The Artgemeinschaft Germanic Faith Community (german: Artgemeinschaft Germanische Glaubens-Gemeinschaft;

abbreviated An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...

AG GGG) is a German NeopaganStefanie von Schnurbein: ''Göttertrost in Wendezeiten. Neugermanisches Heidentum zwischen New Age und Rechtsradikalismus.'' Munich 1993, Pg. 46. and Neo-Nazi organization founded in 1951 by Wilhelm Kusserow, a former member of the SS. In 1983, it merged with the ''Nordungen'' (founded 1924). From 1989 to 2009, it was headed by

Jürgen Rieger Jürgen Hans Paul Rieger (11 May 1946, Nordenham, Blexen, Lower Saxony – 29 October 2009) was a Hamburg lawyer, avowed anti-semite, and deputy chairman of the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) (as of October 2009), known for his Ho ...

. Stefan von Hoyningen-Huene: ''Religiosität bei rechtsextrem orientierten Jugendlichen.'' LIT Verlag, 2003, Pg. 62 The group has the legal status of a German registered Association ("

eingetragener Verein An (; "registered association" or "incorporated association"), abbreviated (), is a legal status for a registered voluntary association in Germany. While any group may be called a , registration as confers many legal benefits, because it con ...

") based in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

Ideology

Artgemeinschaft mixes far-right ideology with Nordic and Teutonic religions such as

Ásatrú Heathenry, also termed Heathenism, contemporary Germanic Paganism, or Germanic Neopaganism, is a modern Pagan religion. Scholars of religious studies classify it as a new religious movement. Developed in Europe during the early 20th centu ...

, but also elements of atheism.Article by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in North Rhine-Westphalia (German)
In the 1960s some theosophic and so called ariosophic aspects were added. The ''

weltanschauung A worldview or world-view or ''Weltanschauung'' is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual's or society's knowledge, culture, and point of view. A worldview can include natural ...

'' of the party is

xenophobic Xenophobia () is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an in-group and out-group and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, a ...

and antisemitic. A belief of the party is ''Artgemeinschaft'' (loosely translated as "racial community"), a basic tenet of which is the ''Artglaube'' ("racial belief"). In contrast to other pagan organisations, neither

Guido von List Guido Karl Anton List, better known as Guido von List (5 October 1848 – 17 May 1919), was an Austrian occultist, journalist, playwright, and novelist. He expounded a modern Pagan new religious movement known as Wotanism, which he claimed was ...

nor

Lanz von Liebenfels Lanz may refer to: Places * Lanz, Brandenburg, a municipality in Brandenburg, Germany * a village in the municipality Störnstein in Bavaria, Germany * Lanz, German name from Lomnice, a village in Sokolov District, Czech Republic * Lanz Peak ...

plays any role. Important in their beliefs are theses by

Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work '' The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the pr ...

Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his car ...

, Eduard v. Hartmann and

Feuerbach Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach (; 28 July 1804 – 13 September 1872) was a German anthropologist and philosopher, best known for his book '' The Essence of Christianity'', which provided a critique of Christianity that strongly influenced ge ...

in order to attack Christian moral and to replace it with a pagan one. According to Fromm, belief in Gods is not an important momentum for the Artgemeinschaft. One symbol used by Artgemeinschaft is an eagle catching a Christian fish, known as Adler fängt Fisch or Adler fängt Ichthys, which symbolises the rejection of Christianity. It was registered as a trademark for the group in 2003, leading to neo-Nazis in Germany using the symbol afterwards. In 2012, this influenced the decision to reject a new coat of arms for the district of

Mecklenburgische Seenplatte The Mecklenburg Lake Plateau or Mecklenburg Lakeland
- Federal Ministry of Economics ...

Membership and media

Membership is regulated according to racial criteria; only "northern born" people may become members. The members belong to different currents of the far-right, from militant

neo-fascists Neo-fascism is a post-World War II far-right ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. Neo-fascism usually includes ultranationalism, racial supremacy, populism, authoritarianism, Nativism (politics), nativism, xenophobia, and an ...

to representatives of the

Neue Rechte Neue Rechte (''New Right'') is the designation for a right-wing political movement in Germany. It was founded as an opposition to the New Left generation of the 1960s. Its intellectually oriented proponents distance themselves from Old Right Naz ...

(New Right).Annette Rollmann: In: ''Das Parlament.'' No. 45 / 7 November 2005. The French theoretician of the New Right Pierre Krebs is member of Artgmeinschaft as well as the right-wing author Claus Nordbruch. Stephan Ernst, the murderer of politician

Walter Lübcke Walter Lübcke (22 August 1953 – 2 June 2019) was a German local politician in Hesse and a member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). On 2 June 2019, he was assassinated at his home by a neo-Nazi extremist. Stephan Ernst was arrested o ...

was a member of Artgemeinschaft until 2011. The AG GGG publishes the völkisch ''Nordische Zeitung''.

Activies

The Niedersachsen state office for the protection of the constitution named Artgemeinschaft in connection to right-wing settlement movements in

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...

and Mecklenburg Vorpommern.Verfassungsschutzbericht 2020, Innenministerium Niedersachsen, Verfassungsschutz, Side 50

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"The Artgemeisnchaft is one of the toughest structures in the extreme right-wing.... It doesn't shut itself off from right-wing terrorism at all. The 'Artgemeinschaft' runs under the label of nature-religiousness and ancestral commemoration. But the 'Artgemeinschaft' is actually one of the most conspiratorial - and I would say - most dangerous structures that we have in Germany", said says right-wing extremism expert Andrea Röpke in 2022.

References

External links