Neo-Nazism

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. 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. 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. , general and leader of the postwar Socialist Reich Party 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. 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. 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. Rockwell, an American conservative, was first politicised in the anti-communism and anti-racial integration movements before becoming anti-Jewish. In response to his opponents calling him a "Nazi", he theatrically appropriated the aesthetic elements of the NSDAP, to "own" the intended insult. In 1959, Rockwell founded the American Nazi Party and instructed his members to dress in imitation SA-style brown shirts, while flying the flag of the Third Reich. In contrast to Yockey, he was pro-American and cooperated with FBI requests, despite the party being targeted by COINTELPRO due to the mistaken belief that they were agents of Nasser's Egypt during a brief intelligence "brown scare". Later leaders of American white nationalism came to politics through the American Nazi Party (ANP) including a teenage David Duke and William Luther Pierce of the National Alliance, although they soon distanced themselves from explicit self-identification with neo-Nazism. In 1961, the World Union of National Socialists was founded by Rockwell and Colin Jordan of the British National Socialist Movement, adopting the Cotswold Declaration. French socialite Françoise Dior was involved romantically with Jordan and his deputy John Tyndall and a friend of Savitri Devi, who also attended the meeting. The National Socialist Movement wore quasi-SA uniforms, was involved in streets conflicts with the Jewish 62 Group. In the 1970s, Tyndall's earlier involvement with neo-Nazism would come back to haunt the National Front, which he led, as they attempted to ride a wave of anti-immigration populism and concerns over British national decline. Televised exposes on This Week in 1974 and World in Action in 1978, showed their neo-Nazi pedigree and damaged their electoral chances. In 1967, Rockwell was killed by a disgruntled former member. Matt Koehl took control of the ANP, and strongly influenced by Savitri Devi, gradually transformed it into an esoteric group known as the New Order. In Franco's Spain, certain SS refugees most notably Otto Skorzeny, Léon Degrelle and the son of Klaus Barbie became associated with CEDADE (Círculo Español de Amigos de Europa), an organisation which disseminated Third Reich apologetics out of Barcelona. They intersected with neo-Nazi advocates from Mark Fredriksen in France to Salvador Borrego in Mexico. In the post-fascist Italian Social Movement splinter groups such as Ordine Nuovo and Avanguardia Nazionale, involved in the "Years of Lead" considered Nazism a reference. Franco Freda created a "Nazi-Maoism" synthesis. In Germany itself, the various Third Reich nostalgic movements coalesced around the National Democratic Party of Germany in 1964 and in Austria the National Democratic Party in 1967 as the primary sympathisers of the NSDAP past, although more publicly cautious than earlier groups. Holocaust denial and subcultures (1970s–1990s) Holocaust denial, the claim that six million Jews were not deliberately and systematically exterminated as an official policy of the Third Reich and Adolf Hitler, became a more prominent feature of neo-Nazism in the 1970s. Before this time, Holocaust denial had long existed as a sentiment among neo-Nazis, but it had not yet been systematically articulated as a theory with a bibliographical canon. Few of the major theorists of Holocaust denial (who call themselves "revisionists") can be uncontroversially classified as outright neo-Nazis (though some works such as those of David Irving forward a clearly sympathetic view of Hitler and the publisher Ernst Zündel was deeply tied to international neo-Nazism), however, the main interest of Holocaust denial to neo-Nazis was their hope that it would help them rehabilitate their political ideology in the eyes of the general public. Did Six Million Really Die? (1974) by Richard Verrall and The Hoax of the Twentieth Century (1976) by Arthur Butz are popular examples of Holocaust denial material. in the 1970s energised international neo-Nazism. Key developments in international neo-Nazism during this time include the radicalisation of the under former Hitler Youth member Bert Eriksson. They began hosting an annual conference; the "Iron Pilgrimage"; at Diksmuide, which drew kindred ideologues from across Europe and beyond. As well as this, the NSDAP/AO under Gary Lauck arose in the United States in 1972 and challenged the international influence of the Rockwellite WUNS. Lauck's organisation drew support from the National Socialist Movement of Denmark of Povl Riis-Knudsen and various German and Austrian figures who felt that the "National Democratic" parties were too bourgeois and insufficiently Nazi in orientation. This included Michael Kühnen, Christian Worch, Bela Ewald Althans and Gottfried Küssel of the 1977-founded ANS/NS which called for the establishment of a Germanic Fourth Reich. Some ANS/NS members were imprisoned for planning paramilitary attacks on NATO bases in Germany and planning to liberate Rudolf Hess from Spandau Prison. The organisation was officially banned in 1983 by the Minister of the Interior. During the late 1970s, a British subculture came to be associated with neo-Nazism; the skinheads. Portraying an ultra-masculine, crude and aggressive image, with working-class references, some of the skinheads joined the British Movement under Michael McLaughlin (successor of Colin Jordan), while others became associated with the National Front's Rock Against Communism project which was meant to counter the SWP's Rock Against Racism. The most significant music group involved in this project was Skrewdriver, led by Ian Stuart Donaldson. Together with ex-BM member Nicky Crane, Donaldson founded the international Blood & Honour network in 1987. By 1992 this network, with input from Harold Covington, had developed a paramilitary wing; Combat 18, which intersected with football hooligan firms such as the Chelsea Headhunters. The neo-Nazi skinhead movement spread to the United States, with groups such as the Hammerskins. It was popularised from 1986 onwards by Tom Metzger of the White Aryan Resistance. Since then it has spread across the world. Films such as Romper Stomper (1992) and American History X (1998) would fix a public perception that neo-Nazism and skinheads were synonymous. ", a symbol found at SS-cult site Wewelsburg Castle. New developments also emerged on the esoteric level, as former Chilean diplomat Miguel Serrano built on the works of Carl Jung, Otto Rahn, Wilhelm Landig, Julius Evola and Savitri Devi to bind together and develop already existing theories. Serrano had been a member of the National Socialist Movement of Chile in the 1930s and from the early days of neo-Nazism, he had been in contact with key figures across Europe and beyond. Despite this, he was able to work as an ambassador to numerous countries until the rise of Salvador Allende. In 1984 he published his book Adolf Hitler: The Ultimate Avatar. Serrano claimed that the Aryans were extragalactic beings who founded Hyperborea and lived the heroic life of Bodhisattvas, while the Jews were created by the Demiurge and were concerned only with coarse materialism. Serrano claimed that a new Golden Age can be attained if the Hyperboreans repurify their blood (supposedly the light of the Black Sun) and restore their "blood-memory". As with Savitri Devi before him, Serrano's works became a key point of reference in neo-Nazism. Lifting of the Iron Curtain (1990s–present) With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union during the early 1990s, neo-Nazism began to spread its ideas in the East, as hostility to the triumphant liberal order was high and revanchism a widespread feeling. In Russia, during the chaos of the early 1990s, an amorphous mixture of KGB hardliners, Orthodox neo-Tsarist nostalgics (i.e., Pamyat) and explicit neo-Nazis found themselves strewn together in the same camp. They were united by opposition to the influence of the United States, against the liberalising legacy of Mikhail Gorbachev's and on the Jewish question, Soviet Zionology merged with a more explicit anti-Jewish sentiment. The most significant organisation representing this was Russian National Unity under the leadership of Alexander Barkashov, where black-uniform clad Russians marched with a red flag incorporating the Swastika under the banner of Russia for Russians. These forces came together in a last gasp effort to save the Supreme Soviet of Russia against Boris Yeltsin during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis. As well as events in Russia, in newly independent ex-Soviet states, annual commemorations for SS volunteers now took place; particularly in Latvia, Estonia and Ukraine. . "Nazbols" tailor ultra-nationalist themes to a native Russian environment while still employing Nazi aesthetics. The Russian developments excited German neo-Nazism who dreamed of a Berlin–Moscow alliance against the supposedly "decadent" Atlanticist forces; a dream which had been thematic since the days of Remer. Zündel visited Russia and met with ex-KGB general Aleksandr Stergilov and other Russian National Unity members. Despite these initial aspirations, international neo-Nazism and its close affiliates in ultra-nationalism would be split over the Bosnian War between 1992 and 1995, as part of the breakup of Yugoslavia. The split would largely be along ethnic and sectarian lines. The Germans and the French would largely back the Western Catholic Croats (Lauck's NSDAP/AO explicitly called for volunteers, which Kühnen's Free German Workers' Party answered and the French formed the "Groupe Jacques Doriot"), while the Russians and the Greeks would back the Orthodox Serbs (including Russians from Barkashov's Russian National Unity, Eduard Limonov's National Bolshevik Front and Golden Dawn members joined the Greek Volunteer Guard). Indeed, the revival of National Bolshevism was able to steal some of the thunder from overt Russian neo-Nazism, as ultra-nationalism was wedded with veneration of Joseph Stalin in place of Adolf Hitler, while still also flirting with Nazi aesthetics. == Analogous European movements ==

Outside Germany, in other countries which were involved with the Axis powers and had their own native ultra-nationalist movements, which sometimes collaborated with the Third Reich but were not technically German-style National Socialists, revivalist and nostalgic movements have emerged in the post-war period which, as neo-Nazism has done in Germany, seek to rehabilitate their various loosely associated ideologies. These movements include neo-fascists and post-fascists in Italy; Vichyites, Pétainists and "national Europeans" in France; Ustaše sympathisers in Croatia; neo-Chetniks in Serbia; Iron Guard revivalists in Romania; Hungarists and Horthyists in Hungary and others. == Issues ==

Ex-Nazis in mainstream politics and the World Jewish Congress caused an international incident. The most significant case on an international level was the election of Kurt Waldheim to the Presidency of Austria in 1986. It came to light that Waldheim had been a member of the National Socialist German Students' League, the SA and served as an intelligence officer during the Second World War. Following this he served as an Austrian diplomat and was the Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1972 until 1981. After revelations of Waldheim's past were made by an Austrian journalist, Waldheim clashed with the World Jewish Congress on the international stage. Waldheim's record was defended by Bruno Kreisky, an Austrian Jew who served as Chancellor of Austria. The legacy of the affair lingers on, as Victor Ostrovsky has claimed the Mossad doctored the file of Waldheim to implicate him in war crimes. In Finland multiple veterans of the Waffen-SS served as ministers and party chairmen. Heikki Waris, board member of SKSL served as the Minister of Social Affairs in the Von Fieandt Cabinet in 1957. Many more ex-Nazis were elected as members of parliament, like former SKSL Yrjö Kilpeläinen and Unto Varjonen Contemporary right-wing populism Some critics have sought to draw a connection between Nazism and modern right-wing populism in Europe, but the two are not widely regarded as interchangeable by most academics. In Austria, the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) served as a shelter for ex-Nazis almost from its inception. In 1980, scandals undermined Austria's two main parties and the economy stagnated. Jörg Haider became leader of the FPÖ and offered partial justification for Nazism, calling its employment policy effective. In the 1994 Austrian election, the FPÖ won 22 percent of the vote, as well as 33 percent of the vote in Carinthia and 22 percent in Vienna; showing that it had become a force capable of reversing the old pattern of Austrian politics. Historian Walter Laqueur writes that even though Haider welcomed former Nazis at his meetings and went out of his way to address Schutzstaffel (SS) veterans, the FPÖ is not a fascist party in the traditional sense, since it has not made anti-communism an important issue, and it does not advocate the overthrow of the democratic order or the use of violence. In his view, the FPÖ is "not quite fascist", although it is part of a tradition, similar to that of 19th-century Viennese mayor Karl Lueger, which involves nationalism, xenophobic populism, and authoritarianism. Haider, who in 2005 left the Freedom Party and formed the Alliance for Austria's Future, was killed in a traffic accident in October 2008. Barbara Rosenkranz, the Freedom Party's candidate in Austria's 2010 presidential election, was controversial for having made allegedly pro-Nazi statements. Rosenkranz is married to Horst Rosenkranz, a key member of a banned neo-Nazi party, who is known for publishing far-right books. Rosenkranz says she cannot detect anything "dishonourable" in her husband's activities. ==Around the world==

Europe Albania Brerore and the Albanian Third Position (ATP) are neo-Nazi groups based in Albania with the ATP also having reach into Kosovo and Northern Macedonia. Albanian football clubs are also sometimes linked to right-wing extremism. For example Ultras Tirona club uses Nazi symbols in stadiums and they have unfurled banners praising the Albanian SS Division. Some of the ATP's members are also members of Tirana Fanatiks football ultra hooligan club. Armenia The Armenian-Aryan Racialist Political Movement is a National Socialist movement in Armenia. It was founded in 2021 and supports Aryanism, Antisemitism, and White supremacy. Belarus There has been a Nazi presence in Belarus since at least 1933 in the form of the . Neo-Nazi White Legion (Белы Легіён) attempted a bombing of a Soviet Victory Monument in Minsk. Since the independence of Belarus, the far-right in Belarus has systematically rehabilitated Belarusian nazi collaborators both in the internet and real life. For example in 2014, the right-wing organization Young Front demonstrated with banners depicting General Michał Vituška, nazi collaborator and anti-Soviet partisan. In 2018, the biggest alcohol company in the country Bulbash United posted a picture of General Francišak Kušal, a prominent Nazi collaborator, and a text praising him attached to it on their webpage. It drew both condemnation and praise from the netizens of Belarus. Aliaksei Dzermant is the founder of Kryuskaja Draugija Druvingau, Belarusian branch of the neo-Nazi pagan Allgermanische Heidnische Front. Dzermant is also the founder of the modern successor of the Belarusian Nazi Party. According to the journalist Manuel Abramowicz, of the Resistances, the extremists of the radical right have always had as its aim to "infiltrate the state mechanisms", including the army in the 1970s and the 1980s, through Westland New Post and the Front de la Jeunesse. A police operation, which mobilized 150 agents, searched five military barracks (in Leopoldsburg near the Dutch border, Kleine-Brogel, Peer, Brussels (Royal military school) and Zedelgem) as well as 18 private addresses in Flanders. They found weapons, munitions, explosives and a homemade bomb large enough to make "a car explode". The leading suspect, B.T., was organizing the trafficking of weapons and was developing international links, in particular with the Dutch far-right movement De Nationale Alliantie. Bosnia and Herzegovina The neo-Nazi white nationalist organization Bosanski Pokret Nacionalnog Ponosa (Bosnian Movement of National Pride) was founded in Bosnia and Herzegovina in July 2009. Its model is the Waffen-SS Handschar Division, which was composed of Bosniak volunteers. It proclaimed its main enemies to be "Jews, Roma, Serbian Chetniks, the Croatian separatists, Josip Broz Tito, Communists, homosexuals and blacks". Its ideology is a mixture of Bosnian nationalism, National Socialism and white nationalism. It says "Ideologies that are not welcome in Bosnia are: Zionism, Islamism, communism, capitalism. The only ideology good for us is Bosnian nationalism because it secures national prosperity and social justice..." The group is led by a person nicknamed Sauberzwig, after the commander of the 13th SS Handschar. The group's strongest area of operations is in the Tuzla area of Bosnia. Bulgaria The primary neo-Nazi political party to receive attention in post-WWII Bulgaria is the Bulgarian National Union – New Democracy. On 13 February of every year since 2003, Bulgarian neo-Nazis and like-minded far-right nationalists gather at Sofia to honor Hristo Lukov, a late World War II general known for his antisemitic and pro-Nazi stance. From 2003 to 2019, the annual event was hosted by Bulgarian National Union. Bulgaria is also home to a neo-Nazi group called the White Front that is "linked to an extremely violent fringe of neo-Nazis" that have defaced synagogues with antisemitic posters. White Front also countered Sofia Pride by plastering around homophobic posters claiming homosexuality is connected to pedophilia. Croatia sign at a Thompson concert during the Anti-Cyrillic protests in Croatia Neo-Nazis in Croatia base their ideology on the writings of Ante Pavelić and the Ustaše, a fascist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The Ustaše regime committed a genocide against Serbs, Jews and Roma. At the end of World War II, many Ustaše members fled to the West, where they found sanctuary and continued their political and terrorist activities (which were tolerated due to Cold War hostilities). In 1999, Zagreb's Square of the Victims of Fascism was renamed Croatian Nobles Square, provoking widespread criticism of Croatia's attitude towards the Holocaust. In 2000, the Zagreb City Council again renamed the square into Square of the Victims of Fascism. Many streets in Croatia were renamed after the prominent Ustaše figure Mile Budak, which provoked outrage amongst the Serbian minority. Since 2002, there has been a reversal of this development, and streets with the name of Mile Budak or other persons connected with the Ustaše movement are few or non-existent. A plaque in Slunj with the inscription "Croatian Knight Jure Francetić" was erected to commemorate Francetić, the notorious Ustaše leader of the Black Legion. The plaque remained there for four years, until it was removed by the authorities. In 2003, Croatian penal code was amended with provisions prohibiting the public display of Nazi symbols, the propagation of Nazi ideology, historical revisionism and holocaust denial but the amendments were annulled in 2004 since they were not enacted in accordance with a constitutionally prescribed procedure. Nevertheless, since 2006 Croatian penal code explicitly prohibits any type of hate crime based on race, color, gender, sexual orientation, religion or national origin. There have been instances of hate speech in Croatia, such as the use of the phrase ("[Hang] Serbs on the willow trees!"). In 2004, an Orthodox church was spray-painted with pro-Ustaše graffiti. During some protests in Croatia, supporters of Ante Gotovina and other at the time suspected war criminals (all acquitted in 2012) have carried nationalist symbols and pictures of Pavelić. On 17 May 2007, a concert in Zagreb by Thompson, a popular Croatian singer, was attended by 60,000 people, some of them wearing Ustaše uniforms. Some gave Ustaše salutes and shouted the Ustaše slogan "Za dom spremni" ("For the homeland – ready!"). This event prompted the Simon Wiesenthal Center to publicly issue a protest to the Croatian president. Cases of displaying Ustashe memorabilia have been recorded at the Bleiburg commemoration held annually in Austria. Czech Republic The neo-Nazi Workers' Party of Social Justice (DSSS) was shut down because a court found that it tried to replace democracy with a "National Socialist system", which is illegal in the Czech Republic. Former DSSS leaders Tomáš Vandas and Jiří Štěpánek continue their political activities in “Bezpečné ulice” (Safe Streets) political initiative. In 2011 Vandas was found guilty of defaming minorities but was granted amnesty by the Czech President Václav Klaus. Predecessor of the DSSS, Workers' Party (DS) sent party members and skinheads to patrol Romani ghettoes, and these patrols were joined by non-Romani neighbors, along with the DS youth organization Dělnická mládež, and extremist groups such as the National Party and National Resistance. These patrols led to anti-Romani pogroms in multiple cities, and molotov cocktails were thrown into Romani apartments, most famously in the 2009 Vítkov arson attack. Numerous Romani houses were burned down in the 2013 Czech Anti-Roma protests that were supported by Czech neo-Nazi groups. In České Budějovice, for example, hundreds of neo-Nazis shouted "Heil Hitler" and gave nazi salutes as they rampaged through a Romani neighborhood, torching houses. In 2021 a nine foot memorial for the Nazi collaborationist Russian Liberation Army (ROA) was erected in Prague. The commander of the ROA General Andrey Vlasov also has a memorial in Lnáře Castle in Lnáře. In mid-September 2025, an anti-racist demonstration in Frýdek-Místek was attacked by 30 armed neo-Nazis, leaving multiple demonstrators injured, one in critical condition. The Czech MP Filip Turek has been accused of "adoring" Nazis by the Czech president Petr Pavel. Turek has, among other things, said that it should be considered a mitigating factor that the victims of the Vítkov arson attack were Romani. Turek was pictured doing a nazi salute, collects Nazi memorabilia, and supports the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn. He also called the Christchurch mosque shooting a "cleaning up of New Zealand", called Obama a "nigger" and stated "White men built and, thank God, continue to build this world as we know it. Is there really a retard who finds this unnatural?" Turek was proposed to be the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Babis coalition. Denmark The National Socialist Movement of Denmark was formed in 1991, and was formally a neo-Nazi party, that would actively promote the Nazi ideology in Denmark. The party did not gain any political influence, and were regarded as a failed political project by neo-Nazi expert Frede Farmand. Long time party leader Johnni Hansen was replaced by Esben Rohde Kristensen in 2010, which resulted in a large amount of party members leaving the party. While the party never has been formally dissolved, there has been very little activity from its core member since 2010. Former neo-Nazi Daniel Carlsen formed the small national party Party of the Danes in 2011, which officially rejected Nazism, but were none the less categorized as such by professor in politics Peter Nedergaard. It was dissolved in 2017 after its founder Daniel Stockholm announced retirement from politics. Estonia Standartenführer (Colonel) in the SS and recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves Alfons Rebane was reburied in Estonia with full military honors in 1999. In 2004 a memorial to Rebane was unveiled in northern Estonia and the event was attended by members of parliament. Russia's chief rabbi, Berel Lazar condemned the event as serving to escalate neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism. In 2018 a memorial for Rebane was installed in Mustla where he lived. In 2006, Roman Ilin, a Jewish theatre director from St. Petersburg, Russia, was attacked by neo-Nazis when returning from a tunnel after a rehearsal. Ilin subsequently accused Estonian police of indifference after filing the incident. When a dark-skinned French student was attacked in Tartu, the head of an association of foreign students claimed that the attack was characteristic of a wave of neo-Nazi violence. An Estonian police official, however, stated that there were only a few cases involving foreign students over the previous two years. In November 2006, the Estonian government passed a law banning the display of Nazi symbols. The 2008 United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur's Report noted that community representatives and non-governmental organizations devoted to human rights had pointed out that neo-Nazi groups were active in Estonia—particularly in Tartu—and had perpetrated acts of violence against non-European minorities. A leading figure in the former neo-Nazi Estonian Independence Party (EIP) was allegedly organizing neo-Nazi military training camps in Estonia. Teinonen is an open neo-Nazi, he has organized parties on the anniversary of the Wannsee Conference and on Hitler's birthday where he has appeared in a Nazi uniform. Teinonen was also a member of a political clique funded by the antisemitic nationalist organization National Patriotic Front "Memory". Teinonen's Finnish associate Johan Bäckman (VKK) has also been accused of recruiting far-right individuals that have gone on to take part in the military camps of the neo-Nazi Russian Imperial Movement (RIM). RIM also has a training club in Estonia. Both Bäckman and ethnic Russian associates of the RIM were deported from Estonia as persona non gratas. The neo-Nazi terrorist organization Feuerkrieg Division was found and operates in the country, with some members of the Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE) having been linked to the Feuerkrieg Division. Estonia also has an Active Club chapter that was allegedly founded with the support of Estonian Atomwaffen member. In 2024, three Active Club Estonia members were convicted of far-right vigilantism. According to an Estonian Internal Security Service report Active Club Estonia is "a group mainly engaged in promoting Tesak-style vigilante operations in Estonia". In January 2025, Harju court found Feuerkrieg Division to be a terrorist organization and several members were sentenced to prison terms. Atomwaffen Division Finland maintained particularly close relations with the Feuerkrieg Division in Estonia. Feuerkrieg also co-operated with the Eastern European terrorist group Maniac Murder Cult. As of 2026, former EIP chairman Sven Kivisildnik serves in Pärnu City Council on the EKRE list. Valmar Veste, also EKRE, is slated to become the mayor of Pärnu in 2026. Veste is known for operating a company importing and selling Thor Steinar brand clothing, considered closely associated with neo-Nazism by the Verfassungschutz. In 2024 an Estonian neo-Nazi and a member of Estonian chapter of neo-Nazi Russian National Unity Allan Hantsom was convicted of vandalizing the car of the Interior Minister Lauri Laanemets. Finland , Finnish neo-Nazi, occultist, and Satanist In Finland, neo-Nazism is often connected to the 1930s and 1940s fascist and pro-Nazi Patriotic People's Movement (IKL), its youth movement Blues-and-Blacks and its predecessor Lapua Movement. Post-war fascist groups such as Patriotic People's Movement (1993), Patriotic Popular Front, Patriotic National Movement, Blue-and-Black Movement and many others consciously copy the style of the movement and look up to its leaders as inspiration. A Finns Party councillor and police officer in Seinäjoki caused controversy by wearing the fascist blue-and-black uniform. During the Cold War, all partied deemed fascist were banned according to the Paris Peace Treaties and all former fascist activists had to find new political homes. Despite Finlandization, many continued in public life. Three former members of the Waffen SS served as ministers; the Finnish SS Battalion officers Sulo Suorttanen (Centre Party) and Pekka Malinen (People's Party) as well as Mikko Laaksonen (Social Democrat), a soldier in the Finnish SS-Company, formed of pro-Nazi defectors. Chairman of the Constitutional Right Party Ilpo Järvinen was likewise an SS-Company veteran. Neo-Nazi activism was limited to small illegal groups like the clandestine Nazi occultist group led by Pekka Siitoin who made headlines after arson and bombing of the printing houses of the Communist Party of Finland. His associates also sent letter bombs to leftists, including to the headquarters of the Finnish Democratic Youth League. Another group called the "New Patriotic People's Movement" bombed the left-wing Kansan Uutiset newspaper and the embassy of communist Bulgaria. Member of the Nordic Realm Party Seppo Seluska was convicted of the torture and murder of a gay Jewish person. The skinhead culture gained momentum during the late 1980s and peaked during the late 1990s. In 1991, Finland received a number of Somali immigrants who became the main target of Finnish skinhead violence in the following years, including four attacks using explosives and a racist murder. Asylum seeker centres were attacked, in Joensuu skinheads would force their way into an asylum seeker centre and start shooting with shotguns. At worst Somalis were assaulted by 50 skinheads at the same time. The most prominent neo-Nazi group is the Nordic Resistance Movement, which is tied to multiple murders, attempted murders and assaults of political enemies was found in 2006 and proscribed in 2019. The second biggest Finnish party, the Finns Party politicians have frequently supported far-right and neo-Nazi movements such as the Finnish Defense League, Soldiers of Odin, Nordic Resistance Movement, Rajat Kiinni (Close the Borders), and Suomi Ensin (Finland First). In the 1990s and 2000s, before the breakthrough of the Finns Party, a few neo-Nazi candidates enjoyed success, like Janne Kujala of Finland - Fatherland (founded as Aryan Germanic Brotherhood) and Jouni Lanamäki who was previously associated with the Nordic Reich Party. Pekka Siitoin of the National Democratic Party was the fifth most popular candidate in Naantali city council elections. The NRM, Finns party and other far-right nationalist parties organize an annual torch march demonstration in Helsinki in memory of the Finnish SS-battalion on the Finnish independence day which ends at the Hietaniemi cemetery where members visit the tomb of Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim and the monument to the Finnish SS Battalion. The event is protested by antifascists, leading to counterdemonstrators being violently assaulted by NRM members who act as security. The demonstration attracts close to 3,000 participants according to the estimates of the police and hundreds of officers patrol Helsinki to prevent violent clashes. France as an ambiguous "Christian and pagan" symbol in the 1940s.|left In France, the most enthusiastic collaborationists during the German occupation of France had been the National Popular Rally of Marcel Déat (former SFIO members) and the French Popular Party of Jacques Doriot (former French Communist Party members). These two groups, like the Germans, saw themselves as combining ultra-nationalism and socialism. In the south there existed the vassal state of Vichy France under the military "Hero of the Verdun", Marshal Philippe Pétain whose emphasised an authoritarian Catholic conservative politics. Following the liberation of France and the creation of the Fourth French Republic, collaborators were prosecuted during the and nearly 800 put to death for treason under Charles de Gaulle. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the main concern of the French radical right was the collapse of the French Empire, in particular the Algerian War, which led to the creation of the OAS. Outside of this, individual fascistic activists such as Maurice Bardèche (brother-in-law of Robert Brasillach), as well as SS-veterans Saint-Loup and René Binet, were active in France and involved in the European Social Movement and later the New European Order, alongside similar groups from across Europe. Early neo-fascist groups included Jeune Nation, which introduced the Celtic cross into use by radical right groups (an association which would spread internationally). A "neither East, nor West" pan-Europeanism was most popular among French fascistic activists until the late 1960s, partly motivated by feelings of national vulnerability following the collapse of their empire; thus the Belgian SS-veteran Jean-François Thiriart's group Jeune Europe also had a considerable French contingent. It was the 1960s, during the Fifth French Republic, that a considerable upturn in French neo-fascism occurred; some of it in response to the Protests of 1968. The most explicitly pro-Nazi of these was the FANE of Mark Fredriksen. Neo-fascist groups included Pierre Sidos' Occident, the Ordre Nouveau (which was banned after violent clashes with the Trotskyist LCR) and the student-based Groupe Union Défense. A number of these activists such as François Duprat were instrumental in founding the Front National under Jean-Marie Le Pen; but the FN also included a broader selection from the French hard-right, including not only these neo-fascist elements, but also Catholic integrists, monarchists, Algerian War veterans, Poujadists and national-conservatives. Others from these neo-fascist micro-groups formed the Parti des forces nouvelles working against Le Pen. Within the FN itself, Duprat founded the FANE-backed Groupes nationalistes révolutionnaires faction, until his 1978 assassination. The subsequent history of the French hard right has been the conflict between the national-conservative controlled FN and "national revolutionary" (fascistic and National Bolshevik) splinter or opposition groups. The latter include groups in the tradition of Thiriart and Duprat, such as the Parti communautaire national-européen, Troisième voie, the Nouvelle Résistance of Christian Bouchet, Unité Radicale and most recently Bloc identitaire. Direct splits from the FN include the 1987 founded FANE-revival Parti nationaliste français et européen, which was disbanded in 2000. Neo-Nazi organizations are outlawed in the Fifth French Republic, yet a significant number of them still exist. Germany , Germany, in October 2009 Following the failure of the National Democratic Party of Germany in the election of 1969, small groups committed to the revival of Nazi ideology began to emerge in Germany. The NPD splintered, giving rise to paramilitary Wehrsportgruppe. These groups attempted to organize under a national umbrella organization, the Action Front of National Socialists/National Activists. Neo-Nazi movements in East Germany began as a rebellion against the Communist regime; the banning of Nazi symbols helped neo-Nazism to develop as an anti-authoritarian youth movement. Mail order networks developed to send illegal Nazi-themed music cassettes and merchandise to Germany. Turks in Germany have been victims of neo-Nazi violence on several occasions. In 1992, two young girls were killed in the Mölln arson attack along with their grandmother; nine others were injured. In 1993, five Turks were killed in the Solingen arson attack. In response to the fire Turkish youth in Solingen rioted chanting "Nazis out!" and "We want Nazi blood". In other parts of Germany police had to intervene to protect skinheads from assault. The Hoyerswerda riots and Rostock-Lichtenhagen riots targeting migrants and ethnic minorities living in Germany also took place during the 1990s. The NSU has its roots in the former East German area of Thuringia, which The Guardian identified as "one of the heartlands of Germany's radical right". The German intelligence services have been criticized for extravagant distributions of cash to informants within the far-right movement. Tino Brandt publicly boasted on television that he had received around €100,000 in funding from the German state. Though Brandt did not give the state "useful information", the funding supported recruitment efforts in Thuringia during the early 1990s. (Brandt was eventually sentenced to five and a half years in prison on for 66 counts of child prostitution and child sexual abuse). According to the annual report of Germany's interior intelligence service (Verfassungsschutz) for 2012, at the time there were 26,000 right-wing extremists living in Germany, including 6,000 neo-Nazis. In January 2020, Combat 18 was banned in Germany, and raids directed against the organization were made across the country. In March 2020, United German Peoples and Tribes, which is part of Reichsbürger, a neo-Nazi movement that rejects the German state as a legal entity, was raided by the German police. Holocaust denial is a crime, according to the German Criminal Code (Strafgesetzbuch § 86a) and § 130 (public incitement). Greece The far-right political party Golden Dawn (Χρυσή Αυγή – Chrysi Avyi) is generally labelled neo-Nazi, although the group rejects this label. A few Golden Dawn members participated in the Bosnian War in the Greek Volunteer Guard (GVG) and were present in Srebrenica during the Srebrenica massacre. The party has its roots in Papadopoulos' regime. There is often collaboration between the state and neo-Nazi elements in Greece. Golden Dawn has spoken out in favour of the Assad regime in Syria, and the Strasserist group Black Lily have claimed to have sent mercenaries to Syria to fight alongside the Syrian regime, specifically mentioning their participation in the Battle of al-Qusayr. In the 6 May 2012 legislative election, Golden Dawn received 6.97% of the votes, entering the Greek parliament for the first time with 21 representatives, but when the elected parties were unable to form a coalition government a second election was held in June 2012. Golden Dawn received 6.92% of the votes in the June election and entered the Greek parliament with 18 representatives. Since 2008, neo-Nazi violence in Greece has targeted immigrants, leftists and anarchist activists. In 2009, certain far-right groups announced that Agios Panteleimonas in Athens was off limits to immigrants. Neo-Nazi patrols affiliated with the Golden Dawn party began attacking migrants in this neighborhood. The violence continued escalating through 2010. In 2013, after the murder of anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas, the number of hate crimes in Greece declined for several years until 2017. Many of the crimes in 2017 have been attributed to other groups like the Crypteia Organisation and Combat 18 Hellas. On June 28, 2025 Thanos Plevris was appointed the new migration minister. Plevris has previously burned Turkish flags together with the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, advocated shooting migrants and promoted “purity” of the "Greek race". The Central Board of Jewish Communities had earlier voiced concerns about Plevris since he had defended the statement that Auschwitz should be re-opened for Jewish inmates, arguing that advocating for the extermination of the Jewish people should be legal. Hungary In Hungary, the historical political party which allied itself ideologically with German National Socialism and drew inspiration from it, was the Arrow Cross Party of Ferenc Szálasi. They referred to themselves explicitly as National Socialists and within Hungarian politics this tendency is known as Hungarism. After the Second World War, exiles such as Árpád Henney kept the Hungarist tradition alive. Following the fall of the Hungarian People's Republic in 1989, which was a Marxist–Leninist state and a member of the Warsaw Pact, many new parties emerged. Amongst these was the Hungarian National Front of István Győrkös, which was a Hungarist party and considered itself the heirs of Arrow Cross-style National Socialism (a self-description they explicitly embraced). In the 2000s, Győrkös' movement moved closer to a national bolshevist and neo-Eurasian position, aligned with Aleksandr Dugin, cooperating with the Hungarian Workers' Party. Some Hungarists opposed this and founded the Pax Hungarica Movement. In 2008-2009 four Hungarian neo-Nazis killed six Romanis and seriously injured five with guns, grenades and Molotov cocktails. In modern Hungary, Jobbik was regarded by some scholars as a neo-Nazi party; for example, it had been termed as such by Randolph L. Braham. The party denied being neo-Nazi, although "there is extensive proof that the leading members of the party made no effort to hide their racism and anti-Semitism." Rudolf Paksa, a scholar of the Hungarian far-right, described Jobbik as "anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic and chauvinistic" but not as neo-Nazi because it does not pursue the establishment of a totalitarian regime. However, since 2014 Jobbik has moderated into center-right pro-European conservative party according to multiple sources. The radical right-wing members of Jobbik disappointed with the more moderate direction defected and formed the Our Homeland Movement (MHM). MHM has been described as neo-fascist and they have celebrated the Arrow Cross nazis of the Second World War. In the 2024 European Parliament election MHM successfully secured representation, while the moderate Jobbik party failed to gain a seat. Italy , banned in 1974, drew influence from the Waffen-SS and Guénonian Traditionalism via Julius Evola. During the 1950s, the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement moved closer to bourgeois conservative politics on the domestic front, which led to radical youths founding hardline splinter groups, such as Pino Rauti's Ordine Nuovo (later succeeded by Ordine Nero) and Stefano Delle Chiaie's Avanguardia Nazionale. These organisations were influenced by the esotericism of Julius Evola and considered the Waffen-SS and Romanian leader Corneliu Zelea Codreanu a reference, moving beyond Italian fascism. They were implicated in paramiliary attacks during the late 1960s to the early 1980s, such as the Piazza Fontana bombing. Delle Chiaie had even assisted Junio Valerio Borghese in a failed 1970 coup attempt known as the Golpe Borghese, which attempted to reinstate a fascist state in Italy. On December 4, 2024, in Bologna 25 houses belonging to the members of the neo-Nazi "Nuovo Ordine Sociale-Sole Nero" (New Social Order-Black Sun) or "Werwolf Division" were raided and members were arrested for plotting to murder Giorgia Meloni and possessing illegal firearms. According to Il Giornale the group was connected to jihadi terrorists. Allegedly a man from Bologna volunteered to fight in the Palestinian group Lions' Den and returned to Italy, and a Palestinian PLO member Zyad Abu Saleh built explosives for the group. In early 2026, six members of the neo-Nazi group Ordine Ario Romano were formally indicted in Rome on charges of propaganda and incitement to racial, ethnic and religious hatred, following a lengthy investigation that began with the group’s dismantling in 2021. Among those charged was Francesca Rizzi, known in media as “Miss Hitler” after winning an online competition on a Russian social network, along with Luigi Petricca, Remo Governatori, Gregory Rossi, Piersimone Volpe and Mario Marras, who were accused of disseminating racist and antisemitic content online and via messaging platforms. Prosecutors alleged that posts circulated by the group denied the Holocaust, branded it “the greatest lie in history”, and contained calls for the elimination of Jews worldwide. The trial was scheduled to begin at the Tribunal of Rome on 4 June 2026, with civil parties including the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, ANPI and Senator for life Liliana Segre. Ireland SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny owned a 200-acre farm in Ireland that was suspected was used for paramilitary neo-Nazi practices in 1960. In 1966, the National Socialist Union of Ireland and the Irish National Socialist Movement merged and formed the National Socialist Federation. The NSF was led by A. L. Price, its party organ was National Socialist News and its youth wing the National Socialist Federation of Eire, led by Cyril Kavanagh. The National Socialist Irish Workers Party (NSIWP), a small party, was active between 1968 and the late 1980s, producing neo-Nazi propaganda pamphlets and sending threatening messages to Jews and Black people living in Ireland. The NSIWP sought to recruit UNIFIL veterans "who had witnessed at first hand the devastation caused by Israeli power". A Maoist book shop in Limerick opened in 1970 and had its windows smashed out several times before gunshots were fired into it in March. There was also an attempted firebombing. "The National Movement", a neo-Nazi group began parading and campaigning for mayor Stephen Coughlan, who had incited anti-communist hysteria in the city. The National Movement also gathered signatures for a petition aimed at shutting down the bookshop The National Movement openly sold their newspaper Nationalist Worker that praised Hitler on the streets. Kilkenny-based Irish National Socialist Party attempted to get in the party register in 1990. Leading member of the party Michael McGrath was also a Celtic neopagan and an "Arch-druid". The party spread Nazi propaganda as a newspaper and leaflets. Derek Turner, the one time leader of the Irish neo-Nazi group, Social Action Initiative, wrote a glossy magazine Right Now! that catered to the right wing of the Conservative party and attacked the European Union and multiculturalism. Turner attracted contributions from a number of prominent Conservative MPs. Turner has referred to himself as the "neighbourhood Nazi". American Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon and a founding member of the neo-Nazi terrorist group the Order Frank Silva has staged speeches for and "mentors" Irish far-right activists. According to the Tribune, as of 2025, many openly far-right and neo-Nazi groups like Clann Eireann have appeared, and they now outnumber antifascist counterprotests during demonstrations. For example, Clann Eireann leader Justin Barrett praised Hitler as "the greatest leader of all time". In 2024 an immigrant was beaten to death in Dublin for not speaking English. Latvia Mārupe municipal councillor and founder of the Rising Sun for Latvia party Raivis Zeltīts was a member of the neo-Nazi Iron March and appeared alongside National Action members during Latvian Legion Day commemorating the Latvian SS. The World Jewish Congress has called for "decisive action" against "the mass neo-Nazi demonstrations" commemorating Latvian Nazi collaborators that take place annually in the capital Riga. Latvian member of the Baltic terrorist organization Feuerkrieg Division Arturs Aispurs was charged with plotting bombing muslims during New Year celebrations. Lithuania Mindaugas Murza was the leader of multiple self-identified "National Socialist" groups such as the "Lithuanian National Socialist Party" (LNSP). Murza and three other from LNSP were elected to the council of the Šiauliai City Municipality in the 2003 municipal elections. Another member of LNSP was elected to the council of the Alytus City Municipality. According to the World Jewish Congress "more than 1,000 neo-Nazis paraded through the Lithuanian capital Vilnius chanting ‘Lithuanians for Lithuania’" in 2019. Netherlands Noteworthy neo-Nazi movements and parties in the Netherlands include the National European Social Movement (NESB), the Dutch People's Union (NVU), the National Alliance (NA), and the Nationalist People's Movement (NVB). Individuals of note have included Waffen-SS volunteer and NESB founder Paul van Tienen, war-time collaborator and NESB co-founder Jan Wolthuis, former NVU member Bernhard Postma, the "Black Widow" Florentine Rost van Tonningen, former NVU leader Joop Glimmerveen, CP/CP'86 member and NVB leader Wim Beaux, former CP/CP'86 member and NA leader Jan Teijn, former NVU member and "Hitler-lookalike" Stefan Wijkamp, former CP'86 member and current NVU leader Constant Kusters, and non-governmental initiatives such as the far-left anti-fascist research group Kafka research neo-Nazism and other forms of political extremism and have attested to the local presence of international movements such as Blood & Honour, Combat 18, the Racial Volunteer Force, and The Base, and expressed concern at the online dissemination of alt-right and far-right accelerationist thought in the Netherlands. Poland Under the Polish Constitution promoting any totalitarian system such as Nazism, fascism, or communism, as well as inciting violence and/or racial hatred is illegal. This was further re-enforced in the Polish Penal Code where discrediting any group or persons on national, religious, or racial grounds carries a sentence of 3 years. Several far-right and anti-semitic organisations exist, most notably NOP and ONR (both of which exist legally) and while they are classified as fascist, they officially say they are adherents of "National Democracy" rather than Nazism. These groups attempt to frame their activities as "patriotic" rather than neo-Nazi, even while employing Nazi symbolism or rhetoric, such as the Roman salute, which they distinguish from the Nazi salute. However, Daniel Pładek, a sociologist at the Jagiellonian University and a researcher of the extreme right and Anti-Defamation League describe NOP and ONR as "Nazi-like" or outright neo-Nazi, despite their claims to the contrary. NOP was described as "overtly nazi" by anti-hate advocacy group Hope not Hate and NOP is connected to the banned neo-Nazi terrorist group National Action. According to the ADL Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland-party that had at most 10% of the vote tolerates neo-Nazis among its ranks and its founder Andrzej Lepper has praised Adolf Hitler. For example, Self-Defense MP Mateusz Piskorski has translated the texts of the Order of Nine Angles leader David Myatt into Polish. In addition to the fascist groups that tactically officially reject Nazism, there are several openly self-identified Nazi groups in Poland. For example, the Pride and Modernity-group organizes big events to celebrate the birthday of Adolf Hitler where they burn wooden swastikas. The neo-Nazi gang Bad Company threw a welcoming party for Janusz Waluś, a right-wing extremist who assassinated the anti-apartheid black activist Chris Hani. Polish neo-Nazis from Association of Independence Rota held an event at the German border, opposing refugees coming from the West. Szturmowcy (Stormtroopers) Nazi group held demonstrations, holding banners calling for a "White Europe". Reportedly an album by a neo-Nazi band named Legion sold over 30,000 copies even before the fall of the Iron Curtain. Robert Winnicki's National Movement sponsored the November 2017 anti-Israel demonstration that was attended by 60,000 people. Algemeiner characterized the demonstration as "Ultranationalist and neo-Nazi". The All-Polish Youth is the unofficial youth group of the National Movement. The All-Polish Youth has also been linked to neo-Nazis and caused controversy when its members were saluting swastika flags and chanting "sieg heil". According to several reporter investigations, the Polish government turns a blind eye to these groups, and they are free to spread their ideology, frequently dismissing their existence as conspiracy theories, dismissing acts political provocations, deeming them too insignificant to pose a threat, or attempting to justify or diminish the seriousness of their actions. Former Polish ruling party Law and Justice (PiS) allegedly facilitated co-operation between conservative institutions and far-right extremists. In 2023, the PiS affiliated fundamentalist Catholic group Ordo Iuris started a campaign for the release of a neo-Nazi activist Marika Matuszak convicted of attacking an LGBT event, and she was released by PiS Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro. Sejm member and chair of the Together Party Adrian Zandberg criticized PiS Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki for "commemorat[ing] a unit that openly collaborated with the Gestapo" for paying tribute to the Holy Cross Mountains Brigade and said Hubert Jura may be a hero to Morawiecki, but not to him. Russia Some observers have noted a subjective irony of Russians embracing Nazism, because one of Hitler's ambitions at the start of World War II was the Generalplan Ost (Master Plan East) which envisaged to exterminate, expel, or enslave most or all Slavs from central and eastern Europe (e.g., Russians, Ukrainians, Poles etc.). At the end of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, over 25 million Soviet citizens had died. The first reports of neo-Nazi organizations in the USSR appeared in the second half of the 1950s. In some cases, the participants were attracted primarily by the aesthetics of Nazism (rituals, parades, uniforms, the cult of physical fitness, architecture). Other organizations were more interested in the ideology of the Nazis, their program, and the image of Adolf Hitler. The formation of neo-Nazism in the USSR dates back to the turn of the 1960s and 1970s; during this period, these organizations still preferred to operate underground. Modern Russian neo-paganism took shape in the second half of the 1970s and is associated with the activities of supporters of antisemitism, especially the Moscow Arabist Valery Yemelyanov (also known as "Velemir") and the former dissident and neo-Nazi activist Alexey Dobrovolsky (also known as "Dobroslav"). In Soviet times, the founder of the movement of Peterburgian Vedism (a branch of Slavic neopaganism) Viktor Bezverkhy (Ostromysl) revered Hitler and Heinrich Himmler and propagated racial and antisemitic theories in a narrow circle of his students, calling for the deliverance of mankind from "inferior offspring", allegedly arising from interracial marriages. He called such "inferior people" "bastards", referred to them as "Zhyds, Indians or gypsies and mulattoes" and believed that they prevent society from achieving social justice. The first public manifestations of neo-Nazis in Russia took place in 1981 in Kurgan, and then in Yuzhnouralsk, Nizhny Tagil, Sverdlovsk, and Leningrad. In 1982, on Hitler's birthday, a group of Moscow high school students held a Nazi demonstration on Pushkinskaya Square. RNE was banned in 1999 by Moscow's court in 1999, after which the group faded away. In 2007, it was claimed that Russian neo-Nazis accounted for "half of the world's total". On 15 August 2007, Russian authorities arrested a student for allegedly posting a video on the Internet which appears to show two migrant workers being beheaded in front of a red and black swastika flag. Alexander Verkhovsky, the head of a Moscow-based center that monitors hate crime in Russia, said, "It looks like this is the real thing. The killing is genuine ... There are similar videos from the Chechen war. But this is the first time the killing appears to have been done intentionally." The Ministry of Internal Affairs has a history of downplaying and denying neo-Nazi violence: A ministry representative called the beheading video a "fake". On November 4, 2025, a racially motivated murder took place in Moscow on the Russian Unity Day. The "National Socialist Organization for the Liberation of White Europe" took credit and posted a video of the murder. The Ministry again downplayed it and stated it was a conflict between teens. Atomwaffen Division Russland is a neo-Nazi terrorist group in Russia found by Russian officials to have been tied to multiple mass murder plots. AWDR was founded by former members of defunct National Socialist Society responsible for 27 murders and AWDR is connected to local chapter of the Order of Nine Angles responsible for rapes, ritual murders and drug trafficking. The Russian authorities raided an Atomwaffen compound in Ulan-Ude and uncovered illegal weapons and explosives. Neo-Nazi groups such as "88th Brigade" Espanola and Rusich Group are taking part in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Rusich Group is connected to the Order of Nine Angles and they have been responsible for multiple crimes, including ritual murder. According to The Daily Telegraph, Russian state militarization of the youth and narratives of external threats have been responsible for youth violence and school attacks against perceived outsiders. There were at least seven school attacks in the first two months of 2026, like the Bashkir State Medical University attack in which a teen neo-Nazi stabbed seven foreign students while shouting Nazi slogans and painting a swastika with the victims' blood. There is also a convergence with militants fighting in Ukraine, the neo-Nazi paramilitary Rusich group supported the 15-year-old white supremacist who stabbed a Tajik student to death in the 2025 Odintsovo school attack. Serbia An example of neo-Nazism in Serbia is the group Nacionalni stroj. In 2006 charges were brought against 18 leading members. Besides political parties, there are a few militant neo-Nazi organizations in Serbia, such as Blood & Honour Serbia and Combat 18. In 2019 Serbian Combat 18 was discovered to be trafficking firearms to Atomwaffen neo-Nazis selling handguns, assault rifles, grenades and RPG-7s from the Balkans to French neo-Nazis in Marseille. Serbian Action is a prominent neo-Nazi group in Serbia. The group adheres to the ideology of the fascist ZBOR and the Serbian Nazi collaborators Milan Nedic and Dimitrije Ljotić and Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović, an early supporter of Adolf Hitler. They also organize annual memorial events and marches for them. Serbian Action is also proponent of the ideology of accelerationism and supports overthrowing the government in favor of Orthodox monarchy. Serbian Action is also affiliated with the neo-Nazi monarchist Russian Imperial Movement, Golden Dawn and the Iron March network that has been described as "terroristic". Slovakia