Artgemeinschaft

Last updated
Artgemeinschaft Germanic Faith Community
Artgemeinschaft Germanische Glaubens-Gemeinschaft
AbbreviationAG GGG
Leader Jürgen Rieger (1989–2009)
FounderWilhelm Kusserow
Founded1951
BannedSeptember 2023
NewspaperNordische Zeitung
Ideology Neo-Nazism
Neo-fascism
Esoteric Nazism
Political position Far-right
Religion Germanic Neopaganism
Website
web.archive.org/web/20230831004232/https://asatru.de/ (last archieved version August 2023)

The Artgemeinschaft Germanic Faith Community (German : Artgemeinschaft Germanische Glaubens-Gemeinschaft; abbreviated AG GGG) was a German Neopagan [1] and neo-Nazi [2] organization [3] founded in 1951 by Wilhelm Kusserow, a former member of the SS. In 1983, it merged with the Nordungen (founded 1924). From 1989 to 2009, it was headed by Jürgen Rieger. [4] In September 2023, the Federal Ministry of the Interior banned the Association.

Contents

The group had the legal status of a German registered association ( eingetragener Verein ) headquartered in Berlin. At the time of the ban AG, GGG had 300 supporters and 40 core members.

Ideology and history

Artgemeinschaft mixes far-right ideology with Nordic and Teutonic religions such as Ásatrú, but also elements of atheism. [5] In the 1960s some theosophic and so-called ariosophic aspects were added.

The party is xenophobic and antisemitic. [5] A belief of the party is Artgemeinschaft (loosely translated as "racial community"), a basic tenet of which is the Artglaube ("racial belief").

In contrast to other pagan organisations, neither Guido von List nor Lanz von Liebenfels plays any role. [6]

Important in their beliefs are theses by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Eduard von Hartmann and Feuerbach in order to attack Christian morality and to replace it with a pagan one. According to Fromm, belief in Gods is not important for the Artgemeinschaft. [7]

One symbol used by Artgemeinschaft is an eagle catching a Christian fish, known as "Adler fängt Fisch" or "Adler fängt Ichthys", which symbolises the rejection of Christianity. It was registered as a trademark for the group in 2003, leading to neo-Nazis in Germany using the symbol afterwards. In 2012, this influenced the decision to reject a new coat of arms for the district of Mecklenburgische Seenplatte.

"Struggle is part of life" is a belief of AG GGG and written in the group's "confession of species" in which the guiding principles are laid down. The "struggle" is "naturally necessary for all becoming, being and passing away", it says. "Every single one of us and our entire species are in this struggle". Instead of the term "race" in the "species community" (Artgemeinschaft) the term "species" (Art) is used. [8]

In September 2023, the police searched the homes of 39 members in twelve federal states. The authorities confiscated the association's assets. According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the right-wing extremist group is "against the idea of international understanding" and "against the constitutional order". Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) has banned the association. The association's magazine, the völkisch Nordische Zeitung [9] ("Nordic Newspaper"), is also affected by the ban. [8]

The Ministry of the Interior also banned the Familienwerk ("Family Association"), which is affiliated with the Artgemeinschaft. According to the statutes of the "Familienwerk", the association is intended to protect "the interests of young people and their families, with particular consideration of families with many children". [8]

Members

Membership was regulated according to racial criteria; only "northern born" people may become members. The members belong to different currents of the far-right, from militant neo-fascists to representatives of the Neue Rechte (New Right). [10] The French theoretician of the New Right Pierre Krebs is member of Artgemeinschaft as well as the right-wing author Claus Nordbruch. Stephan Ernst, the murderer of politician Walter Lübcke was a member of Artgemeinschaft until 2011. [11]

Activities

The Niedersachsen state office for the protection of the constitution named Artgemeinschaft in connection to right-wing settlement movements in Lower Saxony and Mecklenburg Vorpommern. [12]

View

"The 'Artgemeinschaft' is one of the toughest structures in the extreme right-wing. It doesn't shut itself off from right-wing terrorism at all. The 'Artgemeinschaft' runs under the label of nature-religiousness and ancestral commemoration. But the 'Artgemeinschaft' is actually one of the most conspiratorial – and I would say – most dangerous structures that we have in Germany", said right-wing extremism expert Andrea Röpke in 2022. [11]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Democratic Party of Germany</span> Far-right political party in Germany

The Homeland, previously known as the National Democratic Party of Germany, is a far-right Neo-Nazi and ultranationalist political party in Germany.

The Nationalist Front was a minor German neo-Nazi group active during the 1980s.

Since its emergence in the 1970s, Neopaganism in German-speaking Europe has diversified into a wide array of traditions, particularly during the New Age boom of the 1980s.

The far-right in Germany slowly reorganised itself after the fall of Nazi Germany and the dissolution of the Nazi Party in 1945. Denazification was carried out in Germany from 1945 to 1949 by the Allied forces of World War II, with an attempt of eliminating Nazism from the country. However, various far-right parties emerged in the post-war period, with varying success. Most parties only lasted a few years before either dissolving or being banned, and explicitly far-right parties have never gained seats in the Bundestag post-WWII.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Odeonsplatz</span> Square in central Munich, Germany

The Odeonsplatz is a large square in central Munich which was developed in the early 19th century by Leo von Klenze and is at the southern end of the Ludwigstraße, developed at the same time. The square is named for the former concert hall, the Odeon, on its northwestern side. The name Odeonsplatz has come to be extended to the parvis (forecourt) of the Residenz, in front of the Theatine Church and terminated by the Feldherrnhalle, which lies to the south of it. The square was the scene of a fatal gun battle which ended the march on the Feldherrnhalle during the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch.

<span title="German-language text"><i lang="de">Reichsbürger</i></span> movement German far-right antigovernment movement

Reichsbürgerbewegung or Reichsbürger is a label for several anticonstitutional revisionist groups and individuals in Germany and elsewhere who reject the legitimacy of the modern German state, the Federal Republic of Germany, in favour of the German Reich.

Anton Maegerle is the Pseudonym of a German journalist. He is also the author of books about far-right politics, right-wing radicalism, the New Right, and right-wing policy in general.

Heike Langguth is a German two times vice-champion in Muay Thai.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pro Germany Citizens' Movement</span> Political party in Germany

The Pro Germany Citizens' Movement was a far-right political party in Germany. It was founded in Cologne on 20 January 2005 after Pro Cologne members had been elected to the Cologne City Council. Manfred Rouhs, treasurer of the Pro Cologne movement and former candidate of the German League for People and Homeland and the National Democratic Party of Germany, was elected its first chairman. The federal party convent decided at its ninth ordinary meeting in Wuppertal on 11 November 2017 to dissolve the party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Socialist Underground</span> German neo-Nazi militant organization, 2001-2010

The National Socialist Underground, or NSU, was a German neo-Nazi militant organization active between 2001 and 2010, and uncovered in November 2011. Regarded as a terror cell, the NSU is mostly associated with Uwe Mundlos, Uwe Böhnhardt and Beate Zschäpe, who lived together under false identities. Between 100 and 150 further associates were identified who supported the core trio in their decade-long underground life and provided them with money, false identities and weapons. Unlike other terror groups, the NSU had not claimed responsibility for their actions. The group's existence was discovered only after the deaths of Böhnhardt and Mundlos, and the subsequent arrest of Zschäpe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ServusTV</span> Austrian TV station

ServusTV is a TV station based in Wals-Siezenheim in the Austrian state of Salzburg. Its name is derived from the popular greeting servus common in many parts of Central and Eastern Europe. Together with the magazine "Servus in Stadt und Land", it is owned by Red Bull Media House GmbH, a subsidiary of Red Bull GmbH. The station emerged in 2009 from the station Salzburg TV, which was founded in 1995.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gottfried Küssel</span> Austrian far-right political activist (born 1958)

Gottfried Küssel is an Austrian far-right political activist who also gained some notoriety in Germany. He has been a leading figure in neo-Nazism and Holocaust denial since the 1970s.

The Gylfilites' Guild, also known by the adherents' or movement's names the Gylfilites or Gylfilitism, is a Germanic Heathen sect of Ariosophical-Armanic orientation based in Krefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia, which gathered public attention in 1976. The sect published the magazine named Odrörir, the name of the mead of poetry. Since the 1990s the group has gone underground.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jörg Meuthen</span> German economist and politician (born 1961)

Jörg Hubert Meuthen is a German economist, academic and politician, serving as an Independent Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Germany since 2017.

The Collegium Humanum was an ecofascist organisation in Germany from 1963 to 2008. It was established in 1963 as a club, was first active in the German environmental movement, then from the early 1980s became a far-right political organisation and was banned in 2008 by the Federal Minister of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble due to "continued denial of the Holocaust".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Third Way (Germany)</span> Political party in Germany

The III. Path or The Third Path is a far-right and neo-Nazi political party in Germany.

Besseres Hannover was a right-wing extremist group from Lower Saxony. The group was banned in September 2012 by Lower Saxony's Interior Minister Uwe Schünemann. The ban became incontestable by order of the Federal Administrative Court of 6 January 2014. It also became known nationwide through the "Abschiebär", a character who appeared in propaganda videos and at various events in Germany.

<i>Querfront</i> German political term

Querfront is a German term originating in Weimar politics and referring to the cooperation between the far-right and far-left, or nationalist and socialist ideologies, as well as the combination of their positions. It is primarily understood as a strategy to unite forces in an effort to gain power. The term was first, and most prominently, used in the Weimar Republic, where it referred to the cooperation between conservative revolutionaries and the far-left.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eagle catching fish</span> German anti-Christian and neo-pagan symbol

Eagle catching fish or eagle catching ichthys is a German anti-Christian and neo-pagan hate symbol.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meeting of right-wing extremists at Potsdam in 2023</span> Secret meeting of right-wing extremists about deportation of people from Germany

The meeting of right-wing extremists in Potsdam was a meeting in the Adlon Mansion on Lake Lehnitz in Potsdam, which took place on 25 November 2023. At the event, Martin Sellner, an Austrian right-wing extremist presented a plan for the deportation of certain parts of the population in Germany, namely asylum seekers, foreigners with a residence permit and "non-assimilated" German citizens. The meeting was attended among others by members of the German right-wing populist party AfD, the German Christian Democrat party (CDU), the Werteunion, and the far-right Identitarian movement. The meeting was exposed by the investigative journalism organization Correctiv, which published its findings on 10 January 2024.

References

  1. Stefanie von Schnurbein: Göttertrost in Wendezeiten. Neugermanisches Heidentum zwischen New Age und Rechtsradikalismus. Munich 1993, Pg. 46.
  2. Gasper, Müller, Valentin: Lexikon der Sekten, Sondergruppen und Weltanschauungen. Verlag Herder, Freiburg 1990.
  3. Ryan, Nick (2004). Into a World of Hate: A Journey Among the Extreme Right. Routledge. ISBN   0-415-94922-X.
  4. Stefan von Hoyningen-Huene: Religiosität bei rechtsextrem orientierten Jugendlichen. LIT Verlag, 2003, Pg. 62
  5. 1 2 Article by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in North Rhine-Westphalia (German) Archived July 19, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
  6. Rainer Fromm: Brennpunkt Esoterik published by the Hamburg Office for inner affairs "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-05-09. Retrieved 2010-04-12.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  7. Rainer Fromm: Brennpunkt Esoterik published by the Hamburg Office for inner affairs "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-05-09. Retrieved 2010-04-12.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link), page 180
  8. 1 2 3 NDR/WDR, Julian Feldmann, Florian Flade, Reiko Pinkert und Sebastian Pittelkow. "Bundesweite Razzia: Rechtsextreme "Artgemeinschaft" verboten". tagesschau.de (in German). Retrieved 2023-09-27.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  9. "Article of the constitutional protection NRW on the side of the Ministry of Interior of NRW". Archived from the original on 2012-01-14. Retrieved 2017-08-26.
  10. Annette Rollmann: "FAP, Freie Kameradschaft, Artgemeinschaft.". Archived from the original on September 19, 2008. Retrieved August 26, 2017. In: Das Parlament. No. 45 / 7 November 2005.
  11. 1 2 tagesschau.de. "Bundeswehr-Reservisten und ihr rechtsextremes Netzwerk". tagesschau.de (in German). Retrieved 2022-01-27.
  12. Verfassungsschutzbericht 2020, Innenministerium Niedersachsen, Verfassungsschutz, Side 50