Are German Neo-Nazis Indoctrinating Children in Solstice Celebrations?

On Saturday, June 15, in a field at the edge of a forest in the Eschede region of Lower Saxony: About 50 people marched in white shirts – some with black, red and gold balaclavas and torches in hand. Children can also be seen in the photos. Participants came from all over Germany – for the solstice celebration. As the German “Tageszeitung” (TAZ) writes in an investigation, the meeting was organized by the Young Nationalists (JN), the party youth organization of the former NPD, now “Die Heimt”.

A fence with a privacy screen protects the area. Nevertheless, as TAZ writes, with the help of drones and a lifting platform, media joint research was able to document the Nord meeting.

“Records show how JN is already training children and teenagers using rituals in the National Socialist tradition: the children line up and stand next to the others in a circle with torches lit by three men,” writes TAZ. The images show how a large wooden cross is burned in the shape of the so-called Algis rune. In National Socialism, the symbol represents The SS organization Lebensborn wanted to increase the number of “Aryan” children based on racist ideology.

According to TAZ, the meeting was attended by: Manfred Borm. A familiar face on the right-wing scene: he was on the federal executive committee of Germany’s National Democratic Party (NPD). In the 1970s he participated in the activities of the right-wing terrorist neo-Nazi group Wehrsportgruppe Werwolf around neo-Nazi leader Michael Konan and was involved in an attack on a NATO military training area in Bergen-Hohn. In 1979, at the so-called Bückeburg trial, Börm was sentenced to seven years in prison.

The so-called solstice celebrations are traditionally celebrated during the winter and summer solstices. This tradition did not originally have an extremist background. Since 1933 Sonnenwendfeiern But then it was primarily celebrated by the Hitler Youth and other Nazi organizations on the longest day of the year. The National Socialists wanted to replace Christian traditions with rituals in the spirit of ethnic blood and soil ideology. “Blood and soil” is the slogan of National Socialist ideology referring to the peasantry. used Germanic mythology as a racist expression of the superiority of the “Aryan race”.

TAZ writes that JN now acts as an elite and young generation in the pre-political space and affects the entire right-wing extremist scene, including the descendants of the AfD. After the “Heimattreu Deutsche Jugend” (HDJ) was banned in 2009, because of the indoctrination of National Socialist children, J.N. Like the HDJ, the JN is concerned with the creation of a new National Socialist elite, Lotta Kampmann from “Recherche Nord” told the newspaper.

Ideological impact on children and young people in the context of what are said to be “non-political leisure activities” is also part of the plan, it continues. “Events serve to express true national cultural assets and fundamental National Socialist values.” The Heimathof in Eschede serves as a retreat for the neo-Nazi scene for right-wing rock concerts, solstice celebrations and harvest festivals. Before the ban, HDJ held a Pentecostal camp here.

A request from the Saxony Ministry of the Interior under TAZ went unanswered. The network “Südheide against right-wing extremism” has called for a demonstration against the actions of the JN and the NPD in Eschede on Saturday.