ExtremismGermany Bans Neo-Nazi Group “Combat 18”
The German government has banned the neo-Nazi group Combat 18, and the German police conducted raids across Germany, after links were discovered connecting the group to the killing last June of pro-immigration politician from Angela Merkel’s conservative party. Combat 18 is the armed wing of the Blood & Honor neo-Nazi network which was founded in Britain in 1992 and established its German branch in 2000. Europol has warned that the network is getting stronger in more than a dozen European countries. The group chose the number “18” for its name because these numbers are the first and eighth letters in the alphabet —A and H— which are Adolf Hitler’s initials. The group’s motto is “Was Es braucht” (“What it takes”).
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer on Thursday banned the right-wing extremist group Combat 18, which refers to itself as “Kampfgruppe Adolf Hitler” (“Adolf Hitler’s task force”).
The German branch of Combat 18 “is a neo-Nazi, racist and xenophobic association whose purpose is similar to that of national socialism,” the German Interior Ministry said in a statement announcing the ban.
“Today’s ban is a clear message: right-wing extremism and anti-Semitism have no place in our society,” Seehofer said.
Der Spiegel reports that also on Thursday, more than 200 police officers carried out raids in several German states, searching buildings and apartments in the states of Hesse, Thuringia, North Rhine-Westphalia, and three other states.
“Mobile phones, computers and right-wing extremist symbols were confiscated,” a spokesman for the Rhineland-Palatinate Interior Ministry said.
Members of the group are suspected in planning and carrying out the killing in June 2019 of Walter Lübcke, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party (CDU), who publicly supported her generous immigration policies. Europol, the European police organization, has warned that Combat 18 posed a serious threat of violence in several European countries.
The ban issued Thursday makes it illegal for the group to meet, and it will be illegal to write or use the group’s logo.
Der Spiegel notes that Combat 18 is a militant neo-Nazi organization formed in Britain in 1992. Police in Germany regards them as the armed wing of another neo-Nazi network, Blood & Honor, which now has presence in several European countries.
The group chose the number “18” for its name because these numbers are the first and eighth letters in the alphabet —A and H— which are Adolf Hitler’s initials. The group’s motto is “Was Es braucht (“What it takes”).
Nearly twenty years ago, in 2000, after the group expanded its operations from the U.K. to Germany, the German authorities classified it as a right-wing extremist group. German domestic intelligence says that the hard-core of the German group consists of about around 20 members.
The group made a name for itself in Germany for spreading “extremist rock” in neo-Nazi and skin-head concerts.
