Update February 15th
The group discussed in this article spent Valentines Day planing 1,000 small stickers with a heart and their groups name around Melbourne. The described it on Twitter as a treasure hunt for anti-fascist activists to find and remove them all. Again this is not something to be left to activists. If you see a sticker, please remove it. They have also noted this article and praised it as “surprisingly fair and accurate” while confirming they are modeling themselves on National Action in the UK.
Original Article from February 14th follows
Earlier today OHPI received a message notifying us of two racist posters on the streets of Melbourne. We’re told the posters were photographed near Melbourne Zoo. We have edited the images to remove the address of the website they are advertising. Frankly they don’t deserve the publicity. If you see these posted around town, please pull them down.
The creation of the group
The group who put up the posters was announced with a thread at a far-right forum Iron March on October 10 2016. The announcement read:
This is the central topic for the <redacted>. We’re a National Socialist youth organisation in Australia, primarily based in Melbourne. We’re both a youth organisation and a fraternity for our members, doing what we can to help each other out. As this country has very little fascist activity it’s about time we stepped it up. Our members must be fanatically devoted to our cause, and we demand discipline and honour. No weaklings, degenerates, and no keyboard warriors. We want action. We do stickering, hiking, martial training and in the future we will do demonstrations. We also strive for purity, and as such are strictly anti-drug and anti-alcoholism. We plan to open chapters all over the country once we’ve got the members.
To contact us message myself or <removed> here, or email <removed>
We’re the Hitlers you’ve been waiting for
The user who posted it had been on the forum since May 2015 and introduced themselves as “a 22 year old Australian Natsoc. One side of family from England and the other from Germany. I prefer and identify more with the German side (although I cannot speak the language).” They go on to say they’ve “been lurking pretty heavily over the past 2 weeks since someone linked me here from 8ch/pol/”. He goes on to say “I’ve also always adored the images of Nazi Germany as a kid in documentaries from the great sense of order, strength and purpose that is shown. I decided to join the forum so I can network with other like-minded people, and hopefully start some form of activism over here in Australia”.
Past Activities
Their first action was to plaster Swinburne University with posters urging people to shoot LGBT people. This targeted a pride parade. According to a Tumbler post they made, they put up 200 posters. They hadn’t yet setup their own website and directed people to the far-right forum where they started. The Age covered the story. Two months later, according to Slack Bastard an expert in the far right, they put up posters at Melbourne University. Slack Bastard notes that they are modeled on National Action in the UK.
Here’s the homophobic posters from their first action:
Social Media
The group’s Twitter account describes them as a “National Socialist Youth organisation”. They joined Twitter in January 2017 and have made just 2 tweets, one today, and have just 42 followers. The most recent tweet was 14 hours ago and shows printouts of their posters and confirms they were put up at Melbourne Zoo but also at the Carlton Football Club and Melbourne University.
The websites
The website itself is fairly empty. It has a home page, a new page with pictures of newpapers and articles about their first two actions with links to media coverage, and then an articles page with a single article called “murder of a culture” which describes itself as “a sort of eulogy for something killed by Jews, but also a look back at what we did right and how we might do it right again”. There is also a “join” page which in addition to giving an e-mail address and what they want you to tell them includes a list of their expectations, for example “You are expected to be clean, healthy and to follow any dress codes we impose” and “While being fit isn’t a requirement to join, it is a requirement to become fit to be able to attend our demonstrations. If you are terribly overweight it’s in your best interest to work fixing that before joining us. ”
Far right or Alt-Right?
Despite the links to /pol/ this groups is definitely Far-Right. There are certainly large parts of the Far-Right within the Alt-Right but so far this groups seems to be focused on traditional offline activity. They are not trying to troll or spread fake news as the Alt-Right does, rather they seek to spread Nazi style propaganda.
Take Action
We ask people to to remove this groups physical posters when you see them.
We also ask you to please help us spread the word by sharing this post:
If you would like to support our work tackling antisemitism, homophobia and other forms of hate, please donate here. We are a small charity and every donation makes a significant difference our capacity to deal with future incidents.
A note for the Media: This group’s online impact is incredibly small and we would encourage the media not to name them and the redact their web address on any photographs published. Media statement from OHPI CEO, Dr Andre Oboler:
“This group is antisemitic, homophobic and racist. They are carrying out stunts to get media and online attention in the hope of attracting followers. They really don’t deserve the attention. We urge anyone who sees their posters to simply pull them down and bin them.”