Friedhelm Busse
Encyclopedia
Friedhelm Busse was a German
national socialist
politician and activist. In a career taking in some six decades Busse established himself as a leading voice of German neo-Nazism
.
Sturmbannführer
, Busse was born in Bochum
and served in the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend
in 1945. After the war Busse served in the Bund Deutscher Jugend, a semi-clandestine anti-Soviet Union
paramilitary squad exposed in the German press as a front operation for the CIA in 1952. He then became active in Reichsjugend, the youth wing of the Socialist Reich Party
and later the Deutsche Reichspartei
. During the early 1960s he took an active role in terrorism in the majority-German
speaking Italian
province of South Tyrol
, and was arrested in 1963 for possession of dynamite
.
Busse joined the National Democratic Party of Germany
(NPD) in 1964 and soon became one of the party's leading members in North Rhine-Westphalia
. As a member of the NPD Busse became associated with student radicalism, much to the displeasure of the NPD leadership. To this end he set up a radical far right
group, Aktion Widerstand, in 1970 and was expelled from the party the following year as the leadership sought to reassert itself. This followed a conviction for weapons offences, also in 1971.
In June 1971 he joined with other radicals in setting up the Partei der Arbeit/Deutsche Sozialisten, which re-emerged in 1975 as Volkssozialistische Bewegung Deutschlands (VSBD). During this time he was also involved in organising neo-Nazi cadres and played a leading role in the establishment of the NSDAP/AO
. He had worked closely with the groups counterparts in France
, Fédération d'action nationale et européenne
, in order to increase international co-operation. Alongside this he continued to play a leading role in the VSBD until it was outlawed in 1982 following a shooting incident with Munich
police in which two VSBD gunmen were killed and two police officers injured. The group had been involved in a number of bank robberies during the summer of 1981 but this incident, which occurred in November 1981, represented the end of this fundraising initiative. Busse was sentenced to six years imprisonment at his 1983 trial after being found guilty of charges of illegal possession of weapons and receiving stolen goods.
(FAP), becoming leader of the party in November 1988 when Michael Kühnen
was forced from that position due to his homosexuality
. had been opposed by Jürgen Mosler, the fiercely homophobic leader of the party's North Rhine-Westphalia group and Busse had thrown his lot in with him in order to emerge as leader. In keeping with his ideological
roots Busse sought to reinvigorate the party by turning it towards Strasserism with which he had long been associated.
However the FAP declined as successor groups loyal to Kühnen emerged, with FAP membership as low as 220 people by 1992. Nevertheless Busse remained influential as an individual and was present at Rostock
in 1992 when neo-Nazis launched an arson attack
on an immigrants hostel.
in 1994 and placed on 20 months probation for attempting to reorganise the banned Action Front of National Socialists/National Activists
. He continued his involvement with the Kameradschaften however, running an information service for them from 1997. He was also active in organising lectures and rallies for the neo-Nazi cause. Largely retired from activism due to his age, he designated Norman Bordin as his successor in 2004 whilst serving a prison sentence for sedition.
Busse died on 23 July 2008 in Passau
. German officials dug up his grave to remove a Reichskriegsflagge
that had been placed on his casket at the time of burial.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
national socialist
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
politician and activist. In a career taking in some six decades Busse established himself as a leading voice of German neo-Nazism
Neo-Nazism
Neo-Nazism consists of post-World War II social or political movements seeking to revive Nazism or some variant thereof.The term neo-Nazism can also refer to the ideology of these movements....
.
Early activism
The son of an SASturmabteilung
The Sturmabteilung functioned as a paramilitary organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party . It played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s...
Sturmbannführer
Sturmbannführer
Sturmbannführer was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party equivalent to major, used both in the Sturmabteilung and the Schutzstaffel...
, Busse was born in Bochum
Bochum
Bochum is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, western Germany. It is located in the Ruhr area and is surrounded by the cities of Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Herne, Castrop-Rauxel, Dortmund, Witten and Hattingen.-History:...
and served in the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend
12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend
The 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend was a German Waffen SS armoured division during World War II. The Hitlerjugend was unique because the majority of its junior enlisted men were drawn from members of the Hitler Youth, while the senior NCOs and officers were generally veterans of the Eastern...
in 1945. After the war Busse served in the Bund Deutscher Jugend, a semi-clandestine anti-Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
paramilitary squad exposed in the German press as a front operation for the CIA in 1952. He then became active in Reichsjugend, the youth wing of the Socialist Reich Party
Socialist Reich Party
The Socialist Reich Party of Germany was a West German far-right political party founded in the aftermath of the World War II in 1949 as an openly Nazi orientated split-off from the national conservative German Right Party...
and later the Deutsche Reichspartei
Deutsche Reichspartei
For the party that existed in Imperial Germany, see Free Conservative Party.The Deutsche Reichspartei was a nationalist political party in West Germany...
. During the early 1960s he took an active role in terrorism in the majority-German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
speaking Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
province of South Tyrol
South Tyrol
South Tyrol , also known by its Italian name Alto Adige, is an autonomous province in northern Italy. It is one of the two autonomous provinces that make up the autonomous region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. The province has an area of and a total population of more than 500,000 inhabitants...
, and was arrested in 1963 for possession of dynamite
Dynamite
Dynamite is an explosive material based on nitroglycerin, initially using diatomaceous earth , or another absorbent substance such as powdered shells, clay, sawdust, or wood pulp. Dynamites using organic materials such as sawdust are less stable and such use has been generally discontinued...
.
VSBD
National Democratic Party of Germany
The National Democratic Party of Germany – The People's Union , is a far right German nationalist party. It was founded in 1964 a successor to the German Reich Party . Party statements self-identify as Germany's "only significant patriotic force"...
(NPD) in 1964 and soon became one of the party's leading members in North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous state of Germany, with four of the country's ten largest cities. The state was formed in 1946 as a merger of the northern Rhineland and Westphalia, both formerly part of Prussia. Its capital is Düsseldorf. The state is currently run by a coalition of the...
. As a member of the NPD Busse became associated with student radicalism, much to the displeasure of the NPD leadership. To this end he set up a radical far right
Far right
Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...
group, Aktion Widerstand, in 1970 and was expelled from the party the following year as the leadership sought to reassert itself. This followed a conviction for weapons offences, also in 1971.
In June 1971 he joined with other radicals in setting up the Partei der Arbeit/Deutsche Sozialisten, which re-emerged in 1975 as Volkssozialistische Bewegung Deutschlands (VSBD). During this time he was also involved in organising neo-Nazi cadres and played a leading role in the establishment of the NSDAP/AO
NSDAP/AO
The NSDAP/AO was the Foreign Organization branch of the National Socialist German Workers Party . AO is the abbreviation of the German compound word Auslands-Organisation...
. He had worked closely with the groups counterparts in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Fédération d'action nationale et européenne
Fédération d'action nationale et européenne
The Fédération d'action nationale et européenne was a small French far-right organisation founded in April 1966. Openly Neo-Nazi, it was led by Mark Fredriksen, a bank employee who became involved in activism for French Algeria after serving in the paras there...
, in order to increase international co-operation. Alongside this he continued to play a leading role in the VSBD until it was outlawed in 1982 following a shooting incident with Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
police in which two VSBD gunmen were killed and two police officers injured. The group had been involved in a number of bank robberies during the summer of 1981 but this incident, which occurred in November 1981, represented the end of this fundraising initiative. Busse was sentenced to six years imprisonment at his 1983 trial after being found guilty of charges of illegal possession of weapons and receiving stolen goods.
Free German Workers Party
Busse then became associated with the Free German Workers' PartyFree German Workers' Party
The Free German Workers' Party was a neo-nazi political association in Germany. It was outlawed by the Constitutional Court in 1995.The FAP was founded in 1979 but was largely insignificant until the banning of the Action Front of National Socialists/National Activists in 1983 when Michael Kühnen...
(FAP), becoming leader of the party in November 1988 when Michael Kühnen
Michael Kühnen
Michael Kühnen was a leader in the German neo-Nazi movement. He was one of the first post-World War II Germans to openly embrace Nazism and call for the formation of a Fourth Reich. He enacted a policy of setting up several differently-named groups in an effort to confuse German authorities, who...
was forced from that position due to his homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
. had been opposed by Jürgen Mosler, the fiercely homophobic leader of the party's North Rhine-Westphalia group and Busse had thrown his lot in with him in order to emerge as leader. In keeping with his ideological
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
roots Busse sought to reinvigorate the party by turning it towards Strasserism with which he had long been associated.
However the FAP declined as successor groups loyal to Kühnen emerged, with FAP membership as low as 220 people by 1992. Nevertheless Busse remained influential as an individual and was present at Rostock
Rostock
Rostock -Early history:In the 11th century Polabian Slavs founded a settlement at the Warnow river called Roztoc ; the name Rostock is derived from that designation. The Danish king Valdemar I set the town aflame in 1161.Afterwards the place was settled by German traders...
in 1992 when neo-Nazis launched an arson attack
Solingen arson attack of 1993
The Solingen arson attack of 1993 was one of the most severe instances of anti-foreigner violence in modern Germany. On the night of May 28 to May 29, 1993, four young German men belonging to the far right skinhead scene, with neo-Nazi ties, set fire to the house of a large Turkish family in...
on an immigrants hostel.
Later years
With the FAP on the wane he became involved with organising Freien Kameradschaften but was caught by police in StuttgartStuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
in 1994 and placed on 20 months probation for attempting to reorganise the banned Action Front of National Socialists/National Activists
Action Front of National Socialists/National Activists
The Action Front of National Socialists/National Activists was a German neo-Nazi organization....
. He continued his involvement with the Kameradschaften however, running an information service for them from 1997. He was also active in organising lectures and rallies for the neo-Nazi cause. Largely retired from activism due to his age, he designated Norman Bordin as his successor in 2004 whilst serving a prison sentence for sedition.
Busse died on 23 July 2008 in Passau
Passau
Passau is a town in Lower Bavaria, Germany. It is also known as the Dreiflüssestadt or "City of Three Rivers," because the Danube is joined at Passau by the Inn from the south and the Ilz from the north....
. German officials dug up his grave to remove a Reichskriegsflagge
Reichskriegsflagge
Reichskriegsflagge was the official name of the war flag used by the German armed forces from 1867 to 1945. A total of seven different designs were used during this period.-Imperial Germany:...
that had been placed on his casket at the time of burial.