Czech Republic: Many neo-Nazis running for the DSSS again

The Workers’ Social Justice Party (Dělnická strana sociální spravedlnosti – DSSS) has suffered in recent years from disputes with the rest of the ultra-right scene and numerous internal problems. Those problems have resulted in the entire North Bohemian cell leaving the party together with key figures Petr Kotáb and Lucie Šlégrová.  

In recent months, anti-Romani sentiment fed by the Czech media has given the party an opportunity to gain publicity for its populist slogans. Even the desperately uncharismatic DSSS chair Tomáš Vandas has made use of this relative spike in attention.

The Antifa.cz website has now analyzed this topic in more detail (in Czech only, see http://www.antifa.cz/content/za-dsss-opet-kandiduje-rada-neonacistu). What has remained constant is the presence of many in the DSSS whose neo-Nazi affiliations can be proven.    

Many of these people are running for the DSSS in this year’s early elections. Because many of them are new names, it is evident that the DSSS, despite its efforts to prove the opposite, is still recruiting its candidates and members from the neo-Nazi scene.

In order to demonstrate that these are not individual random cases, we will take a closer look at one of the party’s regional candidate lists, the one in South Moravia. We can start immediately with candidate number one, Erik Lamprecht, whom Antifa.cz has written about several times in the past.

Lamprecht is a former football hooligan who maintains active relations with the Czech and German neo-Nazi scenes and is the organizer of many ultra-right demonstrations. You can read more about him on Antifa.cz, especially about events he has convened in Břeclav, Jihlava, and last year’s 1 May demonstration by the Workers’ Youth (Dělnická mládež – DM).

Despite the fact that Lamprecht is pretending to be a serious young politician, he and his friends continue to be active on the neo-Nazi scene. Simona Skoumalová, the DSSS number two in South Moravia this election, is also known to our readers.

Back in 2008 Antifa.cz reported how, as the number one regional candidate for the Workers’ Party (Dělnická strana or DS, the predecessor of today’s DSSS), Skoumalová attended concerts by neo-Nazi bands and participated in events convened by Blood & Honour (a militant neo-Nazi organization) in Budapest called the "Day of Honour". Skoumalová traveled there as a groupie accompanying the Czech neo-Nazi band Nomisterion; as an active sympathizer of the National Resistance organization (Národní odpor – NO), Skoumalová has been present at many neo-Nazi demonstrations.   

The third slot on the South Moravian candidate list goes to Rudolf Pikola of Znojmo, a longtime activist, participant in neo-Nazi demonstrations at home and abroad, and rabble-rouser within the DSSS. His most recent game has been to post photographs of Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hesse on one of his many Facebook profiles, where he has also posted photos of Radola Gajda [Translator’s Note:  an interwar Czechoslovak military officer forced to retire for his sympathies to Italian fascism]; evidently he wanted to let potential voters know who his political role models are.

Candidate number 19, Markéta Růžičková, is also interesting. This 22-year-old student from Brno has been active for several years in neo-Nazi circles there, is active in the DM, and evidently has no problem attending neo-Nazi concerts and being photographed in a Blood & Honour t-shirt.  

Neo-Nazi skinhead Milan "Milhaus" Salajka, running at number 20, is a bit of a bizarre figure. He once founded the Moravian NO cell and to this day is not ashamed to post photos of himself online posing in a Blood & Honour t-shirt or even holding a flag with a Nazi swastika on it; his current project is running an online news channel that reports on ultra-right demonstrations.

Milan Hroch is also representing the DSSS in this year’s election, a man whose activist career is firmly linked to the NO group in Jihlava. Antifa.cz reported on him in the context of the DS back in 2008 as well.

Active neo-Nazis are not just present on the DSSS candidate list in the South Moravian Region. We can mention the following other names as well:

• In the Karlovy Vary Region, Daniel Mandous is running in fifth place, a man whose body is "decorated" with tatoos of a Nazi soldier and Hitler’s political party, the NSDAP.
• In the Ústí Region we find Richard Svoboda in 14th place, who is interested in weapons and likes to parade about in t-shirts featuring neo-Nazi bands.   
• The Prague candidate list features Šárka Šmolíková, who was the standard-bearer in the anti-Romani demonstrations in northern Bohemia in 2011 and who is close to Pavel Szudár and other neo-Nazis. The number 88 tatooed on her neck is used by neo-Nazis as an abbreviation for the greeting "Heil Hitler" (the letter H is eighth in the alphabet). She has also allowed herself to be seen in a t-shirt advertising the neo-Nazi band Hlas krve (Voice of the Blood).
• Familiar faces running for the party this year include Ladislav Budz, a member of several neo-Nazi bands, Josef Formánek, Jiří Froněk and Iveta Machová.      

The DSSS is doing its best to exploit current pressures in Czech society by blaming the most impoverished and vulnerable social groups that have been pushed to the fringes of society and by intentionally inciting people against one another, envisioning it can win populist support this way. The party hides its racism and xenophobia behind trite slogans about "inadaptables", but it is clear what things probably are like beneath its surface.