A Nazi punk is a neo-Nazi who is part of the punk subculture. The term also describes a type of music associated with them.^[1]

Nazi punk music is similar to most other forms of punk rock, although it usually differs by having lyrics that express hatred for Jews, blacks, multiracial people, homosexuals, Marxists, anarchists, anti-racists and other perceived enemies. Nazi punk bands have played several styles of punk music, including Oi!, streetpunk and hardcore punk. Nazi skinheads who play music similar to hardcore, Oi! or heavy metal are considered part of a separate genre called Rock Against Communism.

Nazi punks often wear clothing and hairstyles typically associated with the majority of the punk subculture, such as: liberty spike or Mohawk hairstyles, leather jackets, boots, chains, and metal studs or spikes.

However, Nazi punks are different from early punks, such as Sid Vicious and Siouxsie Sioux, who are thought to have incorporated Nazi imagery such as Swastikas for shock or comedy value.

[edit] History

In 1978 in Britain, the white nationalist National Front had a punk-oriented youth organization called the Punk Front.^[2] Although the Punk Front only lasted one year, it recruited several English punks, as well as forming a number of white power punk bands such as The Dentists, The Ventz, Tragic Minds and White Boss.^[3][4] The white power skinhead subculture took over as the leaders of the white power music movement following the demise of the Punk Front in 1979. However, the Nazi punk subculture sparked up worldwide soon after, and appeared in the United States by the early 1980s, during the rise of the hardcore punk scene.^[5][6]

The white power skinhead band Skrewdriver started off as an apolitical punk rock band, although some accounts show that vocalist Ian Stuart Donaldson already held racist views during the band's early years.^[7] In the early 1980s, the white power skinhead band Brutal Attack temporarily transformed into a Nazi punk band.^[8] They said they did that in the hopes of getting public concerts booked easier, but this tactic didn't work, and they soon returned to being a racist skinhead band.

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] Bibliography

• Punk Rock: So What? by Roger Sabin.
• Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984 by Simon Reynolds.
• American Hardcore: A Tribal History by Steven Blush.
• The Punk Front: 1978-79. British National Front production.
• Memoirs of a Street Soldier: A life in White Nationalism by Eddy Morrison.
• Condemned Magazine issue #2.

[edit] See also

• Punk ideologies
• National Socialist black metal
• Nazi chic
• "Nazi Punks Fuck Off!" - song by Dead Kennedys

[edit] External links

• National Socialist Punk Nazi punk history, ideology and music