Neo-Fascist Heroes: Group Identity and Idealisation of the Aggressor among Violent Right-Wing Adolescents

Abstract

Over the last 20 years violent offences committed by adolescent skinheads with a radical right-wing orientation have become an increasingly serious problem in Germany and other Western countries. Media accounts and public discourse seem to be dominated by rather too clear-cut attributions of motive as soon as it is a case of adolescent skinheads committing a crime. Xenophobic, neo-Nazi and ideological motives are foregrounded mainly because they allow clear and unambiguous interpretations. Even the criminal prosecution authorities tend to stress these motivational aspects, especially as many offenders like to present themselves in the first instance as cool, hard-baked, tough guys with a clear ideological orientation. They sometimes even say, on first being apprehended and questioned, that they regret not having succeeded in killing more of their adversaries.