Title: Fuhrer-Ex
Author/Artist: Ingo Hasselbach
Publisher: Chatto & Windus
Media: Book
Reviewer: Pan
This is a book which should be required reading for everyone interested in the active struggle against fascism. Hasselbach details his own history, from being a rebellious young punk in Stalinist East Germany, to being an active Nazi and then a leading figure in the revived neo-Nazi movement after the collapse of communism and finally to his turning away from his former comrades.
As well as being an interesting story in its own right, the book offers us a number of extremely important lessons which should be taken to heart. Firstly, it shows how his initial rebellious anti-authoritarian attitudes were transformed into the exact opposite. Being raised in a Stalinist 'workers paradise' that styled itself the 'anti-fascist' state, his rebellion was directed at the source of his oppression. The state he hated claimed to be founded on the principles of anti-fascist, and laid the blame on the Nazi period squarely at the door of West Germany. In which case it is no surprise that young punks and others developed a sympathy to fascism. The principle of 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' has a compelling logic to it after all.
What this means to us, now that the 'anti-fascist' states are no more, is that we should be careful of accepting the establishment's anti-racism and anti-fascism. When the state becomes associated with anti-racism then you'll see that racism becomes more attractive to the angry and to the disillusioned. For militant anti-fascists, our message is that fascism and the state are our enemies. The state modulates its 'anti-racism' according to its own internal logic of oppression, we don't need to side with them, we need to oppose them.
What seems to have escaped the attention of many of the more mainstream reviewers of Furher-Ex is that Hasselbach admits to the truth that the German authorities have been consistently less interested in tackling neo-Nazism than in attacking the militant anti-fas. Hasselbach finds this out to his own cost when he finally turns against his former comrades. The letter bombs and death threats are dismissed by the police either as publicity stunts or the actions of anti-fascists.
Hasselbach also makes interesting reading because he quite clearly states that the only real opposition to the Nazis comes from the anarchist and autonomist left. He makes no bones about it and he talks about the street battles and the guerrilla warfare between the neo-Nazis and the anti-fas. It proves, if proof were needed, that it takes more than just words to fight the virulence of fascism.
He also talks candidly about the international nature of fascism, who seem to be more internationalist than much of the left. He talks about the links with US Nazis, the funding of East German Nazis by rich West German ones. It's not news to us, of course, but it's good to get an insiders view of it.
Finally, this book is about Hasselbach's own political evolution. He may have turned his back on the Nazis - and earned their undying hatred in return - but he's sown the seeds of it elsewhere. His ex-followers are still organised, still active and still have to be fought to the end.