Karl-Heinz Priester

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Karl-Heinz Priester (1913 – April 1961) was a German far right political activist. Although he played only a minor role in Nazi Germany he became a leading figure on the extreme right in Europe after the Second World War.

Under the Nazis

Priester had been head of propaganda for the Hitler Youth before going on to serve as an officer in the Waffen SS.[1]

Post-war

Priester joined the Deutsche Reichspartei around the time of its formation and became associated with the hard-line neo-Nazi tendency of the party.[2] He was in attendance at the 1951 conference in Malmö that saw the foundation of the European Social Movement.[1] Priester, who by that time was leading his own Deutsch-Soziale Bewegung group, initially had problems attending after his visa was refused but ultimately he was appointed to the four man council of leadership alongside chairman Per Engdahl, Maurice Bardèche and Augusto De Marsanich.[3] Priester was an enthusiastic supporter of the idea of a united Europe[4] although his co-operation with another leading light of that position, Oswald Mosley, was hamstrung by the stormy nature of their persoanl relations.[5]

Priester was a featured essayist for Nation Europa from the journal's foundation in 1951.[6] Working closely with Otto Skorzeny, Priester attempted to utilise the magazine as a rallying point for his dream of European unity and travelled widely promoting this aim, including meetings in London with his rival Mosley.[7] The two even worked together on their shared aim of exporting the idea to South Africa, where Mosely had already secured an alliance with former cabinet minister Oswald Pirow.[8]

Publishing

He controlled his own publishing house, the Verlag Karl-Heinz Priester, which produced the works of a number of authors including Paul Rassinier.[9] The Verlag also published Advance to Barbarism, an attack on the validity of the Nuremberg Trials by British Union of Fascists and Union Movement activist F.J.P. Veale, with an introduction written by another prominent critic of the trials Maurice Hankey, 1st Baron Hankey.[10]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Roger Griffin & Matthew Feldman, Fascism: The "Fascist Epoch", 2004, p. 181
  2. ↑ Graham Macklin, Very Deeply Dyed in Black, 2007, p. 103
  3. ↑ Macklin, Very Deeply Dyed in Black, p. 107
  4. ↑ Stephen Dorril,Blackshirt: Sir Oswald Mosley & British Fascism, 2007, p. 590
  5. ↑ Macklin, Very Deeply Dyed in Black, p. 178
  6. ↑ Dorril,Blackshirt, p. 591
  7. ↑ Dorril,Blackshirt, p. 592
  8. ↑ Dorril,Blackshirt, pp. 596−7
  9. ↑ John Michael Steiner, Power Politics and Social Change in National Socialist Germany, 1976, p. 429
  10. ↑ Macklin, Very Deeply Dyed in Black, p. 130
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