German People’s Socialist Movement / Labor Party

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the German authorities banned the activities of several ultra-right organizations, including the German Social Action and the European Liberation Front . The National Democratic Party of Germany ( NPD ) - the largest political structure of the West German far right - tried to avoid extremism in rhetoric and practice, distanced itself from the Nazi tradition.

Radical neo-Nazis were looking for new organizational and political forms. The Resistance Action ( AW ) was created, which organized a series of street riots and attacks - in particular, protests against the visit to Germany of the GDR Prime Minister Willy Stotoff and an attack on the Soviet Embassy in Bonn . After this, AW was also banned; its activist Friedhelm Busse was expelled from the NPD.

The new organization was established by the meeting in the city of Krefeld on June 17, 1971 ^[1] . It was originally called the Labor Party / German Socialists ( Partei der Arbeit / Deutsche Sozialisten ), renamed VSBD in 1975 . The founders were 40 ultra-right radicals led by Friedhelm Busse, Derk Schwartleder , Uwe Klaas and Peter Weinman (all four are former NPD functionaries excluded for extremism). The number of VSBD reached about 200 people (the leaders of the organization talked about a thousand members).

In theory and practice, VSBD was contrasted with NPD with its “moderation”, law-abiding and “bourgeois respectability”. The ideology was close to Sturserism , in the title it was not by chance that the socialist and Labor component was emphasized. Equally important was nationalism , xenophobia , anti-communism and anti-Sovietism . The direct action doctrine was designed to attract radical youth. In the heritage of the NSDAP and the Third Reich , the CA tradition stood out.

The main ideologist of the organization was Busse. The system of values ​​included blood and soil , honor and loyalty , the nation and work. The enemies included the USSR, GDR, Marxists , Bolsheviks ( communists ), Jews , migrant workers , and also “cleric-fascists” (this term meant representatives of the right of conservative forces hostile to national socialism ) and the West German state (as “anti-national” force).

The organization has paid attention to international issues. VSBD editor Der Bayrische Löwe ( Bavarian lion ) Kurt Wolfgram expressed outrage in his articles that the American, British and French troops were in Germany instead of repulsing Soviet intervention in Afghanistan ^[2] . Bernhard Pauli, an activist of the neo-Nazi student movement , called the territorial outcome of World War II "Bolshevik violence", which the Germans should not recognize. He denied the border along the Oder-Neisse , demanded the return of East Prussia and the Baltic Pomerania ^[3] .

The VSBD emblem was the Nazi eagle with the Celtic cross , the Youth Front of the organization ( Junge Front , JM ) used the Wolfsangel ^[4] as a symbol.

Shares

The active actions of the VSBD boiled down mainly to street attacks on Marxists, left - wing activists and foreigners, public neo-Nazi demonstrations. The most active groups operated in West Berlin , Munich , Frankfurt , the cities of Baden-Württemberg , North Rhine – Westphalia and Lower Saxony . The VSBD militants collaborated with the Hoffmann Military Sports Group (in some cases the membership was double), Viking-Jugend , the New Right Action , from 1979 - with the Free German Workers Party .

In 1978, the VSBD participated in the Munich municipal elections, but Alfred Nusser , a candidate for the Omburgo Mayor, received only 89 votes.

Crime

On December 24, 1980, a 23-year-old VSBD activist Frank Schubert (considered “Busse's“ right hand ”), making his way from Switzerland with weapons and equipment for the organization, entered into a shootout with a border patrol, killed two people and killed himself. Friedhelm Busse called Schubert "an excellent young man" and demanded an honorable burial for him ^[5] .

Schubert was a member of the People’s Socialist Movement, which during the last elections to the Bundestag was allowed to participate in the election campaign as a party and maintains “very active contacts” with foreign countries. Sometimes Schubert came into conflict with foreign security agencies, as was the case, for example, in Paris, where he appeared with Nazi symbols; he maintained contacts with neo-Nazis in the Middle East who belong to the “Nazi Muller Group”, and for the Frankfurt Union for Helping Political Prisoners - Germans and Their Relatives, organized, according to the police, the delivery of weapons from Switzerland. (From an article in the magazine Spiegel , Hamburg ) ^[6]

In the fall of 1981, the VSBD militants, along with French like-minded people, planned to rob the state-owned bank in Rennerode . On the seized funds it was supposed, in particular, to resume the publication of the Völkischer Beobachter ^[7] The idea became known to the police. October 20, 1981 in Munich, there was a shootout of militants with police. Two members of VSBD, including Kurt Wolfgram, were killed, three were arrested ^[8] .

The “Schubert Case” and the “Munich Case” showed the criminal-terrorist potential of VSBD. A series of police checks, searches and detentions was carried out. January 14, 1982 VSBD and JM were banned by order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Germany ^[9] .

Shortly after the ban, the liberated activists of the disbanded VSBD established the National Front / Union of Social Revolutionary Nationalists ( NF / BSN ) in Munich. This organization repeated the VSBD stringer installation. In 1985, Bernhard Pauli transformed the NF / BSN into the Nationalist Front ( NF ), which claimed the status of a federal political party ^[10] .

Friedhelm Busse twice - in 1983 and 2002 - was sentenced to imprisonment and was serving a prison sentence. In the late 1980s - early 1990s, he headed the Free German Workers' Party . He played a prominent role in the Free Partnership movement. He remained an active neo-Nazi politician until his death in 2008 .