massive police raids against "autonomous" neo-nazi infrastructure in western germany

[Sasha]

Police launch strike on western neo-Nazis
Authorities in western Germany banned three far-right groups on Thursday and raided around 150 properties in the biggest strike against neo-Nazis ever seen in the region.
More than 900 police officers entered the buildings as North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Ralf Jäger banned the groups Nationaler Widerstand Dortmund, Kameradschaft Hamm and Kameradschaft Aachener Land.
The three groups were considered the most dangerous in the state, the Tagesspiegel newspaper reported on Thursday. They were all regarded as violent, with the Aachen group considered nasty enough to border on terrorism.
Two members of this last group were stopped on their way to Berlin two years ago - and found with home-made bombs containing pieces of glass which they allegedly planned to throw at left-wingers and police.
They also strongly identified with the neo-Nazi terrorist group that called itself the National Socialist Underground, which is thought to have been responsible for nine racially motivated murders as well as the killing of a policewoman.
“With this we are tearing a big hole in the network of neo-Nazis,” said Jäger.
Around 100 addresses were searched in Dortmund, Hamm and in the Unna area, as well as nearly 50 flats in Aachen, Düren and Heinsberg.
The groups’ funds were confiscated and wearing the badges or symbols of the groups is illegal from now on.
Far-right violence has long been pigeon-holed as an eastern German problem, but this move in the heart of western Germany will reopen questions about how widespread Nazism is across the country.


more detailed atricle in german; http://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/2012-08/razzia-rechtsextremisten-nrw

[ВАЛТЕР]

Good news, but I still remember when the state intelligence service hid evidence which could incriminate neo-nazi gangs a little while back.

[Sasha]

On the other/same hand, the dortmund police banned today the antifa camp that will start tomorrow as a run up to the blockades of the annual Sept 1st Nazi march.
Out of "concerns for the safety of the antifascists" they claim..

[Ravachol]

Though it might seem counter-intuitive to some, this is not something to applaud as revolutionaries. Not because of liberal 'hurdurr democrusie' bullshit or any kind of sympathy for the scum (if they'd all died in a fire instead of this I'd gladly toast to it) but because the state operating to smooth it's functioning (which includes eliminating reactionary elements (from nazis to jihadists) which register as a nuisance and factor of instability without posing any kind of threat to capitalism in general) is something which is sure to crush any revolutionary wave as well (with far more force and vigor).

Waving the banner of bourgeois democracy (which kills it's 'foreigners' abroad and on it's borders instead of in the streets and alleys) against neo-nazism (which, though a serious danger at a street-level to militants and foreigners alike, does not pose any kind of threat on a political level) is stripping yourself of all revolutionary aspirations. Not to mention that the history of 'pure antifascism' (ie. fighting fascism in defense of liberal democracy instead of fighting fascism as just another form of capitalism) is one drowned in workers' blood: whether Germany in the '20s, Italy in the aftermath of the Biennio Rosso or Spain '36.