Hitler's offspring.

• Author: Lee, Martin A.
• Position: German neo-Nazism

It's a cool and drizzly evening in Munich. A taxi drops me in a well-to-do neighborhood preferred by lawyers and accountants, but I have a different sort of appointment. I know I've arrived at the right place, thanks to a large picture of Adolf Hitler easily visible through a street-level window.

"This is open national socialism," boasts Bela Ewald Althans. "I like to provoke people."

At twenty-seven, Althans is one of the most important figures in Germany's fast-growing neo-Nazi scene. From a well-equipped office in Munich, he runs his own public-relations firm, selling Nazi literature, buttons, and stickers to support his political operation. The PR products bring in $400,000 annually for Althans to use as he wishes.

Scanning the walls of his headquarters, I notice a map of Germany with bloated borders spilling over to include parts of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Russia. "Greater Germany," I comment, gesturing toward the map.

The real Germany," he snaps.

An imposing presence at six foot four inches, with blond hair and blue eyes, Althans seeks to unify a host of extreme right organizations and forge them into a trenchant political force capable of challenging the German government. "I could use my intelligence to get a job in this system, make a lot of money, and have fun. But I don't want it," says Althans. "Because I'm thinking of the future. I'm thinking about power, I'm thinking that the system is dying, and when the system is dying people will look for heroes."

Sprinkling his discourse with quotations from Nietzsche and other philosophers, Althans personifies the suave new face of German extremism - the designer neo-Nazi whose polished manners and smooth intellect set him apart from the rabble of swastika-tattooed, rock-throwing boneheads who've been wreaking havoc throughout Germany of late. Quick to condescend, Althans speaks derisively of violent neo-Nazi lumpen - low-brow types "with little understanding of Hitler." But he acknowledges their utility as cannon-fodder for the cause. "If the boys didn't kick up a row, nobody would bother listening to me," he says.

"Althans represents a new and highly sophisticated strand in the upper echelons of what we broadly call the neo-Nazi scene in Germany," says Graeme Atkinson, a special investigator for the European Parliament's commission on xenophobia and racism and an editor of Searchlight magazine, an antifascist monthly. "He's highly educated and can converse in a much more sophisticated way than most of his counterparts. He is also very capable and well connected internationally. He can fit into different social circumstances. And he's totally convinced of the correctness of his own ideas."

Never far from a car phone or fax, Althans dashes around the country, weaving a web of contacts while promoting his political views. Fluent in French and English, he speaks freely of his hatred of Jews and foreigners, his devotion to Hitler ("I am living proof that Hitler can happen again!"), his determination to take back the so-called eastern territories, and the overall excitement he feels about the burgeoning neo-Nazi movement.

"The more people you are, the more interesting you are," he asserts. "Now everyone must look behind the curtain to see who directs this force. You cannot just follow our marches on the street, you must know the idea behind this. What is the energy? Where is the motor?"

Althans flaunts his role as a neo-Nazi ringleader. "I am the one who gives to the masses the words they shout at the demonstrations." Then he quickly shifts into the first-person plural. "We tell them to go to Bayreuth, to Dresden, to other cities, to make protests here and there."

The royal "we" in this case is an elite coterie of young Hitler-wannabes who are pumping fresh blood into the Far Right in Germany. Collectively, they constitute a de facto neo-Nazi junta that includes Althans, one of eleven neo-Nazi militants now on trial for violating Germany's laws against organizing fascist groups.

By his own account, Ewald Althans was born into "a typical middle-class family" in Hanover, West Germany. When he was thirteen years old, he fell under the influence of a group of old Nazis who recognized his leadership potential and groomed him to fulfill their dream of resurrecting national socialism. He was tutored in Nazi philosophy, oratory style, organizing skills, and secret party lore by Willi Kraemer, an adviser to Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, and Major General Otto Ernst Remer, who played a crucial role in thwarting the July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler. A living legend among Hitler-worshippers, Remer became a father-figure to Althans after the youth was disowned by his real parents.

The political education Althans received from the Third Reich...