Iona welcomes German nazi criminal
Published on Friday, 01 June 2012 01:38 Written by Gerry Gable
Günter Deckert, a leading convicted member of the German National Democratic Party, was the big attraction at last month’s meeting of the Iona London Forum, the new-right discussion group organised by Jeremy Bedford-Turner.
Just over 50 people made their way to the Thunderbolt room at the London Paddington Hilton. The name of the room would have evoked nostalgia among those familiar with the US nazi right in the 1960s and 1970s. Thunderbolt was the name of the newspaper of the nazi National States Rights Party, edited by Edward R Fields.
This was Deckert’s second visit to the UK in the space of less than a year, his entry unhindered by the UK Border Agency, despite his convictions for incitement to hatred and insulting the victims of the Holocaust. Not only was he able to enter the country, Bedford-Turner managed to get him a room for the night at the Victory Services Club in Seymour Street. The club has hosted New Right meetings on at least three occasions and has become the secretive group’s favourite watering hole.
Deckert, 71, received his conviction while chairman of the NPD when he co-organised a meeting with Fred Leuchter, author of a report that purported to argue scientifically that mass extermination using gas chambers could not have happened. Deckert translated Leuchter’s speech and said that the Holocaust was a myth perpetrated by “a parasitical people who were using a historical lie to muzzle … Germany”. After two retrials he was eventually sentenced to two years’ jail. He eventually served five years following further Holocaust denial statements while in prison.
The meeting opened with an illustrated oration in praise of the recently deceased Jonathan Bowden, one-time British National Party cultural officer, by Michael Woodbridge, his long time comrade and friend. Some of the content appeared to have gone way over the heads of the audience, as did Bowden’s regular talks to the New Right group, its Iona offshoot and the BNP.
Deckert was up next, speaking on the party system in Germany. Deckert, who faces new charges, bemoans what he describes as the NPD’s trend towards moderation and anti-Islamist populism, and away from his preferred more robust national socialist line. His English is fairly good but as he spoke he had to look for linguistic support from his wife who is more fluent.
Once the meeting was over he was planning to go on a tourist-style trip around England including a visit to the Uckfield printworks owned by the long-time nazi printer and publisher Anthony Hancock to discuss future projects.
The third and final speaker was Stephen Frost of the nazi British Movement. His chosen subject was the late British nazi godfather Colin Jordan, founder of the National Socialist Movement and its successor BM, who died in April 2009. Frost promised to continue republishing Jordan’s vicious written works. This pleased Deckert, who said Merrie England’s one of Jordan’s later works, had kept him going when he was in prison.
Frost is a leading figure among a small group of dedicated and better educated members of BM who are very keen on political education, albeit that education promotes race war based on Jordan’s ideas and inspires the less bright to go out and commit crimes for which they generally get themselves arrested.
Frost reserved a special mention for Searchlight, complaining that obituaries for Colin Jordan in the mainstream and Jewish media had used material supplied by the magazine.
Among Deckert’s nazi fan club at the meeting were the former BNP activists Matt Tait and John Morse, Hancock, the notorious Holocaust denier Lady Michèle Renouf, Peter Rushton of the England First Party, Richard Edmonds of the National Front and regulars including Milton Ellis, Duncan Robertson and Paul Ballard.
New to the London nazi scene in recent months are an elderly well heeled Canadian couple, John and Linda Mortl, who appear to do a lot of travelling using London as a base. It is believed that some of the Iona and New Right leading lights have their eye on his wallet in the hope of a substantial donation. The Mortls have a long pedigree in far-right and anti-Jewish Canadian politics and were close to Ernst Zündel and Paul Fromm, Canada’s leading Holocaust deniers.
After the meeting, rather than pay Hilton hotel prices for their booze, participants retired to the Victory Services Club in Seymour Street for a subsidised drink.