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Eco-fascism “Proper”: The Curious Case of Greenline Front
Bernhard Forchtner and Balša Lubarda
Eco-fascism, mostly associated with the “green wing” in historical National Socialism1 and neo-Malthusian authoritarians of the 1960s/70s, is an iridescent concept that signifies the preoccupation of extreme right actors with environmentalist concerns. As such, it is also a highly loaded term, used both academically and as a slur. The term has recently attracted particular attention due to manifestos linked to radical right terrorist attacks in Christchurch and El Paso.2 Indeed, the Christchurch shooter appears to identify himself as an ‘Ethno-nationalist Eco-fascist’, calling for ‘Ethnic autonomy for all peoples with a focus on the preservation of nature, and the natural order’.
However, eco-fascism is in fact a fringe phenomenon which has had a lasting political impact neither on mainstream politics nor on the politics of the radical right. Given this, it seems that eco-fascism should not dominate our understanding of the wider radical right’s relationship with nature.3 Indeed, this relationship is multifaceted due to the array of radical right actors who engage in it: from anti-liberal actors to outright anti-democratic ones.4 While the former might simply celebrate “the beauty” of national landscapes and the symbolic tie between land and people, as well as the land’s economic significance for “the people”, eco-fascists undoubtedly belong to the latter. Accordingly, they also claim that race and racial survival are intrinsically linked to this Volk’s natural environment and its despoliation. Specific arguments resulting from such a stance include, for example, warnings against overpopulation and opposition to immigration from poorer countries with (on average) lower environmental footprints. Illustratively, the Christchurch terrorist’s manifesto claims: ‘Europeans are one of the groups that are not overpopulating the world. The invaders are the ones over-populating the world. Kill the invaders, kill the overpopulation and by doing so save the environment’.
It is against this background that eco-fascism still warrants attention. This means that by studying eco-fascists it is possible to understand particularities associated with radical right articulations of the natural environment. In order to grasp this contemporary, 21st century eco-fascism, this brief article looks at one of the most notorious eco-fascist actors, the recently defunct Greenline Front (GLF).
Eco-fascist ideas and practices
GLF is an international network which originated in Eastern Europe, with chapters in a variety of countries such as Argentina, Belarus, Chile, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Spain, and Switzerland. Operating as a loose network, GLF is held together by a shared ideological programme as well as a common “branding”.
The latter is visible in their appropriation of the life rune and/or the Black Sun as their logotypes,5 through which GLF’s chapters have been recognizable at marches and other offline activities, as well as in their online communication. In addition, such branding points straight to the group’s ideological core which is concisely visible on their international webpage.6
The webpage offers not only several posts conveying an (eco-)fascist message, but also a mission statement which serves as an exemplary formulation of the eco-fascist doctrine. According to it, GLF is a nationalist movement rejecting anthropocentrism and monotheism. By asserting the importance of Blood and Soil (‘Earth’s being not just a lifeless piece of stone, but the Mother of every creature alive, mother of humanity’),7 GLF accentuates the naturalistic-organicistic imaginary of beings rooted in the nation’s soil. This includes asserting the importance of intergenerational continuity and a bond with nature, a bond which should not be overstretched as a condemnation of overpopulation, as the group’s 10-points manifesto makes clear.8 Building on these sentiments, GLF presents itself as the “ecological alternative” to profit-seeking individualism and materialism, and also incorporates animal ethics through veganism and calls for animal liberation.9 Furthermore, the content posted on GLF page outlets makes references to Pentti Linkola, the recently deceased Finnish eco-fascist deep ecologist;10 the American National Socialist author William Pierce;11 Hitler’s Priestess12 Savitri Devi;13 and to notable Nazis such as Walther Darré14 or Alwin Seifert, who is referred to as the “First German Environmentalist”.15 As a matter of fact, the German racial policies of the 1930s are described as ‘the attempt to resurface the Weltanschauung of the ancient Germanic people’.16 Consequently, GLF rejects democracy (the “religion of death”) and embraces violence as an indispensable part of the struggle for restoring an imagined equilibrium in and with nature.
And yet, GLF has not only proclaimed the need to restore such an imagined equilibrium but has also frequently report relevant activism, what Zbyněk Tarant refers to as far-right “eco-activism” or “eco-actions”.17 For example, GLF’s chapters have repeatedly reported on clean-ups18 as well as suggested to build a bird feeder19 and to raise oak trees,20 thus putting an emphasis on direct action and hands-on experience well-established in radical right activism. These illustrative examples are taken from the German variant which also illustrates shifting levels of (public) activism: for instance, its vk.com channel, opened in 2016 but left untouched since 2017.21 The variant has recently returned to Twitter and made available a webpage, although both are seemingly deserted again.22 Indeed, GLF’s eco-fascist “unique selling point” and raison d’être might not be enough to stabilize such groupuscules23 in the medium—and long-run—as is also visible in one of their Polish interviewee’s words: ‘Greenline Front died of “natural causes”, people didn’t do anything’.
The short-lived case of GLF may be emblematic of eco-fascist and radical right cells, sentenced to atomized and disjointed activism and operating remotely from most radical right organizations. However, the case of GLF raises at least two issues worth considering about the relationship between the radical right and ecologism. First, although many radical right actors have taken a contrarian position when it comes to anthropogenic climate change,24 the current relevance of environmental issues has let some of these actors to show increasing interest in the environment. While this is not necessarily congruent with eco-fascism, elements such as purity of the national land and rootedness of an essentialised collective may also be found in more subtle forms of radical right ideology. Thus, studying “proper” eco-fascism might sharpen our awareness of related, though different, articulations of nature protection across the radical right spectrum.
Second, even though GLF did not permeate into mainstream environmental networks and might not even attract significant support within the radical right, its grassroots activism keeps alive a fascist tradition of ecological thought and practice. Moreover, this ecological moment points to the importance of critically examining environmentalist framing. That is, GLF and eco-fascism at large question our understanding of environmentalism and ecologism as framing done by mainstream and left-wing environmentalists too might unconsciously reproduce potentially troubling notions of eco-organicism and an imagined equilibrium in and with nature, resulting in exclusionary politics.
Dr Bernhard Forchtner is a Senior Fellow at CARR and associate professor of media and communication at the University of Leicester.
Balša Lubarda is a Doctoral Fellow at CARR and doctoral candidate in environmental sciences and policy at the Central European University.
1 Peter Staudenmaier, “Fascist Ecology: The ‘Green Wing’ of the Nazi Party and its Historical Antecedents,” in Ecofascism Revisited: Lessons from the German Experience, eds. J. Biehl and P. Staudenmaier (Porsgrunn: New Compass Press, 2011), 13-42.
2 Bernhard Forchtner, “Eco-fascism: Justifications of Terrorist Violence in the Christchurch Mosque Shooting and the El Paso Shooting,” openDemocracy, August 13, 2019, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/countering-radical-right/eco-fascism-justifications-terrorist-violence-christchurch-mosque-shooting-and-el-paso-shooting/.
3 Balša Lubarda, “Beyond Ecofascism? Far Right Ecologism (FRE) as a Framework for Future Inquiries,” Environmental Values 29, no. 6 (2020): 713-32.
4 Bernhard Forchtner, ed., The Far Right and the Environment. Politics, Discourse and Communication (Oxon: Routledge, 2019).
5 Greenline Front Ukraine, vk, January 11, 2021, 9:10 a.m., https://vk.com/greenline_kyiv?z=photo-74403565_341755028%2Falbum-74403565_0%2Frev. On the life rune as a symbol, see “Life Rune,” Anti-Defamation League, https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/life-rune.
6 “Home,” Greenline Front International Blog, https://greenlinefront.blogspot.com/.
7 “Für Blut Und Boden,” Greenline Front International Blog, http://greenlinefront.blogspot.com/2016/08/fur-blut-und-boden.html.
8 “Manifesto: 10 points,” Greenline Front International Blog, https://greenlinefront.blogspot.com/2016/07/glf-manifesto-10-points_4.html.
9 “Leonardo da Vinci’s Ethical Vegetarianism,” Greenline Front International Blog, http://greenlinefront.blogspot.com/2016/09/leonardo-da-vinci-ethical-vegetarianism.html
10 “Democracy: The Religion of Death—Pentti Linkola,” Greenline Front International Blog, http://greenlinefront.blogspot.com/2016/08/democracy-religion-of-death.html.
11 “William Pierce—‘Who are we?’,” Greenline Front International Blog, https://greenlinefront.blogspot.com/2016/07/william-pierce-who-are-we_44.html.
12 Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Hitler's Priestess: Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth, and Neo-Nazism (New York: New York University Press, 1998).
13 “The Religion of the Strong by Savitri Devi,” Greenline Front International Blog, https://greenlinefront.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-religion-of-strong-by-savitri-devi.html.
14 “Walter Darré and the ‘Lebensgesetzliche Anbauweise’,” Greenline Front International Blog, https://greenlinefront.blogspot.com/2016/07/walter-darre-and-ebensgesetzliche.html.
15 “Alwin Seifert: First German Environmentalist,” Greenline Front International Blog, http://greenlinefront.blogspot.com/2016/08/alwin-seifert.html
16 “The Law of Blood,” Greenline Front International Blog, http://greenlinefront.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-law-of-blood.html
17 Zbyněk Tarant, “Is Brown the New Green? The Environmental Discourse of the Czech Far Right,” in The Far Right and the Environment. Politics, Discourse and Communication, ed. B. Forchtner (Oxon: Routledge, 2019), 201-15.
18 Greenlinefrontde (Greenline Front Germany), “Erste Müllsammlungsaktion,” June 18, 2019, https://greenlinefrontde.wordpress.com/2019/06/19/erste-mullsammlungsaktionen/.
19 Greenlinefront Deutschland, “Vogelfutterhäuser selber bauen,” vk, October 6, 2016, 1:00 p.m., https://m.vk.com/wall-123638406_49.
20 Greenlinefront Deutschland, “Operation Eichenwald,” vk, January 6, 2017, 11:33 a.m., https://m.vk.com/wall-123638406_65.
21 Greenlinefront Deutschland, https://vk.com/public123638406.
22 Greenlinefront Deutschland (@greenlinefront), https://twitter.com/greenlinefront?s=20; Greenline Front Deutschland, https://greenlinefrontde.wordpress.com/.
23 Roger Griffin, “From Slime Mould to Rhizome: An Introduction to the Groupuscular right,” Patterns of Prejudice 37, no. 1 (2003): 27-50.
24 Bernhard Forchtner, “Climate Change and the Far Right,” WIREs Climate Change, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.604.
Terrorism and Political Violence
A New Wave of Right-Wing Terrorism
Reem Ahmed and Maik Fielitz
In June 2020, two right-wing extremists faced trial in Frankfurt, Germany, suspected of assassinating the CDU politician Walter Lübcke at his home in June 2019. Lübcke, who openly supported Chancellor Angela Merkel’s liberal border policy at the height of the “refugee crisis” in 2015, has been a symbol of hate within far-right circles and was vilified as a ‘traitor against the people’ (Volksverräter). As the first assassination of a politician at the hands of right-wing extremists in post-war Germany, this case brings together two key elements of transnational far-right narratives; namely, that 1) the state has fallen into the hands of the “enemies” who are facilitating 2) apocalyptic scenarios of the ‘death of the people’ (Volkstod) by welcoming migrants into the country.
A series of non-fatal attacks against politicians and arson attacks against refugee centres over the last years1 have prompted German authorities to take the right-wing threat more seriously; this includes measures such as the Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG) and 89 concrete measures to combat right-wing extremism.2 However, these measures do not adequately address the global characteristics of the recent wave of right-wing terrorism. Hence, while the suspects on trial for Lübcke’s murder have a long neo-Nazi past, there is a risk that future attacks will emerge from a new type of perpetrator rooted in radical online milieus—as seen in the cases of Halle and Hanau. Based on a recently published chapter for the German Peace Report,3 below we summarise our findings on the transnational threat of right-wing terrorism and its digital underpinnings, and conclude with some recommendations.
The narratives of right-wing terrorism
International right-wing terrorism has a long history with apparent peaks in the 1970s and 1980s. In recent years, the number of right-wing terrorist attacks has increased significantly in Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand. Figures from 2019 show that in Western Europe, Germany continues to be the country with the highest rate of fatal and non-fatal right-wing terrorist attacks.4 Today, the majority of fatal attacks are carried out by lone actors, however militant groups still gather for violent actions, often coordinated via messenger apps and social media. While the right-wing terrorist groups of the 1970s and 1980s are only understandable in the context of the Cold War, violence emerging from today’s extreme right is focused on migration, driven by the belief that the native population is supposedly being “replaced”.
Online, such conspiracies are articulated in the form of “white genocide”, and “The Great Replacement”, as well as “ethnic conversion” (Umvolkung) and the above-mentioned “Volkstod”. These ideas are not only based on the narrative that society faces a threat from “violent” foreigners, but also that mainstream “cultural Marxist” politicians are responsible for “inviting” in refugees. These narratives have their origins in fascism, and they are not only propagated by militant right-wing extremists, but also radical right-wing parties.5 It is precisely the mutual reinforcement of facing a perceived existential threat, coupled with the conspiratorial narrative of a culpable establishment, that serves to legitimise violence and empower individuals to act upon this “threat”. Thus, even if such acts are committed by lone actors, they take place in the context of open hostility towards minorities, “elites”, “old parties”, and democratic procedures.
From radical milieus to terrorist subcultures
Right-wing terrorists are often linked to radical milieus from which they receive not only ideological, but also infrastructural and organisational support. These support structures are integral to traditional forms of (right-wing) terrorism. However, some of the most recent perpetrators of right-wing terrorist attacks did not rely on group logistics or specific networks to carry out their actions. Although the individuals who committed the attacks were not integrated into far-right organisational structures and could therefore not expect any support from them, they still conformed to extremist subcultures that follow their own norms and values. For example, the perpetrators of both the Christchurch and Halle attacks in March and October 2019, respectively, uploaded so-called manifestos online, which contained many references to relevant Chan communities, demonstrating that they saw themselves as part of a transnational virtual subculture of white supremacists.
With these performative online actions, perpetrators consciously address a transnational audience, formulating their ideological set pieces in such a way that transcends national borders and languages and can be understood by a far-right audience “in the know”. Thus, this digitally mediated form of right-wing terrorism can no longer be understood in the absence of the wider transnational context. In particular, image-based forums such as 4Chan and 8kun (previously 8Chan) are used by the extreme right not only as a space for inspiring new lone actor terrorists, but also as a means to express their ideology with humorous and ironic discourses, thereby making it increasingly difficult to distinguish between organised action and individual acts of provocation.
Trivialising mass violence
Far-right actors are deliberately calling on their followers to post content in ironic formats in order to forge new virtual alliances, and to incorporate far-right themes into the public debate. Within this context, meme culture is an important tool used by the extreme right to imply that what they say should not be taken seriously and that their rhetoric is “harmless” or “just for laughs”, despite the fact that the memes often display overtly racist overtones. Memes are used as a way to appeal to a younger audience and trivialise or even glorify right-wing violence.6
One key tactic here is to reach out to the wider spectrum of the far-right sub-movements; that is, individuals who do not necessarily fall under the extreme end of the spectrum, but who may hold anti-immigration sentiments, support radical right-wing populist parties and politicians, and/or believe that freedom of expression is threatened by a culture of “political correctness”. Amongst the extreme right, these sub-movements are referred to as the “normies”; the far-right view such individuals as potential target audiences that can be radicalised through exploiting the above grievances.
Grasping the intangible
In terms of long-term prospects, it is important to place more attention on the cultural practices of the radical online milieus from which right-wing extremists emerge. Above all, this requires familiarity with transnational online cultures of the far-right; namely, their codes, ironic references, language, and frames. Corresponding clues could then be matched with more conspicuous features that point to the planning of violent acts. Such nuances and sub-text can be difficult to identify, and therefore stronger analytical capacity within and across tech companies is important. Whilst hashes may help to identify certain images, an additional level of human content moderation is vital to decipher these codes.
Although action against incitement and threatening behaviour is important in order to prevent potential acts of violence, it is also worth emphasising that extremist violence is not a consequence of hate speech alone. Whilst myths concerning the perceived threat of foreigners and the culpable establishment do not explicitly call for hatred and violence, they do play a significant role in legitimising violence. Espousing these narratives is not a criminal offence, however extreme right-wing actors are fully adept at spreading and amplifying such myths and conspiracy theories across social media. The problem lies not in individual content and posts, but rather the complex extremist networks that disseminate such narratives and infiltrate mainstream discussions and platforms with swarm tactics.7 Thus, knowledge-sharing and collaboration between larger and smaller tech firms is required, as the latter have less resources at their disposal and extremists are more likely to exploit such platforms.
Reem Ahmed is a researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy and doctoral candidate at the University of Hamburg.
Maik Fielitz is a Doctoral Fellow at CARR and a researcher at the Jena Institute for Democracy.
1 Katrin Bennhold and Melissa Eddy, “‘Politics of Hate’ Takes a Toll in Germany Well Beyond Immigrants,” New York Times, February 23, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/world/europe/germany-mayors-far-right.html.
2 German Federal Government, “A Clear Signal in the Fight Against Right-Wing Extremism and Racism,” Press and Information Office of the Federal Government, November 25, 2020, https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/news/cabinet-right-wing-extremism-1820094.
3 Reem Ahmed et al., “Transnationale Sicherheitsrisiken: Eine Neue Welle Des Rechts-terrorismus,” in Friedensgutachten 2020: Im Schatten der Pandemie: letzte Chance für Europa, ed. BICC et al. (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2020), 139–57.
4 Jacob Aasland Ravndal et al., RTV Trend Report 2020: Right-Wing Terrorism and Violence in Western Europe, 1990—2019 (Oslo: Center for Research on Extremism, 2020), https://www.sv.uio.no/c-rex/english/groups/rtv-dataset/rtv_trend_report_2020.pdf.
5 Ivo Oliviera, “AfD Deputy Leader Says Angela Merkel is a ‘Dictator’,”, Politico, June 5, 2016, https://www.politico.eu/article/alexander-gauland-afd-deputy-leader-says-angela-merkel-is-a-dictator-migrants-far-right/.
6 Maik Fielitz and Reem Ahmed, It’s Not Funny Anymore. Far-Right Extremists’ Use of Humour (European Commission: Radicalization Awareness Network, 2021).
7 Bharath Ganesh, “The Ungovernability of Digital Hate Culture,” Journal for International Affairs, December 19, 2018, https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/ungovernability-digital-hate-culture.
