been torn about whether to get behind Australia First or stick to their own agendas. Australia’s racist community has been discussing whether to unite behind the party.
One of these is the White Crusaders of the RaHoWa, or Racial Holy War, run from an Oaklands Park post office box in South Australia by the organisation’s “Kommandant”, “Reverend” Colin Campbell III.
The White Crusaders are a religious movement based on the teachings of the self-titled “Pontifex Maximus” Ben Klassen, currently serving 40 years in a US jail for soliciting the murder of a judge.
The group believes “the white race is nature’s finest”.
Its “Sixteen Commandments” state: “Remember that the inferior mud races are our deadly enemies, and the most dangerous of all is the Jewish race. It is our immediate objective to relentlessly expand the White Race, and keep shrinking our enemies.”
The church has its own wedding and “child pledging” ceremonies, while its website contains fairy tales to teach children “white racial pride”.
Like many other extremist groups, however, internal divisions both internationally and in Australia mean the Crusader’s numbers are limited.
While Mr Campbell claims to be the organisation’s second-in-command, he has authority over little more than a few scattered groups around the world. This same factionalism exists, too, within the more established parties.
Since February, Dr Saleam has been asked not to attend meetings of the NSW branch of One Nation.
Jim Cassidy, One Nation state president, said this was because of Dr Saleam’s past connections to “white supremacist” organisations.
“We’re not interested in going down that road and never have been,” he said.
The authorities, too, are cracking down on extreme right-wing groups.
The South Australian police are investigating whether the White Crusaders website breaches any laws.
After Cronulla, the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation launched an investigation into a number of racist groups thought to have had a role in the violence.
Dr Saleam, jailed in 1991 for organising a shotgun attack on the home of the African National Congress’s Australian representative, Eddie Funde, now has to contend with stickers put up on his street calling him a pedophile.
Jeremy Costello has seen his phone number among graffiti near his home, along with a message saying he is available for gay sex.
When contacted by The Weekend Australian for this article, both Dr Saleam and Mr Costello refused to comment.
Despite this, Australia’s extremists still believe they have a political future in this country.
One, anonymous, posting on the “white nationalist” Stormfront Downunder internet forum, called for an end to the factionalism that has defeated the movement in the past.
“We must imitate those already in government in terms of appearance, manner, and promotion,” it said.
“(Our message) must be marketed, it must be refined, it must have the support of intellectuals, white- and blue-collar, the faithful and the faithless. The last two months have done more for Australian nationalism than the last 10 years combined.”
