She-Nazis: Women give NPD a Facelift in Germany
Women want to have their say. That slogan from the 1960’s women liberation movement still echoes through to today. And it’s a rallying cry that leaders from Germany’s National Democratic Party, the NPD, have picked up on.
The NPD, which is not prohibited in Germany, uses women to lure people into the right-extremist movement, maintain authors Andrea Röpke and Andreas Speit. Their new book “Mädelsache! Frauen in der Neo-Nazi-Szene” (“Girls’ Business: Women in the Neo-Nazi Scene”) illuminates how women are used as ambassadors for the movement. Front cover of ‘Mädelsache’
A mother of several children wins the hearts of people much more easily than a young man with tattoos chanting xenophobic slogans, said author Speit. “Many people think ‘If women are part of it, it can’t be so bad,’” he observed.
The strategy seems to work, as regional elections in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt this past March showed. NPD women reaped an impressive number of votes.