The ideology of National Socialism (Nazism) has re-emerged as a political force after being soundly defeated in World War II, and of existing only in the darkest shadows in sub­sequent decades. Now, a century after the formation of the original National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) in 1919 – 20, Nazism is again beating the drum of race-war.

Much of the con­tem­por­ary mani­fest­a­tion of Nazism was incubated on the Iron March online forum in 2016, spawning active groups in several countries – National Action (NA) in Britain, Nordic Res­ist­ance Movement (NRM) in Norway, Sweden and Finland, Atom­waf­fen Division (AWD) in the USA, and Anti­podean Res­ist­ance (AR) in Australia. Three of these groups – NA, NRM, and AWD – were involved in violent action, from bombings to murders, and have been pro­scribed as terrorist organ­isa­tions in their home countries. Other Nazi groups have continued to coalesce and form.

Anti­podean Res­ist­ance became the pro­gen­it­or of con­tem­por­ary Nazism in Australia. These were not swastika-tattooed, shaven-headed, boot-stomping Nazis of the Romper Stomper variety. Often, they were young, some at uni­ver­sity, clean-cut, respect­able-looking males, polit­ic­ally savvy and internet savvy. For two years, 2016 – 2018, Anti­podean Res­ist­ance gained publicity and notoriety through its pro­voc­at­ive and hateful posters inciting violence, pre­dom­in­antly through graphic images of shooting Jews and homo­sexu­als. One poster called to “Legalise the execution of Jews” with a photo of a Jew about to be shot by a Nazi in 1941; other posters urged homo­sexu­als to commit suicide through graphic drawings. Anti­podean Res­ist­ance was loudly and proudly Nazi. It made a big splash in the right-wing extremist milieu, attracted police action against members, then it went quiet. It reas­sembled into the Lads Society, basically a front for Anti­podean Res­ist­ance in the guise of a male gym.

However, the real successor to Anti­podean Res­ist­ance – sharing leaders, members and ideology – is the National Socialist Network (NSN) which went public in January 2020. In contrast to Anti­podean Res­ist­ance, NSN’s main activ­it­ies were stra­tegic­ally and delib­er­ately much tamer, con­sist­ing of online posting of images of black-clad members with the NSN flag, and comments and articles blaming Jews for the evils befalling Australia, and making veiled threats against Jews and others. Members put up NSN stickers of their emblems, cheap and bland, as a form of advert­ising the brand rather than being composed of hateful or murderous images. NSN members also paint large graffiti murals, mostly composed of the group’s initials. However, their low-level activ­it­ies are just a veneer hiding their genocidal beliefs. Like Anti­podean Res­ist­ance, NSN have engaged in hiking and camping trips into the mountains, for bonding, strategiz­ing, and pro­mo­tion­al photo-shoots.

In a combined cel­eb­ra­tion, occurring on Australia Day and Inter­na­tion­al Holocaust Remem­brance Day, NSN took a highly pro­voc­at­ive step – by burning a cross in the Grampian mountains in Victoria in January 2021, an act quite rare in Australia. This elicited much publicity for NSN, and outrage against them by the public – they could no longer be ignored. That same month, another Nazi group was quietly formed – the European Aus­trali­an Movement (EAM), founded and led by Thomas Sewell, a leader within NSN, and publicly inaug­ur­ated online in March.

Despite the optics and antics of Anti­podean Res­ist­ance posters inciting murder, NSN cross burning, open admir­a­tion for Hitler and a desire to emulate Nazi Germany, and prominent Nazi leader Thomas Sewell pro­claim­ing in August 2020 that: “National Socialism is the greatest system ever created by our people to fight against Jewish enslave­ment” – these are just the tip of the pro­ver­bi­al iceberg of Nazism in Australia, of seeing only what is above the surface. They are the vanguard – open and public, preparing the pathway, espousing their ideology to the world.

But beneath the public platform of all these openly and publicly known Nazi groups, there are seemingly ordinary people who support Nazism, or what they think is Nazism, and want it to be insti­tuted in Australia. It is these people, some iden­tit­ies known, many unknown, posting on extremist sites, who call for an end to democracy, for race-war, for the rehab­il­it­a­tion of Hitler, and deny the Holocaust while advoc­at­ing another genocide of the Jewish people, that “this time it will be a real genocide of the Jews”. They use the euphemist­ic­ally termed slogan “White revolu­tion is the only solution!” They view this as an exist­en­tial necessity to save the “White race”.

Many of these modern-day Nazis and sym­path­isers see parallels between now and a hundred years ago in Germany. They speak of being in “Weimar 2” or of “Peak Weimar 2.0” – of today being remin­is­cent, a repeat even, of 1920s Germany, of the demo­crat­ic republic of Weimar which is portrayed as an era of unbridled sexual freedoms, not just for women, but for homo­sexu­als and other so-called ‘sexual deviants’, of such ‘decadence’ under­min­ing the family, the church, and the nation. And behind it all – the mythical figure of “the Jew”.

Just as “the Jews” were blamed for the political instabil­ity, economic malaise and ‘social degen­er­acy’ of Weimar (and of the West in general), so too today are “the Jews” blamed for all con­tem­por­ary problems. Some Nazis call for “Kristallnacht 2.0” – for a nation-wide violent and murderous attack against Jews. Other Nazis openly talk of taking power by 2033, on the centenary of Hitler taking power in Germany. Many see this as a con­tinu­ing and an exist­en­tial war between “the Aryan” and “the Jew”, a war that in their minds can only be ended with the complete anni­hil­a­tion of the Jews from the earth.

Over the last several years, some people have been moving further to the political right. They have moved from being civic nation­al­ists, or Christian nation­al­ists, or white nation­al­ists, or white suprem­acists, to becoming either an adherent or a supporter of National Socialism, and of working towards estab­lish­ing a National Socialist state and society. Their two over­rid­ing pre-occu­pa­tions have been ‘racial invasion’ and ‘sexual degen­er­acy’.

The catalyst and driving force for much of this has been a revital­ised sense of identity across the board for all peoples, and spe­cific­ally of ethnic and racial identity, espe­cially since the demise of the Soviet Union. For right-wing extrem­ists, this sense of identity has been heightened and escalated by the rise in immig­ra­tion of those of non-European ethnicity to Europe, North America and Aus­tralasia. Others are motivated by oppos­i­tion to equality for women and to the sexual freedoms of LGBTI people in society today.

Many of these indi­vidu­als are active on the internet, espe­cially on extremist sites like Gab and Telegram, spruiking their racist and hateful views, being rein­forced and encour­aged by like-minded others across the globe. They are not neces­sar­ily members of groups, but are part of an online community that share the pro­pa­ganda and call for white-revolu­tion and race-war, thus forming the seedbed in which violence is increas­ingly seen as legit­im­ate, necessary and desirable, to use against ‘racial enemies’ and ‘sexual deviants’.

Others who may not embrace National Socialism support it nev­er­the­less as being the most potent means to enact violence against perceived enemies, notably Jews. Their hatred of Jews is expressed through a belief in a myriad of antisemitic con­spir­acy theories – paranoid fantasies about “the Jews” con­trolling gov­ern­ments, the banks, and the media, seeking world dom­in­a­tion, as well as old tropes about Jews as Christ-killers, and as inor­din­ately powerful and evil. Some even accuse “the Jews” of planning a genocide against the non-Jewish peoples of the world, espe­cially Europeans. Some ethnic Europeans believe that if it was not for Hitler, “the Jews would have already Wiped our Race out”.

While some right-wing extrem­ists still cling to a pre­dom­in­antly anti-Muslim narrative, many have moved further to see Muslims as merely the symptom rather than the cause. As one white ethno-nation­al­ist phrased it: Jews are “the disease,” Muslims are “the symptom.” Many subscribe to a simplist­ic and super­fi­cial belief in “the Jews” as the root cause for the presence of Africans, Asians, Arabs and Muslims in Western lands, and believe that if they destroy the root cause, then the problems will go away, by them returning to their ancestral homes. They believe that National Socialism will make this happen.

For believers in these fantasies, everything of sig­ni­fic­ance that happens in this world must be made to ‘fit’ the ideo­lo­gic­al strait-jacket of a Jewish con­spir­acy. These include a belief  in the White-Replace­ment theory (also referred to as White-Genocide), Covid-19 con­spir­acy theorists, anti-vac­cin­a­tion and anti-5G activists, oppos­i­tion to Covid-19 gov­ern­ment lockdowns, oppos­i­tion to the rein­vig­or­ated Black Lives Matter movement, oppos­i­tion to equality for minor­it­ies, belief that ‘the Left’ are running roughshod over society and infest academia, and the increas­ing tolerance for open antisemitism through­out societies.

Increas­ingly, many right-wing extrem­ists across the board are calling for Race-War, with a two-pronged inter­con­nec­ted goal: to save the European races and to exterm­in­ate Jews, in a total war. They see this as an exist­en­tial necessity. Old Nordic myths are revital­ised for this war – Valhalla awaits those Aryans who die in battle in this race-war.

The world has seen what happens when Nazis are in gov­ern­ment and control all the levers of power. It is a regime built upon the murdered corpses of the innocent – political opponents, racial outcasts, and all those deemed ‘unfit’ for life. Ulti­mately, when Nazis rule, no-one is safe from per­se­cu­tion or erad­ic­a­tion.

The looming threat of Nazi-motivated violence comes not just from organised Nazis that we see and who form the vanguard, but also from those indi­vidu­als, the uncon­scrip­ted foot soldiers, who quietly support Nazism and race-war, who spew pro­pa­ganda and spread the idea of hate and murder to a vast audience online. Both these – openly organised Nazis and their online volunteer soldiers – pose threats not only to human life but also to Australia’s liberal democracy and way of life. Delaying taking action against them will ulti­mately prove more costly than taking decisive action now.