exclusive
In 2023, Interior Minister Faeser had the racist-ethnic group “Artgemeinschaft” banned. Loud NDR-Research did not completely dismantle the network. At least one club with the same ideology will continue to operate legally.
The “species community” seemed old-fashioned and harmless. They came together for traditional celebrations, folk dancing and seemingly religious festivals. A folklore group? When Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) banned the “Artgemeinschaft” in September 2023, she spoke of a “hard blow to right-wing extremism”. According to Faeser, the “Artgemeinschaft” indoctrinated children and thus ensured well-trained young people for the right-wing scene.
At the time, Faeser called the organization’s leading figures “intellectual arsonists who continue to spread Nazi ideology to this day.” The group poses a “particular threat to the free, democratic basic order.”
But when banning the association, the authorities ignored some of the structures surrounding the organization. While the “Artgemeinschaft” with the sub-organization “Familienwerk” and regional subdivisions was dissolved by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, several associations of former “Artgemeinschaft” members continue to exist. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania had already informed the Federal Ministry of the Interior about the clubs before the ban.
A network of four clubs in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Bavaria that were founded five to six years ago was not banned. At the center of the network is the right-wing extremist Thomas B. from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. He is chairman of three associations based on the island of Usedom, which also include other members of the “Artgemeinschaft”. Thomas B. was one of the recipients of the “Artgemeinschaft” ban order; the police searched his home in September 2023 and, among other things, confiscated gold.
Racist “confession of species” in statutes committed
B’s associations with the cryptic names “Early History Research Center – Peeneland”, “Familienwerk Peeneraben” and “Familienhilfswerk Peeneraben” were spared from the ban. On closer inspection, this can be surprising, because the “Peeneraben family work” is similar to the forbidden “family work” of the “Artgemeinschaft” and not just in its name.
According to the statutes, the aim of the “Peeneraben Family Work” is, among other things, “to promote and support the members and their families, provided they recognize the moral laws of our species and the species creed and live according to them.” In addition, the statutes of the non-prohibited association require that members adhere to the “confession of the species” and the “moral laws of our species”. These two texts were the basic writings – the “commandments” so to speak – of the “species community”.
The two writings are listed in the order banning the “Artgemeinschaft” and, according to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, prove the “specific political goals that are worth banning” and the “anti-constitutionality” of the “Artgemeinschaft”.
The long-time head of the “Artgemeinschaft”, the Hamburg neo-Nazi lawyer Jürgen Rieger, wrote in a commentary on the “Moral Law” published by the “Artgemeinschaft”: “Races have emerged over many millennia and are adapted to a certain living space; they are harmonious in themselves, so that those who have an eye for harmony perceive racially pure people as beautiful, regardless of race. Through racial mixing, these harmonious gene complexes are destroyed (…).”
The association’s self-image as a religious community is intended to “hide the actual racist and xenophobic ideology,” the Federal Ministry of the Interior concludes.
Members of the “species community” founded “Family Aid Organization”
The two other clubs founded by Thomas B. have close personal connections to members of the “Artgemeinschaft”. In September 2019, the founders of the “Peeneraben Family Relief Organization” in September 2019 included, in addition to B., only leading members of the “Artgemeinschaft” and their partners. The then “Artgemeinschaft” chairman Jens Bauer was elected with B. to the board of the “Family Relief Organization”.
The place where the “Peeneraben family relief organization” was founded was also well known to supporters of the “Artgemeinschaft”: They met in a restaurant in the Harz Mountains, where the “Artgemeinschaft” regularly met for large meetings – the “Community Days” – until it was banned.
B. had also founded the association “Early History Research Center – Peeneland”, in which several leading “Artgemeinschaft” members from all over Germany gathered from 2020 at the latest. A former member said this NDRthat the association was originally “non-political” and initially pursued the goal of opening an open-air museum.
Most recently, the members of the association, led by Thomas B., met on the island of Usedom in the spring, including the former “Artgemeinschaft” chairman Jens Bauer. The club’s documents reveal the current direction of the club NDR available, but nothing…
What role do the clubs play?
It is unclear what role Thomas B.’s three clubs actually play in the right-wing extremist scene. Inquiries from NDR to club officials remained unanswered. According to the statutes, the “Family Relief Organization” pursues charitable purposes, including “promoting art and culture”, “promoting youth, promoting education, education and vocational training” and “promoting traditional customs and religion”. Public activities of the clubs are not known.
Thomas B. has been known to the authorities as a neo-Nazi for years. According to an internal analysis by the police unit “Mobile Reconnaissance Extremism” (MAEX) from 2008, the NDR B. is said to have been a musician in the right-wing rock group “Die Liebenfels Kapelle”. The band, which also performs under the name “Skalinger”, spread inflammatory songs that are still circulating in the right-wing extremist scene today.
A song directed at Jews says: “You no longer have the right to live at all. This long-nosed pack rules the whole world. But pride and honor are far above your money. Because you are Jews and we are not. (…) Because we are Aryan and you are not.” The Holocaust is denied in the band’s lyrics.
Club in Bavaria “with connections” to “species community”
Members of the group also hung out in an association in Bavaria that was not covered by the “Artgemeinschaft” ban: The “Zukunft Heimat” foundation, founded in 2020, dissolved itself at the beginning of this year – four months after the banning measures against the “Artgemeinschaft” . The last chairwoman of the “Artgemeinschaft” was also a member of the association there, her husband headed the “Stiftungswerk”, whose board Thomas B. from Western Pomerania also belonged to.
The club’s officials did not comment when asked. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Bavaria confirmed this NDRthat the association, which has since been dissolved, “has become known in the past for having connections to the banned organization Artgemeinschaft”.
When asked, the Federal Ministry of the Interior did not want to say why the clubs in the immediate vicinity of the “Artgemeinschaft” were not also banned. Because legal proceedings are ongoing, the ministry does not comment on aspects of the ban that are subject to judicial review. The “Artgemeinschaft” has filed a lawsuit against the association ban before the Federal Administrative Court. The authorities are also silent about Thomas B.’s clubs. A spokeswoman says that the ministry “does not comment on possible club bans, also in order not to endanger any measures”.
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania had “provided the Federal Ministry of the Interior with findings from its own area of responsibility” in the run-up to the ban on the “species community,” said the Ministry of the Interior in Schwerin in response to an NDR request. Thomas B.’s clubs were also reported on.