What role does the neo-Nazi scene play in Dortmund

Arrested Martin S. is said to have kept death lists and planned attacks on politicians. Investigators are currently examining whether he belonged to a far-right extremist group in Dortmund, a group considered a bastion of West German neo-Nazi groups for decades.

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution has long been paying attention to the 49-year-old because he became radical during the Corona period, explained ZDF legal expert Sarah Tacke.

Journalist Olaf Sundermeyer has researched extremism for years. In an interview with ZDFheute live, he explained how important Dortmund is to the right-wing scene and why it continues to have an impact across Germany today.

Sundermeyer described the right-wing extremist group in Dortmund as a group that has a “long tradition going back to the early 80s across generations.”

This was greatly influenced by Siegfried Borchardt, known by the nickname “SS-Siggi”. After his death in 2021, the scene lost much of its impact.

Olaf Sundermeyer…

For decades, Dortmund was the main stage for neo-Nazis in the western part of the Republic, Sundermeyer said. In the north and west of the city, neo-Nazis organized themselves in shared apartments and staged repeated marches.

In the last 20 years there have been several politically motivated murders there, of police officers or of NSU victim Mehmet Kubasik. According to Sundermeyer, Dortmund has a “large tradition of right-wing extremist violence.”

“The scene – initially organized in a large camaraderie of national resistance in Dortmund, which was banned at some point (…) – was later transformed into a neo-Nazi, right-wing micro-party (…).” But they never found a connection to the political center there, Sundermeyer continued.

This is why many prominent figures moved to the East, for example to Saxony. According to Sundermeyer, some cadres decided to move to areas “where right-wing extremism is normalized, where there has long been an association with the social mainstream.”

There they can continue their activities more openly, for example at right-wing alternative book fairs.

Dortmund’s neo-Nazi scene reached its final peak during the Corona pandemic. The protests against the Corona measures were partly organized by well-known neo-Nazis.

This Corona protest is a “very significant momentum for radicalization” in various places in Germany. People are finding their way to right-wing extremism through the Corona protests.

“The crucial thing is, when we look at this list of alleged deaths, there is only a resolution of accountability with those responsible for Corona’s actions,” said Sundermeyer. They were declared criminals.

The mechanism is not new. There was a similar pattern of radicalization during the refugee crisis in 2015, which ultimately culminated in the assassination of Kassel District President Walter Lübcke.

Lübcke murder case

The scene called Citizens of the Reich, which is supposed to belong to Martin S., partially overlaps with the right-wing extremist spectrum. Some neighborhoods are considered violent; in recent years, security authorities have uncovered several violent coup attempts.

The movement called Reichsbürger also gained a lot of popularity during the Corona period, explains Sundermeyer. This group is organized in a scattered manner, but has a national network and gained personal connections with far-right extremist groups through the Corona protests.

According to Sundermeyer, it is currently unclear how Martin S. is actually connected to this movement. One thing is clear: his hometown of Dortmund plays a special role in the neo-Nazi scene, as a place with a long history of far-right extremists and as an example of how the local scene merges with national networks.

Interview e.gKatharina Schuster sums it up.