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ANTISEMITISM

‘Pure Nazism’: The antisemitic organization that wants to get a foothold in Denmark

The Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM), which hit headlines after antisemitic vandalism at a Jewish burial site in Denmark, is an organization with ‘pure Nazism’ as its ideology, an expert has said.

Published: 14 November 2019 15:14 CET
'Pure Nazism': The antisemitic organization that wants to get a foothold in Denmark
Supporters of the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement in Stockholm in 2018. Photo: TT News Agency/Reuters/Ritzau Scanpix

The group has set itself out from other far-right organizations by adopting traditional Nazi ideology, anthropologist Tina Wilchen Christensen, an extremism researcher at Aarhus University, told Ritzau.

“They have the old Nazi message that all bad things are caused by Jews and Judaism,” Christensen said.

While other far-right groups focus much of their attention on Islam, NRM, or Nordfront as it is also known in Denmark, is a proponent of “pure Nazism”, according to the researcher.

“With regard to NRM, they are antisemitic and holocaust deniers, they have summer camps for people in the movement, and they have the Nazi family view in that women are encouraged to stay at home and have a lot of children,” she said.

“There are many levels on which it’s pure Nazism,” she said.

On Wednesday, two men were remanded in custody for desecrating 84 gravestones at Østre Kirkegård cemetery in the town of Randers last weekend.

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One of the two arrested men is 38-year-old Jacob Vullum Andersen, leader of a local NRM section, Ritzau reports.

Andersen previously denied links between NRM and the vandalism but said he supported several of last weekend's antisemitic incidents, which also included graffiti and yellow Star of David stickers placed at the home of a Jewish couple in Silkeborg.

The yellow Star of David is the symbol Jews were forced to wear by Nazi authorities during World War Two.

Both accused men have denied carrying out the Randers vandalism and the group denies links to the incident.

The NRM movement emerged in Sweden in the late 1990s but did not attempt to establish itself in Denmark until recent years.

“This has gone on for a long time in Sweden, since 1997. In Denmark it has probably been more on-off. I’ve not come across them in Denmark but I know from other researchers that they have been trying to establish themselves (here),” Christensen said.

Sweden has seen demonstrations held by the group in several cities and with hundreds of participants.

According to its own website, the Danish branch of the organization has attempted to spread propaganda at schools.

Christensen said she did not know how many members the group has in Denmark, but said its Danish branch has a “general strategy of spreading propaganda”.

She noted that NRM demonstrations in other countries have resulted in violence.

Member comments

  1. I don’t get it? Targeting Jews? Why? They not the ones bombing concert halls, killing priests and driving down pedestrians at markets. They’re not the ones promoting child marriage, honor killings, polygamy and FGM … They’re not the ones inundating Europe’s borders putting a strain on our health services, social services, educational system and prison system. I can accuse the Jews of contributing to a wealth of progress in the fields of science, medicine, the arts. Disclaimer: I am not a Jew and have never understood the hatred of this people.

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ANTI-SEMITISM

German leaders express shame at rising antisemitism

German leaders voiced their shame over resurgent anti-Semitism on Friday, one year after a deadly attack targeting Jews in the city of Halle.

Published: 10 October 2020 09:42 CEST
German leaders express shame at rising antisemitism
German President President Frank-Walter Steinmeier lays a wrath outside the synagogue in Halle. Photo:Ronny Hartmann / AFP
Two people were killed in the attack on October 9, 2019 during Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, in one of the worst acts of anti-Semitic violence in Germany's post-war history.
   
A heavily armed man tried to storm the synagogue, but when the door failed to break down he shot dead a female passer-by and a man at a kebab shop instead.
   
“I feel deep sadness. But even a year later I still feel shame and anger,” President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said at a commemoration to mark a year since the attack.
 
   
No one should stand by and watch anti-Semitism “in the underground, in a café, in the schoolyard, on the street, on the internet”, Steinmeier added. “Everyone must stand up when the human dignity of others is violated.” 
 
At 12.01pm, the time the attacker fired his first shot at the door of the synagogue, all the church bells in Halle rang for two minutes.
 
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In the afternoon, a memorial was unveiled incorporating the old door of the synagogue.
 
The attacks have sparked soul-searching in Germany, which has placed a huge emphasis on atoning for the murder of six million European Jews by Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime during World War II.
   
Just this week, a Jewish student was attacked outside a synagogue in Hamburg in a case that police are treating as attempted murder with anti-Semitic intent, condemned by Chancellor Angela Merkel as a “disgrace”.
   
A neo-Nazi suspect, 28-year-old Stephan Balliet, is currently on trial for the Halle attack and has told the court it was “not a mistake”.
   
Foreign Minister Heiko Maas also voiced his regret on Friday at anti-Semitism in Germany.
   
“One cannot say that the problem has left us — and the fact that we have to protect Jewish institutions in 2020 is actually a state of affairs that is not acceptable,” Maas told the RTL broadcaster.
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