Recorded March 16, 2008
MP3: Side 1 | Side 2
REALAUDIO

Supplementing information presented in FTR#628, the broadcast highlights the “green wing” of the German Nazi Party under Hitler, noting the movement’s pre-Nazi antecedents in German ecological thinking, as well as its influence on some elements of the contemporary green movement. Among the antecedents of Nazi green thinking were the Wandervogel, described by analysts as “right-wing hippies.” Their tenets closely anticipated many aspects of the contemporary ecological movement. Most of the Wandervogel became Nazis. Pre-Nazi ecological thinking in Germany was both mystical and nationalistic in nature, setting the stage for the Nazi “Greens.” Both Hitler and SS leader Heinrich Himmler espoused many aspects of contemporary green thinking, including the use of alternative fuels and organic farming. Among the philosophical trends that have contributed to ecofascism is anthroposophy, developed by Rudolph Steiner. Right-wing anthroposophy constitutes a major wing of the contemporary ecofascist movement, funded in part by German multinational corporations. [This program not be misunderstood as characterizing the green movement as fascist, nor should it be seen as mitigating the Nazi evil. Rather, “greens” should view this as a cautionary advisory, mandating a watchful eye for fascist infiltration or co-option of ecological causes and institutions].

Program Highlights Include: The powerful, ultra-right green organization the WSL and its influence in contemporary Germany; the role in the WSL of Werner Georg Haverbeck—a veteran of the Third Reich from its earliest days; ecofascist Rudolf Bahro’s significant influence on contemporary green thinking in Germany. Listeners are emphatically encouraged to purchase, read and assimilate Biehl and Staudenmaier’s vitally important book, “Ecofascism: Lessons from the German Experience”!

1. Supplementing information presented in FTR#628, the broadcast highlights the “green wing” of the German Nazi Party under Hitler, noting the movement’s pre-Nazi antecedents in German ecological thinking.
(Ecofascism: Lessons from the German Experience; by Janet Biehl and Peter Staudenmaier; AK Press [SC] 1995; Copyright 1995 by Janet Biehl and Peter Staudenmaier; ISBN 1-873176-73-2; pp. 4-12.)

2. Among the antecedents of Nazi green thinking were the Wandervogel. “ . . . The chief vehicle for carrying this ideological constellation to prominence was the youth movement, an amorphous phenomenon which played a decisive but highly ambivalent role in shaping German popular culture during the first three tumultuous decades of the century. Also known as the Wandervogel, (which translates roughly as ‘wandering free spirits’), the youth movement was a hodge-podge of countercultural elements, blending neo-Romanticism, Eastern philosophies, nature mysticism, hostility to reason, and a strong communal impulse in a confused but no lesss ardent search for authentic, non-alienated social relations. Their back-to-the-land emphasis spurred a passionate sensitivity to the natural world and the damage it suffered. They have been accurately characterized as ‘right-wing hippies,’ for although some sectors of the movement gravitated toward various forms of emancipatory politics (though usually shedding their environmental trappings in the process), most of the Wandervogel were eventually absorbed by the Nazis. This shift from nature worship to fuhrer worship is worth examining. . . .”
(Ibid.; pp. 9-10.)

3. More about the Weimar Republic’s philosophical antecedents of the “green wing” of the NSDAP: “ . . . Many of these projects were profoundly implicated in the ideology which culminated in the victory of ‘Blood and Soil.’ A 1923 recruitment pitch for a woodlands preservation outfit gives a sense of the environmental rhetoric of the time. ‘In every German breast the German forest quivers with its caverns and ravines, crags and boulders, waters and winds, legends and fairy tales, with its songs and its melodies, and awakens a powerful yearning and a longing for home; in all German souls the German forest lives and weaves with its depth and breadth, its stillness and strength, its might and dignity, its riches and its beauty—it is the source of German inwardness, of the German soul, of German freedom. Therefore protect and care for the German forest for the sake of the elders and the youth, and join the new German ‘League for the Preservation and Consecration of the German Forest.’”
(Ibid.; p. 13.)

4. Many staples of the green philosophy were adopted by the Nazi hierarchy. Note that this should NOT be misunderstood as qualifying the evil of the Nazi regime. For perspective on this consideration, see FTR#628. “ . . . Such musings, it must be stressed, were not mere rhetoric; they reflected firmly held beliefs and, indeed, practices at the very top of the Nazi hierarchy which are today conventionally associated with ecological attitudes. Hitler and Himmler were both strict vegetarians and animal lovers, attracted to nature mysticism and homeopathic cures, and staunchly opposed to vivisection and cruelty to animals. Himmler even established experimental organic farms to grow herbs for SS medicinal purposes. And Hitler at times, could sound like a veritable Green utopian, discussing authoritatively and in detail various renewable energy sources (including environmentally appropriate hydropower and producing natural gas from sludge) as alternatives to coal, and declaring ‘water, winds and tides’ as the energy path of the future. . . .”
(Ibid.; pp. 15-16.)

5. Among the philosophical trends that have contributed to ecofascism is anthroposophy, developed by Rudolph Steiner. Right-wing anthroposophy constitutes a major wing of the contemporary ecofascist movement. German multinational corporations fund anthroposophy. Note in this regard that, as discussed in FTR#305, all of the large German corporations are controlled by the Bormann capital network and the Underground Reich. Of particular significance in this regard is the Bertelsmann corporation, the largest English language publisher and the publisher for the SS in World War II. (For more about Bertelsmann see—among other programs—FTR#298.) “ . . . It should also be noted that anthroposophy is also well-funded by huge multinational corporations like Siemens and Bertelsmann. . . .”
(Ibid.; pp. 44-45.)

6. One of the proponents of fascist anthroposophy in the contemporary German green movement is Werner Georg Haverbeck of the WSL, a well-funded far right environmental organization. Haverbeck—like August Haussleiter discussed in FTR#628—is a veteran of the NSDAP, dating from its earliest days. “ . . . Haverbeck joined the SA in 1928 . . . . He survived the Rohm purge to help organize the Nuremberg Party Congress and join Hess’s staff. . . .” (Idem.)

7. Among the contemporary practitioners of Nazi-inspired ecofascism is Rudolf Bahro: “ . . . since the mid-1980’s, Bahro has been contributing to the development of a ‘spiritual fascism’ that has the effect of ‘rehabilitating National Socialism,’ openly calling for reclaiming the ‘positive’ side of the Nazi movement. Not only does Bahro appeal to a mystical Germanist spirituality like the volkisch ideologues of the 1920’s, he even sees the need for a ‘Green Adolf’ who will lead Germans out of their own ‘folk-depths’ and into ecological ‘salvation.’ . . .”
(Ibid.; pp. 48-50.)

8. More about Bahro’s efforts at rehabilitating the Third Reich: “ . . . Since the mid-1980’s, Bahro has been remarkably open about proclaiming his embrace of the spiritual content of fascism for the ‘salvation’ of nature and humanity. In The Logic of Salvation, he asks, ‘Is there really no thought more reprehensible than a new 1933’—that is, Hitler’s rise to state power. ‘But that is precisely what can save us! The ecology and peace movement is the first popular German movement since the Nazi movement. It must co-redeem [miterlosen] Hitler.’ Indeed, ‘the Nazi movement [was] among other things an early reading of the ecology movement.’ . . .”
(Ibid.; pp. 53-55.)