Sometimes, unwieldy legal jargon hides weighty decisions with major social implications. The continuation declaratory action heard on September 7th at the Dresden Administrative Court is such a case. Because it is decided about the future of the martial arts event “Kampf der Nibelungen” – KdN for short – which had developed into the flagship of militant neo-Nazism at the end of the 2010s. It is a procedure of outstanding political importance.
Largest right-wing extremist martial arts event in Europe
The “Battle of the Nibelungs” was founded in 2013 by right-wing extremists and grew in just a few years to become the largest martial arts event of militant neo-Nazism in Europe. While the first events took place in front of 120 spectators at a secret location, almost 1,000 people attended the KdN 2018 in Ostritz, Saxony – including neo-Nazi families, right-wing extremist hooligan groups and convicted violent criminals with contacts to the right-wing terrorist National Socialist underground NSU. On top of that, a thriving business in violence developed. KdN’s T-shirts became a blockbuster in the scene.
For a long time, no one made a secret of the ideology: on the KdN website, liberal democracy was insulted as a “rotten political system”, and in scene magazines racist minds agitated against the “multicultural cesspool” of the Federal Republic. The militant neo-Nazi group “BaltikKorps” from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, which is close to the KdN, even ranted about day X – the day of the political revolution.
Ban 2019 put an end to the soaring
All of this drew attention not only from the media, but also from the state. In October 2019, the Ostritz municipality banned the event, and the recordings for the online stream of the KdN 2020 in Magdeburg were disrupted by a raid. Groups like Baltik Korps were banned by the state. The high flight of the KdN came to an abrupt end.
The legality of the Ostritzer ban from 2019 is now before the administrative court in Dresden on September 7th. The KdN cadres have meanwhile done a lot to underpin their self-portrayal as a harmless “national sporting event”: Since the ban, they have largely stopped racist diatribes in the relevant scene media, posted many pictures of blond women on social media and removed the sentences about the “rotten political system” from the homepage. The brown violent wolf has eaten a lot of white sports chalk.
With trivialization back in public
The strategy behind it is clear: one’s own ideology is played down in order to be able to build on previous successes with future events. Because the cadres of militant neo-Nazism know only too well how important the KdN is for the professionalization of extreme right-wing violence. The KdN is the flagship of martial arts in militant neo-Nazism – a milieu that the political scientist Hajo Funke calls “pre-terrorist”.
The Administrative Court of Dresden does not only decide on the question of whether further events of the “Battle of the Nibelungs” can take place in Saxony. A decision is made that will point the way for the future development of militant neo-Nazism and its violence in Germany. Hopefully the court is aware of this.