Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) has banned the right-wing extremist association “Hammerskins Deutschland” as well as its regional branches and the sub-organization “Crew 38”. As the ministry announced, police forces searched the apartments of 28 suspected members of the association in ten federal states early in the morning.
The “Hammerskins Germany” is an offshoot of the “Hammerskins Nation” founded in the USA in 1988 and plays a prominent role in the right-wing extremist scene in Europe, the ministry said. The group has around 130 members in Germany. They see themselves as an “elitist brotherhood that wants to practice their subcultural way of life within a group that sees itself as the elite of the right-wing extremist skinhead scene.”
The “Hammerskins” are primarily active by organizing concerts and selling right-wing extremist and anti-Semitic music or related merchandise, the ministry wrote. At the concerts, even non-members are ideologized with the group’s ideas.
The reason given was that the association was directed against the constitutional order and against the idea of international understanding. In addition, its purpose and activity would contradict criminal law. The association law lists these three points as possible reasons for a ban.
According to the ministry, the federal and state governments worked together for more than a year to prepare for the ban. Apartments in Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Berlin, Brandenburg, Hesse, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and Thuringia were searched. There was also cooperation with US partner authorities. The ban is “a hard blow against organized right-wing extremism,” said Federal Interior Minister Faeser. This sends “a clear signal against racism and anti-Semitism”. Right-wing extremism is still “the greatest extremist threat to our democracy.”
According to the ministry, this is the 20th ban on a right-wing extremist organization by the Federal Ministry of the Interior – most recently, for example, the groups “Combat 18” and “Nordadler” were dismantled.