Reichsrock

The International Web of White-Power and Neo-Nazi Hate Music

By Kirsten Dyck

Rutgers University Press

From rap to folk to punk, music has often sought to shape its listeners’ political views, uniting them as a global community and inspiring them to take action. Yet the rallying potential of music can also be harnessed for sinister ends. As this groundbreaking new book reveals, white-power music has served as a key recruiting tool for neo-Nazi and racist hate groups worldwide.

Reichsrock shines a light on the international white-power music industry, the fandoms it has spawned, and the virulently racist beliefs it perpetuates. Kirsten Dyck not only investigates how white-power bands and their fans have used the internet to spread their message globally, but also considers how distinctly local white-power scenes have emerged in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the United States, and many other sites. While exploring how white-power bands draw from a common well of nationalist, racist, and neo-Nazi ideologies, the book thus also illuminates how white-power musicians adapt their music to different locations, many of which have their own terms for defining whiteness and racial otherness.

Closely tracking the online presence of white-power musicians and their fans, Dyck analyzes the virtual forums and media they use to articulate their hateful rhetoric. This book also demonstrates how this fandom has sparked spectacular violence in the real world, from bombings to mass shootings. Reichsrock thus sounds an urgent message about a global menace.

Fascinating and by far the most comprehensive treatment of the topic. No other book provides this level of detail regarding white power music. Pete Simi, author of American Swastika: Inside the White Power Movement's Hidden Spaces of Hate

In this disturbing study of the rise/success of racist rock that recruits, rallies, and rouses angry, hate-filled followers of darkly apocalyptic music, Dyck reveals a disturbing, emerging medium with global roots … Highly recommended. Choice

Provide[s] deep and detailed insight into recent formations and violent effects of white-power music, phenomena inspired into greater prominence by the current rise of far-right social and political movements. American Music

In this disturbing study of the rise/success of racist rock that recruits, rallies, and rouses angry, hate-filled followers of darkly apocalyptic music, Dyck reveals a disturbing, emerging medium with global roots … Highly recommended. Choice

Fascinating and by far the most comprehensive treatment of the topic. No other book provides this level of detail regarding white power music. Pete Simi, author of American Swastika: Inside the White Power Movement's Hidden Spaces of Hate

Provide[s] deep and detailed insight into recent formations and violent effects of white-power music, phenomena inspired into greater prominence by the current rise of far-right social and political movements. American Music

KIRSTEN DYCK is an instructor of history, humanities, writing, and English as a foreign language at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. She is a former fellow of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Auschwitz Jewish Center, and the German-American Fulbright Commission.

Acknowledgments

1What Is White-Power Music?

2The History of White-Power Music in Britain

3The History of White-Power Music in Continental Western Europe

4The History of White-Power Music in Eastern Europe

5The History of White-Power Music outside Europe

6Conclusion

Notes

Select Bibliography

Select Recordings Cited

Index

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