Nordic Resistance: The Pan-European “Ikea Fascism” of Nordiska Motståndsrörelsen
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The Nordic Resistance Movement has an ambitious aim: to establish a pan-Scandinavian neo-Nazi state. The movement has chapters in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark and Iceland, and is well-networked internationally. It is responsible for numerous attacks and murders in Scandinavia in recent years. But the movement is in crisis: In Sweden, the group has split in two and in Finland, the NMR was banned by the Supreme Court last year. However, the movement continues to pose a very real threat.

Behind all of these attacks lies a pan-Scandinavian neo-Nazi network: the Nordic Resistance Movement, in Swedish Nordiska Motståndsrörelsen, abbreviated as NMR.

The movement was founded in [the Kingdom of] Sweden in 1997 by the neo-Nazi Klas Lund as Svenska Motståndsrörelsen, and later renamed to the more-inclusive Nordiska Motståndsrörelsen. Lund was already a well-known face in the Swedish far right — as a leading member of the violent neo-Nazi group Vitt Ariskt Motstånd (White Aryan Resistance).

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According to the Expo Foundation, there were 2,801 such propaganda tours in 2018 alone. In 2019, there were 1,658. In addition, the movement organises 125 to 265 demonstrations and rallies annually in Sweden. Expo estimates that there were between 150 and 300 active members of the NMR before the split of the movement in 2019, as well as many other passive members and supporters.

There are no official government figures on the size of the movement. “At the height of the movement, the NMR was able to mobilise 600 to 700 people for its demonstrations”, Morgan Finnsiö estimates.

Social democracy fail:

Swedish historian, publicist and author of the book Älskade fascism (Beloved Fascism), Henrik Arnstad, describes Sweden as a fertile ground for fascism after 1945. In interview with Belltower.News, he explains: “After World War II, Sweden was one of the few countries where fascists could still meet and organise – for the most part quite openly. As a result, fascism flourished in the country.”

That awkward moment when even Adolf Schicklgruber is ‘too moderate’ for a neofascist movement:

Although Hitler is also idolised to some extent in the Nordic Resistance Movement, he is also seen as a loser, Arnstad explains. “He ultimately lost the war, then killed himself.” Rather than the NSDAP, the Romanian fascist Iron Guard movement led by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu serves as inspiration for the NMR. “Both movements use the colours green and white, both organise in so-called ‘nests’”, Arnstad notes.

“The Iron Guard was even more antisemitic than the NSDAP. Hitler called them radicals; their antisemitism was even too extreme for him.” The cult of personality around Codreanu is also attractive for the NMR: “He died a heroic death: he was executed by the Romanian government in 1938 and is seen as a ‘saint’”.

And—surprise, surprise—these anticommies have been mingling with Azov!

The NMR also has links to the Ukrainian Azov Regiment: The far-right podcast “FashCast” published an interview between a member of the Finnish NMR and Olena Semenyaka, the so-called “First Lady” and spokeswoman of the far-right paramilitary volunteer battalion in Ukraine.

In the interview, Semenyaka mentions a “foreign legion” in Ukraine that international volunteers could join, as well as military training camps at the Azov camp in eastern Ukraine. A delegation of the Finnish NMR visited the Azov Regiment in Kyiv in 2019.

(Emphasis added in all cases.)