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Erich Kern, (born Erich Knud Kernmayr on 27 February 1906 – died 13 September 1991) was a far-right Austrian journalist, war-time propagandist, and a post-war Nazi activist. He became a writer of revisionist books that sought to glorify the activities of the German soldiers during the Second World War.[1]


Early years


Kernmayer was born in Graz. As a youth he was briefly affiliated to the youth wing of the Social Democratic Party of Austria, before moving to the right, initially with the radical Sturmvolk movement before joining the Austrian Nazi Party.[2] As the party was illegal he was imprisoned for a while in 1934.[2]

His first experience as a journalist came on the Essener National-Zeitung, a local newspaper owned by Hermann Göring.[2] He subsequently served as press-chief to Gauleiter Josef Bürckel, effectively controlling the press in both Ostmark and Saarland.[2] By 1940 he was the chief of the Pressestelle of Gauleiters.[2] He saw active service during the Second World War with the Waffen SS, holding the rank of Obersturmbannführer.[2] Taken prisoner after the war, he was held in internment in Austria for two and a half years before being released in 1948.[2]


Writing


During the Second World War, he had served with the 4th Battalion of the SS Division Leibstandarte around the Black Sea and wrote about his experiences in his 1948 book Der Grosse Rausch, which was republished in English as Dance of Death in 1951.[3] In the book he bemoaned the failure of Nazi Germany in the Soviet Union, arguing that a German victory would have brought culture to the supposedly uncivilized Russian people.[4] The book was published only a few months after his release, despite one of the conditions being that he was banned from any publishing.[2] Kern moved to West Germany in 1949 where he became known as a novelist.[2] As an author on military history his works were largely published by the Verlag Welsermühl, a far-right revisionist publishing house that sought to portray a pro-German version of Second World War history.[2]

Another book, Menschen im Netz (1957) formed the basis for the Franz Peter Wirth-directed film People in the Net (1959).[5] He was also press chief of the HIAG and editor of Der Freiwillige, their monthly journal.[6] In this capacity he became noted for his defences of the actions of the SS and his celebrations of that movement.[2] He also edited the radical nationalist journals Deutsche Soldaten-Zeitung, Deutsche Wochenzeitung and Riechsruf, also contributing regularly to Nation Europa - a journal for which he set on a five-man board of associate editors.[6] His work for these journals focused mainly on the exoneration of the SS and Nazi Germany and attacks on the Allies and Israel.[2]


Neo-Nazi activism


Kern was a supporter of the pan-European nationalism that became important in post-war far right politics and was a regular contributor to Europe-Action, a journal devoted to this ideal controlled by the Fédération des étudiants nationalistes of Dominique Venner.[7] Active in far-right German politics, he served as a member of the neo-Nazi Socialist Reich Party, the National Democratic Party of Germany and the German People's Union.[8] As an NPD member he was active in ultimately failed attempts to unite the German far right during the early 1970s.[2] He was also active in the Deutsches Kulturwerk Europäischen Geistes, a German cultural organisation founded by Herbert Böhme.[2]

In the 1950s, Kern joined HIAG, a post-war historical negationist lobby group for former Waffen-SS men. He first became active within HIAG in 1955, and then joined as a full-time employee in 1959. Kern became the organisation's key employee responsible for its publishing arm. According to the historian Jonathan Petropoulos, Kern remained an "unrepentant and unreconstructed Nazi" up to his death in 1991.[9]


Death


Kern died in Kammer am Attersee.


Publications


Kern was a prolific author and despite his Nazi pedigree, was able to achieve a certain amount of literary success. His works include:


References


  1. Hermann Kurthen, Werner Bergmann & Rainer Erb, Antisemitism and Xenophobia in Germany after Unification, 1997, p. 176
  2. Philip Rees, Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890, 1990, p. 208
  3. Charles Messenger, Hitler's Gladiator: The Life and Wars of Panzer Army Commander Sepp Dietrich, 2005, p. 100
  4. Paul Howard Bixler, The Antioch Review Anthology, 1953, p. 450
  5. American Film Institute, The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Volume 1 Part 2, 1997, p. 1162
  6. G. Macklin, Very Deeply Dyed in Black, London, 2007, p. 180
  7. James Shields, The Extreme Right in France: From Pétain to Le Pen, 2007, p. 120
  8. Jonathan Petropoulos, The Faustian Bargain: The Art World in Nazi Germany, 2000, p. 152
  9. Petropoulos, Jonathan (2000). The Faustian Bargain: The Art World in Nazi Germany. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 151. ISBN 978-0-19-512964-9.




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