Andrew Roberts
Third Reich Filth
Fuhrer-Ex: Memoirs Of A Former Neo-Nazi
By Ingo Hasselbach
Chatto & Windus 256pp £10.99
If you are a fugitive in fear of your life, always walk along the road against the traffic, rather than in the same direction. It ‘s harder for someone to drive alongside and shoot you. The author of this disturbing book has lived in (very justifiable) fear of his life ever since leaving the neo - Nazi movement in 1993. They recently sent a letter - bomb to his mother.
As former Gauleiter of Berlin and Brandenburg - a post once held by Goebbels - this six - foot - six - inch blond - haired, blue - eyed twenty - seven - year - old is a perfect Aryan specimen. His intelligence and single - minded commitment to the cause meant that he was soon in line for the leadership of East Germany’s small but aggressive fascist movement. Instead, he left and denounced it after the fatal firebombing of a Turkish immigrant family in Kolln when two young girls and their grandmother were burnt to death. It is curious that this particular repulsive incident should have shocked Herr Hasselbach into forsaking neo - Nazism, as it was the logical end to which his agitprop, speeches and Hitlerian ranting were inevitably
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