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ABSTRACT
This article takes a transatlantic approach to the history of the Far Right by examining the American influence on German neo-Nazism from the 1970s through the 1990s. The main argument reveals a disturbing yet hitherto unacknowledged reality, which has implications for the way we understand the global Far Right today: the strengthening of Germany’s neo-Nazi movements would have been unthinkable without US involvement. In the decades after Hitler, when East and West Germans struggled to suppress Nazism, American neo-Nazis exploited the US right to free speech and the increasing ease of global communications to circumvent restrictive German censorship laws and ship propaganda across the Atlantic Ocean. In so doing, they contributed to the expansion of a worldwide network of Holocaust deniers and galvanized a new, younger generation of neo-Nazis on both sides of the Berlin Wall who turned their hatred not only against Jews but also against the immigrants and asylum seekers who arrived in the context of postwar mass migration to Europe. In exposing these transatlantic far-right entanglements, the article makes several interventions into the study of German history, Holocaust memory, and antisemitism. First, it speaks to recent historiographical approaches that aim to analyze the role of the long taboo concepts of ‘race’ and ‘racism’ in German efforts to come to terms with the Nazi past. Second, it reconsiders the triumphalist Cold War narrative of America’s influence on post-Hitler Germany; not only does it highlight the failure of US denazification efforts to eradicate the racist mentalities of the Third Reich, but it also reveals that American actors played a crucial role in re-Nazifying Germany. Finally, it encourages historians to examine the politics of racism, xenophobia, and Holocaust denial beyond nation-state borders as a means to better understand the resurgence of global far-right extremism today.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Daniel Koehler, “The Halle, Germany, Synagogue Attack and the Evolution of the Far-Right Terror Threat,” CTC Sentinel, vol. 12, no. 1 (December 2019): pp. 14–20.
2 Yascha Mounk, “A Synagogue Attack on the Holiest Day of the Year,” Atlantic, 9 October 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/halle-shootings/599710/; Jennifer Hassan, “From Germany to America, Synagogues Are Frequently the Target of Attacks,” Washington Post, 9 October 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/10/09/germany-america-synagogues-are-frequently-target-attacks/.
3 Richard A. Oppel Jr., “Synagogue Suspect’s Guns Were All Purchased Legally, Inquiry Finds,” New York Times, 30 October 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/30/us/ar15-gun-pittsburgh-shooting.html.
4 Rita Chin, Heide Fehrenbach, Atina Grossmann, and Geoff Eley, After the Nazi Racial State: Difference and Democracy in Germany and Europe (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007); Cornelia Wilhelm, (ed.), Migration, Memory, and Diversity: Germany from 1945 to the Present (New York: Berghahn Books, 2016).
5 For studies of right-wing extremism within German borders, see among many: Richard Stöss, Politics Against Democracy: Right-Wing Extremism in West Germany (Oxford: Berg, 1991); Thomas Assheuer and Hans Sarkowicz, Rechtsradikale in Deutschland (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1992); Claus Leggewie, Druck von Rechts: Wohin treibt die Bundesrepublik? (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1993); Hermann Kurthen, Werner Bergmann, and Rainer Erb, (eds.), Antisemitism and Xenophobia in Germany after Unification (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); Lee McGowan, The Radical Right in Germany: 1870 to the Present (London: Pearson, 2002); Gerard Braunthal, Right-Wing Extremism in Contemporary Germany (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); Cynthia Miller-Idriss, Blood and Culture: Youth, Right-Wing Extremism, and National Belonging in Contemporary Germany (Durham: Duke University Press, 2009); Daniel Koehler, Right-Wing Terrorism in the 21st Century: The ‘National Socialist Underground’ and the History of Terror from the Far-Right in Germany (New York: Routledge, 2017); Jay Julian Rosselini, The German New Right: AfD, PEGIDA, and the Re-Imagining of National Identity (London: Hurst and Company, 2019). On European comparisons, see: Hans-Georg Betz, Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe (London: Macmillan, 1994); Herbert Kitschelt, The Radical Right in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995). On connections beyond German and European borders, see: Timothy Wyman McCarty and Sabine von Mering, (eds.), Right-Wing Radicalism Today: Perspectives from Europe and the US (New York: Routledge, 2013); Federico Finchelstein, From Fascism to Populism in History (Oakland: University of California Press, 2017); Susan Neiman, Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2019); Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, The Fourth Reich: The Specter of Nazism from World War II to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).
6 Konrad H. Jarausch, Harald Wenzel, and Karin Goihl, (eds.), Different Germans, Many Germanies: New Transatlantic Perspectives (New York: Berghahn, 2017); Steven J. Ross, Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America (London: Bloomsbury, 2017); James Q. Whitman, Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017); Bradley W. Hart, Hitler’s American Friends: The Third Reich’s Supporters in the United States (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2018).
7 On the American influence on post-1945 Germany, see: Michael Ermarth, (ed.), America and the Shaping of German Society, 1945–1955 (Providence: Berg, 1993); Uta G. Poiger, Jazz, Rock, and Rebels: Cold War Politics and American Culture in a Divided Germany (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000); Maria Höhn, GIs and Fräuleins: The German-American Encounter in 1950s West Germany (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003); Alexander Stephan, (ed.), Americanization and Anti-Americanism: The German Encounter with American Culture after 1945 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2005).
8 See among others: William Mikkel Dack, “Questioning the Past: The Fragebogen and Everyday Denazification in Occupied Germany,” PhD dissertation, University of Calgary, Calgary, 2016; Konrad Jarausch, After Hitler: Recivilizing Germans, 1945–1955 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); Frederick Taylor, Exorcising Hitler: The Occupation and Denazification of Germany (London: Bloomsbury, 2011). There are also multiple relevant essays in Ermarth, (ed.), America and the Shaping of German Society.
9 While this article offers the most extensive scholarly investigation of the influence of Lauck’s NSDAP/AO on German neo-Nazism to date, several others have noted the connection. Among scholars, see: Stephen E. Atkins, Holocaust Denial as an International Movement (Westport: Praeger, 2009), pp. 182–3; Jean-Yves Camus and Nicolas Lebourg, Far-Right Politics in Europe, trans. Jane Marie Todd (Cambridge: Belknap, 2017), p. 100; Paul Lansing and John D. Bailey, “The Farmbelt Fuehrer: Consequences of Transnational Communication of Political and Racist Speech,” Nebraska Law Review, vol. 76, no. 3 (1997): p. 656; McGowan, The Radical Right in Germany, p. 181; Rosenfeld, The Fourth Reich, p. 254. Among journalists and others, see: Christian Habbe, “«Weltweit Teutonic Unity». Die Auslandsbeziehungen der deutschen Neonazis,” in Paul Lersch, (ed.), Die verkannte Gefahr. Rechtsradikalismus in der Bundesrepublik (Reinbeck bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1981), p. 80; Martin A. Lee, The Beast Reawakens: Fascism’s Resurgence from Hitler’s Spymasters to Today’s Neo-Nazi Groups and Right-Wing Extremists (New York: Routledge, 2000), p. 246; Rand C. Lewis, The Neo-Nazis and German Unification (Westport: Praeger, 1996), p. 45; Michael Schmidt, The New Reich: Violent Extremism in Unified Germany and Beyond, trans. Daniel Horch (New York: Random House, 1993), pp. 46–7; Yaron Svoray and Nick Taylor, In Hitler’s Shadow: An Israeli’s Amazing Journey Inside Germany’s Neo-Nazi Movement (New York: Nan A. Talese, 1994), p. 142.
10 In the Western zones: Dack, “Questioning the Past”; Jarausch, After Hitler. In the Soviet zone: Benita Blessing, The Antifascist Classroom: Denazification in Soviet-Occupied Germany, 1945–1949 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006); Timothy R. Vogt, Denazification in Soviet-Occupied Germany: Brandenburg, 1945–1948 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000).
11 Michael Bohlander, (trans.), The German Criminal Code: A Modern English Translation (London: Bloomsbury, 2008), pp. 114–5.
12 Jeffrey Herf, Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanys (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997).
13 Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV) to Bundesministerium des Innern (BMI), “Rechtsradikalismus in Theorie und Praxis,” 13 May 1974, Bundesarchiv Koblenz (BArch), B 106/101996.
14 “Die Rechtsextremisten tauchen unter,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, 26 May 1971.
15 Klaus Peter Beuth, “Politischer Terror von rechts?” Kölnische Rundschau, 19 November 1971.
16 American Embassy in Bonn to US State Department, “Current German Political Extremism and the Potential for Violence,” 26 May 1971, National Archives and Records Administration—College Park (NARA), RG 59, Box 2303, folder POL/2/GERW.
17 American Consulate in Düsseldorf to US State Department, “Radicalism in Northrhine-Westphalia,” 24 March 1971, NARA, RG 59, Box 2307, folder POL/12/GERW.
18 American Embassy in Bonn to US State Department, “Current German Political Extremism and the Potential for Violence.”
19 Gerhard Lauck, “Warum wir Amerikaner noch Adolf Hitler verehren” (1974), reprinted in Michael Kühnen, Die zweite Revolution, Band I: Kampf und Glaube (1971), pp. 6–119, in Gerhard Lauck, (ed.), Michael Kühnen Werke: Acht Bücher in einem Band (Lincoln: RJG Enterprises, 2016), p. 59.
20 Gerhard Lauck, The Education of an Evil Genius (Lincoln: RJG Enterprises, 2016), p. 37.
21 Gerhard Lauck, “Warum wir Amerikaner noch Adolf Hitler verehren” (1974), reprinted in Kühnen, Die zweite Revolution, p. 59.
22 Gerhard Lauck, “Die NSDAP/AO: Strategie, Propaganda und Organisation,” 1976, reprinted in Kühnen, Die zweite Revolution, pp. 60–3.
23 Gabriele Krone, “Der importierte Faschismus – Wie kommen rechtsextreme Schriften in die Bundesrepublik?” Monitor, 17 August 1982.
24 Lansing and Bailey, “The Farmbelt Fuehrer,” p. 656.
25 Deutscher Bundestag, 7. Wahlperiode, “Antrag der Fraktion der CDU/CSU betr. Unterrichtung über Fragen der inneren Sicherheit,” 21 February 1975, pp. 38–9.
26 Murray Seeger, “Isolated Neo-Nazi Activities Trigger Alarm in W. Germany,” Los Angeles Times, 15 November 1976, p. D12.
27 “Rechtsradikale: ‘Bereit bis zum Letzten,’” Der Spiegel, 9 August 1976, pp. 25–7.
28 Bernd Wagner and Thomas Grumke, Handbuch Rechtsradikalismus: Personen — Organisationen —Netzwerke vom Neonazismus bis in die Mitte der Gesellschaft (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2013), pp. 285–7.
29 Despite denying his homosexuality, it was no secret among Michael Kühnen’s fellow neo-Nazis, causing rifts within the movement. His public writings, moreover, sought to reconcile National Socialist ideology with homosexuality and to lionize Ernst Röhm as the “true leader” of the movement. See his 1986 pamphlet: Nationalsozialismus und Homosexualität.
30 “Der neue Neonazi: Michael Kühnen,” Die Zeit, 28 April 1978.
31 Michael Getler, “Disgruntled Youths Lured by Neo-Nazis,” Washington Post, 24 May 1979, p. D3.
32 “US Nazi Testifies at Trial of Followers in W. Germany,” Los Angeles Times, 23 August 1979, p. A2.
33 Kühnen, Die zweite Revolution, p. 67
34 Lauck, Education of an Evil Genius, p. 88.
35 Michael Kühnen, “Führertum zwischen Volksgemeinschaft und Elitedenken,” in Lauck, (ed.), Michael Kühnen Werke, p. 419.
36 BfV to BMI, “Zusammenarbeit deutscher und ausländischer Neo-Nazis,” 24 August 1981, BArch, B 106/101996.
37 BMI to BfV, “Zusammenarbeit deutscher rechtsextremistischer Gruppen mit Rechtsextremisten im Ausland,” 11 January 1980, BArch, B 106/101996.
38 BfV to BMI, “Statistik der rechtsextremistischen Ausschreitungen und der Maßnahmen gegen rechtsextremistische Personen und Organisationen im 1. Halbjahr 1979,” 22 August 1979, BArch, B 106/101996.
39 BfV to BMI, “Die Bedeutung der neonazistischen Agitation aus Nordamerika für die Aktivitäten deutscher NS-Gruppen,” 18 June 1980, BArch B 106/101996.
40 BfV to Referat für Öffentlichkeitsarbeit, “Neonazistische Agitation aus dem Ausland,” 2 February 1982, BArch, B 106/101997.
41 BfV to BMI, “Die Bedeutung der neonazistischen Agitation aus Nordamerika.”
42 Lauck, Education of an Evil Genius, p. 88.
43 Wagner and Grumke, Handbuch Rechtsradikalismus, pp. 375–83.
44 Atkins, Holocaust Denial as an International Movement, pp. 120–1.
45 Michael Schmidt, (dir.), Wahrheit macht frei (1991).
46 Lauck, Education of an Evil Genius, p. 90.
47 Rita Chin and Heide Fehrenbach, “German Democracy and the Question of Difference, 1945–1995,” pp. 102–36, in Chin et al., After the Nazi Racial State, pp. 115–24.
48 Gideon Botsch, “From Skinhead-Subculture to Radical Right Movement: The Development of a ‘National Opposition’ in East Germany,” Contemporary European History, vol. 21, no. 4 (November 2012): pp. 553–73.
49 Lauck, Education of an Evil Genius, p. 123.
50 “Die schlagen schneller zu,” Der Spiegel, 27 May 1991, pp. 78–85.
51 Braunthal, Right-Wing Extremism, p. 83.
52 Lauck, Education of an Evil Genius, p. 130.
53 On Roeder, see Rosenfeld, The Fourth Reich, pp. 251–4.
54 Bela Ewald Althans, “Richtigstellungen: Der Spiegel 1992 – Vor 20 Jahren,” Althans Info, 22 January 2013, https://althansinfo.wordpress.com/2013/01/22/der-spiegel-vor-20-jahren/.
55 Schmidt, Wahrheit macht frei.
56 While not frequently mentioned in relation to the NSDAP/AO, another transatlantic connection is worth noting: the Skinhead culture prominent among far-right extremists in the United States in the 1990s had been imported from Europe with origins in 1960s Britain and had become a multifaceted global phenomenon. See: Kevin Borgeson and Robin Maria Valeri, Skinhead History, Identity, and Culture (New York: Routledge, 2017); Timothy Scott Brown, “Subcultures, Pop Music, and Politics: Skinheads and ‘Nazi Rock’ in England and Germany,” Journal of Social History, vol. 38, no. 1 (September 2004): pp. 157–78; Kirsten Dyck, Reichsrock: The International Web of White-Power and Neo-Nazi Music (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2016); and Klaus Farin and Eberhard Seidel-Pielen, Skinheads (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1994).
57 Ingo Hasselbach and Winfried Bonengel, Die Abrechnung. Ein Neonazi steigt aus (Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1993).
58 Rick Atkinson, “Former Neo-Nazi, in Hiding, Warns of ‘Potential for Violence,’” Washington Post, 27 December 1993; Stephen Kinzer, “A Neo-Nazi Whose Ardor Was Cooled by Killings,” New York Times, 2 February 1994, p. A4.
59 Ingo Hasselbach, “Extremism: A Global Network,” New York Times, 26 April 1995, p. A26.
60 Ingo Hasselbach with Tom Reiss, Führer-Ex: Memoirs of a Former Neo-Nazi (New York: Random House, 1996).
61 Mort Rosenblum, “Neo-Nazism From the Inside,” Washington Post, 6 February 1996.
62 Bettijane Levine, “Rejecting the Hate: Ingo Hasselbach Was a Virtual Poster Boy for German Neo Nazis. Now He Preaches Racial Harmony as He Promotes His Life Story,” Los Angeles Times, 19 February 1996.
63 Hasselbach, Führer-Ex, p. vii.
64 Stephen E. Atkins, Encyclopedia of Right-Wing Extremism in Modern American History (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2011), p. 111.
65 Lansing and Bailey, “The Farmbelt Fuehrer,” pp. 658–9.
66 “BKA Chef Zachert trifft FBI-Vertreter,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, 30 Jun. 1994; Deutscher Bundestag, Verhandlungen des deutschen Bundestages. Stenographische Berichte. Anlagen zu den stenographischen Berichten, vol. 556 (1996), p. 164.
67 “US Neo-Nazi Sentenced in Germany to 4 Years,” New York Times, 23 August 1996; “German Court Sentences US Nazi to Four Years,” Washington Post, 23 August 1996.
68 Lauck, Education of an Evil Genius, p. 136.
69 Abraham H. Foxman and Christopher Wolf, Viral Hate: Containing Its Spread on the Internet (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2013), p. 24.
70 Gerhard Lauck, “How YOU Can Fight Back!,” NSDAP.info, http://www.nazi-lauck-nsdapao.com/english.htm.
71 Kevin Roose, “On Gab, an Extremist-Friendly Site, Pittsburgh Shooting Suspect Aired His Hatred in Full,” New York Times, 28 October 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/28/us/gab-robert-bowers-pittsburgh-synagogue-shootings.html.
72 Julie Carrie Wong, “Germany’s Shooting Suspect Livestreamed Attempted Attack on Synagogue,” Guardian, 9 October 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/09/germany-shooting-synagogue-halle-livestreamed.
73 Tess Owen, “How the Germany Synagogue Shooter’s Manifesto Follows the Far-Right Playbook,” VICE News, 10 October 2019, https://www.vice.com/en/article/8xwk9a/how-the-germany-synagogue-shooters-manifesto-follows-the-far-right-playbook.
74 Sheera Frenkel, “Facebook Bans Content About Holocaust Denial from its Site,” New York Times, 12 October 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/12/technology/facebook-bans-holocaust-denial-content.html.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Michelle Lynn Kahn
Michelle Lynn Kahn is an Assistant Professor of Modern European History at the University of Richmond, specializing in post-1945 Germany. She has a particular interest in far-right extremism, racism, antisemitism, Holocaust memory, migration, gender, sexuality, and transnational connections. She is currently completing a book manuscript on the history of Turkish guest worker migration to Germany, as well as researching a new project on the transatlantic entanglements between U.S. and German neo-Nazis. She was awarded the 2019 Fritz Stern Dissertation Prize of the German Historical Institute, and her research has been funded by numerous institutions including the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Central European History Society.