Saturday’s article “Don’t let the kiddies play with matches” attracted some quite extraordinary comment posts, even demanding the removal of the entire article because there was no ‘proof’ for this statement:

“Make no bones about it, Sellner is an out and out Nazi, a white supremacist who is well known in Europe and idolised by fools here”

Accusations of ‘libel’ were thrown around, and even a veiled threat was posted:

“Well, when this article is drawn to Mr Sellners’ attention, as I am sure it will be by someone from YI, they [the authors of the article] may wish they had not been so slipshod with their accusations.”

The comment posters involved thus diverted the debate from the issue at hand, the reason why the article was written in the first place: the invitation by YI to Martin Sellner of the Identitarian Movement, to speak at one of their meetings.

In my opinion, this issue should not have been addressed behind the closed doors of the NEC and the Leadership, as one commenter suggested, because this is the second time YI has invited Mr Sellner. Last time, the YI were forced to cancel one venue after the other because of the threat of violence from the hard Left, who has already announced the same treatment for this meeting.

This aspect was lost in the debate. I’ll come back to it later.

There are two other aspects which I’ll address below, but first let me ‘out’ myself: I’m German and grew up in Berlin (West). I have lived over half of my life here in Wales, am seen as ‘Honorary Welsh woman’ and am thus a Brit. I am bilingual. I am a history buff and for obvious reasons have a huge interest in the History of the 3rd Reich. There are also many outstanding British historians who have analysed the Nazi ideology (look up Michael Burleigh, for example).

Having said that, let me come back to the demands made for ‘proof’, e.g. ‘showing’ photos of Mr Sellner wearing jackboots and swastika’, else how can he be called a Nazi. One comment poster mocked Luke Nash-Jones’ remark about using Google:  there were ‘over 200,000 entries’ and (I paraphrase) the poster couldn’t be bothered – the authors must present their research or else it’s libel. Finding out for themselves was apparently too much like hard work.

I do sympathise, because the huge majority of the relevant articles are … in German. That should not come as a surprise, given that Mr Sellner is based in Austria.

So I delved into the interwebs and what I found was staggering. I did not pick up material from obscure, left-wing sources (although there’s a lot of it) but restricted myself to bona-fide news outlets.

You might wish to find a machine translator – the following articles are all in German.

Firstly, the complaint that the photos Luke Nash-Jones added to the article could’ve been from anything anywhere: here’s the link to the article where the photos came from. There are more supporting photos in that article. This article is at the top of the search results, so I’ve included it. The man about whom this article was written is still in jail in Austria for his neo-nazi activities. You might find this strange – but that’s their law. I believe we can all agree that Austrians and Germans are sensitive when it comes to Nazi ideology and neo-nazi movements, for obvious reasons.

The ideological foundation of Mr Sellner’s movement became obvious though when reading more articles, also explaining why and how Mr Sellner and his colleagues are so successful at hiding it, e.g. here. That article has an interview with one follower. The expressions used by that interviewee made my skin crawl: they could have come straight out of a 3rd Reich propaganda leaflet. Mr Sellner says he doesn’t know that person, that he would of course not make such statements – but then, he would say that … You want more? See this for pure nazi thoughts, by one of his followers. 

The repeated ‘excuse’ is that Mr Sellner was very young at that time and has left all that well behind him. But can we really believe that Mr Sellner, the leader, is unaware or not influenced by this pernicious ideology when his followers express such thoughts? No, because he and his friends have worked out their perfect, simple strategy, adapted to the internet – see here, or here, from which I translated this quote:

“If one calls them Nazis or Neonazis, they retreat to their psoition of calling it “Lügenpresse” and insinuate biased reporting, thus gaining points for themselves in the right-of-centre political spectrum relevant for them. If one calls them however “New Right”, they win credibility and acceptance because thus the radical nature of their ideology becomes invisible.”

To round this off, here is a well-researched report in the German paper “Die Zeit”.

All that material (and there is much more) shows clearly:

  • if one demands photos of Mr Sellner wearing jackboots or swastika as sign of his being a Nazi, otherwise he isn’t, one has already fallen for his strategy of hiding his 3rd-Reich-ideology.
  • If one demands ‘proof’ by providing ‘quotes from his last speeches’, one has already fallen for the clever strategy described above (also see here and here).

Inviting Mr Sellner to speak at a YI meeting is thus more than unwise, not just because of his ideology but because the Left, being international, have and will organise violent demos wherever he appears.

If one thinks we must ‘stand up to the left’ – fair enough, but having videos and photos going round of violent clashes, perhaps even of beaten-up YI members – that’s not politically clever, that is fighting an international fight on the backs of the YI.

If one thinks that it is politically clever to see such fight spread across the MSM when Kippers are trying to win votes in the forthcoming Local Elections, then sorry – that is political stupidity of the finest.

I’ve wondered why certain posters demanded the withdrawal of the article, and never mind Free Speech. I wonder no longer: this ploy has been used well in the last century by the ‘usual suspects’.

Finally – and I do appreciate that some of you may find this unpalatable – it is not acceptable to align oneself to a group with this pernicious ideology just because they seem to share one’s attitude in regard to islam. This is not what we are about, not as Brits and especially not as Kippers, young or old.

Remember this saying:

“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” Nietzsche.

Have some already gazed too long into that abyss?