Historical Dictionary of Terrorism Third Edition

480 • NEO-NAZISA number of groups have appeared, both within Germany and inother countries, that idolize the memory of Adolf Hitler and seekto revive his racist and ultranationalistic movement in some form.Germany’s post–World War II Constitution, in Article 21, Section(b), outlaws such groups as being antidemocratic while Article 139upholds the denazificiation laws of the postwar provisional governmentunder Allied occupation banning the display of Nazi memorials,symbols, slogans, songs, hand salutes, and the commemorationof Hitler’s birthday. The German Federal Office for the Defenseof the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) is chargedwith investigating and banning groups that seek to revive Nazism.Accordingly, many neo-Nazi groups assume the guise of studentclubs or sporting clubs and usually do not openly display swastikasor pictures of Adolf Hitler. In Germany such groups have includedthe Action-Front of National Socialists, the National DemocraticParty, and the Hoffmann Military Sports Group, most of which arenow banned or defunct, although such groups tend to reappear underdifferent names and guises. By 1983 there were an estimated 1,400known neo-Nazis in West Germany, of whom 850 were organizedinto groups. Following the reunification of Germany in 1990, thevisibility of neo-Nazism in Germany increased dramatically with amarked increase in attacks upon Eastern European immigrants andRomanian Gypsies. During August 1992 more than 800 neo-Nazisconverged on the Baltic port of Rostock and attacked foreign refugeeswith firebombs, gunfire, and clubs. Whereas in 1991 there wereonly 849 hate crimes associated with German neo-Nazis, during1992 this figure rose to 1,485 such attacks on foreigners, causing 17deaths and injuring more than 100 victims. In 2005 some 15,900 hatecrimes by neo-Nazis were registered in Germany, and this figure hadrisen to 18,142 by 2007. The numbers of neo-Nazis in Germany arebelieved to have risen from around 3,000 in 2003 to more than 4,100in 2005. On average, about 17 people have been killed each yearsince 1992 due to neo-Nazi attacks, with most instances occurring inthe states of the former East Germany.Gary Lauck, a Lincoln, Nebraska, purveyor of Nazi literatureand regalia banned in Germany, was arrested when he appeared inDenmark in March 1995 on a German warrant for anticonstitutionalactivities, and was extradited in September 1995 to Germany, wherehe was tried and convicted in May 1996 and sentenced to four years’