Nazi cell: “Actions not words!”

All the same, no strategy has had more impact on the formation of militant neo-Nazi groups than the idea of a “leaderless resistance”, developed in 1992 by former Ku Klux Klan activist Louis Ray Beam in the United States.

Perhaps the most famous violent neo-Nazi organization in the world is Combat 18, which has its roots in Great Britain and was founded as the military wing of Blood and Honour. The number 18 represents the first and the eighth letter of the alphabet, or AH, which stands for Adolf Hitler. The logo of the group consists of a white skull on black background. Combat 18 follows the concept of leaderless resistance, which makes it impossible to say how many people or cells are involved. Any group that feels connected to the ideological aims of C18 is permitted to undertake actions in the name of the group.

A number of publications have been issued under the Combat 18 label. In addition to bomb-building instructions and deeply racist and anti-Semitic texts, the group has put out “Redwatch” lists containing names, addresses, pictures and other information on “enemies”. A German magazine called “Stomper”, using the Combat 18 logo, also circulated in Germany. In the introduction, the unknown authors of the internally sold booklet wrote:

Our countries are ruled by the same Jewish “Untermenschen”, whose only interest is to destroy the white race and to annihilate the last drop of Aryan blood. The Jewish rats and their democratic tools are guilty of the proceeding destruction of our race day after day. It is our task to annihilate the Jewish democracy and all its excesses. No matter where, no matter how! It is time for actions!

In the magazine, the slogan “actions not words”, also used by the NSU, appears as a headline. A contact email address supposedly belonging to the magazine’s initiators corresponds to an email address of the official Combat 18 website. A Combat 18 manual called “The political soldier” contains instructions for armed underground struggle. It says: “No cell should join the armed struggle, if it has no safe place to store weapons, munition and collected information.” There is reason to believe that the National Socialist Underground felt a strong connection to C18 and acted according to its tenets.

The nature of the actions attributed to NSU is familiar to observers of neo-Nazi subculture. Terror bombings against migrants and homosexuals were employed in 1999 by the British neo-Nazi David Copeland. Three of his nail bombs killed three people – including a pregnant woman – and injured 129 others. Some victims had to have limbs amputated. Copeland committed his first attack in a district of London with many black inhabitants on 17 April 1999. He placed the bomb, which he had filled with nails measuring 10 cm in length, in a gym bag and left it in front of a supermarket. Fifty people were hurt by the detonation. Exactly one week later he detonated another bomb in an eastern part of London inhabited by many people from Bangladesh. This time 13 people were wounded. The last nail bomb, which went off on 30 April 30, was Copeland’s deadliest. He placed it in the “Admiral Duncan Pub”, which was frequented mostly by homosexuals. It killed three people and injured 79. The police had already publicly circulated a video image of Copeland from the first attack, and eventually arrested him after receiving a tip from a work colleague. According to BBC News, Copeland stated the following about his motivation for attacking migrants: “I don’t like them, I want them out of this country, I believe in the master race.”

In his flat, the police found a copy of the The Turner Diaries. Copeland told the police that he believed in this book and in a coming racial war, which he wanted to trigger with his attacks.

Copeland’s statements tally with a strategy document of a group called “White Wolves”. The author (or authors) of this document – which is dedicated to the founder of The Order and contains instructions for making a simple time fuse – encourages readers to provoke a “race war” by attacking blacks or Asians. The document urges the founding of terrorist cells with a maximum of five members who are dedicated to securing the future of the “white race” violently. Near the end are the words: “If you agree with us, ACT NOW!”

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