Neo-Nazis plan to build Fourth Reich on back of economic crisis claims far-right defector
By Allan Hall
Neo-Nazis are on the rise in Germany and are planning to exploit
the economic crisis to build a Fourth Reich, a defector from their
ranks warned yesterday.
Uwe Luthardt painted a chilling picture of
the far-Right trying to recruit the record number of young Germans
facing a bleak future as the country's economy contracts and
unemployment mounts.
Experts fear that the worsening conditions
are worryingly similar to those of the late 1920s and early 1930s which
propelled Hitler's Nazi regime - the Third Reich - to power.
German neo-Nazis idolise Adolf Hitler, seen here addressing supporters at Nuremberg in 1933
Mr
Luthardt was a senior member of Germany's neo-Nazi National Democratic
Party - the NPD - but resigned to inform on the group which Germany
tried unsuccessfully to ban several years ago..
German
unemployment has climbed by 63,000 this month to 3,552,000, or 8.5 per
cent. Its economy - the world's third largest - is predicted to shrink
by 5 per cent this year.
A sign of resurgent extreme
Right came earlier this month in Dresden where nearly 7,000 neo-Nazis
turned up to 'honour German patriots' on the anniversary of the Allied
bombing in 1945 which killed 25,000 residents.
A young neo-Nazi in Leipzig, Germany: Far-right
groups continue to be a huge problem for the authorities who have tried
to ban many of them
It was nearly double the turnout of last
year. Far-Right attacks on immigrants, anti-Nazi activists and Jewish
sites are growing.
Youngsters have always been recruiting
fodder for the party, but now German intelligence officials worry that,
as young people or their parents lose their jobs, they will drift into
the politics of the extreme Right with increasing enthusiasm.
Mr
Luthardt described an organisation that preys on the gullible and the
weak who seek, as he did, to restore some mythical glory to Germany
while finding scapegoats for the economic misery.
Rampant inflation meant Germans needed huge
amounts of money simply to buy a loaf of bread during the Weimar
Republic: Parallels have been made with today's economy
He told
of weapons stores, how members greet each other with Heil Hitler!
salutes, sing the banned songs of the Third Reich, relish the idea of a
new Holocaust against the Jews and plot to bring hard-core Nazism back
with a vengeance.
Luthardt was in the NPD for only four months, but quickly rose to become a member of the ruling board.
He
told Der Spiegel magazine that old Nazis living in South America donate
to the party via shell companies. Other funds come from the staging of
skinhead-music concerts.
He went on: 'The simple aim is the
restoration of the Reich in which a new stormtrooper organisation takes
revenge on anyone who disagrees with them.
'In Jena in East Germany in the NPD HQ there are a load of SS pictures in the cellar. And there's a room with weapons.
'The basic concept the NPD talks about is, "Let's kick out all the foreigners, then the Germans will have jobs again"..
'The
dream is of the German Reich. They're totally convinced that they'll
win an election one day and that things will really get going. Everyone
can imagine what would happen then.'
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