Günter Deckert 1940-2022

H&D is shocked and saddened to report that our great friend and comrade Günter Deckert, former leader of Germany’s nationalist party NPD, has died aged 82. In fact those readers who knew Günter will appreciate that we could never really believe he was 82 years old, let alone that he has died. Günter always seemed the most energetic and committed comrade in the room, even when surrounded by fellow nationalists decades younger.

Born in January 1940 Günter Deckert developed a talent for languages as a very young man, first visiting London and staying with an English family in the 1950s (which was also when he first encountered British nationalists, when he happened upon a street rally of Sir Oswald Mosley’s Union Movement). He went on to study English, French and other languages at the universities of Heidelberg, Kiel and Montpellier.

For twenty years (from 1968 to 1988) he taught English and French at German schools and colleges, until he was dismissed for political reasons. In fact the authorities had tried three times to dismiss him, but the first two attempts were defeated in the courts.

Some readers might be surprised that his initial political activism was with West Germany’s liberal party the Free Democrats (FDP) in the early 1960s, though at that time (for complicated historical reasons) it was not unusual for German nationalists (and for that matter old national-socialists) to be in the FDP.

Günter first joined the NPD in 1966 and was active during its most successful election campaigns of the late 1960s, when the party was led by Mosley’s close friend and ally Adolf von Thadden. He was a parliamentary (Bundestag) candidate for the first time in 1972 and went on to contest many federal, state and local elections. One of his best election results was in 1974 when he received more than 25% of the vote in Weinheim’s mayoral election. From 1975 to 1999 and from 2019 until his death he was a municipal councillor in Weinheim, sometimes for the NPD and sometimes for the ‘Deutsche Liste’ which he created during a time when he was forced to relinquish NPD membership.

Just a few weeks before he died, Günter posted his party’s official video response to the Weinheim city council budget and would have been an election candidate again this year. Last month (shortly before his illness) he was expelled from the council chamber by police for allegedly ‘racist’ comments during a speech criticising the council budget.

Günter was elected leader of the NPD – Germany’s largest nationalist party – in 1991, and remained party leader until 1996.

Following a conference in 1991 where Günter was translator for the American revisionist Fred Leuchter, he was prosecuted for ‘inciting racial hatred’. Even though he was actually translating someone else’s words, prosecutors argued that he had translated too sympathetically and had therefore committed a crime.

Günter’s case was a landmark in German legal history, because though at first convicted he won on appeal. This victory was because the appeal court ruled ‘Holocaust denial’ was not by itself criminal. In response the German parliament changed the law, making ‘Holocaust denial’ itself an offence. Consequently Günter was tried again in 1995, convicted and sentenced to five years in prison.

He was imprisoned at Bruchsal from 1995 to 2000, then again for five months at Mannheim prison early in 2013.

Günter Deckert was my first German comrade. We first met in 1993 when he addressed the BNP annual rally, and we later spoke together on many platforms in Britain, Germany and France. He addressed numerous meetings of British comrades in London, Yorkshire and elsewhere in England.

Last autumn we met (and were again fellow speakers) for the last time. It seems impossible to believe that I shall never see Günter Deckert again, but his irrepressible spirit will continue to inspire our activism for decades to come.

An obituary to Günter Deckert will appear in the next edition of H&D.

Remembering Dresden – 77 years after the terror bombing

77 years ago today the RAF and USAAF began their terror-bombing of the historic city of Dresden, incinerating countless civilians including many women and children who were fleeing the advance of Stalin’s Red Army.

RAF Wing Commander Hubert Raymond Allen wrote:
“The final phase of Bomber Command’s operations was far and away the worst. Traditional British chivalry and the use of minimum force in war was to become a mockery and the outrages perpetrated by the bombers will be remembered a thousand years hence.”

Four years ago Lady Michèle Renouf was arrested for her impromptu speech at the 2018 Dresden Commemoration. As reported in H&D, Dresden prosecutors eventually abandoned Lady Renouf’s scheduled trial in October 2020, fearing embarrassment in front of the international press.

This afternoon German patriots and international guests will gather for the annual memorial march in tribute to those who died on 13th-14th March 1945.

We are sorry that for unavoidable reasons we cannot join the Dresden Commemoration today alongside our German friends and international delegates. However be assured that your British comrades will be thinking of you today and remembering the horror and shame that was brought on our nation 77 years ago. We look forward to standing together with our German and other European comrades in the continuing struggle for the True Europe.

NPD results in detail – German nationalist vote shifts to AfD

As expected the NPD – Germany’s main racial nationalist party – lost votes again this year to the civic nationalist anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD).

For the time being NPD activists and candidates will concentrate their efforts more on local and regional elections. The NPD’s best Bundestag vote was in 1969 when they polled 1.4 million votes (4.3%). In the 2004 and 2009 elections the NPD won seats in the regional parliament of Saxony, as they did in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in 2006 and 2011. In 2009 they were only a fraction short of winning regional parliamentary seats in Thuringia.

Even regional parliamentary gains are unlikely while AfD remains a powerful force, yet NPD campaigning remains important both to build a core of radical nationalist support, and to continue influencing the radical faction of the AfD, some of whose leaders have a great deal in common with the NPD even while most AfD leaders are closer to the right-wing of CDU/CSU.

At this year’s Bundestag election the NPD put up party lists in every part of Germany but not constituency candidates. Every German has two votes – one for an individual candidate, and a second vote for a regional party list. It is for these second votes that the NPD was competing.

In the two states where AfD was the largest party this year – Saxony and Thuringia – the NPD vote fell to 0.3%.

The Thuringia NPD slate headed by Thorsten Heise polled 4,105 votes (0.3%), down from 1.2% in 2017. Bear in mind that AfD became the largest party in Thuringia this year, with a 0.6% lead over the SPD – so this AfD lead can be attributed to the transfer of previous NPD votes.

AfD was already narrowly the largest party in Saxony but consolidated its position this year with a 5.3% lead over the SPD (the conservative CDU having collapsed to third place). Here the Saxony NPD slate headed by Maik Müller polled 7,489 votes (0.3%), down from 1.1% in 2017. The smaller Dritte Weg party (Third Way – no connection to the NF splinter group once led by Patrick Harrington and Graham Williamson!) also stood in Saxony this year, taking 4,285 votes (0.2%).

In Mecklenburg – Western Pomerania (on the north-east border of today’s Federal Republic) the NPD vote didn’t fall quite so dramatically, perhaps because this region was less intensely targeted by AfD than Thuringia or Saxony. Here the NPD slate headed by Michael Andrejewski polled 6,399 votes (0.7%), down from 1.1% in 2017.

These three remain the strongest racial nationalist areas of Germany. In remaining regional / city state results were as follows:

Brandenburg, the NPD slate headed by Klaus Beier polled 4,871 (0.3%), down from 0.9% in 2017

Saxony Anhalt, the NPD slate headed by Henry Lippold polled 3,003 votes (0.2%), down from 0.7% in 2017.

Saarland, the NPD slate headed by Otfried Best polled 1,375 votes (0.2%), down from 0.5% in 2017.

North Rhine-Westphalia, the NPD slate headed by Ariane Meise polled 8,959 votes (0.1%), down from 0.2% in 2017.

Baden-Württemberg, the NPD slate headed by Edda Schmidt polled 6,029 votes (0.1%), down from 0.3% in 2017.

Bavaria, the NPD slate headed by Sascha Roßmüller polled 5,768 votes (0.1%), down from 0.3% in 2017, with Third Way taking 3,545 votes (slightly under 0.1%).

Hessen, the NPD slate headed by Stefan Jagsch polled 4,528 votes (0.1%), down from 0.3% in 2017.

Lower Saxony, the NPD slate headed by Manfred Dammann polled 4,374 votes (0.1%) down from 0.3% in 2017.

Rhineland Palatinate, the NPD slate headed by Udo Voigt polled 2,773 votes (0.1%), down from 0.3% in 2017.

Schleswig-Holstein, the NPD slate headed by Mark Proch polled 2,015 votes (0.1%), down from 0.2% in 2017

Berlin, the NPD slate headed by Andreas Käfer polled 1,979 votes (0.1%), having had no slate here in 2017.

Hamburg, the NPD slate headed by Lennart Schwarzbach polled 651 votes (0.1%), down from 0.2% in 2017.

Bremen, the NPD slate headed by Heinz Seeger polled 290 votes (0.1%), down from 0.3% in 2017.

Nationwide the NPD’s list votes totalled 64,608 (0.1%), down from 0.4% in 2017.