Lebensraum: Blood and Soil

proposed Eco-fascist Flag

 

Environmentalists are generally associated with the political left, as embodied by the Green Parties in various countries, which some might even qualify as far-left.  But there are Green political movements and individuals associated with the far-right. Some of these people identify as ecofascists.

 

"Ecofascism is a term used to describe individuals and groups which combine either environmentalism or green politics with fascist or authoritarian viewpoints and tactics."  Ecofascism traces its roots to the end of the 19th-century, when the seeds of fascism were being sewn, when conservationism became an important social concern, and when the first inklings of recreational outdoor activities like camping and hiking arose.

In Germany, the Wandervogel (1896) was a sign of this new relationship with nature.  It was a conscious revolt against industrialization, seeking to revive traditional "Teutonic values" and had strong elements of nationalism.  At its height the Wandervogel may have numbered as many as 80,000 people.  It was banned by the Nazis in 1933, subsumed pretty much into the Hitler Youth.  These proto-Scouts camped, hiked and learned the skills of Woodcraft, e.g. the skills of living in the woods: orienteering, knots, cooking on an open fire, fishing, etc.  City-dwellers were attracted by the open space, the slower pace, and the bucolic nostalgia of these "migratory birds." 

I should note here that I don't think the Wandervogel were proto-fascist, simply that they were a sign of the burgeoning realignment of humanity's relationship with nature.

 

In America, Ernest Thomas Seton created his Woodcraft Indians (1901), which was steeped in Native American lore.  Seton's group was eclipsed by Scouting, founded by Lord Robert Baden-Powell and based on his Scouting for Boys published in 1907.  The Woodcraft Indians faded away, but led to a slew of spinoffs:  the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry (1916), the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift (1920), Woodcraft Folk (1925) and Camp Fire (1910).  Scouting became the most successful, but it had no shortage of rival contenders.

It was also about this time that early environmentalism started to emerge.  The Audubon Society, named after naturalist, ornithologist and artist John James Audubon (1785-1851) dates to about the same time (1905).  Artists were a big part of this new "movement":  Seton, Audubon, the Kibbo Kift's Hargrave, even Baden-Powell.  It speaks volumes that the President at this time was Teddy Roosevelt.  Roosevelt represents the pinnacle of this new environmental consciousness.  Nature was "in," probably because the cities were such miserable, dirty, crowded, and dangerous places.  Roosevelt was a naturalist and conservationist as well as a politician.  As US President from 1901-1909, nature was a big priority for him.

Of all Roosevelt's achievements, he was proudest of his work in the conservation of natural resources and extending federal protection to land and wildlife....Roosevelt established the United States Forest Service, signed into law the creation of five National Parks....He also established the first 51 bird reserves, four game preserves, and 150 National Forests. The area of the United States that he placed under public protection totals approximately 230 million acres....

In total, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish 121 forest reserves in 31 states.

Another American, Madison Grant (1865-1937), was also deeply committed to conservationism, with an edge. He explicitly linked conservation with nationalist, racist, and even genocidal ideas.

Sometimes dubbed the "founding father" of ecofascism, Madison Grant was a pioneer of conservationism in America in the late 19th and early 20th century. Grant is credited as a founder of modern wildlife management.

In addition to his conservation work, Grant was a trenchant racist....The Passing of the Great Race....claimed to give an account of the anthropological history of Europe....Adolf Hitler would later describe Grant's book as "his bible" and Grant's "Nordic theory" became a bedrock of Nazi thought....He was director of the American Eugenics Society and advocated for the culling of the unfit from the human population. Grant concocted a 100-year plan to perfect the human race which involved killing off ethnic group after ethnic group until racial purity had been obtained.

"Green" National Socialism

Grant was certainly in line with fascist ideology, and he was a huge influence on Hitler, but some authors

suggest that the synthesis of fascism and environmentalism began with Nazism. In their book Ecofascism: Lessons from the German Experience, they note the Nazi Party's interest in ecology, and suggest their interest was "linked with traditional agrarian romanticism and hostility to urban civilization". [Which is very much reminiscent of the Wandervogel] Richard Walther Darré, a leading Nazi ideologist who invented the term "Blood and Soil", developed a concept of the nation having a mystic connection with their homeland, and as such, the nation was duty-bound to take care of the land. Because of this, modern ecofascists cite the Nazi Party as an origin point of ecofascism.

Savitri Devi was a prominent proponent of Esoteric Nazism and deep ecology. A fanatical supporter of Hitler and the Nazi Party from the 1930s onward, she also supported animal rights activism and was a vegetarian from a young age. She put forward ecologist views in her works, such as the Impeachment of Man (1959), in which she declared her views on animal rights and nature. According to her, human beings do not stand above the animals; but in her ecologist views, humans are rather a part of the ecosystem and should respect all life, including animals and the whole of nature. Because of her dual devotion to both Nazism and deep ecology, she is considered an influential figure in ecofascist circles.

Even Charles Manson got into the act.  You'll recall he carved a swastika on his forehead. This wasn't just to shock the squares; he was prone to spouting Neo-Nazi ideology and Vincent Bugliosi claims Manson's motivation for the Tate-LaBianca murders was to frame African-Americans and start a race war and kick-start the Apocalypse.  And he was also committed to ecology, creating the group ATWA, which exists 'til this day.  ATWA = Air, Trees, Water, Animals or All The Way Alive.  Grok, as Manson himself would say, their logo.  Anything pop out atcha?

Logo of Manson-inspired group

Ecofascism continues to have a wide influence on fascism in general. 

Two figures influential in ecofascism are Garrett Hardin  (1915-2003) and Pentti Linkola (1932-2020), both of whom were proponents of what they refer to as "Lifeboat Ethics". Hardin was an American ecologist accused by the Southern Poverty Law Center of being a white nationalist, whilst Linkola was a Finnish ecologist accused of being an active ecofascist who actively advocated ending democracy and replacing it with dictatorships that would use totalitarian and even genocidal tactics to end climate change.

The SPLC says Hardin's's ideas are "frank in their racism and quasi-fascist ethnonationalism."  Linkola admired dictatorships, supported terrorism that accelerated the collapse of civilization, and said he'd press a button, if possible, to kill millions.

Ted Kaczynski was critical of the far right, but his ideas and violent tactics have proven influential the ecofascist milieu. As the Unabomber, he sent several mail bombs, killing and maiming scientists and others he saw as a threat to the natural world.  His manifesto was published in the WaPO and NYT following his promise to stop his bombings if they printed it.  The writing of manifestos, as you'll see, is a staple of ecofascist terrorists.

Ted Kaczynski, better known as "The Unabomber", is a figure cited as highly influential upon ecofascist thought. Between 1978 and 1995 Kaczynski instigated a terrorist bombing campaign aimed at inciting a revolution against modern industrial society, in the name of returning humanity to a primitive state he suggested offered humanity more freedom while protecting the environment.....The manifesto railed not only against modern industrial society but also against "leftists", whom Kaczynski defined as "mainly socialists, collectivists, 'politically correct' types, feminists, gay and disability activists, animal rights activists and the like.

Although Kaczynski and his manifesto has been embraced by ecofascists, he totally rejected fascism, including ecofascism specifically.

Take the following examples of ecofascist terrorist attacks whose perpetrators used their attacks to publicize their manifestos:

The perpetrator of the Christchurch mosque shootings described himself as an ecofascist.  [He wrote a manifesto linking environmental and nationalist concerns]

The suspect in the 2019 El Paso shooting is believed to have written a similar manifesto, professing support for the Christchurch shooter....it blames immigration to the United States for environmental destruction, saying that American lifestyles were "destroying the environment", invoking an ecological burden to be borne by future generations, and concluding that the solution was to "decrease the number of people in America using resources"^.

Peyton Gendron killed 10 people, almost all African-Americans, in a Buffalo supermarket.  His manifesto has a short section titled "Green nationalism is the only true nationalism"   Gendron states that

There is no conservatism without nature, there is no nationalism without environmentalism, the natural environment of our lands shaped us just as we shaped it. We were born from our lands and our own culture was molded by these same lands. The protection and preservation of these lands is of the same importance as the protection and preservation of our own ideals and beliefs ["Blood and Soil," if you recall].

Today, there are active far-right green movements across Europe: Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Serbia, United Kingdom, and the United States.  The lineage dates back to Madison Grant, Hitler, mentally-disturbed individuals such as Kaczynski and Gendron, to intellectuals like Hardin and Linkola.  

Racist, nationalist, and violent in actions or rhetoric, ecofascists emphasize the connection of the volk to the land which shaped them.  Human beings are seen as part of, not above nature, and thus the morality is that of the animal world; survival of the fittest.  This can range from Social Darwinism, to the advocacy of killing the disabled, or entire ethnic groups "dragging us down."  The most "successful" of these advocates was probably Adolf Hitler.  He started with the mental asylums and homes for the disabled, then moved on to the Slavs and the Jews.  6 million died in Nazi death camps, and perhaps as many as 50 million people, soldiers and civilians, died in WW2.  He was influenced by Madison Grant, a eugenicist and flat-out advocate of genocide.  Hitler also had domestic influences, the same currents which gave rise to the Wandervogel.  An almost mystical connection of the people (blood) to the land (soil).  Hitler was obsessed with reuniting lands wherever German was spoken, giving the volk their lebensraum.  Space in which to thrive.

Conservationist "good guys," like Audubon, Roosevelt, and Seton, would always find nasty counterparts.  When we think of Greens, we think of peaceful hippies, not jack-booted thugs.  And if we do think of more radical protest, it's usually leftist groups such as the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), explicitly anti-Capitalist.  But as this brief look reveals, there's no shortage of far-right terrorists advocating "Green" ideology mixed with nationalism, racism, and "culling the herd" (odd, a clip of the tiki-torch crowd chanting "Jews will not replace us!" passed on the TV while I typed that).

Similar direct environmental action dates back to the 1820's War of Desmoiselles, in Ariège, France, when peasants revolted against forest codes implemented by the French governments.  These "Demoiselles" weren't actually maidens, but men dressed in white sheets to disguise themselves and instill fear as ghosts or faeries.  Hmm.  Men out at night dressed in white sheets.  Sounds familiar.

The saboteurs got their name from workers throwing wooden shoes, or sabots, into the gears of factory equipment.  England's Luddites, seeing their jobs taken away, destroyed textile machines throughout the 19th century.  While not specifically environmentalists, this direct and violent action has come down to us today in the form of what is called "eco-terrorism."  Whereas anti-capitalist groups tend to target property, ecofascists have targeted people. Recent attackers in Oslo, Christchurch, El Paso, Buffalo, and Charlotte identify as ecofascists, but one has to wonder if their goals are more about identifying with the land as a support for their anti-immigration beliefs, or if the anti-immigration is motivated by ecological concerns.  Chicken of egg?

Whatever the case, these recent ecofascist attacks constitute both lone wolves and a movement.  As the forests burn, the planet heats up, the seas get clogged with plastic, as global trade fuels a culture of over-consumption and excessive production, we can't expect the left to hold a monopoly on environmental concerns.  Ecofascists aren't your stereotypical Earth Day marchers. They're armed and ready to lock and load in defense of Mother Earth.  

No surprise there is such a large subculture of racist Neo-pagan groups, like the Nordic Resistance Movement. Note how their insignia (below), the Tiwaz rune, was adapted in the first image (above) as a proposed ecofascist symbol, so the rune is transformed into a tree.  These "stacked" Tiwaz runes can also be found in Germanic paganism. 

The rune was also one of many symbols used by the perpetrator of the Christchurch mosque shootings, Brenton Harrison Tarrant.  Tarrant was a well-traveled young man who'd donated money to and interacted with various far-right figures across Europe.  Another symbol used by Tarrant was that of the Black Sun....which adorns the title/banner image of Gendron's manifesto.

The Black Sun

The closest thing to a title for Gendron's document:  "You wait for a signal while your people wait for you."  Keep your eyes and ears open.  Listen carefully, that signal may in fact be a dog whistle....

flag of the Nordic Resistance Movement