Blood and Honour

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Blood and Honour emblem.

Blood & Honour is a neo-Nazi music promotion network, founded in 1987.

The group organises white power concerts and distributes records by Rock Against Communism (RAC) bands. Ian Stuart Donaldson, singer of the band Skrewdriver, was the founder and one of the prominent leaders until his death in 1993. Blood & Honour took its name from the motto of the Hitler Youth, Blut und Ehre. Sometimes the code 28 stands for Blood & Honour, derived from the second and eighth letters of the Latin alphabet, B and H.

Blood & Honour accepts bands with neo-Nazi, white nationalist or white power views. There are several official divisions, such as in the United Kingdom, Belgium, Flanders, Australia, United States, Slovenia, Hungary, Bulgaria, France, Romania, Croatia, Greece, and Poland.

1 History
2 References
3 See also
4 External links
- 4.1 Official sites
- 4.2 Criticism

[edit] History

Blood and Honour logo, featuring Ian Stuart Donaldson.

The origins of the group go back to the United Kingdom in 1977, with the creation of the Anti-Nazi League's Rock Against Racism music organisation. The National Front (NF) responded with its Rock Against Communism movement, and by 1980, the reformed former punk rock band Skrewdriver relaunched the RAC movement.

With the aid of the National Front, concerts were organised under the RAC name through the White Noise Club (WNC), with White Noise Records releasing white power records. RAC grew throughout 1983 and 1984, with concerts regularly attended by over 600 people, promoted only by word of mouth.(Marshall, 1990) Bands that performed at the concerts included Skrewdriver, Brutal Attack, No Remorse, The Ovaltinees, Peter & The Wolves and Skullhead. In 1984, white power skinheads from Britain and Europe attended several outdoor RAC festivals organised by the WNC and the NF. With the release of Skrewdriver's Hail The New Dawn album on the German Rock-O-Rama label, the WNC gained an even larger audience.

The National Front split in 1986, which effectively saw the end of the WNC and its links to Rock-O-Rama. Around the same time, it was revealed that the WNC had been defrauding bands and concert-goers. Several bands left the WNC, including Skrewdriver, No Remorse, Sudden Impact and Brutal Attack. By June 1987, these bands launched Blood & Honour, with a magazine of the same name. The official launch was in September 1987 at a London concert with Skrewdriver, Brutal Attack, Sudden Impact, and No Remorse. By becoming politically independent, Blood & Honour started supporting many different organisations.

The German Blood and Honour division was prohibited on September 14, 2000, as was the Spanish division in 2005 after the arrest and imprisonment of many of its main leaders. Several other countries continue to investigate their respective Blood & Honour divisions in relation to hate speech.

[edit] References

White Noise: Inside the International Nazi Skinhead Scene. Edited by Nick Lowles and Steve Silver, London 1998. ISBN 0-9522038-3-9
Nazi Rock Star: A Biography of Ian Stuart By Paul London (aka Paul Burnley)
Spirit of '69: A Skinhead Bible. George Marshall, Dunoon, Scotland: ST Publishing, 1990. ISBN 1-898927-10-3