Neo-Nazis reshaping German history
Posted by Thomas Klikauer
Not too long after the formation of Germany’s most successful Neo-Nazi party in the year 2013 – the Alternative for Germany (AfD) – became internally known by the motto of Hitler’s SA: Alles für Deutschland.
Since 2013 and cunningly camouflaged as a simple far right populist party, the Neo-Nazi AfD had a seemingly never ending string of electoral successes – particularly in East-Germany.
All in all, the AfD’s successes stretch from the European Parliament, to Germany’s federal parliament and its 16 state parliaments as well as deep into various local assemblies – mostly in East-Germany.
One of these local assemblies was held in the East-German town of Roßlau – located in the state of Saxony-Anhalt.
During the recent “end of World War II” commemorations on the 8th of May 2025 – known as The Liberation from Nazism – the ex-Neo-Nazi and now AfD mayor of Roßlau – Laurens Nothdurft was at hand.
In his speech, Neo-Nazi Nothdruft did not even think of the victims of the Second World War, nor of the Holocaust and those who suffered under Hitler’s SS, the Gestapo, and the crimes of the Wehrmacht.
These historical facts played no role in the Neo-Nazi and neither did the mayor of Roßlau’s official memorial speech. This history distorting speech was given by the local mayor with a long Neo-Nazi history.
Once, the now mayor – Nothdurft – was a Neo-Nazi leader akin to an HJ-Führer. During the 1990s, Hitler’s HJ re-emerged as HDJ or Heimattreue Deutsche Jugend.
Eventually, the straunchly Neo-Nazi HDJ was declared illegal by Germany’s intelligence service, the Verfasssungschutz.
On the 8th of May 2025, the former Nazi youth Führer and now mayor of Roßlau even laid a wreath at the ceremony, that commemorated “some” victims.
And after the East-German mini-Führer Nothdurft had put down the wreath – with lovely flowers – he opened a blue folder.
Blue signifies the colour of his new-found Neo-Nazi party, the AfD. He then started his speech that re-interpreted, manipulated and distorted Germany’s history to mirror the perverted ideology of the current Neo-Nazism.
About 30 to 40 people listened to the AfD-Führer and local mayor of Roßlau in Saxony-Anhalt at the Soviet Cemetery of Honour.
The commemoration at the cemetery that took place on May 8th, 2025 marked the 80th anniversary of the day of the liberation from the Nazi tyranny. In the AfD apparatchik’s speech on this occasion, the word “Nazi” was never mentioned.
This is not the only reason why observers accused the AfD apparatchik of undermining the meaning of remembrance in his speech that manipulated history of the twisted ideology of Nazism.
In recent months, the Neo-Nazi and now AfD strongman was repeatedly challenged in public. At his infamous 80th anniversary speech, his Neo-Nazi past played no role. Yet, protesters against the Neo-Nazi raised many arguments against the AfD’s mini-Führer Nothdurft including questions about his Neo-Nazi past.
The local AfD commander was elected mayor of Roßlau in 2024. Roßlau is a well-known suburb in the third largest city in Saxony-Anhalt, Dessau-Roßlau. With his election, one is tempted so say that democracy works, even for German Neo-Nazis.
Furnished with a decade-long conviction of Neo-Nazism, Nothdurft’s Nazi right-wing extremism dates back to the 1990s.
He was the national leader (read: National-Führer) of the aforementioned Heimattreuen Deutschen Jugend (HDJ). This is another case of a rather silly attempt to camouflage Nazism.
Next, the Neo-Nazis simply inserted a “D” for Deutschland. In that way, Hitler’s HJ became the HDJ. The plan did not work.
Despite this little Neo-Nazi trickery, the HDJ was banned in 2009 because of what was officially called “its essential affinity with the Hitler youth” – the HJ.
Fittingly, Nothdurft’s partner – Hildegard Nothdurft – was the “leader of nationalistic girl” outfit – the Führer for girls (formerly known as Hitler’s BDM). The documentary evidence showing their Neo-Nazi past is overwhelming.
There are also photos showing Neo-Nazi Nothdurft at NPD rallies. The NPD was Germany’s prime Neo-Nazi party until the AfD took over.
His father – Joachim Nothdurft – also made an appearance at NPD and later AfD rallies. Nothdurft’s Nazi-father was the national secretary of another Neo-Nazi splinter party called DSU.
With a proud Neo-Nazi family and personal heritage, Nothdurft junior now sits on the Neo-Nazi AfD’s city council.
On May 8th in Roßlau, a video shows a group of students standing in front of Laurens Nothdurth at a monument at the Soviet Cemetery of Honour.
Neither Nazis nor Neo-Nazis have never shied away from lining up of children as a fitting ornamentation of their hate speeches.
In his speech, the local Neo-Nazi mayor recalled the dead of the Second World War highlighting “German” soldiers.
He honoured the soldiers of Hitler’s army that brought racially motivated mass murder, death, torture and destruction to Eastern Europe.
Without mentioning that Hitler’s Luftwaffe that started bombing civilians in Guernica on the 26th of April 1937, Poland, the UK and elsewhere, the Neo-Nazi Nothdurft then talked about women, children, old people in Germany as victims in the bombing war.
Without alluding to the millions of Russian soldiers murdered in German captivity, Neo-Nazi Nothdurft only mentioned those German soldiers who died in Allied captivity.
More recently, Neo-Nazi/AfD mayor Nothdurft also recalled the total of 37 million Soviet war deaths while avoiding Nazi crimes – instead of outright denying it.
Mostly at German hands, a total of up to 80 million people died during the Second World War. It was a war that was started when Hitler’s Wehrmacht invaded Poland to annihilate the Untermenschen. The Untermensch was to be replaced by Hitler’s Aryan Herrenrasse.
Let us remember, on a worthy way, those who have given their lives, the former Neo-Nazi urged listeners.
German Neo-Nazis also believe that our people [read: the Aryan race] have passed through a deep and long valley of hardship and humiliation.
In other words, only the SS men selecting Jewish children for the gas chambers at Auschwitz have passed through hardship.
Nothdurft believes that these SS men suffered. And therefore, they had to go through what Neo-Nazi Nothdurft called a moral renewal to find lasting peace. It must be lovely for Nothdurft to see SS men being at peace.
Yet, many observers at his speech found what Nothdurft did “not” say more interesting. Almost self-evidently for German Neo-Nazis and now featuring as an AfD man, Jewish victims were not the topic of this speech at all. The Jewish subhuman still plays next to no role in the mythology of German Neo-Nazis.
The AfD mayor avoided talking about what German Nazis. There was mentioning of the war crimes of the Wehrmacht, Hitler’s SS and Germany’s war of extermination against the Soviet Union.
In the twisted hallucination of German Neo-Nazi, these crimes against humanity simply do not exist.
Instead of this, AfD Führer Nothdurft spoke only of German’ suffering. In his quest to rhetorically eliminate Nazi crimes, he tried to do what might be called “de-thematise” these issues. Nazi victims are no longer a theme – no longer included. They are not an issue to be mentioned.
Put in another way, these victims are removed from the agenda and from history. This is not new.
It is a well-known rhetorical tactic of Neo-Nazi propaganda which can be seen in many speeches of right-wing extremists and Neo-Nazis.
The Neo-Nazi calculation in all this is: it is easier for Neo-Nazis to simply avoid the Shoah and Germany’s war crimes than to deny them. German Neo-Nazis have learned from the past.
Meanwhile, many experts of German right-wing extremism report that Germany’s extreme right has the ideological problem of being forced to exist in the shadow of Nazi crimes and the defeat of their glorious war against Germany’s neighbours and innocent victims all over Europe.
In Germany’s Neo-Nazi memory of history, Neo-Nazis concentrate on German losses and what Neo-Nazis call, the dissolution of the Reich.
In this Neo-Nazi myth, Hitler’s Nazi Reich simply experience a dissolution! Nobody needed to fight against the Nazis – it just dissolved.
Instead of alluding to the victims of Nazism, Neo-Nazi/AfD Führer Laurens Nothdurft later claimed that he had not deliberately forgotten certain “aspects” in his speech.
In other words, for German Neo-Nazis, the million of victims of Nazism are no more than “an aspect” that can conveniently be side-lined and made to disappear.
Later in his speech, the Neo-Nazi turned AfD man also claimed that the core of his speech was to look ahead into a positive future and that there’s nothing wrong with that.
Overall, the case of Neo-Nazi turned AfD-mayor Nothdurft illustrates how the limits of what can be said are shifting towards the ideology of the extreme right.
It is the slow but steady mainstreaming of Nazism and the Neo-Nazi re-interpretation of history. Underneath all this runs the ideology of Nazism.
Worse, the Neo-Nazi’s normalisation strategy works shockingly well. Despite Nothdurft’s HDJ past, the local press deals with him as if the Neo-Nazi is just another politician. He is just another right-wing populist.
To camouflage its own Neo-Nazism, the AfD has even introduced a so-called incompatibility policy with the HDJ. This helps the carefully fabricated propaganda image of,
We are not Neo-Nazis.
We are a normal political party.
The scheming AfD policy that seeks to obscure reality, actually means that former HDJ members can “only” join the AfD if an AfD board agrees to accept a Neo-Nazi – by a two-third majority – and after an individual review.
This may have been the case with Nothdurft. In any case, Neo-Nazi Nothdurft’s political career is not at its end. The Neo-Nazi has higher aims. Next year, state elections in Saxony-Anhalt are scheduled.
Meanwhile, Nothdurft ended his history distorting 8th of May speech with a short moment of shared silence and reflection.
At the end of this speech, a young man shouts, the May 8th marks the day of liberation from fascism. He was aiming at Nothdurft’s Neo-Nazi past.
The young man continued, the commemoration is not only about the German dead, but about all people who were murdered by the Nazis.
Overall, the Roßlau example shows how far the Neo-Nazi’s ideological re-shaping of remembrance has progressed.
Beyond that, the case of Neo-Nazi Nothdurft also illustrates how remembering is reduced to a mere ritual deprived of any historical content that cannot be manipulated to suit Nazi ideology.
With the usual self-assuring arrogance of Neo-Nazis, the AfD believes that the local mayor is entitled to do that.
Photo: (source: https://antifainfoblatt.de/aib144/frueher-neonazi-heute-lokalpolitiker)
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