"We can pay tribute to Hitler properly": in Milan a gathering of the Nazi black metal scene.

M. runs his hand through his long brown hair. The tall man with a black leather jacket looks his girlfriend in the eyes and kisses her. 

Right beside them a group of men yells “Sieg Heil!” and raises their right arm to the stage. The love-blinded couple does not seem to mind at all – they’re not here by chance.

As the glorification of national socialism is not forbidden by law in many European countries (in contrast to Austria), many right-wing extremists pilgrimage to other countries. 

On 13. April 2019 one hundred right-wing extremist metal fans met up in Milan, celebrated the “Third Reich” and made fun of the (homicides of the) Holocaust. Along them many Austrians – on the stage, a Viennese.

The design-week shapes the townscape of Milan during these days. Furniture and home interiors are displayed throughout the town, the streets of the city are full of tourists despite of the bad weather. It's hard to imagine what is happening a few subway stations from the centre away. Since years, the right-wing extremist scene organises neonazistic events without second thoughts. Often, Italian Nazis keep by themselves. During the last weekend, right-wing extremists Metal-friends travelled from all over Europe to Italy, to live out what they cannot in their homecountry: "Mal ordentlich abhitlern.", "at last we can pay tribute to Hitler properly".

Who listens to Metal with a political consciousness, knows about disputes about the right-wing part of the genre, about bands like Böhsen Onkelz or Frei.Wild. The German band Rammstein, which provokes with NS-allusions, brought up discussions with their latest Holocaust-Fantasy-Video. In the broad spectrum of metal right-wing extremism might be an edge-phenomenon but in the subgenre of Black Metal antisemitism and racism are not a problem one could ignore.

Bernhard Weidinger of the Document Archive of the Austrian Resistance (DÖW) says, that the musical supply of the right-wing got more diverse in the last decades. "Earlier there was mostly right-wing rock, but today Neonazis find products in almost any musical genre." This serves as recruitment of new people, but also to finance fascist projects.

[Subtitle: "Total annihilation": Commercial subject for a neonazi musical project from Austria.] [The text in the picture says: "Eight new songs of Total Annihilation; as limited 444 Edition Digipack. "Burial by fire" and the crematorium awaits you! The first 44 copies come with a shirt* and a patch.

The "Hot Shower Festival" in Milan is held regularly. The title deliberately triggers associations with National Socialistic gas chambers. The festivals advertisement brims with references to the erstwhile Naziterror, be there a collage of a PoC-athlete who follows a sign in the direction "Hot Shower", comic strip figures which raise their right hands for a Roman salute or drawings of Ku-Klux-Klan-men in white robes.

To take part at this Festival isn't difficult. The event is publicly advertised on Facebook yet the location is kept a secret after the announcement. Only a few hours before the beginning of the event, the locations address is revealed through an encrypted chat. During the days which precede the festival, the organizers post pictures of swastikas and antisemitic jokes. The relatively easy access to the festival is a particularly rewarding formula for the success of the neonazi event, as Moritz Eluek observer of the right-wing scene knows. The "Hot Shower" is less conspiratorial than similar concerts in Germany or Austria, producing a kind of excitement for a bigger event, says the correspondent of the "Anitfaschistischen Infoblatts" (antifascist information paper). Even outsiders of the scene find a possibility to join the scene. At the entrance of Via Vincenzo Toffetti nr. 75, in the southern industrial part of Milan, attendees have to show the contents of their bag and they are checked for cameras: taking pictures or videos is strongly forbidden.

The inside of the venue shows why there are no pictures allowed: Hundreds right-wing extremists celebrate ear-splitting loud black metal and National Socialist activities**. On the line-up there are eight pertinent bands; their names are explicit: "Sturmführer", "Blutkult", and "Gestapo666". Also "Rostorchester", the project of the Vienesse Vedran M., is well-known in the scene. M.s skills on guitar are praised but his ability to write lyrics is criticised even by his bandmates. Years ago his Black-Metal-Soloproject "Totale Vernichtung" generated some noise - not because of the music, but because of the lyrics. Short example: "Soon the time has come, when your breath seizes quickly and you run up the chimney. The cleansing Zyklon [cyclone, but he really means Zyklon B] follows an ashy wind." With lines like this, in 2015 M.s’ album got put up on the index for youth-endangering music in Germany. Eluek knows the scene well, he says: "Everybody in the scene knows neo-nazis are playing the instruments." In fact, Vedran M. calls himself "der Stacheldrahtzieher" (“barbed wire puller”). The promotional material for for his albums portrays the barracks and fences of concentration Camps.

Just before 8 p.m. M. enters the stage with high-laced boots. His hair covers most of his face, he’s focused while playing the guitar. Beside him his bandmate Sven B, singer of "Rostorchester", a well-known neo-nazi from Switzerland. The music is loud, the sound is bad. With their bandmates M. and B. they psych the audience up, which shows their approval with loud "Sieg Heil!"-shouts, instead of applauses. Vedran M knew what could expect from the festival, as he attended it as part of the audience in 2016. Videos of the 2016 edition showed what happened there, until they were removed from Youtube probably because of the apology to Nazism. As insiders reported recently, at M.s first gig in Switzerland, similar "celebrations" were held.

Covering the role of security to the left and right of the stage, a group of "Hammerskins" (member of “Lealtà Azione”, an italian neo-nazi organization n.d.r.) keep up law and order - or what they think it means. The "Hammerskins Italia" are recognizable by their uniform shoulder-patches: two crossed hammers in front of a cogwheel in the colours black, white and red - the flag-colors of the German Reich. The "Hammerskins" are a worldwide acting neo-nazi underground organisation, with strict hierarchical organisations, and a devotion to the "Pureness of the White Race". Bernhard Weidinger (Austrian Resistance/DÖW) calls the "Hammerskins" as a "party with a high readiness to be violent and plenty of criminal activities". The audience sticks to the ban of photos and movies. Moritz Eluek says that promoters of neo-nazi concerts in Italy can't get around the "Hammerskins". "It's like with racketeering: If you don't share, you'll get harassed and attacked." The promoters of the "Hot Shower Festival" do not only finance themselves, but militant neo-nazi organisations as well.

Only a few meters from the stage there is the merchandising area where you can find records and printed merchandise, patches or jewellery. Almost every table has articles with Swastikas. A shirt portrays the slogan "Refugees welcome" above the view of the entrance to the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. There you can buy pictures of Adolf Hitler and other Nazi-leaders, as well as neo-fascist magazines, flags and CDs titled "Rassenhass" or "Antisemitex". A flag is hoisted after the appearance of Vedran M.s band in the audience: the red flag with a swastika. Some people carry it around for about 15 minutes and incite the drunken pack to shout together "Sieg Heil!". The "Hammerskins" watch.

While such behaviour would draw hard penalties in Austria, there are no consequences from Italian authorities. The DÖW thinks that Austrian citizens who practice such activities abroad should be persecuted by Austrian authorities if they become aware of it. Vedran M. do not have to fear such persecutions. Contacted online he refused to comment on his neo-nazi activites.

*{the German language uses the English word "shirt" for shirts, but Nazis try not to use "undeutsche" (not german) words, so they use the german word "Hemd". In german "Hemd" is usually used for a button-up shirt, usually worn together with a suit.}

**["Wiederbetätigung" is an element of crime, and means any act of (re-)engagement in National Socialist activities]

Translated from the original "Mal richtig abhitlern": In Mailand traf sich die neonazistische Black-Metal-Szene

Many thanks to H.