Introduction
Milan, 12 December 1969: After a bomb exploded at the Piazza Fontana, killing sixteen people and injuring over 150, Giuseppe Pinelli, an Italian anarchist, was arrested. During the interrogation he fell out of a window at the police station and died. Even today the circumstances are suspicious. Whereas the police claimed suicide, the left accused police commissioner Luigi Calabresi of murder and of covering up a right-wing extremist plot. The left began a defamation campaign against the inspector, forever etched in public memory by Dario Fo's satirical comedy The Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Morte accidentale di un anarchico). When Calabresi was shot dead in 1972 many on the left viewed his murder as a deserved punishment.Footnote 1
Munich, 26 September 1980: A bomb exploded at the world-famous Oktoberfest, killing thirteen people and injuring over 200. The official investigation concluded that twenty-one year old Gundolf Köhler, who was killed during the incident, was solely responsible for the terrorist attack. This theory was challenged by many, including left-wing politicians, victims and journalists. They criticised that the police neither took into account Köhler's links to the right-wing extremist scene nor the ‘dubious behaviour’ of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesverfassungsschutz; BfV). In December 2014 new evidence emerged and the case was reopened by the Attorney General of Germany. Furthermore, in the summer of 2017 the Constitutional Court ruled that the government and the BfV must disclose all relevant material to the Parliament.Footnote 2
Even though nearly eleven years and 500 kilometres separated the Piazza Fontana and the Oktoberfest massacres both are examples of the deadly right-wing terrorist attacks that hit Italy and the Federal Republic of Germany during the Cold War. From a historical perspective right-wing terrorism offers insights into the dynamics between the state, the security apparatus and anti-democratic groups. Italy and West Germany are particularly significant cases because both countries experienced dictatorships in the first half of the twentieth century. The shared legacy of Italian fascism and German National Socialism provided the breeding ground for a number of neo-fascist and neo-Nazi groups that emerged in the aftermath of the Second World War. While ultra-nationalism was no longer politically legitimate in either country these organisations survived for some time. Combining the use of violence with political rhetoric against liberal democracy, they embraced terrorist tactics to spread fear and insecurity in society.Footnote 3
Yet despite the shared history right-wing terrorism has been much more violent in Italy than in Germany. Between 1969 and 1982 Italian extremists were responsible for nearly 6,000 acts of violence, killing more than 180 people and injuring over 570. Moreover, law enforcement agencies were able to identify 570 terrorists and over 110 groups operating during this period.Footnote 4 In Germany right-wing extremism remained a small subculture with a marginal influence. It was more of a ‘mock attack’ than an actual threat to the foundation of society and politics.Footnote 5 Without downplaying its unconstitutional, xenophobic and violent appearance in the Federal Republic, right-wing terrorism was historically more significant in Italy. How can we explain this phenomenon? What caused the escalation of right-wing violence in both countries? Can we find different internal mechanisms and dynamics in order to explain the difference? Or did Bonn show a more rigorous policy against right-wing terrorism than Rome? Was Rome indeed deliberately blind in the ‘right eye’ because the state worked hand-in-hand with the terrorists, as some observers have suggested?
So far there is little research comparing the evolution of right-wing terrorism in Italy and West Germany.Footnote 6 In these two cases in particular studies have mainly focused on left-wing terrorism, which plagued both societies due to the activities of organisations such as the German Red Army Faction and the Italian Red Brigades. Right-wing terrorism, on the other hand, has not been studied thoroughly from a historical-political perspective. Instead many studies on this topic focus on uncovering alleged conspiracies between the far right and the state apparatus, which was accused of assisting and orchestrating terrorist groups in order to combat the political left.Footnote 7 Other studies even suggest that foreign organisations were the real puppet masters of right-wing terrorism. Thereby the list of potential masterminds reads like a ‘who's who’ of secret services, governments and clandestine organisations: from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to the German Federal Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst; BND), from the Soviet Committee for State Security (Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti; KGB) to Mossad, from the British Military Intelligence, Section 6 (MI6) to Gladio.Footnote 8 As a result, the terrorist groups were deprived of their agency and reduced to mere pawns in a great power game between East and West. Even after the 9/11 attacks, when we can observe a rapid growth of academic literature on terrorism and a ‘diversification in the field in both disciplinary and epistemological terms’,Footnote 9 studies on right-wing terrorism in post-war Italy and West Germany have not substantially benefited from this change.Footnote 10
This is due at least in part to difficulties in obtaining first-hand source material capable of shedding light on the inner dynamics of these fringe groups, their motives and their strategic aims. The short life span of many organisations, the lack of confessions and testimonies from repentant right-wing terrorists and their secrecy in carrying out violent acts make historical analysis extremely difficult. But, above all systematic research is hindered by the archival restrictions in both Italy and Germany. Relevant material has often been withheld for national security reasons and on the grounds that the identities of police informers must be protected. This lack of transparency, however, has contributed to the existence and prominence of the aforementioned conspiracy theories in both countries.Footnote 11
This article offers a fresh look at the right-wing groups that emerged and operated in Italy and West Germany from the immediate aftermath of the Second World War until the end of the Cold War in 1989–90. While the political context seems to be quite similar, the range and scope of these organisations differed greatly. To illustrate this point I will draw on the theory of right-wing terrorist activities developed by Ehud Sprinzak,Footnote 12 who argued for a comparative approach to terrorism in order to better understand its internal dynamics. After giving a brief overview on Italian and West German right-wing terrorism, I will address the question of what most likely caused the escalation of rightist violence in these countries. Focusing on the internal dynamics of the far right I will apply Sprinzak's theory to identify similar patterns. I argue that these similarities illuminate the most decisive factors when it comes to explaining the radicalisation of the extreme right. And finally, I will discuss the greater scale of right-wing terrorist violence in Italy in contrast to West Germany. To gain a more nuanced picture of why right-wing terrorism existed in both countries but differed so greatly in its scale of violence I will examine three points more closely: first, the international context of the Cold War; second, the ideological mind-set of and personnel continuity within the security apparatus and, third, the political culture of Italy and West Germany.
Right-Wing Terrorism in Italy and West Germany
In December 1946 the neo-fascist party Italian Social Movement (Movimento Sociale Italiano; MSI) was created and enjoyed rapid success in regional and national elections. To increase their political influence the party hierarchy favoured collaboration with the ruling Christian Democratic Party (Democrazia Cristiana; DC) as early as 1954.Footnote 13 It proved successful in 1960 when the MSI helped to elect Christian Democrat Fernando Tambroni as prime minister. But the success was short-lived. After only four months in office, Tambroni was forced to resign due to public turmoil across the country. These events showed that ‘the idea of a centre-right government clashed with the radically changed political and social reality’.Footnote 14 Radicals like Pino Rauti and Stefano Delle Chiaie, who had always questioned the party's legalistic approach, left the MSI and founded extra-parliamentary groups such as New Order (Ordine Nuovo; ON) in 1956 and National Vanguard (Avantguardia Nazionale; AN) in 1959. These organisations had over 10,000 followers, and linked the 1940s with the terrorist groups of the 1970s due to their ideological and personnel continuity.Footnote 15 In the mid-1960s ON helped to devise the theoretical foundations of what later became known as the ‘strategy of tension’ in order to counter the ‘opening to the left’ (apertura a sinistra) in politics and society.
The practical realisation of the strategy of tension lasted from April 1969 to 1974 and resembled the first escalation of right-wing terrorism in Italy.Footnote 16 Bombings and violent street clashes led to much bloodshed. At least 3,640 acts of violence were committed by right-wing terrorists that cost the lives of sixty-three people.Footnote 17 Though only a few perpetrators have as of yet been convicted, public prosecutors were able to prove connections between right-wing terrorists and the Italian secret service as early as 1974. These contacts allowed some suspected terrorists to avoid police investigation.Footnote 18 However, the unsatisfactory investigation results cannot only be explained by these networks. In contrast to the communicative strategy of their counterparts on the left, right-wing terrorists did not publish lengthy manifestos justifying their actions. The violent act itself was message enough and did not need further explanation. They wanted to blame the left and spread fear among the public, causing the latter to call upon the government for protection.Footnote 19
Already in 1972 the failure of the strategy of tension became obvious. Rather than leading to a decline of the left, the destabilisation of public order was exploited by the communist (Partito Comunista Italiano; PCI) and socialist parties (Partito Socialista Italiano; PSI).Footnote 20 At the same time right-wing terrorists murdered three Carabinieri – the first time they killed state officials and a warning sign that the terrorist scene was about to change.Footnote 21 In the mid-1970s the political right came under further pressure. The referendum against divorce supported by the MSI failed, right-wing groups such as AN and ON were banned and left-wing terrorism was on the rise.Footnote 22 To overcome the apparent crisis of the far right a younger generation pleaded for a radical change of tactics. By looking to left-wing terrorism as a model of success this ‘new right’ proposed the creation of smaller groups to carry out a strategy of armed spontaneity directed primarily against the authorities.Footnote 23 The murder of state attorney Vittorio Occorsio in 1976 is regarded as the official beginning of a new phase of right-wing terrorism after the strategy of tension.Footnote 24
During this period the Armed Revolutionary Core (Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari; NAR) and Third Position (Terza Posizione) rose to prominence. Between 1978 and 1980 NAR committed over 100 terrorist acts and killed eight people. Strictly speaking NAR was not an organised group but rather a label anyone was allowed to use as long as s/he committed a ‘revolutionary act’. What counted was the deed itself, which was perceived as a liberating act to establish a new order. Terza Posizione appeared in 1979 and reached out to young people by addressing issues such as the housing shortage, chronic unemployment and environmental protection – topics that were usually monopolised by the left. The group rejected any traditional ideological division between right and left and instead propagated a ‘third way’ as a means of overthrowing the existing system.Footnote 25 Even though the tactics and targets had changed since the days of the strategy of tension, personnel continuities still existed.Footnote 26
Even today scholars debate if a distinct third phase of right-wing terrorism existed. While the armed struggle continued into the 1980s – Judge Mario Amato (1980) and Police Inspector Francesco Straullu (1981) were the most prominent victims – two bombings in particular shocked Italy and demonstrated similarities to the strategy of tension. In 1980 a bomb killed eighty-five people in Bologna's Union Station and in 1984 fifteen people were killed on a train from Milan to Naples. Neither the controversies about the actual perpetrators nor the exact motivation for these attacks have been resolved.Footnote 27 Recently, magistrate Rosario Priore, who has investigated right-wing terrorism in Italy for years, argued that the Bologna massacre was an act of retaliation by the Palestinians because Rome violated an informal agreement of non-aggression between the PLO and Italy (called ‘Lodo Moro’). He stated that the government hindered any serious investigation into the Bologna attack to cover up this highly problematic deal and he dismissed the right-wing theory as a state attempt to deceive the public.Footnote 28
In West Germany only a few right-wing groups were formed after the Second World War, including the German Reich Party (Deutsche Reichspartei; DRP) under Adolf von Thadden.Footnote 29 Most of their leaders officially disavowed any connection to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party and adopted ideas that could be traced back to right-wing intellectuals of the early twentieth century.Footnote 30 This was not only due to Allied control but also to the government's readiness to ban and prohibit any organisation that resembled the Nazi party. Such was the case with the Socialist Reich Party (Sozialistische Reichspartei; SRP) and its paramilitary organisation Reich Front (Reichsfront), both homes for former members of the Nazi Party's Security Organisation (Schutzstaffel; SS) and the Nazi Party more generally. When it was discovered that the SRP – with around 10,000 supporters – officially followed the doctrines of the Nazi Party it was banned by the Federal Constitutional Court in November 1951.Footnote 31
Nevertheless, right-wing political violence steadily increased in West Germany in the second half of the 1950s. Involved in these incidents were often members of youth organisations such as the Union of National Students (Bund Nationaler Studenten), the Reich Youth (Reichsjugend) and the Youth Federation Eagle (Jugendbund Adler), which were closely affiliated to far right parties.Footnote 32 A major public outcry arose when anti-Semitic graffiti, painted by DRP members Arnold Strunk and Paul Josef Schönen, was found on the synagogue in Cologne in 1959. DRP leaders were quick to reject any responsibility for the desecration, but they failed to conceal the growing divide within the right-extremist milieu. Dissatisfied with the results of the official legalistic strategy, some right-wing radicals began a ‘private war’ against groups they deemed to be ‘inferior’. However, the use of police informers helped locate and dissolve such organisations before they were able to carry out any terrorist attacks.Footnote 33 Nonetheless, the period saw the emergence of a violent right-wing scene that was not afraid to resort to terrorism.
In the early 1960s there were several signs of the declining fortunes of the far right: the number of known supporters dropped from 78,000 in 1954 to about 25,000 in 1963, internal quarrels dominated the heterogeneous structure of the milieu and a strong national party was not in sight. However, politicians and law enforcement agencies underestimated the determination of leading proponents of the right, which led to accusations that the BfV in particular deliberately turned a blind eye to the right.Footnote 34 In 1964 Thadden founded the National Democratic Party of Germany (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschland; NPD), which achieved remarkable results during regional elections. In 1968 the NPD won 9.8 per cent of the votes in Baden-Württemberg.Footnote 35 However, in the general elections one year later the NPD did not win a single seat in the Bundestag. It appeared that those who had voted for the party in previous years were not necessarily attracted to its ideology but rather were protesting against the Grand Coalition between the Christian Democrats (Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands; CDU) and the Social Democrats (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands; SPD), established parties and the student movement.Footnote 36
The election fiasco in 1969 led to a severe internal crisis, a decline in membership numbers and a subsequent split of the party. Whereas its leaders still believed in a legalistic course, a group of younger party members collectively named Action Resistance (Aktion Widerstand) favoured a more active, even violent approach in order to separate the NPD from the political establishment. In 1970 they organised a violent protest against the social democrat-led government, shouting slogans such as ‘German land won't be squandered, rather Brandt will hang’ (Deutsches Land wird nicht verschenkt ehe wird der Brandt gehenkt). Some followers began to promote the idea of attacking the state directly. Such plans were deemed too radical by the NPD leadership and it cut all financial aid to the group, precipitating its decline and subsequent demise in 1971.Footnote 37
The Aktion Widerstand – like the killing of the three Carabinieri in Italy in 1972 – marked the beginning of a ‘new right’. The largest of these groups with approximately 500 members was the Paramilitary Group Hoffmann (Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann), founded in 1973 by Karl-Heinz Hoffmann. Undisturbed from law enforcement agencies the group established a more sophisticated organisational structure and trained for a guerrilla war with discarded weapons of the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr). After the Wehrsportgruppe was banned in January 1980 several members fled to Lebanon where they tried to create a new paramilitary group with the help of Fatah. When Hoffmann returned to Germany he and several of his companions were arrested. In 1986 he was sentenced to nine years in prison for illegal possession of firearms, deprivation of liberty and assault.Footnote 38 Apart from occasional violent clashes with the police and leftist groups the Wehrsportgruppe did not carry out any acts that can be labelled as terrorism in the strict sense of the term.Footnote 39 Rather than being a terrorist group itself the Wehrsportgruppe represented a link between the Aktion Widerstand of 1970 and right-wing terrorism of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Another prominent figure of the ‘new right’ was Friedhelm Busse. In 1971 he founded the People's Socialist Movement of Germany/Labour Party (Volkssozialistische Bewegung Deutschland/Partei der Arbeit; VSBD/PA), which was financed by the notorious American neo-Nazi Gerhard Lauck. Due to his endorsement of violence as a political tool, Busse is often regarded as the father of right-wing terrorism in Germany. ‘I think’, he told a reporter, ‘it is pointless to throw bombs. But, you asked me if I would do it if it would bring success. I would do everything that brings success.’Footnote 40 In 1982 the VSBD/PA was banned and one year later Busse was sentenced to several years of prison.Footnote 41
In the late 1970s and early 1980s Busse's call for action was put into practice and the second wave of German right-wing terrorism began. Terrorists were responsible for armed bank robberies, arms smuggling, the murder of policemen and attempts to bomb the bases of the US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) as well as Holocaust memorial sites. Many terrorists of this period had once belonged to one or several of the aforementioned groups. Odfried Hepp and Walther Kexel were former members of the Wehrsportgruppe. Their group promoted an un-dogmatic, anti-imperialistic ‘war of liberation’ that was directed against the US forces stationed in Germany and their German collaborators.Footnote 42 It also imitated the tactics and methods of left-wing terrorism. Bank robberies provided the money to finance attacks against American soldiers in 1982. The police were able to arrest several members of the group one year later. Odfried Hepp, however, escaped to the Middle East with the help of the East German secret service, the Ministry of State Security (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit). He was arrested in 1985 in Paris and extradited to Germany two years later, where he was sentenced to over ten years in prison. Kexel received fourteen years for the creation of a terrorist organisation and attempted murder in three cases. After the pronouncement he committed suicide in prison.Footnote 43 Gundolf Köhler, who was responsible for the Oktoberfest bombing and Uwe Behrendt, who murdered two Jews in December 1980, were also once members of the Wehrsportgruppe.Footnote 44
As in Italy, it is difficult to define a concrete end of the second wave of right-wing terrorism in West Germany. Though the attacks against the state declined the number of assaults against immigrants increased from the mid-1980s onwards and reached a peak after German reunification. In 1982 three Turkish migrants were murdered, followed by two Turks in 1985 and the three foreigners in 1988 who were killed by Josef Saller. Saller was a member of the Nationalist Front (Nationalistische Front), which was a primary target of German secret services and ultimately banned in 1992. Some agents confessed after their release from duty that many of the group's criminal acts would not have been possible without their help.Footnote 45
Sprinzak's Theory and the Internal Dynamics of the Far Right
Ehud Sprinzak stated that ‘right-wing radicals usually reach terrorism through a trajectory of split delegitimization, which implies a primary conflict with an “inferior” community and a secondary conflict with the “state”’.Footnote 46 Applying his theory highlights possible similar patterns in the history of right-wing terrorism in Italy and West Germany. Given they occurred in both countries I argue that these similarities are key to explaining the radicalisation of right-wing extremist groups.
At first the political right in both countries opposed groups they considered ‘a priori illegitimate’,Footnote 47 including ethnic and religious minorities as well as political opponents. Its members, however, were constantly divided on how to curb the influence of their enemies. While some advocated for the pursuit of legal means, others argued for the use of violence. Since the 1950s the latter faction had been steadily gaining ground, as illustrated by the formation of far right groups such as the Italian ON or the German SRP. When left-wing parties became part of the government coalitions starting in the late 1960s right-wing terrorists were responsible for the escalation of violence. Even though the scale of violence was totally different in both countries this development underscores Sprinzak's point, that the more the radicals feel threatened by ‘inferior’ groups, the more they will resort to physical violence against them. In contrast to their leftist counterparts, however, right-wing terrorists did not initially attack the state directly.Footnote 48 Neither in Italy nor in Germany were state representatives such as public prosecutors or police primary targets. In many cases this was a tactical decision; the terrorists presumed that the state representatives would support them – or at least remain neutral out of sympathy with their desire to return to the status quo ante. Sprinzak defines this form of terrorism as ‘reactive’.Footnote 49
According to Sprinzak the second ‘diluted delegitimization’ towards the regime occurs when a common fear emerges among terrorists that their existence is in danger and that they have become targets of the state security apparatus. To defend their community they embark on an armed struggle against two separate entities: the ‘inferior’ group as well as the regime and everyone who represents it. During this second wave right-wing terrorists attempt – similar to their left-wing counterparts – to overthrow the entire system (a form of revolutionary terrorism).Footnote 50 Again Sprinzak's ideas are mirrored by the Italian and West German cases. The growing influence of the left since the early 1970s even within the extremist milieu added to a feeling of marginalisation among younger radicals. They perceived the ‘armed struggle [against the regime] as the last resort in order to defend their members from being physically exterminated’.Footnote 51 This ‘new right’ looked to the left for inspiration and some of its members strove to overcome the traditional left and right divide. The ‘new right’ drew heavily from a younger generation and thus symbolised a youthful rebellion against the authorities as well as the ‘old guard’ of the political right.
Sprinzak's model convincingly explains the development of Italian and German right-wing terrorism by stressing internal factors as the primary mechanism. The role of secret services or governments as puppet masters in this process was secondary. This does not exclude the possibility that forms of silent, benevolent or even direct collaboration between terrorists and state officials existed – a point Sprinzak explicitly makes.Footnote 52 These networks usually dissolved during the second wave of revolutionary terrorism when state representatives were directly attacked. Sprinzak's concept captures both the radicalisation and the cooperation between terrorists and state officials as well as the subsequent change of the latter. However, the Italian and German cases also illustrate some shortcomings of his model and call for its further differentiation. I would like to mention three points:
First, Sprinzak's theory is vague and inconsistent when he defines the secondary target of right-wing terrorism, which he alternately describes as ‘regime’, ‘state’, ‘government’ or ‘authorities’. The two cases demonstrate that the terrorists clearly distinguish between the ruling parties and the state as a ‘system’. Whereas government parties and politicians could be legitimate victims during the first phase – as the bombings of PCI and PSI offices in Italy during the strategy of tension illustrate – apolitical representatives of the regime such as policemen were usually not targeted. It was the direct attack against the latter group that signalled the change of tactics and the beginning of a second wave of terrorism.
Second, Sprinzak concluded that the presence of split delegitimisation might get blurry when terrorists perceive the state as being dominated by an ‘inferior’ group.Footnote 53 The rightist violence during the 1970s in West Germany could exemplify this theory. With the Social Democrats in power the seemingly clear distinction between ‘inferior’ political opponents and the state might have dissolved in the far right's perception. Be that as it may, the problem with Sprinzak's model is that it appears as a static one-way street, always moving from the fight against the ‘inferior’ groups to the fight against the ‘state’. However, the Italian and German examples illustrate that the different phases of right-wing terrorism rather resemble alternating ‘cycle(s) of activity in a given time period . . . driven by a common predominant energy’Footnote 54 that could switch back and forth as well as overlap, as seen in the early 1970s. The bombings in Bologna and at the Oktoberfest as well as the increase in attacks against ethnic minorities suggest in both countries a return to a strategy, which mirrored phase one.
And third, according to Sprinzak violence occurs when the terrorist group feels strong.Footnote 55 A case in point was the Italian strategy of tension when terrorists enjoyed the backing of segments of the state and were able to derive a feeling of power from this support. At that time indiscriminate terrorist violence was being used indirectly against the ‘inferior’ target and was intended to turn both the state and public opinion against the left, which was blamed for the bomb attacks. Especially in the second phase, however, the right in Italy and West Germany resorted to terrorism as a tool of ‘asymmetric warfare’ after their voice had been marginalised within society and politics. Now they began to target the perceived enemies – the ‘inferior’ groups and the ‘state’ – directly. There is a reason why terrorism is regarded as the ‘weapon of the weak’ against the powerful.Footnote 56
Explaining the Different Scale of Right-Wing Terrorism
Even though a similar internal dynamic existed, Italian and West German right-wing terrorism differed massively in terms of scale and tactics. In the following I would like to look at three factors that taken together might explain this phenomenon: first, the international setting of the Cold War and the perception of the ‘communist threat’, second, anti-communism and personnel continuities amongst members of the security apparatus and, third, the political culture in both countries.
Since the beginning of the Cold War Italy represented a microcosm of the global struggle – a country divided along ideological, political, social and cultural lines.Footnote 57 When Italy became a founding member of NATO a central preoccupation of the United States was to keep the Italian PCI, the largest communist party in the West, out of power. To strengthen a centre or even centre-right government Washington supported the Christian Democrats financially and was involved in covert actions of psychological warfare. Communism was perceived as an internal threat to the stability of Italy.Footnote 58 After Fernando Tambroni's fall in 1960 US foreign policy planners gradually became convinced that only a centre-left government would keep the communists at bay. They argued that any attempt to support neo-fascist groups would provoke public outrage, diminish US prestige and thus benefit the PCI. Even the CIA argued that the ‘continuation of a large-scale covert assistance program in Italy . . . no longer had pertinence’.Footnote 59 Thus, the growing attraction of the far right and the theoretical foundations of the strategy of tension occurred at a time when Washington was actually ready to tolerate a centre-left government in Italy.
The electoral gain of the PCI in 1968 was a bitter disappointment in US political circles. Unlike his predecessors Richard Nixon remained opposed to any apertura a sinistra. In 1969 he sent Graham Martin – a strong anti-communist – as ambassador to Rome. Martin believed in an imminent takeover by the PCI and turned to the right to combat the domestic communist influence. He devised a program to finance ultraconservatives and right-wing radicals to encourage a ‘turn to the right in the Italian political balance’.Footnote 60 The Pike Commission estimated the financial support that was given to these groups through the embassy in Rome at ten million dollars. Vito Miceli alone, as the chief of the Italian secret service, received around 800,000 dollars to spend as he pleased.Footnote 61 Even today we do not know exactly what happened with that money, if there were other forms of US support for right-wing extremists or what the exact influence of people like Miceli was. Nevertheless, the financial aid kept right-wing terrorism alive and corresponded with the strategy of tension. It was no coincidence that its reduction in the mid-1970s correlated with the end of the first phase of right-wing terrorism.
As early as 1971 experts in the State Department feared that any revelations of US support for the far right could irrevocably damage Washington's prestige. This more sober reflection mitigated the views of hardliners and indicated another change in US foreign policy. Diplomats and members of the intelligence community acknowledged the split between the PCI leadership and Moscow and took the new commitment to Italy's NATO membership by Communist Party officials seriously. Thus, Martin's policy was short-lived and paved the way to a better understanding of the PCI, though Washington never accepted their inclusion in the government.Footnote 62 American observers were extremely worried about the outcome of the parliamentary elections in 1976 when a leftist takeover seemed imminent. They considered supporting a military coup in the case of a communist victory before ultimately concluding that, ‘in the end, a coup attempt would produce the very result it sought to prevent: a government of “national unity” including the Communists’.Footnote 63 Instead, the United States focused on helping Rome counter right- and left-wing terrorism in order to maintain law and order in the country. They also continued their covert financial support of the DC.Footnote 64
Whereas the Cold War had divided Italy internally, it had physically split post-war Germany into two countries. The existence of the German Democratic Republic influenced how the threat of communism was perceived by American and West German elites as well as how they viewed right-wing terrorism. In contrast to Italy no strong communist party existed in the Federal Republic that might have given rise to serious concerns of an internal takeover. The German Communist Party (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands; KPD) only won fifteen seats in the first election for the Bundestag in 1949 and four years later lost all its seats after the party achieved only 2.2 per cent of the votes. Regarded as a puppet of Moscow and East Berlin, as well as an unconstitutional party, the KPD was banned in 1956.Footnote 65 However, because of the existence of East Germany and the proximity of Soviet troops the ‘red threat’ remained an external menace especially during the first decades of the Cold War. Incidents such as the Berlin Blockade (1948–9), the Korean War (1950–3), the uprisings in East Berlin (1953) and Hungary (1956) and the Second Berlin Crisis (1958–61) kept the fear of a communist invasion alive.Footnote 66
As a consequence Washington and Bonn focused more on the creation of a strong West German state fully integrated in the Western alliance system than on countering a weak KPD with the help of the far right.Footnote 67 On the one hand, this involved the creation of the Bundeswehr, the counter-intelligence service (BfV) and the foreign intelligence agency (BND) by recruiting a number of former officials of the Nazi regime. One of the most notable figures was Reinhard Gehlen, who once was chief of the Wehrmacht Foreign Armies East military-intelligence unit during the Second World War and who became the first president of the BND in 1956. On the other hand, financial aid was given to parties that favoured Western integration, ranging from Adenauer's CDU to the Berlin SPD under Ernst Reuter.Footnote 68 The Western assessment of the geostrategic situation also resulted in the creation and expansion of a European-wide NATO stay-behind army in the mid-1950s.Footnote 69 However, available documents regarding the German branch of the stay-behind organisation and its links to the far right illustrate that its significance has often been exaggerated.Footnote 70
In addition, the existence of East Germany constantly confronted West Germany with the accusation of being the ‘true heir’ of the Third Reich during the Cold War. The East German government indeed utilised any rightist incident to discredit West Germany.Footnote 71 To counter these allegations, Bonn vigorously moved against right-wing extremist organisations as evidenced during the ‘smearing campaigns’ in the late 1950s. Especially during the Second Berlin Crisis, West Germany feared political isolation and quickly embarked on a crude defence strategy. Officials suggested that the rightist campaigns were staged by East Germany to discredit Bonn. Adenauer's fears of isolation were not unfounded. The cases of Theodor OberländerFootnote 72 and Hans GlobkeFootnote 73 had created an atmosphere of distrust among Western states concerning the sincerity of West German efforts to deal with the Nazi past. Bonn's and Washington's efforts to integrate West Germany smoothly into the Western alliance came under temporary scrutiny.Footnote 74 The fear of international isolation and the eagerness to publicly distance itself from the Nazi past as well as the authoritarian regime in East Germany were perennial reasons for Bonn to crack down on far right organisations.
The different perception of a communist threat also influenced the relationship between the far right and members of the security apparatus. Sprinzak notes that in the post-war era neo-fascists attempted to ‘attract military and police officers worried about a communist takeover’.Footnote 75 This effort was part of a strategy utilised by fascist groups since the interwar period in order to acquire power. Historian Robert Paxton, who has analysed the rise of fascist movements in the early 1920s, has pointed out that this alliance between elements of the state apparatus, conservatives and fascists is an essential characteristic of fascism.Footnote 76
This endeavour was especially useful in Italy where the strength of the Italian left kept the fear of a domestic ‘red threat’ alive. For many conservatives and anti-communists concerns about a communist takeover were much higher than their devotion to a multiparty democracy. By this logic, the political right appeared to be a natural ally in preventing the left from gaining more influence. This view was shared by some leading officials of the security apparatus, many of whom had begun their careers during the fascist period.Footnote 77 Even if they were not convinced fascists – many abandoned Mussolini in the summer of 1943 – they turned once again to the right to keep the left out of power. The massive reinforcement of the police force in the 1950s further contributed to a lack of democratic sentiment among law enforcement personnel. Many new recruits had an anti-communist or even fascist background and they had grown up in the poor regions of the Mezzogiorno. Their main motive for joining the police was the hope to escape their dreadful situation in the south. Defending the constitutional order was not one of their priorities.Footnote 78
The collaboration between the far right, sectors of the state apparatus and the conservative elite became explicit in 1965. Members of Ordine Nuovo, the industrial sector, the Italian Army and secret service joined politicians at a meeting organised by the Alberto Pollio Institute for Strategic Affairs (Istituto Alberto Pollio per gli Affari Strategici). Fearing a possible communist revolution they all agreed that the current opening to the left – the policy pursued by the majority of the DC since the mid-1960s – had to be stopped by any means. According to Guido Giannettini – a rightist journalist who was later hired as an informer by the secret service – this included propaganda, infiltration, subversion and indiscriminate terrorism, which included the killing of elderly people, women and children in order to spread fear. It was one of the key elements of the theoretical doctrine of the strategy of tension.Footnote 79
The radical right in West Germany also tried to convince law enforcement officers and the political elite to collaborate against the communist threat. As in Italy, some preconditions seemed favourable, as many former members of the Nazi Party and the SS were able to continue their careers. Especially the Christian Democratic and the Liberal Party were known for their integration of former Nazi functionaries, and many high-ranking officials of the BND, the police, the judiciary and, to a lower degree, even of the BfV had a Nazi past.Footnote 80 In contrast to Italy, however, the personnel continuity did not necessarily lead to an alliance between the security apparatus and the political right. The BfV under its first president and former anti-fascist Otto John (1950–1954) was without doubt a tool of the Cold War and focused predominantly on communist infiltration and the far left. But it was also successful in dismantling the SRP and its successor organisations and in infiltrating the far right milieu and preventing terrorist acts.Footnote 81
However, after the ban of the SRP and particularly after the rise of left-wing terrorism in the 1970s the West German security apparatus became obsessed with the domestic extremist left. The ‘blind-eye’ towards right-wing extremists enabled them to regroup and reorganise. Furthermore, since the mid-1970s informers became increasingly involved in terrorist groups’ activities and often supported or even initiated criminal acts.Footnote 82 A few examples from the 1970s and 1980s can illustrate this collusion, such as the aforementioned group Nationalistische Front and Ewald Althans, a leading member of the far right milieu. Althans often attended events together with Holocaust denier David Irving and was repeatedly convicted of hate speech and the use of unconstitutional symbols. During one of his trials he was exposed as a member of the Verfassungsschutz.Footnote 83 Despite these examples, however, recent studies show that the cooperation between members of the security apparatus and the far right in West Germany was never as systematic as in Italy during the strategy of tension.Footnote 84 Nevertheless, they also highlight that the use of informers and undercover agents was and is not only an efficient tool to counter terrorism, but also a problematic one.
Comparing Italy and Germany illustrates that personnel continuity is neither sufficient to explain the differences between the two countries nor to explain a possible collusion between the security apparatus and the far right. In Italy the generational changes within the security services and the far right in the second half of the 1970s strained former networks and ultimately led to the second wave of terrorist violence. In West Germany we can see a different trend. A few younger law enforcement officers and informers were more inclined to get involved in the far right scene than their predecessors. The rise of left-wing violence as well as the vanishing personal ties to the Nazi past and thus the fading personal memory of the horrors of the Nazi regime might be just two explanations for this phenomenon.
The security apparatus and law enforcement authorities never operated in a vacuum. The national political culture created the framework in which they conducted their work and it influenced the way they dealt with the rise of right-wing terrorism. According to Sprinzak the established culture is also a key factor in understanding why and when right-wing extremists resort to terrorist violence.Footnote 85 If the political culture systematically legitimises the far right it is more likely to gain support from the state apparatus and to use terrorism as a tool against perceived enemies. As I will suggest, this aspect of Sprinzak's theory is extremely relevant in order to explain the different scale of right-wing terrorism in West Germany and Italy.
In contrast to Germany, the use of violence as a means to achieve political goals was a common occurrence since the Italian wars of liberation and even after the Second World War it was not perceived as illegitimate per se.Footnote 86 In this climate politicians demonstrated a certain reluctance to label bombings as terrorism during the strategy of tension, a term that is usually used to delegitimise the cause of any violent group. The word ‘terrorism’, however, became the common name for right-wing violence after the state was directly attacked in 1972.Footnote 87 Moreover, Italian political culture was shaped by the idea of trasformismo – a strategy that does not aim to destroy a political opponent but rather attempts to wear him out through compromise. This notion was at the heart of the elite's desire to reconcile the different factions in society and politics after the deadly civil war of 1943–5. Part of this endeavour was the effort to avoid any kind of ‘Italian Nuremberg Trial’ and instead to continue a national narrative that revolved around the myth of the ‘good Italian’ – as portrayed in Louis de Bernières's novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin (1994). This self-denying policy of remembrance allowed many prominent fascists to continue their careers in public.Footnote 88
Consequently, the openly neo-fascist party MSI, as well as right-wing extremist groups, were accepted and tolerated provided they played by the rules of trasformismo. Thus, radicals – and those individuals within the security apparatus who helped them – were convinced that they possessed the moral right to attack ‘inferior’ groups. Legitimised by the established culture, terrorists and their supporters were tempted to push the boundaries of their environment in order to find out how the state would respond. But when they attacked innocent people and the state directly they repudiated the principles of trasformismo and thus lost their legitimation. Having done so, they became more isolated and consequently experienced a serious crisis that would eventually lead to the second split.Footnote 89
Despite the flaws of de-Nazification, right-wing extremism in West Germany started as – and mostly remained – a form of extra-parliamentary protest. In contrast to Italy Germany's defeat in the Second World War marked the end of a specific narrative of national development. To avoid a ‘second Weimar’ the country's founding fathers were convinced that the state needed instruments to prevent the rise of unconstitutional parties. In reference to Karl Loewenstein and Karl Mannheim, Carlo Schmid (SPD) famously stated in 1948 that ‘you must have the courage to be intolerant against those who want to utilise fundamental rights to destroy democracy’.Footnote 90 This idea of a militant democracy (wehrhafte Demokratie), enshrined in articles 9 and 21 II of the Basic Law (Grundgesetz), allowed the government to prohibit any organisation that was labelled unconstitutional (verfassungsfeindlich) by the Federal Constitutional Court. Thus, the political and judicial elite was enabled to act more aggressively against extremism in general, rather than just banning the identical reorganisation of the dissolved fascist party as in Italy (Constitution, Final Provision, XII). Especially during the Adenauer years, groups from both left and right were under government scrutiny. With the help of informers and law enforcement agencies Bonn did not hesitate to dissolve right-wing organisations and their paramilitary units if it deemed them un-constitutional. By ‘1964 [the government banned] 64 far left and far right organisations’.Footnote 91 Even though many opinion polls in 1950s West Germany suggest that the Germans showed little remorse for the Third Reich, the commitment to the principle of a wehrhafte Demokratie was an important element in welding together the political establishment. Such commitment undermined the attempts of right-wing extremists to be accepted as a legitimate force in the political landscape of the new West German state.Footnote 92
Conclusion
Historian Richard Drake has asserted that in ‘terms of human psychology, great crimes inevitably draw many people to conspiracy theories’.Footnote 93 Such behaviour is reminiscent of the theories that arose in connection with Italian and German right-wing terrorism. However, conspiracy theories seem to be more widespread in Italy than in Germany.Footnote 94 Or, as Leonard Weinberg has stated: ‘Italian politics is to conspiracy theories as air is to fire’.Footnote 95 The terrorist violence in the 1970s and 1980s in general, and right-wing terrorism during the strategy of tension in particular, caused a deep wound in Italian society that has not yet healed and has led to a ‘divided memory’ (John Foot) about post-war Italy.Footnote 96 Even today these theories are used as tools to criticise and delegitimise the former DC and its political heirs for the economic, political and social decay of the country. They support the notion that a political change, which was desired by the Italian public and would have stopped the epidemic of political violence, was stopped by an alliance between the DC, the United States and the far right. Popular films and songs constantly reinforce the view that the government had played politics with terrorism.Footnote 97
As tempting as a further discussion of these conspiracy theories might be, the aim of this article was different. I wanted to offer a more systematic analysis and explanation of right-wing terrorism based on the available documents and secondary literature. Using Sprinzak's theory of split delegitimisation and a comparison of the Italian and West German cases I have tried to shed more light on the history and dimension of right-wing terrorism in both countries. Sprinzak's model convincingly explains how the development of right-wing terrorist groups followed an internal dynamic. Even though connections between the state security apparatus and terrorists existed, there is no evidence that the two states masterminded the radicalisation of the extreme right. Nonetheless, the Italian far right enjoyed more substantial support from elements in the state apparatus than was the case in Germany. To explain this discrepancy, which is fundamental to understanding the different levels of right-wing terrorism, we should not only analyse personnel continuities and networks between the security apparatus and the radical right. I have argued that we must also include at least two other aspects to clarify why especially the strategy of tension led to more bloodshed in Italy yet was more or less non-existent in Germany: first, the nature of the perceived communist threat and its implications for domestic and foreign policy planners in playing the far right against the left and, second, the political culture in each country. The commonly tolerated use of violence to achieve political goals and above all the notion of trasformismo legitimised the far right in Italy and allowed extremists and even terrorists to thrive. Aware that their values were not in every sense opposed to the interests of some elements within the state apparatus, they developed a feeling of power. This perceived affinity – even if it was sometimes only an imagined bond – allowed them to deploy violence to a degree not possible in Germany.
Instead of uncovering new conspiracies based on ‘fast-food research’ (Andrew Silke) and satisfying a sensation-seeking audience, future research on right-wing terrorism should focus more on a comparative historical approach to further specify Sprinzak's model from 1995 and to expose the political and social framework in which right-wing terrorism exists and thrives. Apart from West Germany and Italy, future studies should also include the far right scenes in France and Great Britain and the networks that existed between these groups. We can only fully understand the emergence of right-wing terrorist organisations when we acknowledge that they have an agency and dynamic of their own. This is even more urgent in a time when – once again – the far right is on the rise in Europe and the United States of America.
