October 2000
Right Side Out
Neo-Nazi domains
The media summer slump this year gave German Neo-Nazis more visibility in the Internet community than they deserved. The recent registration of the domain heil-hitler.de set off a flurry of activity at the German domain seller Strato,
whose techies and sales force were oblivious to the connotations associated with domain names, but whose PR department was savvy enough to create some good publicity by making an issue of the registration.
Germany has very restrictive laws and penalties for using Third Reich emblems, symbols, literature and the like.
The Swastica can only be used for documentary purposes; the sale of Hitlers book Mein Kampf is banned and a wide range of skinhead music glorifying the Third Reich is forbidden.
Consequently, in recent years the Internet has become a secure playground for right wing activists.
According to the German Verfassungsschutz (an institution equivalent to the American F.B.I.),
the number of German radical right wing websites increased tenfold from 1996 to 1999 — at the end of 1999 there were 330. Currently, approximately 900 Neo-Nazi sites can be found on the Web —120 sites are European in origin and approximately 200 are American.
After the public excitement over the heil-hitler.de domain, 90 percent of the German Neo-Nazi-websites sought anonymity and protection — via the first amendment — by switching to U.S. servers,
which makes it very difficult for German authorities to implement sanctions.
