How a men's fitness club became an armed neo-Nazi cell
EXCLUSIVE: Racism, guns and paranoia; an SBS News investigation has uncovered an underground network of armed Australian men who share interests in self-help fitness and white supremacy that has never been reported on before in the media. Here, one member speaks out over concerns views within the group could one day cross the barrier into violence.
In an unassuming semi-industrial complex in an outer suburb of an Australian city, you might hear the blast of heavy metal music and the grunts of a small group of men as they work out and practice martial arts.
They are working professionals, small business owners, and fathers.
Secretly, says Mark (not his real name), some group members have been preparing for what they believe will be an upcoming race conflict in Australia. Some have gun licences and others have been attempting to buy firearms illegally.
And while the group says its training is only in 'preparation' for conflict, Mark worries about a member one day acting out.
“My big fear right now is there’s only a matter of time before one of these guys takes matters into his own hands,” he says.
The group has “cells” in multiple states across Australia, he says, and SBS News has seen evidence of them communicating with white supremacy groups in the United States and Europe.
More than one of the overseas groups has been listed as a terrorist organisation and another as a hate group.
'Self-betterment' and swastikas
Mark is telling his story as the Australian Federal Police’s Counter Terrorism & Special Investigations Command revealed to SBS News there has been a 750 per cent increase in its caseload of ideologically motivated extremism over the past 18 months. And that is only expected to climb.
Neo-Nazis, or ‘new’ Nazis, share racist and ethno-nationalist views similar to those of the Nazi Party which was active in Germany until 1945.
SBS News has seen photos of men in the wider network Mark's group is in posing with Nazi flags and swastikas. Others show them making the hand sign of white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan, as well as experimenting with weapons including high-powered firearms.
Footage also shows them engaging in paramilitary training in the Australian bush, and encrypted messages reveal discussions with overseas terrorist organisations about the use of explosives.
Messages between group members seen by SBS News also talk about “cleansing” Australia and refer to ethnic and religious minority groups as “unters”, a reference to the Nazi Germany word ‘untermensch’, meaning sub-human.
Mark is a self-confessed ethno-nationalist and says he initially found common ground with members of the group over his anti-immigration views - but now he feels uncomfortable.
“I signed up for a brotherhood of self-betterment, concerned about the failures of multiculturalism in Australia. I feel like things are now getting out of hand.”
He says societal disruptions in Australia caused by the COVID-19 pandemic - including unemployment, lockdowns and mandatory vaccination - have intensified the racist rhetoric of some of the group’s members.
“COVID was like hitting the fast-forward button ... just evidence to the movement that society is weak and a collapse is close.”
“It starts to get more and more violent. There is this besieged mentality, like we are under attack, so we need to prepare, train and be ready for a war really soon.”
Muslim community ‘threatened’
Mark's group has a long list of ‘enemies’, he says, but a major focus of their hatred in communication SBS News has seen is of Muslims - and it goes back some years.
On encrypted messaging channels, group members celebrated the 2019 Christchurch attacks at two mosques which killed 51 people.
Adel Salman is the president of the Islamic Council of Victoria and has friends whose loved ones died in the attacks. He says the threat of underground groups like the one Mark is in is not lost on Australia’s Muslim communities.
“Muslims feel threatened. We don’t have to look back to the very tragic events in Christchurch to see what the results of that hatred can be.”
Mr Salman believes Australian authorities have inflamed hatred of Muslims by repeatedly calling on Muslim leaders to condemn acts of terror by Islamic extremists.
Such requests by Australian prime ministers, including Scott Morrison, created a sense of “otherness” and “complicity” that all Australian Muslims held extremist sympathies, and helped justify hatred of Muslims by the extremist right, he says.
“The narrative has been somehow Muslims have been problematic and that we need to somehow find a solution to the Muslim problem. And the damage done has been extensive; it’s created division and a sense of alienation.”
Mr Morrison did not respond directly to questions about such comments made by leaders. He told SBS News in a statement: “The threat of ideologically motivated violent extremism is real and growing, including from extremist nationalists and racists groups and individuals, and I will continue to always call it out and work to stop it”.
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