Anon: Fascists Rally at Stella Natura Festival

Guest post by a concerned group of antifascists who are lovers of black metal and Nature

This coming September 20th-22nd, the music festival Stella Natura will be taking place in Tahoe National Forest in Northern California. This festival is a project of Adam Torruella of the Pesanta Urfolk label and distro, and it is the third year it will take place. A three day long music festival in the woods which serves as a meeting ground for people seeking to reconnect to the land and form community seems innocent enough. However when certain individuals seek to build this event on a foundation of white nationalist propaganda and promote an extremely racist agenda, it is a call to action for all who consider themselves opposed to white supremacy. The information following was compiled with the intent of exposing these individuals for who and what they are, no longer allowing them to exploit music scenes and spirituality as they seek to hide their true colors.

Asatru Folk Assembly (AFA) is the first listed sponsor for the festival. Asatru is a pagan spirituality focused on the revival of Norse gods and mythology, and it has unfortunately been filled with deep associations with various fascist organizations. The Southern Poverty Law Center have written a concise and highly recommended article on dubious figures within Asatru, in which they explain: “Odinism, which is closely related to Asatrú, was much favored in Nazi Germany. Its Nordic/Teutonic mythology was a bedrock belief for key Third Reich leaders, and it was an integral part of the initiation rites and cosmology of the elite Schutzstaffel (SS), which supervised Adolf Hitler's network of death camps. Decades later, Odinism also influenced George Lincoln Rockwell's American Nazi Party” (1). SPLC go on to describe how this spirituality has gained a great deal of popularity with violent white supremacists over the last few decades. The AFA was founded in the mid-1990s by Stephen McNallen out of concern that other Asatru organizations had lost focus on promoting the Asatru faith as inherently tied to the white race. At least one of AFA's leaders has ties to white supremacist organizations, claiming former standing as a state-level organizer for the SS Action Group and links to a violent neo-Nazi skinhead gang. “'I'm a white racist and proud of it," he told a reporter while posing in a Nazi uniform in 1992. ' (1)”. AFA was a sponsor of Stella Natura last year with McNallen appeared on stage to perform a ritual as a guest of the band Changes, and they remain a sponsor this year. (2)(3).

Some of McNallen's white supremacist ideologies can be seen in his theorizing on migration and border politics. In an article entitled 'Wotan vs. Tezcatlipoca: The Spiritual War for California and the Southwest', McNallen refers to the increasing Latin population of the border states of America as a “tide of cultural and demographic conquest” that white Americans must resist rather than “accept our marginalization quietly” (4). He voices that he feels the needs to “fight for my people and my culture against all odds”, and calls for white people to “stand by your kin and your culture” in states he describes as “overwhelmed with illegal immigrants”. He perceives this as a realm of spiritual war, in which Norse gods must conquer Mayan gods. He closes the article by arguing that “We must sink down roots in the soil, and insist on our right to be here... European-descended peoples, true to their ancestral ways, are here to stay. Our forebears fought and died to carve out this place in the world, and we will not give it up.”

In a 2010 piece by McNallen, entitled 'A down and dirty breakdown of the 'browning of America'', he decries the decreasing percentage of America's white population as a sign that “our political and cultural clout will evaporate to a thin wisp of what it is today”, and follows with the absurd claim that “European Americans face minority status, then marginalization, and eventually extinction” (5). He states that “Illegal immigration on the present scale is a form of conquest” an “invasion” that can be “stopped and even reversed almost at once” as it is “ being carried out by identifiable people and parties”. He lists clear political aims for his racist agenda:

“First, the border must be secured. Contrary to liberal opinion, this can be done. I will not analyze the mechanics of this task, but a brainstormed list of options would include diplomatic punishment of Mexico for its role in encouraging migration, sanctions against employers of illegal aliens to include mandatory prison time, a physical wall (built by illegal aliens from our prison system), high-tech surveillance devices, and imprisonment with hard labor for individuals violating our territorial sovereignty. Until we are willing to take these measures, we are not serious about closing the border. Second, it must be clear that no amnesty of illegal aliens, wholesale or piecemeal, in general or in particular, is acceptable. Third, all illegal aliens must be deported and denied legal entry at any time in the future. Because of the logistical complexities involved, deportation could take the form of a “phased withdrawal,” just as troops are pulled out of a war zone when a peace treaty is concluded. This mass deportation should be carried out as humanely as possible, but it absolutely must be done. Fourth, legal immigration must be reformed. We need a temporary moratorium on all immigration, followed by the dismantling of the Immigration Act of 1965 and a return to the previous system, which favored immigration from Europe.”

Brian Powell, a journalist with Media Matters, did an expose on a white nationalist conference organized by the National Policy Institute (6). The full article can be found in our sources and it is recommended to read through as it provides a good indication of the shapes this form of white nationalist fascism is currently taking. Major themes at this conference were the building of a white ethno-state through the forced migration of people of color, along with claims of white people's supposed inherent biological superiority. Upon meeting several members of the AFA during this conference, the reporter states: "...they expressed frustration with a culture and government that they feel ignores and looks down upon the interests of the white race.... They were relieved that they had finally found a place where they didn't have to 'feel out' the conversation before navigating it into the straits of white supremacy.“ In his response to the Media Matters article, Stephen McNallen merely states: "The AFA will not dictate to its members which meetings they are permitted to attend as private individuals. There are suggestions that we discipline them for the crime of being present in a room where extreme statements seem to have been made. We will not do this. There will be no exposure, no witch-hunt, no apologies, and no reprimands... men and women of European descent have exactly the same right to meet and to promote their collective interests as do any other group. To demonize them for doing this, when every other group is encouraged to do so, is to indulge in a vicious double standard. (7)".

To state that an overtly white supremacist conference which involved proposing plans for white-only ethnostates, modeled on South African apartheid, is a discussion of the "collective interests" of white people provides us with a clear perspective on what the founder of the AFA means when he discusses his vision of promoting the goals of the white race. There are no excuses offered and none should be made on his behalf. On the AFA's webpage, the second goal of the organization is stated to be "The preservation of the Peoples of the North (typified by the Scandinavian/Germanic and Celtic peoples), and the furtherance of their continued evolution... the survival and welfare of the Northern European peoples as a cultural and biological group is a religious imperative for the AFA." (8). This statement by McNallen provides a clear idea of what AFA's purpose and points of unity are intended to denote in the form of practical application sought by its founders. Anti-racists have been intervening in Stephen McNallen's spread of white nationalist propaganda since at least the 1990's, as evidenced by a rather amusing article from a Canadian Holocaust denier organization that hosted him for a lecture and were highly upset by the ARA response they received (9). 

Blood Axis / Michael Moynihan

Allowing for the participation of the AFA and McNallen was not the only way in which Stella Natura has provided a platform for racists. Michael Moynihan played at Stella Natura last year with his band Blood Axis, a group well known for their use of Nazi iconography and their high standing in fascist music circles. This year he and his Blood Axis bandmate Annabell (Lee) Moynihan are appearing at the festival as 'special guests' of Ian Read's act, Fire and Ice. Moynihan is a well-known figure among anti-racists for his covert and intellectual ways of promoting fascist politics for decades. He has edited two of Italian fascist philosopher and elite Nazi academic Julius Evola's books for English-language publication, including Evola’s Men Among the Ruins: Post‐War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist (10). In 1992, Moynihan collected and published the writings of National Socialist James Mason in the book 'SIEGE!' (11). Within these texts, Mason vehemently argues for the need for whites to gain power through armed struggle rather than political means, and applauds individuals for acts such as “Zebra Killings”(the murder of black and white 'mixed' couples). For a better idea of what this work includes, please see the enclosed chapter from Mason's book. Moynihan's aims in spreading fascist propaganda is clear in quotes of his such as: “I’m sick of people saying they’re ‘not political,’ as I think this is a cop‐out… If you’re going to espouse ‘fascist’ ideas, then I believe you have to accept some of the responsibility for their application in the real world; otherwise what is the point of espousing them in the first place?” (12).

Extract from James Masons's Siege!

One of Moynihan's present areas of focus is the editing and publishing of the journal Tyr, which collects pieces on the topics of Germanic paganism and the history of northern European peoples (13). While it does not describe itself as a fascist publication, it reproduces white nationalist and far-right discourse and publishes authors with ties to various fascist and white supremacist currents. One of the original editors and ongoing contributors of Tyr is Colin Cleary, whose political perspective is rather concisely summed up in an article in which he states: "I regard Ásatrú and White Nationalism as so inseparably bound to one another that to espouse Ásatrú while rejecting White Nationalism is to involve oneself in a fatal contradiction (fatal, really, in more than just the logical sense)... Disraeli really was right: 'Race is everything. There is no other truth.' (14)". Joshua Buckley, another editor of Tyr, is a former member of the SS of America (15). He makes a living as one-half of a notoriously shady real estate gentrification project with a long-term business partner, who he is set to inherit the business from, named Sam Dickson. Dickson is an attorney who provided legal services to the Georgia KKK for decades and who sat on the board of The Barnes Review, an academic journal focused on promoting Holocaust denial. Dickson's largest public presence in the last decade has been as a guest speaker at multiple conferences that advocate for militant white nationalism, such as the conference covered by Media Matters.

Robert Taylor is one half of the band Changes, who will be playing for their third time at Stella Natura. The Changes duo returned to the music scene in 1996 after decades of silence thanks to the encouragement and efforts of Taylor's friend Michael Moynihan, who went on to produce and release their next album (16). Robert Taylor describes himself as a “herald... one of the three founders of the [Asatru] movement” within North America, along with Steven McNallen. He describes Asatru as “a religion that is suited for Indo-Europeans because it contains and constitutes all the main features and spirit of how most of us feel inside” (17). Taylor was a founder of the Asatru Alliance along with former American Nazi party member Michael (Valgard) Murray and has a long history of allying with Stephen McNallen in pagan organizing (16). Taylor has a long history of involvement within the radical right and white separatist circles. In an interview with infamous 'national anarchist' and white supremacist political organizer Troy Southgate (39),Taylor outlines his youth involvement in “the most feared white street gang in Chicago at that time” and states that he joined as a “vehicle for fighting” because he “loved the exhilaration of combat”, and that he “never joined gangs so much for the camaraderie or as a group security thing” (16). He states that this environment “certainly brought grassroots social problems into sharp focus” and that “racial tensions flared up frequently”. He describes his participation in a white riot in which thousands of white people mobbed up against a black family that had just moved into the neighborhood he lived in. This mob chanted curses, bombarded the black family's home with bricks, tried to break down the door and then proceeded to fight with the police upon their arrival. He described the experience of being in this mob as “like a minuet movement. A dance of rage”. Taylor recounts that these riots went on for four nights, during which “dummies stuffed with rags and painted with black faces were hung from lamp posts and set ablaze in effigy” and city buses with black drivers were attacked with large chunks of concrete dropped from bridges. He claims that he's sure of the fact that the media did not report on the riots because it would have attracted “people from far and wide to join the mob and riot”. He also outlines a group he organized with other white youth that committed such disgusting acts as responding to black students being brought into a school in his neighborhood by holding a confrontational demonstration at the school which these students were being transferred from, in a black community.

Taylor speaks at length of his involvement with a 1960s right wing paramilitary organization named 'the Minutemen', in which he quickly moved through the ranks from being the principal organizer in the Chicago area to holding the position of national Director of Intelligence, and then becoming national spokesperson while also being the sole editor of their magazine. He describes the activities of the Minutemen as mainly consisting of: infiltrating leftist and communist groups in order to bring police violence against them or sabotaging their activities in other ways, identifying their members, and forming fake anti-war groups to give leftists a bad name in the press. He was a member of a special subgroup that was set up within the organization called the Defence Survival Force, which consisted of about 50-60 people trained in survival skills, killing, expropriation, explosives knowledge and special operational skills. They operated underground and rendezvoused in an organized way to meet in safe-houses and make claymore mines and pipe grenades. He outlines how this group slowly fell apart due to legal matters and how once their resources had dwindled enough and some members were facing incarceration, he used his position as national spokesperson to advise Minutemen groups across the US to organize as local militias rather than as a federation. In Taylor's own words, “The legacy of the Minutemen continues on now in various factions of the revolutionary right. We laid the groundwork, provided the basic concepts and more or less pioneered that movement. It brought a new sophistication of tactics and strategy to the Right” (18).

In 2006, Taylor defends his participation in the race riots by saying that for white working class people, “their job... their home, car and family was about all they had in the world” and that once black families began to move into neighborhoods dominated by white people, these were all threatened (17). He went on to claim that “[i]t was no secret that once blacks predominated in an area, the crime rate would soar and the streets would become dangerous to walk. (17)” Taylor espouses strong feelings about disseminating this viewpoint based on the perception that “white working class ethnics seldom have a spokesman or anyone who writes or speaks on their behalf. They are simply the dispossessed majority”. It is also very interesting to note that in this later interview, Taylor attempts to justify his participation in this riot, yet offers up no toned-down explanation of his prolonged and active organizing within the Minutemen. Taylor has gone on record stating that he sees the infamous and long-running white supremacist organization Aryan Nations and similar groups as representing “love and loyalty to one's race as opposed to geographical boundaries” (17).

Fire And Ice, one of the headliners of Stella Natura, is a band founded and fronted by Ian Read. Read is well known for his work with bands Current 93, Sol Invictis, and Death in June, whom he provided vocals for in their rendition of 'Horst Wessel Lied', the anthem of the German National Socialists on the Brown Book album (banned in Germany for supporting fascism) (19). He also played with the openly neo-nazi group Above the Ruins, whose name is derived from the writings of Evola and who contributed to the National Front's benefit album No Surrender Vol 1, alongside bands such as Screwdriver(20)(21). Read has also led militant security teams for both Holocaust denier and anti-Semite Michele Renouf and editor of far-right magazine Michael Walker (22). Michael Walker was one of the individuals who safe-housed a notorious Italian fascist, on the run from the police after having a large quantity of explosives and weapons found in his organization's office (23) (24). He was also exposed as an organizer of the Iona organization's Nazi street fighters in the 1997 article 'Rocking for Satan' by the antifascist Magazine Searchlight (22). One of Read's closest collaborators has been Tony Wakeford (Death in June, Sol Invictis, Above the Ruins), a member of the National Front who has also been a key figure within occult-fascist music (20). Wakeford's work within Above the Ruins and overt Nazism was too much for Death in June's Douglas Pierce, eventually causing Wakeford to split from the group and form Sol Invictis with Read (22). He was also heavily involved with Read in the IONA fascist group (22). Ian Read was also a member of the band While Angels Watch, which worked with British fascist advocate and organizer Troy Southgate (20).

Die Weisse Rose

Die Weisse Rose is another band slated to play at Stella Natura. This Danish band is the project of Thomas Bøjden and whichever friends he asks to join him in performances (25). These friends include people such as Gerhard Petak, the man who records his music as Allerseelen. Petak has released tribute albums to the Iron Guard, a profoundly violent Romanian fascist occultist party guilty of such horrific massacres that the Nazis had to urge them to practice restraint (10) (26). Petak celebrates and claims great influence from Evola, as well as Karl Maria Wiligut and the Ahnenerbe (the occultist wing of the Third Reich), and bases a large part of his music and imagery in direct references to the Nazi regime (10). Another of Bøjden's guest collaborators was Marco Deplano of Italian fascist band Foresta di Ferro, who have contributed songs to tribute albums for the leader of the Iron Guard (26). Bøjden has performed as a guest with Foresto di Ferro, Allerseelen and Blood Axis (27). About his collaborations with these fascist musicians, Bøjden states that they are “musicians that I truly admire and respect for their individual projects and their contribution to Die Weisse Rose" (25). Die Weisse Rose utilize sound collages, videos, and the wearing of Nazi Brownshirt uniforms in their performances, which Bøjden claims is merely for artistic purposes. Die Weisse Rose were selected by Douglas Pierce to accompany Death in June's farewell tour in 2012 and Bøjden describes Douglas Pierce as “a very wonderful and very inspiring person”, stating that Death in June had been formative in every aspect of his life for decades (25). Included is an image of Bøjden posing affectionately with Tony Wakeford.

Tony Wakeford and Thomas Bøjden

Another band on Stella Natura's 2013 lineup is Waldteufel, the project of Markus Wolff. Wolff was a founding member of Blood Axis and has collaborated with Michael Moynihan frequently (28) (10). Wolff has contributed writings on nationalist German authors and paganism to publication such as Tyr, and also helped Moynihan release English editions of Evola's works (10). He is the current staff editor and contributing artist and writer for Hex magazine, another sponsor of Stella Natura (29). Hex magazine has published works by Gerhard Petak in several issues, and promoted Allerseelen's recent West Coast tour ( 10), with Waldteufel playing a date on this tour. Hell and Dispirit, two other band appearing at Stella Natura, also played on the same tour despite agitation and information spread by the Rose City Antifa and actions against their shows by antifascists in Europe (30).

Yet another dubious act on Stella Natura's lineup for 2013 is Of the Wand and the Moon, the one-man project of Kim Larsen, which has issued a split album with Ian Read and Tony Wakeford's Sol Invictus (31). OTWATM also appeared on a compilation entitled 'Looking for Europe', which bears an iron cross on the cover and features essentially every high profile fascist or fascist sympathizer band in the neofolk scene, such as Blood Axis, Boyd Rice/ NON, Allerseelen, Changes and Death in June (32). Kim Larsen has been criticized by German antifa groups for posing for photos (33) wearing the Lebensrune, a Norse symbol that was used during the Nazi regime in place of the 'date of birth' label on paperwork. It was also the symbol of the SS Lebensborn and modern neo-Nazi organizations such as the German Heathens' Front (34). The German Heathens' Front is a racialist Asatru organization formed by a well-known neo-Nazi and is infamous for their virulent anti-Semitism and allegiance to the ideas of David Lane (35). This is not to claim that the use and revival of runes is inherently problematic, but merely that to wear a rune that has been so deeply associated with various fascist organizations without any critique or anti-fascist analysis is a heavily loaded action. In an interview with an online fanzine, Larsen names his biggest musical influences as “Death in June, but also bands as NON, Der Blutharsch, Current 93, Fire and Ice, Blood Axis etc.”, all bands that have racist tendencies and associations (36). In another interview in which he was asked the same question, he lists the same bands but adds Sol Invictus to the list (37). Larsen has also appeared as a guest in Die Weisse Rose's performances (25).

It is necessary to acknowledge that while many Asatru practitioners or fans of neofolk/industrial/black metal are well-intentioned music fans, many others involved in these scenes are actively promoting fascist ideas in order to normalize these tendencies. As outlined in Anton Shekhovstov's brilliant essay on the topic, which is highly recommended when approaching this subject,(38) this course is charted out within the post-WWII writings of Alain de Benoist and Julius Evola. These authors argued for fascists to retreat from active politics into the realm of culture until the time was right to begin recruiting for future fascist political movements. This form of 'metapolitical' fascism manifests in subcultural scenes focused on music or spirituality with their accompanying record labels, distros and spiritual organizations, as well as through networks of journals, publishing houses, conferences and think tanks. Neofolk as a musical subculture has always held an intellectual and elitist attitude that is eager to feign disassociation with more overt white supremacists, but this must be seen as what it is: part of a coherent and deliberate strategy to disseminate their unpopular ideas without risking immediate anti-fascist responses.The presence of fascists and white nationalists at Stella Natura is not an accident, but a planned infiltration; a co-opting of spirituality, heritage and music to suit their personal agenda. Opposition to this must come from within the scenes they seek to convert, and from the potential recruits they hope to gain.

Sources:

1. http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/1998/winter/the-new-barbarians
2. http://moremusic.typepad.com/blog/2012/10/stella-natura-the-light-of-ancestral-fires-tahoe-national-forest-921-22-and-23.html
3. https://www.facebook.com/Asatru.Folk.Assembly/posts/397387126994569
4. http://www.runestone.org/about-asatru/articles-a-essays/150-wotan-vs-tezcatlipoca-the-spiritual-war-for-california-and-the-southwest.html
5. http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=8699
6. http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/09/19/the-supremacy-cause-inside-the-white-nationalis/181599
7. http://asatruupdate.blogspot.com/2011/09/response-to-recent-defamation.html
8. http://www.runestone.org/about-the-afa/declaration-of-purpose.html
9. http://www.canadianfreespeech.com/cafe/battles-for-freedom/17-battles-for-freedom/87-anti-racist-action-attacks-cafe-meeting-in-toronto
10. http://www.whomakesthenazis.com/2010/12/rose-city-anti-fascists-austrian.html
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_%28book%29
12. Coogan, Kevin, “How Black is Black Metal? Michael Moynihan, Lords of Chaos and the ‘Countercultural Fascist’ Underground,” Hit List Vol. 1 No. 1 (February / March 1999), 32‐49, 45., found on http://www.whomakesthenazis.com/2010/12/rose-city-anti-fascists-austrian.html
13. http://www.radicaltraditionalist.com/tyr.htm
14. http://www.counter-currents.com/2012/10/asatru-and-the-political/
15. http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2006/fall/how-sam-dickson-got-rich?page=0,1
16. http://web.archive.org/web/20040718041710re_/www.national-anarchist.org/articles/INTERVIEWTaylor1.htm
17. http://www.chroniclesofchaos.com/articles/chats/1-922_changes.aspx
18. http://www.stigmata.name/ch2.php
19. http://www.counter-currents.com/2011/10/odinns-skald/
20. http://www.whomakesthenazis.com/2011/03/piss-poor-poet-found-in-dustbin-of.html
21. http://www.whomakesthenazis.com/2010/10/rock-against-communism-roots-of-sol.html
22. http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/wakeford.html 
23. http://datacide.c8.com/from-subculture-to-hegemony-transversal-strategies-of-the-new-right-in-neofolk-and-martial-industrial/
24. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Fiore
25. http://santasangremagazine.wordpress.com/2012/10/28/gesamtkunstwerke-interview-with-die-weisse-rose-eng/
26. .http://www.discogs.com/Various-Codreanu-Eine-Erinnerung-An-Den-Kampf/master/488
27. http://www.discogs.com/artist/Die+Weisse+Rose
28. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markus_Wolff
29. http://hexmagazine.com/hex-folk/hex-staff/
30. http://rosecityantifa.weebly.com/1/post/2010/12/allerseelen-on-tour-austrian-far-right-musical-project-on-west-coast-tour-playing-support-to-northwest-heavy-metal-act.html
31. http://www.discogs.com/artist/%3AOf+The+Wand+%26+The+Moon%3A#t=Releases_Albums&q=&p=1
32. http://www.discogs.com/Various-Looking-For-Europe/master/492
33. http://antifaeifel.blogsport.de/images/KimLarsen.jpg
34. http://antifaeifel.blogsport.de/2010/08/08/mithras-festival-burg-satzvey-of-the-wand-and-the-moon-muss-stellung-beziehen/
35. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Heidnische_Front
36. http://seidr.woods.ru/larsenengl.htm
37. http://www.rusmetal.ru/vae_solis/idiocyxii.htm
38. http://www.shekhovtsov.org/articles/Anton_Shekhovtsov-Apoliteic_Music.html
39. http://www.whomakesthenazis.com/2010/11/co-opting-counter-culture-troy.html 

American Psychos: Fascist Hippies coming to Town

Guest post by Jack Dash

Stop Press #2: The venue, The Green Note, made the following statement: "We at Green Note are committed to running our venue in a way consistent with our beliefs and world view. This article was recently brought to our attention, and while its accuracy has been disputed by the organisers, we at Green Note reserve the right to err on the side of caution in the name of our venue, the hard work of our staff, and our place in the community. While we had no prior knowledge of the history or politics of this band, if there is any truth to the extreme political views held by the members of Changes, these run in contrast to our beliefs and we felt unable to go ahead with this show." Risa / The Green Note, 2013-08-08

Stop Press #1: The venue, The Green Note, have now pulled the concert. Keep your eyes open for any attempt by the promoters to move to a new venue. 2013-07-19

nb. This article has been edited to change the incorrect attribution of a couple of quotes. This mistake has no bearing on the accuracy or argument of the post as a whole. 2013-07-23

"None of this had any real connection to integration or peace between races. Integration did not occur -- flight of the whites occurred. It was no secret that once blacks predominated in an area, the crime rate would soar and the streets would become dangerous to walk." Robert N. Taylor - Chronicles of Chaos, 2006

Booked to appear at a small venue called the Green Note in Camden, London on September 6th 2013 is a shadowy American folk duo known as Changes. Cousins Robert N. Taylor and Nicholas Tesluk started playing together in coffee houses of their native Chicago in the dusk of the 60s,in an America redolent with the bad vibes of the Manson Family's 'Acid Fascism' and as the hippy dream turned bum trip.

Taylor and Tesluk have a history of fascist involvement stretching back to the very early 60s, originating in their membership of the Chicago chapter of the Minutemen around 60-61, a vigilante militia group founded to combat what they saw as the communist threat to America. Here is Taylor in an interview with the fascist neofolk/industrial music magazine Stigmata in 2005 talking about the organisation and his significant role in it:

"Minutemen drew from the full scope of those on the right. From "Barry Goldwater" type conservatives, Objectivists and libertarians, anti-communists,constitutionalists, Christian Identity, neo-Fascists, Nazis, gun-owner advocates, etc.."

"My involvement in the Minutemen was considerable. I became a member of the newly formed organization at about 14 years old. I first was a member, then became the principle organizer and leader in the Chicago area. Then I became a member of the Executive council of ten as the director of intelligence. By the time I was 24 years old I was the editor of the organization's publication, On Target as well as the national spokesman for the group. My involvement lasted through most of the years of the organization's existence."

"What made On Target uniquely different from other anti-communist or right-wing publications was that in addition to articles and commentary on various current issues, it also contained names, addresses and phone numbers of its assumed communist and liberal enemies. Often literal dossiers on such people were featured. Combine the slogan, cross-hair masthead, and such detailed information on perceived enemies, and the potential threat was implied, without ever being actually stated."

"We have studied your Communist smirch, Mao, Che, Bhukarin. We have learned our lessons well and have added a few homegrown Yankee tricks of our own. Before you start your next smear campaign, before you murder again, before you railroad another patriot into a mental institution...better think it over. See the old man at the corner where you buy your paper? He may have a silencer equipped pistol under his coat. That extra fountain pen in the pocket of your insurance salesman that calls on you might be a cyanide-gas gun. What about your milkman? Arsenic works slow but sure. Your auto mechanic may stay up nights studying booby-traps. These patriots are not going to let you take their freedom away from them. They have learned the silent knife, the strangler's chord, the target rifle that hits sparrows at 200 yards. Only their leaders restrain them. Traitors beware! Even now the cross-hairs are on the back of your necks..."

The publicity for this upcoming tour makes reference to Italian facist philosopher Julius Evola, describing the evening as "An intimate evening of music for aristocrats of the soul" and calling the tour the 'Ride the Tiger World Tour', both taken from the title of one of Evola's books, Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for the Aristocrats of the Soul (published in 1961). Evola's fascism was esoteric and Brahminical, and although he had close ties with Mussolini and the Nazi Party in the 30s and 40s, he considered both to have failed the cause of fascism because they were too proletarian in ideology and structure. At the bottom of the poster is printed 'Kali Yuga' (the Age of Vice), a pointed reference to current era of the Hindu calender constantly referenced by fascists like Evola and esoteric Nazi Savitri Devi as a prophecy of the decline of world into decadence, reliance on technology, and descent into materialism and greed, as predicted in the Mahabharata Hindu scriptures written around 400 BC, and a favourite touchstone for post-Nazi fascism because of its place ancient Aryan history and its narrative of decline, a constant refrain of fascism. In the past Changes also toured under the banner 'Men Among The Ruins', the title of another of Evola's books.

The band were rediscovered by Michael Moynihan of Blood Axis notoriety in 1996, who then produced and released their next album on his Storm label alongside other far-right acts like Allerseen and David E. Williams. They quickly became revered in the scene as the progenitors of neofolk.

Austrian label HauRuck! started by comedy neofolk Stormtrooper Albin Julius rereleased Fire of Life in both LP and CD form in 2001, before releasing a new full length Changes album, Orphan In The Storm.

In 2005 they released an untitled CD with British fascist folk musician Andrew King (Sol Invictus, Brown Sierra) on the Portuguese Terra Fria label. King was recently sacked from another neofolk band Sol Invictus (a band with its own seriously fascist history) because he recorded a song by David E Williams called 'Wotan Rains On A Plutocrat's Parade', in which he amended the lyrics to make the song unambiguously racist and Nazi.

The event is obviously being promoted quietly so as to avoid the unwanted attention of anti-fascist organisations like Searchlight and Antifa. For example Michael Moynihan is referred to as "a friend" and not by name in the biography on the venue's site, presumably because of his own involvement in far-right politics. No mention of their history in the Minutemen is made , and they are presented as a straight-forward folk act. Tesluk talked about the unwanted attention of antifa protesters in the same Stigmata interview quoted above:

"As for the actual antifas congregated a block away, Douglas, of Death In June, walked over to confront them and they all faded away and acted like he was the invisible man. I passed them at least three times and they wouldn't even look in my direction. No one there was afraid of those punks."

The concert, featuring Death in June, a famous British fascist neofolk band, in Changes' hometown of Chicago, was cancelled in the end because the Jewish venue owner became aware of the bands' political affiliations.

Unlike many contemporary neofolk groups Changes seem relatively comfortable talking about their far-right politics, and specifically how with Moynihan's help they reached a young neofolk audience that includes plenty of radical traditionalists, Asatru practitioners, esoteric fascists, neo-Nazis and Third Positionists who are the natural audience for Changes' Eurocentric fascism:

"In the early to mid '70s the audiences were alright, but I doubt that most of them knew what our music was all about. The folk music scene was pervaded with leftists at that time, both as performers and as audiences. That has radically changed. It was as if Changes had to wait over thirty years to find the real audience it had been seeking all those years." Robert N. Taylor - Chronicles of Chaos, 2006

At the time of writing the tour will also include in concerts in Lithuania, Germany, Moscow and Hungary, Italy, Denmark, Austria, and Greece.

Green Note venue >>

James Cavanagh: Death in June Coming to Electrowerkz

Once again fascist-dabbling neofolk group Death In June are on tour in Europe, stopping off in London for their only live appearance in the UK on 15th December 2012 at Electrowerkz in Angel. 




Doug Pearce

Using a band name derived from June 30, 1934, the 'Night of Long Knives', Hitler's murderous response to the National Bolshevik faction in the Nazi party led by Ernst Roehm and Gregor Strasser, Death In June, long-term project of Douglas Pearce, are back to promote a new album and to mark 30 years since their debut release.

Pearce's long history of far-right agit-prop has garnered him notoriety over three decades, and caused his concerts to be cancelled across the world; in Norway, Switzerland and Germany in Europe and in Chicago, Seattle and Portland in the US. Last year the band played Camden Underworld, prompting Love Music, Hate Racism to call, unsuccessfully, for the gig to be cancelled.

In May 1999, a few days after BNP member David Copeland nail-bombed Brixton and Brick Lane markets and The Admiral Duncan pub in Soho, Death In June played The Garage in Islington (with fellow Nazi-admirers NON and Der Blutharsch). Copeland killed 3 people and injured 129. It has been widely corroborated that Pearce dedicated a song from the stage to the 'White Wolves' – a neo-Nazi grouping who had initially claimed responsibility for these atrocities. In much the same spirit, a valedictory message was posted to the Di6 Yahoo group forum immediately following Anders Breivik's Utoya massacre, and mainland bombing.

This year Pearce has chosen to play Electrowerkz, a venue that has often promoted fascist acts in the past, both in the Slimelight Club and in its main auditorium. Last year Slimelight hosted a concert featuring Sol Invictus, 6 Comm, Joy of Life and Freya Aswynn, acts that have fascist history, members with a fascist past or who have collaborated with fascist music projects. Tony Wakeford of Sol Invictus and Patrick Leagas aka Patrick O‘Kill of 6 Comm were both founding members of Death In June with Douglas Pearce, before going on to found their own bands, most notably in the case of Wakeford who founded Above the Ruins, a band that under his leadership donated a track to National Front benefit album No Surrender, Volume 1, alongside tracks by other overtly Nazi bands like Skrewdriver and Brutal Attack.

The event was written about in a guest post on WMTN, and was subsequently taken up by LMHR, an Islington councillor, the Unitarian Church, Unite Against Fascism and many independent protesters angry at the venue's decision to put on acts that promote fascism. Islington South Labour MP and Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry made this comment in the Islington Gazzette at the time;

"It’s a shame and a disgrace that these peddlers of poison are playing in Islington. We have a proud history of tolerance in this borough”.

The local press picked up on the campaign as did several prominent anti-fascist websites.

In the end a peaceful gathering of 70-80 people turned out on the night at Slimelight to protest. This largely took the form of discussion and leafleting.

NON / Boyd Rice

As long ago as September 2004 the Slimelight hosted a bill of far-right neofolk bands; Foresta Di Ferro, Ostara and Spiritual Front. Foresta Di Ferro and Spiritual Front appeared on a tribute album to the Romanian ultra-Fascist Corneliu Zelea Codreanu alongside the likes of Von Thronstahl, Dernière Volonté and Blood Axis. Codreanu was a Romanian anti-semitic fascist terrorist and leader of the notoriously vicious Iron Guard, also known as the The Legion of the Archangel Michael, active in the inter-war period. His antisemitism was so extreme that even the Nazis kept their distance from him. Ostara is the project of Richard Leviathan, who names among his influences in an interview in Heathen Harvest - Death in June, Boyd Rice, Changes, Blood Axis and Ain Soph, all pro-fascist bands. Leviathan also worked with Douglas Pearce on a project called Kapo. Ostara have been banned from playing for their far-right politics in Nuremberg and in the Netherlands.

In June 2005 Italian fascists Ain Soph played at the venue.

In 2006 a junior member of the Slimelight online forum called Tier posted about anti-semitic band Grand Belial's Key being booked to play the venue in February of that year. He comments; "Grand Belial's Key is a black metal band whose views border on National Socialist. One release of the band is named 'Judeobeast Assassination". He goes on to quote the band in interview expressing violent anti-semitism, their lyrics in the same vein, and mentions that various band members are in other racist far-right bands. A senior forum member CIW responds like this; "Well, fortunately for UK, this is a country where one can say what one believes, not in my country, where you get serious problems with it, just because it can't cope with its past... so, let em play, by forbidding stuff you just get what they want..." Another senior member Ecclecticbb makes this response; "It is not clear to me that Tier wants us to react against this event... I don't give a shit (not sorry) about it!"

In late 2007 Indymedia UK published an article about a concert at Slimelight in October of that year featuring NON, industrial/noise project of Boyd Rice, writing;

"The Slimelight event was headlined by Boyd Rice in his NON guise. An individual with a long and malicious history of fascist provocation and the focus of Anti-Nazi attention worldwide, it is particularly alarming that Boyd Rice, an acknowledged Social Darwinist and member of the neo-Nazi American Front organisation, has actually been given the all clear to enter the UK and perform in London as NON next week."

Non were supported by another fascist band called Luftwaffe.

In November of the same year promoters of far-right neofolk and Industrial music Hinoeuma The Malediction hosted an event at Slimelight that included Austrian fascists Der Blutharsch, Sutcliffe Jugend who contributed to a compilation cassette called White Power that had a swastika on the cover, alongside other groups closely associated with the fascist element of the neofolk scene.

In March 2009 Nachtmahr played the venue, a band criticised from the stage this year at the Kinetic Festival in Montreal for "the use of misogynist and racist tropes in (the) band’s music and publicity materials."

A quick look at set lists for DJ Blackdeath, resident Slimelight DJ for the past fourteen years, typically reads like a who's who of far-right neofolk, power electronics and black metal; Death in June, Burzum (aka Varg Vikernes - "the main person to have brought Nazism into the black metal scene", according to Wikipedia), Forseti, Sol Invictus, NON, Dernière Volonté, and Deutsch Nepal. DJ Blackdeath is also a Cold Spring record label DJ. Cold Spring have ultra-fascists Von Thronstahl on their books, along with H.E.R.R. and Seelenlicht, two musical projects involving racial seperatist Troy Southgate.

And now Death in June is booked to play the venue. That Death In June is a pro-fascist band has been disputed by some, but not by many of the band's most ardent fans. This very positive review of DIJ's latest album posted on Counter Currents Publishing by Greg Johnson describes the band's politics and influence like this:

"Death in June’s combination of acoustic folk and industrial sound collages, as well as its use of images and themes related to Nazi Germany and European fascism in general, have had an immense influence on the development of what is called 'neo-folk' and 'martial-industrial' music, which is the core of a world-wide youth subculture, characterized by racial consciousness, far Right politics, and inclinations toward neo-paganism and esoteric spirituality, including Esoteric Hitlerism, Traditionalism, and Aleister Crowley. Neo-folk and martial-industrial fans overlap significantly with the Goth scene and West Coast White Nationalism."

Neo Nazi music promotion network Blood and Honour published this description of the band on their website

"Two men take to the stage dressed in SS pea pattern smocks and start to pound a military beat on kettle drums draped in Totenkopf banners....and so twenty five years ago my musical world was turned upside down. That was Death in June (named after the night of the long knives) the band that kicked it all off. A rash of bands has followed including Above The Ruins (who were promoted by the National Front youth paper Bulldog) and Der Blutharsch. Images used of SS soldiers; runes and even the Horst Wessell sung on an LP clearly mark many of these bands as travelers (sic) of the right. "I think the black sun is the flag of the European Nations in mourning. It is blue, silver and gold. It is the true banner of a united Europe and it flies above us now." (Doug P) Modern bands in this genre continue this thrust of marshal (sic) music onwards and the history of fascist and national socialist movements to the attention of more and more."

Aside from the nazi imagery and lyrical references, Pearce is generally ellusive on the subject of fascism, but occasionally he makes a statement (in this case on the subject of protests by anti-fascists to his music) that reveals where he stands politically;

"I think censorship is essentially 'Communistic' and left wing. Censorship was one of the first things that happened in Russia after the Revolution in 1917 and continued until it fell to bits decades later. The way I understand it is that, to paraphrase Mussolini, the Fascists are the real anarchists for they truly did do exactly what they wanted. Libertarianism and Fascism are bedfellows no matter how some people might find that repugnant."

Of the Something Is Coming album, the proceeds of which were donated to the Bolnichi Clinic in Zagreb, Croatia during the Balkan conflict, Pearce has said "This was not purely a humanitarian gesture. It was a cultural one. A socio-Euro political one." The inference here is clear, despite the characteristic coyness; a diffidence which extends to the endlessly recycled back catalogue items listed for sale on the official Death In June website. "We STRONGLY recommend that all those living in Germany wishing to order 'BROWN BOOK' (Achtung!) UeBER DO NOT (!!) order direct from NER as random Customs checks do exist between the U.K. and the mainland of Europa... Talk to any of the million zillion illegal immigrants that now wander lonely as a black cloud through Europa's streets forlorn..... Those not living in little red angel's po-faced, goody 2 shoes Germany are also free to take advantage of these internet mail order firms...." he advises. The album in question, 1987's Brown Book contains a version of the SA anthem 'Horst-Wessel-Lied', and has therefore been totally banned for sale or distribution by the German authorities. In 2005, the album 'Rose Clouds Of Holocaust' was banned for sale to minors due to its questionable lyrical content.

Elsewhere, he has been keen to flaunt his personal association with veteran Nazis. From the Di6 blog:

"There was some discussion recently as to whether or not '18' (eg. Adolf Hitler) survived the battle for Berlin. As a close personal friend of someone whose last battles, in WWII at least, were in the Villa Goebbels, the Tiergarten and the Fuehrer Bunker itself ( which was evidently absolutely beautiful and filled with statues, paintings etc.) he maintains that during the chaos and confusion at the end it was ALWAYS possible to get out. As he, in fact, did himself. During rest periods within the Bunker he saw '18' go past him outside to have a look around several times and a double could have come back as his replacement – at anytime! During the last organised breakouts my friend was momentarily captured by Bolshevik troops who luckily became distracted by the bigger 'catch' of a Party Leader, the contents of the Party Leader's briefcase and his subsequent, on the spot, execution. This horrible incident, however, provided my friend and 2 of his kameraden the opportunity to escape and make their way West out of the city. He was later arrested at a railway station by British troops who had taken a keen interest in the design of his trousers(and later discovered blood group tattoo!) On 20th April, 1989 I remember well him saying to me that "if he wasn't dead then, he should be by now."

So Slimelight has long hosted fascist and pro-fascist musicians, and the club itself has long acted as a spiritual home for neofolk, black metal, industrial, martial, power electronics and other related genres. Genres that have a persistent strand of fascism running through them (I emphasise; a strand - the genres themselves are not political in this way). Despite protests over the years it continues to host fascist bands, and Pearce is more than aware of the reception which is likely to greet his own appearances. Of his 30th Anniversary live schedule, he stated that "we are trying to make performances as accessible geographically as possible. And we trust we 'let the right ones in'. Please remember that some performance locations will be kept secret until the last moment for very good reasons. Not everyone out there in internetland and elsewhere has our best interests at heart. Far from it! (.......) Careless talk can be the difference between a show happening - or attracting 'problems' for scurrilous reasons at the last moment - which could lead to cancellation."

Belarusian officials consider Death In June to be “British neo-fascists of international fame” who “openly promote Third Reich ideas”, and banned their Minsk concert which was timed to commemorate Germany's assault on Russia in 1941. It seems that Tidal Concerts and Electrowerkz have no such qualms.

Postscript 2012-11-19 

Facebook page for the Demonstration Against Death in June Concert in Wien >>

Rose City Anti-Fascists: Austrian Far‐Right Musical Project on West Coast Tour

Statement by the Rose City Anti-Fascists

“That is the power of an invisible order. Its members know that they are members. Those who are not members are aware that they do not participate.”

Romanian Legionary propagandist Ovidiu Gules, as quoted by Gerhard Petak in interview¹

“If the mythical and irrational, as well as the desire for anti‐Enlightenment introspection and living transcendence, find a voice in youth culture, the aesthetic consensus of the West will be broken.”

From the German New Right newspaper Junge Freiheit, 1996²

“Folkish is today a dangerous word. Like the words home, roots, loyalty it is situated in the cross wires of an omnipresent brainwashing. Those who use this word are pushed close to the Third Reich. But the foreign policy of the Third Reich was not folkish at all. The principle that the peoples were different, but equal of birth, was not taken into consideration.”

Gerhard Petak, as quoted by the “Tasmanian National‐Anarchists”³

“Separate but equal”

Policy underlining Jim Crow laws in the American South

Allerseelen on Tour

This December, the Austrian far‐Right “post‐industrial” and martial music project Allerseelen is set to give a series of performances on the US West Coast. Allerseelen is the project of Gerhard Petak (aka Kadmon and Gerhard Hallstatt) who also incorporates other performers into the act when playing live⁴. Several of the Allerseelen shows are scheduled to take place in larger venues supporting the prominent Portland, Oregon “dark metal” group Agalloch, who will be touring to promote their new album. The hitching of Allerseelen onto the tour of a larger heavy metal act will provide new outlets for Petak’s extreme‐Right messages. Agalloch, the group which Allerseelen will support, is at present crossing over from underground cult status to something nearer the mainstream, the group’s latest album even being promoted with a write‐up and “exclusive first listen” on National Public Radio’s music webpage.⁵ It is troubling that the accompanying act Agalloch chose to expose its growing audiences to, has a long history of far‐Right involvement and propaganda, and is an attempt to make aspects of fascist discourse acceptable. (Allerseelen will first play two separate headlining shows before joining the Agalloch tour.) Agalloch’s decision to further link itself to Petak / Allerseelen by appearing on a new compilation CD released by Petak’s label⁶, is likewise of concern to anti‐fascists and is of similar poor judgment.

The dates of Allerseelen’s tour are:

Waldteufel + Allerseelen

• 15 Dec 2010: Portland
• 16 Dec 2010: Salem (+ HELL, Barghest)

Agalloch + Allerseelen

• 17 Dec 2010: Portland OR Berbati's Pan (+ Aerial Ruin)
• 18 Dec 2010: Seattle WA Neumo’s (+ Alda + Waldteufel)
• 21 Dec 2010: Los Angeles CA Ultra Violet Social Club (+ Winterthrall)
• 22 Dec 2010: San Francisco CA Great American Music Hall (+ Dispirit)⁷

Petak’s Politics and Associations

Gerhard Petak has been releasing music under the name Allerseelen since the end of the 1980s⁸. During the 1990s, the extreme‐Right nature of Petak’s politics became increasingly evident, through his writing and publishing as well as his musical releases. Before explaining how Petak promotes far‐Right discourses, we must first provide a thumbnail sketch of what his politics actually are—while Petak has had contact with some people who could be fairly described as Nazis or neo‐Nazis, Petak has also criticized the Third Reich in print, and we do not describe him personally as a Nazi. (We will discuss Petak’s attitude towards historical Nazism later.) We place Petak’s viewpoints and advocacy on the terrain of neo‐fascism and the far‐Right, especially that of the European New Right. Some other ideological influences will be discussed in passing. If at times Petak’s viewpoints appear as a jumble of varied and even opposing influences, it is worth noting that fascism has always been a syncretic ideological movement—one that attempts to fuse differing elements into a single whole. Indeed, this syncretic nature has given rise to one of fascism’s primary qualities, that of simultaneously being “A and not A” and often harboring diametrically opposed impulses, such as attempting mass political mobilization while also vocalizing contempt for mass society⁹ (These contradictions unfortunately do not render fascism or fascist politics harmless.)

The European New Right

As well as his own self‐produced pamphlets, Petak’s thoughts have also been printed in publications of the European New Right, such as Staatsbriefe and Junge Freiheit¹⁰. An understanding of this European New Right (ENR hereafter) is crucial for an understanding of Petak and Allerseelen. The European New Right stems from an attempt to rethink fascist politics in light of the failure of its mid‐20th Century manifestations. While the ENR now contains many voices, its primary ideologue is Alain de Benoist, who had been a member of the French neo‐fascist organizations Jeune Nation and its successor Europe‐ Action, before founding the GRECE think tank in 1968 at the age of twenty‐five¹¹. (The French word “Grece” means Greece, suggesting the glories of ancient Europe; the acronym GRECE stands for “Research and Study Group for a European Civilization” as written in French.) In the words of one account, GRECE “became the institutional pivot of the Nouvelle Droite (New Right), the name bestowed upon de Benoist’s Paris‐based circle by the French media.”¹²

One significant aspect of much ENR discourse is its break from biological determinism and racism phrased in such biological terms, which de Benoist in his younger years had argued for. In the place of biological racism, the New Right began to present itself as a defender of cultural diversity and “ethno‐ pluralism.” What this amounts to is a form of cultural racism expressed as difference—when cultures come together, this apparently breeds homogeneity, and therefore the ENR argues for a plurality of cultures precisely through separation and the cessation of pluralism within cultures. While renouncing at least in theory any authoritarianism and conquest between different cultures, in practical terms New Right politics would necessarily lead to neo‐Apartheid and bloody Balkans‐like carve‐ups. (It is telling that Petak / Allerseelen was “impressed” by Slobodan Milosevic¹³.) Within the ENR framework, the United States and the cultural Americanization of Europe are seen as primary opponents, as these are “melting pot” efforts which the New Right sees as homogenizing (paradoxically because they are not homogenizing.) The celebration of lack of difference within cultures, now defined as difference itself—and the imposition of internal homogeneity, described as the “right to difference”—is typical of the transvaluation that occurs within New Right discourse. Similarly, the New Right can even adopt the language of democracy while arguing for purging internal difference: “Direct democracy need not be associated with a limited number of people. It is primarily associated with the notion of a relatively homogenous people conscious of what makes them a people.”¹⁴

Two other aspects of the European New Right are important to note, especially as they relate to Allerseelen: the ENR’s pagan aspect, and its stress on fighting a cultural war. In contrast to the American New Right of the time, which was generally a Christian movement, the ENR’s identity was strongly pagan and anti‐Christian. Christianity is presented as an alien force that imposed itself on indigenous European peoples; the universalist aspect of Christianity is seen as a major enemy¹⁵. (The ENR also sees the capitalist market as spreading the pathogen of universalism, and hence adopts a sort of fascist “anti‐ capitalism.”) In terms of strategy, the European New Right borrows from the Italian Communist leader Gramsci, who argued that lasting political and economic change would have to be preceded by a major shift on the cultural terrain¹⁶. The ENR therefore focuses on creating a cultural environment favorable to their political ideas flourishing—especially culture that popularizes (imagined) “indigenous” European cultural / ethnic identities and lashes out at universalism and Enlightenment values.

While Gerhard Petak does not generally reference de Benoist or GRECE—and it is possible that Petak has theoretical quibbles with some of de Benoist, just as de Benoist himself does not like Petak’s musical genre¹⁷—Petak’s ideas and output are nevertheless infused with ENR influence. This influence is already pointed to by Petak’s statements being carried in ENR journals, and the influence will become especially clear when examining Petak’s attitude towards the Third Reich. Some of this influence may have arrived directly through Petak reading specific ENR theoreticians, while some may stem from the broader far‐ Right cultural / political milieu which Petak works within. Even if he has never thought much of de Benoist’s work, Petak has certainly been presented by third parties as having something to do with the European New Right. In the second volume of the book‐sized American “Radical Traditionalist” journal Tyr: Myth‐Culture‐Tradition, an interview with Petak is one of the longest of the issue, only shorter than the extensive interview with de Benoist¹⁸. (There is also an Allerseelen track on the journal’s accompanying CD; one of the editors of Tyr is Petak’s friend Michael Moynihan, about whom more later.)

The Iron Guard (Romania)

Petak / Allerseelen contribute to the ultra‐Right culture war through his attempts to circulate and rehabilitate classical fascist ideas and imagery. Petak is especially keen on the Romanian fascist movement the Legion of the Archangel Michael (also known as the Iron Guard.) This movement, led by Corneliu Codreanu (1899 – 1938) “displayed all the characteristics of fascism”¹⁹ and “was an extremely violent organization”²⁰ noted for its anti‐Semitism, aiming for “not just the purification of Romanian life from Jewish influence but also the ‘moral rejuvenation’ of Romania on a Christian as well as a national basis.”²¹ While the Iron Guard’s outer embrace of Romanian Orthodox Christianity may appear as at odds with Petak’s paganism, it is the esoteric and mystical elements of the movement that most fascinate Petak—the Legionaries had their own mysticism and internal rites, including members of its death squads ritually drinking each other’s blood²². Such a combination of violence, fascism, blood and the occult is irresistible to Petak, who claims that “The Iron Guard [still] exists, of course” in terms of an eternal ideal and motivating myth. Petak then quotes with approval Ovidiu Gules²³, who edited the Gazeta de Vest publication that promoted the Legionary tradition. (This publication was further linked to the fascist International Third Position organization.²⁴) Gerhard Petak not only issued a pamphlet about Codreanu and the Iron Guard in his Aorta pamphlet series²⁵, but also in 1998 issued a set of two 7” vinyl records of Legionary music, with the fourth side containing a speech by Codreanu²⁶.

Petak’s release of Romanian Iron Guard music on his Aorta label, 1998

The Nazis, Their Precursors, Third Reich Culture and Mysticism

Petak’s relationship to National Socialism and the Third Reich is expressed in a variety of approaches. On occasion, his statements could be considered as historical revisionism and rehabilitation of the Nazi past. At other times, Petak distances himself from Nazism, but on a basis that is still far‐Right. Petak furthermore has an abiding interest in the Conservative Revolutionary streams that fed into Nazi politics. While Petak is not himself a neo‐Nazi, his criticisms of Nazism—such as they are—betray broader far‐Right and fascist sympathies. Petak’s criticisms are generally little but variations on ENR positions surrounding these topics. It is worth taking one of Petak’s criticisms as an example. In an interview on the Raunend post‐industrial music site, Petak discusses the exterior of Haus Atlantis in Bremen, Germany, which at the time of the Third Reich had on its facade “a large wooden sculpture showing Odin surrounded by runes.” Petak used an image of this statue for the cover of his third CD, “Sturmlieder.” Petak comments:

This was the strangest Odin statue I ever saw (unfortunately only on images) with its sad expression. […] In the Third Reich, many Christian as well as pagan National Socialists hated this statue because it was Odin or because it was an Odin some did not want to see. There were also articles in SS magazines against this ‘ugly’ totemistic statue, calling it ‘Entartete Kunst’ [Degenerate Art]. So Allerseelen used some Entartete Kunst on Sturmlieder. Finally it was burnt to ashes ‐ but it were not National Socialists setting it on fire. It was burnt to ashes by British bombers through air‐raids in WWII which destroyed a huge part of Bremen.²⁷

Why is this story so important to Petak? Through his use of the Haus Atlantis image on the cover of “Sturmlieder,” this statue is associated with the Allerseelen project and thus Petak—he sees himself in the art. While the Haus Atlantis’ exterior was condemned by segments of the Nazis according to Petak’s account, it also probably would not have been on public display at all, without the general cultural ambience of pagan revival during the Third Reich. The burning of the building—which would be properly understood as part of a military campaign to defeat the Third Reich—is instead through Petak’s quick switch associated with campaigns against Degenerate Art and presumably Nazi book burnings. The Allies become the harshest arbiters of taste. It is those fighting to overthrow the Reich, who thus seem to be involved in “Nazism” of the most extreme kind. The point is underscored immediately afterwards when Petak mentions his other “close and infamous connection” to Haus Atlantis (subsequently owned by Hilton and possessing “another, quite boring facade now.”) Having attempted to use the Haus as the venue for an Allerseelen show, the far‐Right connections of the project were exposed in the media and the event got cancelled. Criticism of Petak’s far‐Right politics, is generally portrayed by Petak as the height of real “Nazism,” as compared to the actual Nazism of the Third Reich, which warrants more tepid criticism. In one statement, Petak even likens criticism of far‐Right influence within the “darkwave” music scene, to oppression of Jewish people forced to wear the Yellow Star.²⁸ (This is, needless to say, historical revisionism on a grand scale.)

Petak is highly inspired by the work of the “Conservative Revolutionaries” who came to prominence in Germany following WWI, and who provided a large number of themes and ideas that were put to use by the Nazis. When Petak describes himself as “conservative avant‐garde,” the “conservative” in this formulation refers to the Conservative Revolutionaries, according to the sympathetic assessment of Petak / Allerseelen by Tyr co‐editor Joshua Buckley.²⁹ These Conservative Revolutionaries—two of their most famous members being philosopher Oswald Spengler and writer Ernst Jünger—were also major influences on the European New Right. The ENR has argued that the Third Reich never in practice followed Conservative Revolutionary thought despite appropriating Conservative Revolutionary intellectual efforts.³⁰

The Conservative Revolutionary movement was characterized by fervent nationalism following the German defeat in WWI; a view of the nation as an organic whole; glorification of hierarchy, militarism, industrial mobilization, as well as “folk‐community”; plus deep anti‐liberalism and anti‐egalitarianism. While the Conservative Revolutionary movement provided many political, conceptual and rhetorical tools for the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP, or Nazi Party) to utilize, Conservative Revolutionaries did not wholly approve of the Nazi regime—several saw it as insufficiently elitist, especially scorning its socialist elements. Furthermore, Conservative Revolutionaries did not tend to stress biological racism in the strict manner of the Nazi Party. Some Conservative Revolutionaries faced penalties for not wholly embracing Nazi orthodoxy, even though the worldview they spread had helped the NSDAP to power; some Conservative Revolutionaries even ended up as plotters against the regime, especially as WWII ceased going in Germany’s direction. On the other hand, many other Conservative Revolutionaries found a more‐or‐less comfortable home for themselves within the Nazi Party. Petak / Allerseelen has directly paid homage to the Conservative Revolutionaries Ernst Jünger (the Allerseelen track “Käferlied” is a tribute to him³¹) and Friedrich Hielscher (the compilation CD “Wir Rufen Deine Wölfe” on Petak’s Aorta label, contains versions of Hielscher’s poem of the same name, set to music by seventeen acts including Allerseelen.³²)

While the idea of “folk‐community” (or Volksgemeinschaft) was important to the Conservative Revolutionaries, it became an obsession for the Nazis. Yet just as the European New Right argued that the Nazi regime misapplied or failed to implement Conservative Revolutionary principles, Gerhard Petak criticizes the Third Reich not because of its völkisch obsession, but merely because the regime did not enact völkisch principles properly within its foreign policy—Petak articulates a “different, but equal” policy amongst different Völker. One should also note that it is pluralistic democracy that Petak accuses of implementing “omnipresent brainwashing,” not the Third Reich.³³

Photograph of Leni Riefenstahl on cover of Allerseelen’s “Alle Lust Will Ewigkeit” single

Although Petak makes minor criticisms of the Third Reich, his work also references and portrays positively several aspects of Nazi culture. Prime examples of this are Petak’s homages to Leni Riefenstahl, the director of the infamous Nazi propaganda movie “Triumph of the Will” (Triumph des Willens). Petak issued a pamphlet about Riefenstahl’s 1932 (pre‐Third Reich) film “The Blue Light” (Das Blaue Licht)³⁴ and also released a music single paying tribute to her.³⁵ Petak’s evaluation of Riefenstahl prior to her death was: “She was and still is a beautiful and powerful woman.”³⁶ Zero criticism is made of her talents being placed in the service of the Nazi regime. Indeed, when Petak discusses Riefenstahl again, it is to return to his theme of intolerant non‐fascists: “Leni Riefenstahl said that after World War Two, everyone considered her a witch who had love affairs with Nazis and so on, and she definitely had a hard life after the war.”³⁷ Allerseelen also contributed to a Riefenstahl‐themed CD compilation released in 1996 by the German Right‐wing record label VAWS³⁸.

Allerseelen recordings and Petak’s writings also reference and pay tribute to Nazi völkisch researchers and explorers grouped around the Ahnenerbe (“Ancestral Heritage”) think tank. This think tank, founded in the early 1930s, then formally integrated into the SS at the start of 1939 with the support of Heinrich Himmler, aimed to research the achievements of the Nordic race that they believed
once ruled the world. The SS‐ Ahnenerbe also integrated a number of sideline projects, such as human experimentation at Dachau. Friedrich Hielscher—the Conservative Revolutionary celebrated on one of Petak’s compilation discs, and who did work for the Ahnenerbe—testified on behalf of Ahnenerbe Director Wolfram Sievers during the Nuremberg Trials, claiming that Sievers had been active alongside him in opposition to Hitler. Sievers was nevertheless found guilty of crimes against humanity and executed; Hielscher visited Sievers in prison shortly before the execution, and they performed a farewell ritual together³⁹.

Another Ahnenerbe member favorably referenced by Petak is Otto Rahn, who was the topic of one of Petak’s Aorta tracts⁴⁰. Rahn’s main contribution to the Nazi mysticism of the Ahnenerbe was through his 1937 book Lucifer's Court (Luzifers Hofgesind) which described his travels across Europe in search of a hidden “Cathar‐Visigothic tradition”⁴¹. Even more important to Petak is Karl Maria Wiligut, another Ahnenerbe member who had one of Petak’s Aorta pamphlets devoted to him.⁴² Wiligut was a Nazi occultist and Ariosophist who performed pseudo‐religious ceremonies for the SS, as well as designing the death’s‐head ring worn by SS members. Wiligut was also involved with the SS redesign of Wewelsburg castle in Westphalia, intended to be made into the SS leadership hub as well as mystical center.⁴³  The second Allerseelen CD, “Gotos=Kalanda” has as its cover the Sonnenrad (sunwheel / “Black Sun”) mosaic on the floor of the SS Generals' Hall in the redesigned Wewelsburg castle.⁴⁴ This “Black Sun” design has become a popular motif within far‐Right and neo‐Nazi circles,⁴⁵ and has been widely used by Petak himself. The whole “Gotos=Kalanda” release is based on texts by Wiligut.⁴⁶ Petak also assisted the publication of a book of texts by and about Wiligut in English, published by far‐Rightist Michael Moynihan’s Dominion Press.⁴⁷

The Allerseelen CD “Neuschwabenland” (“New Swabia”) is also a Third Reich reference, referring to the 1938‐1939 German Antarctic expedition, which named a section of the Antarctic as “New Swabia” (after the German region of Swabia.) This expedition, despite its real strategic importance for the Nazi regime, has within sections of the extreme‐Right become the stuff of myth. Within such discourse, New Swabia is the site of secret Nazi bases from which they launch their UFOs, a doctrine for example promoted by the infamous Holocaust‐denier Ernst Zündel.⁴⁸ It is likely that Petak is at a minimum aware of this association, as he has published his own tracts (in the Ahnstern successor to his Aorta series) about Viktor Schauberger and Joseph Andreas Epp, both engineers discussed in the context of Nazi flying saucer mythos.⁴⁹ The site of New Swabia is also blended in Nazi esotericism to hollow earth theories and myths of polar peoples. High technology and achievement in exploration are in this way combined with mysticism and alleged ancient mysteries.

For Petak, a process of double‐mirroring is at work when he displays such symbolism. Firstly, the mixture of antiquated irrationality with a glorification of technical matters and industry, is a central aspect of Allerseelen’s 'technosophical' project as a whole; secondly, this reflects in aesthetic terms the simultaneous stress on both atavism and industrial productivity found within fascist regimes, even when explicit references are absent. Through his clear and direct references to the Third Reich, however, Petak portrays this regime—despite certain muted criticism—as a realm of achievement, mastery and mystery. The SS, especially through Petak’s focus on the Ahnenerbe, become seen mostly by reference to mysticism and spirituality, not in regards to the massive crimes against humanity that were the true practice of the organization.

Julius Evola

Petak celebrates another man who was attracted to the SS, the Italian 'traditionalist' theorist Julius Evola (1898 ‐ 1974). While Evola had been published in Ahnenerbe publications, his theories on race clashed with this organization (and with Third Reich orthodoxy), and it was to the “pan‐Europeanist” elements of the SS that Evola ended up being most connected⁵⁰. During WWII, Evola worked for German intelligence⁵¹; following the defeat of the Axis powers, Evola became an extremely influential figure to the most intransigent of the Italian far‐Right, and was a theoretical influence on the fascist bombers of the 1970s and early 80s in that country⁵². Similarly to Petak, Evola had a romantic image of the SS and the Iron Guard, seeing them as elite orders of warrior‐mystics fighting to restore hierarchical values in a world of inversion, corruption and decay.

Evola’s ideas have had some influence within various sectors of the far‐Right, including the European New Right and various non‐Hitlerian fascist organizations. Evola differed with the Third Reich’s racial policies and their biological determinism, favoring instead a “spiritual” and elitist form of racism. Evola argued that only members of an elite could properly be understood as having “race,” and that such race could not only be understood in terms of biology. Such a view was still very much compatible with anti‐ Semitism and racial bigotry, just not the official racial doctrines of the Third Reich. (Evola’s opposition to this policy of the Nazi Party was obviously not enough to prevent his collaboration with its regime.) Elitism is at the core of any of Evola’s criticisms of fascist governments—all were too plebian to earn his complete approval, although some violent closed groups (such as the SS) held a great appeal to him. Evola’s worldview was not primarily political, but rather his political engagements and thought were outgrowths of his broader metaphysical ideas. Evola is a key author of the Traditionalist School, an anti‐ modern intellectual movement with a focus on religious practice and initiation, and Evola also authored several books on esoteric topics. In his later and most pessimistic work, Cavalcare la Tigre (Ride the Tiger) Evola argued for “apoliteia”—detachment from the polity—as the world slid irreversibly into decline. However, this “detachment” did not rule out such acts of mayhem as his adherents would later put into practice in Italy, but instead served as justification for them. Acts of terror and extreme violence became framed as spiritual affirmation by a spiritual warrior‐elite still committed to ordering principles in a corrupt and contemptible world. Evola’s aloof and “spiritual” aspects—and the fact that his thinking was metaphysically‐based—are often used by Evola’s defenders in order to place him in a category outside of fascist political thought. However, Evola’s own affiliations are a matter of record, and even his later apoliteia is noteworthy mainly by reference to the fascist violence it inspired.

Gerhard Petak has explicitly tied Allerseelen to Julius Evola’s works and worldview, through frequent mention of Evola in interviews, as well as the contribution of an Allerseelen track to the “Cavalcare La Tigre ‐ Julius Evola: Centenary” tribute CD⁵³. Petak also contributed, under the name of “Kadmon,” an article in “an issue of a conservative revolutionary French journal, Dualpha […] dedicated to Julius Evola”⁵⁴. A split CD between Allerseelen and the American act Changes (about whom more later) is entitled “Men Among the Ruins”⁵⁵, a reference to Evola’s book of the same name that provided “Post‐ war Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist” and which bemoaned opposition to fascism and totalitarianism.

Changes / Allerseelen split CD, 2006

Black Metal and Right‐Wing Occultism

Petak’s involvement in esoteric fascism also extends to giving interviews to occult fascist journals, such as the interview published in the second issue of The Nexus during the late 90s⁵⁶. The Nexus was published by New Zealand resident Kerry Bolton, who as well as being active in a series of occult organizations, was also a co‐founder of the New Zealand Fascist Union. Bolton’s organization “The Black Order” was an attempt to synthesize his political and occult sympathies, and aimed to “revive the esoteric current of national socialism”⁵⁷. Petak’s association with Bolton began prior to the Nexus interview. The twentieth pamphlet of Petak’s mid‐‘90s Aorta series lists a precursor to The Nexus named The Heretic in its contact addresses following the main article⁵⁸. The central article within of that issue gave Petak’s interpretation of the Norse cult of the “wild hunt” or oskorei, attempting to portray the “black metal” musical scene of the time as a return to the same pagan impulses that were manifested in the old cult. Petak commends the black metal scene’s “fight against Kristianity [sic] and partly also against Americanism afflicting all areas of European life today,” a statement that echoes European New Right formulations. Petak then singles out the Norwegian black metal musician Kristian “Varg” Vikernes and his Burzum solo project for special praise. The rest of the pamphlet is devoted to a sympathetic interview with Vikernes, at the time imprisoned for the murder of a rival black metal figurehead. Vikernes is a central figure in the far‐Right and ideologically racist turn made by a segment of the black metal scene; Petak’s attempts to popularize Vikernes probably played a small part in this development.

Key Associates (One): Blood Axis / Michael Moynihan

Petak’s friend Michael Moynihan—an American far‐Rightist who has his own fascist experimental music project named Blood Axis—has played a much larger role than Petak in popularizing fascistic tendencies within the black metal scene, through his book Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground⁵⁹. The central argument of this book, written by Moynihan and Norwegian co‐author Didrik Søderlind, is that subconscious archetypes and a “return of Wotan” may be behind the racism and violence of individuals such as “Varg” Vikernes, thus absolving these black metal scene participants of responsibility for their own fascist politics and instead imbuing their activity (murder, arsons etc.) with otherworldly mystery⁶⁰. (We are not arguing that most black metal enthusiasts are racists or fascists, merely those individuals such as Vikernes who easily fit within both categories, were largely excused by Lords of Chaos and its archetype theories.) Unsurprisingly, as Petak’s “Oskorei” essay itself comes close to describing the black metal phenomenon as a reawakening of racial archetypes, it was reprinted as an appendix to Lords of Chaos⁶¹. Other occult fascists such as Kerry Bolton are also provided with publicity in the book⁶².

Moynihan’s affiliations are worth briefly examining, firstly because he for some time lived in Portland, Oregon and influenced the milieu that is now hosting Allerseelen, and secondly because Moynihan often tries to obscure his politics and pretend as though he is being unfairly maligned by antifascists. Ironically, Moynihan criticizes similar behavior from others:

I’m sick of people saying they’re ‘not political,’ as I think this is a cop‐out… If you’re going to espouse ‘fascist’ ideas, then I believe you have to accept some of the responsibility for their application in the real world; otherwise what is the point of espousing them in the first place?⁶³

In 1992, Moynihan published Siege: The Collected Writings of James Mason under his Siege imprint. Mason, a neo‐Nazi activist since his teens, for a while edited a publication of the National Socialist Liberation Front, but in 1982 he separated the Siege journal from that organization, creating a new project named the Universal Order which combined neo‐Nazism with recognition of Charles Manson as a movement leader⁶⁴. The name of Moynihan’s musical act also gives some not‐so‐subtle clues about his politics: Blood as in “Blood and Soil,” plus Axis as in the Axis Powers. Moynihan has done much to promote Julius Evola within the post‐industrial scene, and has edited two Evola books for publication in English, including Evola’s Men Among the Ruins: Post‐War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist⁶⁵. Moynihan is currently involved as a co‐editor of Tyr: Myth‐Culture‐Tradition, a journal combining a loosely Evolian outlook with the European New Right and racially‐charged variants of Germanic neo‐ paganism. Tyr does not describe itself as a fascist or Nazi publication, yet it is fixated on völkisch identity, reproduces far‐Right anti‐modernity discourses, and has no problem publishing authors whose political lineages trace back to classical fascism.

Gerhard Petak interviewed Blood Axis in an issue of his Aorta series⁶⁶; Petak was granted a major within Moynihan and Buckley’s Tyr a number of years later⁶⁷. There have been two spit releases between Allerseelen and Blood Axis, a split single in 1994⁶⁸ and a second split single in 1998⁶⁹. The first of these releases is of particular interest, being the first release on Moynihan’s Storm Records label and therefore signifying the deep connection between Moynihan and Petak. Allerseelen’s side of this release contains lyrics from a poem by SS mystic Karl Maria Wiligut, and the song was later included on Allerseelen’s “Gotos=Kalanda” release. Allerseelen’s liner notes contain the “Black Sun” image favored by Petak as a design element (this of course being particularly important in a Wiligut‐themed release.) The Blood Axis side of this release is a cover version of Joy Division’s “Walked in Line,” the song transformed into an unequivocal affirmation of fascist regimentation and violence.

Key Associates (Two): Changes / Robert N. Taylor

Another important ally of Petak’s is Robert N. Taylor of the “folk noir” act Changes. Taylor has also worked closely with Moynihan, and is active within ultra‐Right neo‐pagan circles alongside him. Moynihan is also responsible for the first releases of Changes’ music, issued through his Storm label⁷⁰. Changes and Allerseelen released a split CD in 2006, the album title taken straight from one of Julius Evola’s books⁷¹.

In interviews, Robert Taylor has discussed his involvement with white anti‐Black rioting in Chicago during his youth. Taylor went on to participate in the Minutemen, a Right‐wing paramilitary group active in the 1960s and early ‘70s. Taylor continues to have radical‐Right views. He has discussed in an interview his vision for racial separation in America, with people of color being relocated to specific regions in a plan that plan that mirrors that of David Duke⁷². Additionally, “Robert Wulfing” (Robert N. Taylor) sent lyrics and a description of the Changes song “Waiting for the Fall” to the “musical terrorists” section of Folk & Faith, a “national anarchist” website. While Taylor notes that the song is “a generic revolutionary song” with “no mention of ideology,” he is certainly placing the song in a specifically far‐ Right context by sending his words to Folk & Faith⁷³ (National anarchism is an ideology with its origin in fascist politics; despite the name, the tendency did not initially spring from the anarchist movement, and it is rejected by many anarchists⁷⁴).

Allerseelen’s Support in Oregon

The current tour is not the first time that Allerseelen has been on the West Coast. A 2003 tour played three West Coast dates, all with the Portland group Waldteufel, who are also playing several dates with Allerseelen this year. Markus Wolff, the primary force behind Waldteufel, is a frequent collaborator with Michael Moynihan, and supplies writings on German völkisch authors and pagan revivalists to Tyr and similar publications. Wolff is also an Evola enthusiast who supported the Moynihan‐edited English edition of Men Among the Ruins⁷⁵. Wolff currently also edits Hex magazine, a “heathen” journal that has published Petak (as Gerhard Hallstatt) in several issues⁷⁶. Hex has some other interesting associations with the far‐Right; one of its founders and initial editors, Amie Rautmann (listed as “A. von Rautmann” on the Hex website⁷⁷) is an enthusiast of the Holocaust‐denier David Irving, who attended Irving’s speech in Portland on July 19, 2009⁷⁸. The Hex website also promotes Allerseelen’s current tour⁷⁹.

Allerseelen played in Portland on June 14, 2003, supported by Waldteufel and Sacrificial Totem. The event took place at Optic Nerve Arts on Alberta Street. Michael Moynihan played with Allerseelen at this show. Petak’s far‐Right sympathies were further alluded to in Petak’s account of this tour, which cited questions he had to answer in a form when entering the United States. The following are the only questions cited by Petak:

Are you seeking entry to engage in criminal or immoral activities? Have you ever been or are you now involved in espionage or sabotage; or in terrorist activities; or genocide; or between 1933 and 1945 were you involved in any way in persecutions associated with Nazi Germany or its allies?⁸⁰

Petak’s friend Markus Wolff further organized a show for Changes and Waldteufel that took place on August 26th, 2005 at the Alberta Street Public House. The event was publicized in an update from Soleilmoon, an experimental record label and music distribution also headquartered on Alberta Street⁸¹.
While Soleilmoon distributes a variety of different musical styles and artists, it does carry releases by Waldteufel, Changes and Allerseelen. Soleilmoon is also a major US distributor for the fascist⁸² neo‐folk act Death in June and its New European Recordings (NER) label.

A final Oregon ally of Petak is Tyler Davis of Jacksonville, Oregon, who runs The Ajna Offensive record label and the Ajnabound Esoteric Books publishing company. Davis’ connection to Petak traces back to the 1990s, when Davis helped with the black metal and experimental music ‘zine Descent alongside editor Stephen O’Malley. (O’Malley is responsible for an article on the topic of black metal published by the white supremacist Resistance magazine in 1995⁸³.) Davis’ Ajna Offensive distributes a number of Allerseelen titles, and Davis will be following along with the Allerseelen tour⁸⁴. Davis is also planning to issue a book of Petak’s collected tracts from the 1990s (issued as Gerhard Hallstatt) entitled Blutleuchte⁸⁵. While Tyler Davis is involved with issuing and distributing many titles that are not related to fascist politics—many instead focusing on Satanism, evil and the occult—he also seems to have no problem with fascists. The Ajna Offensive, for example, reissued the album “Blodsband (Blood Religion Manifest)” by white nationalists Sigrblot in 2005⁸⁶.

Conclusion

Petak has frequently denied having any interest in politics, stating for
example that “I do not believe in economics or politics. I believe in the power of art.”⁸⁷ Yet Petak continually deploys imagery from fascist movements, maintains associations with others on the far‐Right, and puts forward politics that appear as a combination of völkisch, Conservative Revolutionary and European New Right influences. Allerseelen is also promoted by publications and websites that stem from the fascist political tradition. As well as Petak’s interview in Kerry Bolton’s The Nexus, Allerseelen was also interviewed in Lutte du peuple, a publication of the French “national revolutionary” organization Nouvelle Résistance⁸⁸. Allerseelen is also promoted by in the far‐Right culture war efforts of Richard Lawson’s Flux Europa site⁸⁹, and is reviewed on national anarchist Troy Southgate’s RoseNoire website⁹⁰.

What is the meaning of Petak’s denial of any politics or political motivation? While not referring explicitly to Allerseelen, Anton Shekhovtsov’s article “Apoliteic music: Neo‐Folk, Martial Industrial and ‘Metapolitical Fascism’” points to an answer by discussing Evola’s concept of apoliteia as well as European New Right influence in relation to certain sectors of the post‐industrial scene⁹¹. From a stance of apoliteia, Petak is able to claim detachment from worldly politics, yet apoliteia is far from the same as pure political apathy. Rather, Petak appears to be active in a metapolitical “invisible order” engaged in anti‐Enlightenment culture wars, along the lines of the European New Right and its Right‐Gramscian project. While Petak does not dirty his hands in Right‐wing Party‐building, he nevertheless contributes to a climate favorable to fascist politics, through fighting for the hearts and minds of countercultural audiences. He knows what he is doing. As antifascists, we can only wonder whether Agalloch equally knows what it is doing, by helping such a fascist propagandist to access new audiences.

~ Rose City Antifascists, December 2010
~ download the statement

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NOTES

1. Gules quoted in 'Allerseelen interview', Stigmata magazine (Belarus), No. 2 (August 2001)
2. Junge Freiheit article quoted in Shekhovtsov, Anton, "Apoliteic music: Neo‐Folk, Martial Industrial and ‘Metapolitical Fascism’", Patterns of Prejudice, Vol. 43 No. 5 (December 2009), 431‐457 (Shekhovtsov gives his source for the Junge FreiheitFarin, Klaus: Die Gothics: Interviews, Fotografien (Bad Tölz: Tilsner 2001), 15.) quote as:
3. Petak quoted in Tasmanian National Anarchists, “Dark Green Romanticism”, Tasmanian Autonomous Zone: Heathen Anarchism in the Apple Isle website, February 24, 2010
4. Allerseelen interview, Stigmata magazine, op. cit. (Note 1). (Petak: “I am the heart of ALLERSEELEN. Usually I am only collaborating with other people on stage.”)
5. Gotrich, Lars, “First Listen: Agalloch, ‘Marrow Of The Spirit’,” National Public Radio website, November 14, 2010
6. “Steinklang‐Industries präsentieren: OAK FOLK – compilation,” Klang‐Konsortium wordpress blog, November 29, 2010
7. Allerseelen, Myspace Music site (Listing of “Allerseelen Live Performances” on front page, accessed December 3, 2010.)
8. Allerseelen, Discogs website.
9. Passmore, Kevin, Fascism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford / New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 11. (Passmore attributes the phrase “A and not A” to Ortega y Gasset; the contrast provided by Passmore himself, is that fascism “idealizes the people” while it shows contempt for mass society.)
10. Bündnis gegen das Allerseelenkonzert (Rosenheim), “Nein zum Allerseelen Konzert in Rosenheim,” April 2005 (“Coalition Against the Allerseelen Concert” / “No to the Allerseelen Concert in Rosenheim.”)
11. Lee, Martin A., The Beast Reawakens (Boston / New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1997), 209‐10.
12. Lee, op. cit. (Note 11), 210.
13. 'Allerseelen interview', Stigmata magazine, op. cit. (Note 1).
14. De Benoist, Alain, “Democracy Revisited,” Telos, No. 95 (Spring 1993), 63‐75, 75. (Translation from Démocratie: Le Problème (Paris: Le Labyrinthe, 1985) by Tomislav Sunic.)
15. Lee, op. cit. (Note 11), 211.
16. Lee, op. cit. (Note 11), 210.
17. Shekhovtsov, op. cit. (Note 2). (“For example, the leader of the French New Right, Alain de Benoist, who actually enjoys folk music, finds it disturbing when folk artists […] add ‘elements of Nazi subculture’ to their music, and considers them provocateurs.”)
18. Buckley, Joshua and Michael Moynihan, Eds., Tyr: Myth‐Culture‐Tradition No. 2 (Atlanta: Ultra Publishing, 2004). (Alain de Benoist interview is at 77‐109 following the publication of a de Benoist essay at 65‐76; the Allerseelen / Gerhard Petak interview is at 285‐296.)
19. Passmore, op. cit. (Note 9), 83.
20. Passmore, op. cit. (Note 9), 84.
21. Sedgwick, Mark, Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century, (Oxford / New York: Oxford University Press , 2004), 113.
22. Passmore, op. cit. (Note 9), 84.
23. 'Allerseelen interview', Stigmata magazine, op. cit. (Note 1).
24. Ghetu, Dan, “Synthesis Editor Troy Southgate” (2001 interview), Synthesis: Journal du Cercle de la Rose Noire website (Southgate, a theoretician of the fascist “national anarchism” tendency, is a former member of International Third Position, and names Gules’ Gazeta de Vest as “a thinly‐disguised propaganda outlet for the ITP.”)
25. Goodrick‐Clarke, Nicholas, Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity (New York / London: New York University Press, 2002), 340‐41, Note 46.
26. “No Artist ‐ Eiserne Garde: Gardia De Fier,” Discogs website.
27. 'Allerseelen interview', Raunend website (undated).
28. Bündnis gegen das Allerseelenkonzert (Rosenheim), op. cit. (Note 10). (Petak is quoted from the scene publication Black 14 (1998): “Apparently every culture needs a witch's mark, a Yellow Star. Today the accusation of fascism against industrial and dark wave music is a Yellow Star. The Yellow Star looks different today, they are the Ariosophic nationalistic symbols, runes, Thor's hammers, the Kruckenkreuz and the swastika.”)
29. Buckley, Joshua, “Musical Ammunition: An Interview with Allerseelen’s Gerhard,” Tyr: Myth‐Culture‐Tradition No. 2, op. cit. (Note 18), 285‐296, 286.
30. Lee, op. cit. (Note 11), 210.
31. “Allerseelen CD Strib und Werde” (reviews), Aorta blogspot site.
32. “Wir rufen Deine Wölfe” (reviews), Aorta blogspot site.
33. Petak quoted in Tasmanian National Anarchists, “Dark Green Romanticism,” op. cit. (Note 3).
34. Goodrick‐Clarke, op. cit. (Note 25), 340‐41, Note 46.
35. “Allerseelen ‐ Alle Lust Will Ewigkeit / Traumlied,” Discogs website
36. 'Allerseelen interview', The Noiseist (France), No. 4 (2000)
37. Collins, Simon, “The Alchemy of Allerseelen,” Judas Kiss magazine website. Interview of May 20, 2006.
38. “Various – Riefenstahl,” Discogs website.
39. Bahn, Peter, “The Friedrich Hielscher Legend: The Founding of a Twentieth‐Century Pantheistic ‘Church’ and Its Subsequent Misinterpretations,” Tyr: Myth‐Culture‐Tradition No. 2, op. cit. (Note 18), 243‐262, 249‐250. (Translated from “Die Hielscher‐Legende. Eine panentheistische ‘Kirchen’‐Gründung des 20. Jahrhunderts und ihre Fehldeutungen” (Gnostika No. 19, October 2001) by Michael Moynihan and “Gerhard”—presumably Gerhard Petak.)
40. Goodrick‐Clarke, op. cit. (Note 25), 340‐41, Note 46.
41. Goodrick‐Clarke, op. cit.
42. Goodrick‐Clarke, op. cit.
43. Goodrick‐Clarke, op. cit., (Note 25), 135‐36.
44. “Allerseelen ‐ Gotos=Kalanda,” Discogs website
45. Goodrick‐Clarke, op. cit. (Note 25), 227. (Goodrick‐Clarke writes of “the rapid internationalization of this German neo‐Nazi symbol.”)
46. 'Allerseelen interview', Descent magazine (Olympia, WA), No. 3 (Spring 1996).
47. Flowers, Stephen E. (Trans.) and Michael Moynihan (Ed.), The Secret King: Karl Maria Wiligut, Himmler's Lord of the Runes (Vermont / Texas: Dominion Press / Rûna‐Raven Press, 2001), Amazon Books “Look Inside!” result (“Kadmon” listed as having “contributed to the eventual publication of this book” on copyright page.)
48. Goodrick‐Clarke, op. cit.
49. Goodrick‐Clarke, op. cit. (Note 25), 340‐41, Note 46.
50. Coogan, Kevin, Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International (New York: Autonomedia, 1999), 310.
51. Coogan, Kevin, Dreamer of the Day, op. cit. (Note 50), 315‐316.
52. Sedgwick, Mark, Against the Modern World, op. cit. (Note 21), 179‐186.
53. “Various ‐ Cavalcare La Tigre ‐ Julius Evola: Centenary,” Discogs website.
54. François, Stephane, “The ‘Euro‐Pagan’ Scene: Between Paganism and Radical Right,” Journal for the Study of Radicalism, Vol. 1 No. 2 (2008), 35‐54
55. “Changes / Allerseelen, Men Among The Ruins”, Discogs website (Rather amazingly, in an article mentioning this association as well as Petak’s references to Wiligut and his release of Legionary music, François states that Petak “has never had an ideologically oriented message.”)
56. “The Nexus (journal),” SpiritusTemporis website
57. Gardell, Mattias, Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), 294.
58. Petak, Gerhard (as “Kadmon”), Aorta No. 20 (1995).
59. Moynihan, Michael and Didrik Søderlind, Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground (Venice, CA: Feral House, 1998).
60. Morrow, Charles, “Resurgent Atavism? Resurgent Nazism, Or, Wotan Made Me Do It,” in Burghart, Devin, Ed., Soundtracks to the White Revolution: White Supremacist Assaults on Youth Music Subcultures (Chicago: Center for New Community, 1999), 68‐70.
61. Petak, Gerhard (as “Kadmon”), “Oskorei,” in Moynihan and Søderlind, Lords of Chaos, op. cit.
62. Moynihan and Søderlind, Lords of Chaos, op. cit.
63. Moynihan quoted in Coogan, Kevin, “How Black is Black Metal? Michael Moynihan, Lords of Chaos and the ‘Countercultural Fascist’ Underground,” Hit List Vol. 1 No. 1 (February / March 1999), 32‐49, 45. (Coogan quotes from a Momentum interview with Moynihan.)
64. “Michael Moynihan's Siege Mentality,” Who Makes the Nazis? blog, October 8, 2010
65. Evola, Julius, Men Among the Ruins: Post‐War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions International, 2002).
66. Goodrick‐Clarke, op. cit. (Note 25), 340‐41, Note 46.
67. Buckley, Joshua, “Musical Ammunition: An Interview with Allerseelen’s Gerhard,” Tyr: Myth‐Culture‐Tradition No. 2, op. cit. (Note 18), 285‐296
68. “Blood Axis / Allerseelen ‐ Walked In Line / Ernting,” Discogs website.
69. “Allerseelen / Blood Axis ‐ Käferlied / Brian Boru,” Discogs website.
70. “Changes ‐ Fire Of Life,” Discogs website (The following year, Storm co‐released the first Changes CD, also titled “Fire of Life,” see: Discogs.com)
71. “Changes / Allerseelen ‐ Men Among The Ruins,” Discogs, op. cit. (Note 55).
72. Lunsford, John, “Nazis, Noise and Nihilism: Infiltrating the Experimental Music Scene” in Burghart, Devin, Ed., Soundtracks to the White Revolution, op. cit.
73. Wulfing, Robert (Robert N. Taylor), “Waiting for the Fall,” Folk & Faith website
74. Sunshine, Spencer, “Rebranding Fascism: National‐Anarchists,” The Public Eye Vol. 23 No. 4 (Winter 2008).
75. Evola, Julius, Men Among the Ruins, op. cit.
76. “Hex Contributors,” Hex Magazine website.
77. “Past Staff,” Hex Magazine website.
78. Registration list for July 29, 2009 David Irving event in Portland (Item leaked on internet following event. Scott Rautmann purchased two tickets and is listed as “married to Amy” [sic].)
79. “Winternights/Samhain News 2010,” Hex Magazine website.
80. “2003 Allerseelen Pacific West Coast,” Aorta blogspot blog, November 14, 2005.
81. “Updates”, Soleilmoon website, August 4, 2005
82. Chicago Anti‐Racist Action, “Death in June, Der Blutharsch, Changes”, Infoshop News website, December 17 2003.
83. O’Malley, Stephen, “Nordic Darkness...,” Resistance magazine (Fall 1995).
84. “Allerseelen ‐ US dates,” The Ajna Offensive website.
85. “Gerhard Hallstatt: Blutleuchte,” Facebook page.
86. “Sigrblot ‐ Blodsband (Blood Religion Manifest),” Discogs website.
87. 'Allerseelen interview', Stigmata magazine, op. cit. (Note 1).
88. Bale, Jeffrey M., “‘National Revolutionary’ Groupuscules and the Resurgence of ‘Left‐wing’ Fascism: the Case of France’s Nouvelle Résistance”, Patterns of Prejudice Vol. 36, No. 3 (2002), 25‐49, 42‐43 Note 46.
89. “Allerseelen,” Flux Europa website.
90. Southgate, Troy, “Allerseelen ‐ Stirb und Werde,” Synthesis: Journal du Cercle de la Rose Noire website.
91. Shekhovtsov, op. cit. (Note 2).