http://www.f-r.de/english/401/t401008.htm
WHITE-COLLAR BROWNSHIRTS
Saxony's neo-Nazis are not all losers, many come from good families
By Bernhard Honnigfort
Dresden - German police uncovered an enormous arsenal of weapons in a raid carried out against neo-Nazis in the Saxon Switzerland area in the eastern German state of Saxony. Spokesman for the local police (LKA), Lothar Hofner, said there is another, even more worrying aspect to the discovery. It was found that the neo-Nazi group's members did not conform to the typical image of outsiders or society's losers but were instead well-educated young men with jobs and families.
The police action was the toughest strike so far against Saxony's largest neo-Nazi group, "Saxon Swiss Skinheads" (SSS). A total of 200 policemen searched 50 flats in Saxon Switzerland on Saturday. In the town of Kleingiesshuebel, they uncovered a massive arsenal of weapons in a garage belonging to a local politician whose both sons are known members of the neo-Nazi scene. The cache included over two kilogrammes of TNT explosive, more than 100 handguns and rifles, hand grenades, detonators, knuckle-dusters, ammunition and a lathe.
Officers from a special "Elbsandstein" (Sandstone) investigation unit have been investigating the violent skinhead scene in Saxon Switzerland since May 1999. The neo-Nazis have been responsible for at least 20 serious offences ranging from grievous bodily harm to breach of the peace. According to the state police headquarters in Dresden, the SSS has around 100 members, mostly young men between 16 and 28 years old, and an additional 200 or so sympathisers. The local police are investigating 51 members of the group on suspicion of setting up a criminal organisation.
LKA spokesman, Lothar Hofner, told the Frankfurter Rundschau daily that the SSS has declared itself opposed to left-wingers, foreigners, drug dealers and those outside of the mainstream and pursues them with extreme violence. The group was founded in 1996 after the introduction of a nationwide ban on the "Viking Youth" movement and is a military-nationalist association in the opinion of the intelligence services.
The police have no evidence that concrete plans had been made to carry out attacks using the explosives and weapons they uncovered in Kleingiesshuebel. "But you cannot rule anything out," said Hofner.
This is not the first time the police has uncovered a weapons arsenal in Saxony. A special unit set up to investigate right-wing extremists carried out a raid in January 1998 in Meerane and uncovered loaded weapons, submachine guns and several pounds of explosives.
Hofner believes a secondary aspect of the recent discovery to be of greater significance. It has shown that the skinhead scene does not only consist of young people with little or no education, jobs or university backgrounds - typical "losers" with few prospects who follow a well-trodden route into involvement in radical right-wing circles. These young neo-Nazis are apparently members of the middle class, from completely normal families and hold down very ordinary jobs. "These are not outsiders who sleep rough under bridges," said Reinhard Boos, president of the Saxony Constitutional Security Office. "These are young people who are firmly anchored in the social life of Saxon Switzerland." The ranks of the SSS members include a social worker responsible for youth work at a workers' welfare organisation in Pirna who plays with a skinhead band when he finishes work and is responsible for "order" in the local branch of the right-wing National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD). One of the sons of the local politician who was found to be hoarding the weapons is both a member of the SSS and an employee of a local bank. Hofner says there are cases where several members' parents work for the national border police. The sons of serving police officers are also apparently involved and there are suggestions that the son of a Justice Department official is also a member.
"The most dangerous aspect of the whole case is that intellectuals are involved," said Hofner. He says the scene is very "tightly organised" and has been canvassing around schools in the area for new members. Workshops and social evenings have been organised where social issues were raised and discussions held on topics such as unemployment and crime. These often help them to strike the right chord.