Blood & Honour

File:BloodandHonourlogo.png

Official logo

Template:Neo-Nazism sidebar Template:Far-right politics in the United Kingdom sidebar Blood & Honour is a neo-Nazi music promotion network and right-wing extremist political group founded in the United Kingdom by Ian Stuart Donaldson in 1987. It is composed of white nationalists and has links to Combat 18.

Sometimes the code 28 is used to represent Blood & Honour, derived from the second and eighth letters of the Latin alphabet, B and H, and the group uses Nazi symbolism. Its official website self-describes as a "musical based resistance network" and dubs its "global confederacy of freedom fighters" Brotherhood 28.

In the UK, the group used to organise white power concerts by Rock Against Communism (RAC) bands. It publishes a magazine called Blood and Honour. There are official divisions in several countries, including two rival groups in the United States. It is banned in several countries, including Germany, Spain, Russia, and Canada. In January 2025, the UK government applied financial sanctions to the organisation under counter-terrorism regulations.

History

Blood & Honour was established in 1987 by Skrewdriver frontman Ian Stuart Donaldson, supported by the bands No Remorse, Brutal Attack, Sudden Impact, and Squadron.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> These bands were previously affiliated with the White Noise Club, a subsidiary organisation of the National Front responsible for organising Rock Against Communism concerts, operating the White Noise Records label, and publishing a zine called White Noise.<ref>Template:Citation</ref>

Tensions between Donaldson and the leadership of the White Noise Club developed in 1987, as Donaldson felt that the White Noise Club was siphoning money out of the Rock Against Communism scene to use for the National Front's political campaigns.<ref name=":1" /> Donaldson's Skrewdriver officially split from the White Noise Club in May 1987, and several other bands within the scene followed.<ref>Forbes and Stampton, The White Nationalist Skinhead Movement, p. 252, 245.</ref>

Blood & Honour was launched as an alternative to the White Noise Club in July 1987, with the appearance of the first edition of Blood & Honour magazine. Copies were sent free of charge to members of the White Noise Club (Donaldson used contacts within the National Front to obtain their mailing list),<ref>Shaffer, Music, Youth and International Links in Post-War British Fascism, p. 126.</ref> together with a note by Donaldson denouncing the White Noise Club as a "corrupt rip-off".<ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref> A concert to "launch" Blood & Honour was held at the St Helier Arms on the 5th of September, 1987, featuring performances from Skrewdriver, No Remorse, Brutal Attack, and Sudden Impact.<ref>Forbes and Stampton, The White Nationalist Skinhead Movement, p. 257.</ref>

By the end of 1988, Blood & Honour magazine was a quarterly that had grown from eight to 16 pages after a few issues. The magazine included concert reports, band interviews, readers' letters, RAC record charts and a column called "White Whispers". A mail-order service called Skrewdriver Services soon formed within its pages, selling items such as white power albums, T-shirts and flags; Loyalist music tapes; and Swastika pendants.<ref name="Skrewdriver">Skrewdriver Rockumentary 1977 to 1993 - From Punk to Patriotism. Midgard Records (Sweden). 2000.</ref>

The back page of Blood & Honour Issue Number 13 advertised a Skrewdriver concert in London on 12 September 1992. Posters and fliers were posted around the country, advertising the concert and listing a redirection point as Waterloo Rail Station. The night before the concert, Donaldson was attacked in a Burton pub. The next day, police closed down Waterloo Station and the tube station, preventing many people from reaching the redirection point. Hundreds more Blood & Honour supporters who had journeyed from abroad were turned back at ports in Folkestone and Dover. The Blood & Honour supporters clashed with anti-fascist protesters. Missiles such as bricks and champagne bottles taken from bins outside of South Bank restaurants were used during the ensuing riot. Battles ensued for about two hours until the police separated the two groups, and the concert proceeded in the function hall of the Yorkshire Grey pub in Eltham, South-East London. The incident got international media coverage and became known as the "Battle of Waterloo".<ref name="diamond">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

In 1992, the newly formed Midlands division organised the annual Blood & Honour White Xmas concert. On 19 December, over 400 supporters gathered at a working men's club in Mansfield to watch No Remorse, Razors Edge and Skrewdriver perform. In 1993, the East Midlands division planned to stage an outdoor festival on 31 July. Donaldson was arrested and served with an injunction order not to perform at the concert. The venue was blockaded by the police, who seized amplifiers and confiscated sound equipment. It was the biggest police operation in the area since the Miners strikes in the early 1980s.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Later that year, the East Midlands division organised a concert for 25 September. Three nights before the concert, Donaldson and a few friends were travelling in a car that spun out of control into a ditch. Donaldson and another passenger died, and other passengers had minor wounds. The following day, 100 Skrewdriver supporters travelled to the Blood & Honour social in the Midlands, unaware of the deaths.Template:Citation needed

Each year, on or near the anniversary of Donaldson's death, a large memorial concert is held. In 2008, a concert in Redhill, Somerset attracted widespread BBC, radio and newspaper coverage.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The memorial concert to mark the 20th anniversary of the death of Donaldson reportedly was the biggest associated gig in the UK with between 1,000 and 1,200 people attending.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> On the 23rd anniversary of the death of founder, Ian Stuart Donaldson, the annual memorial gig once again attracted international television and media coverage.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Blood & Honour remains active in the UK but has contracted since the 1980s and 1990s; researchers Matthew Worley and Nigel Copsey suggest that its membership consists mainly of "heavily-tattooed men in their fifties reliving their 'glory days' at occasional gigs in back-room pubs".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> As of 2019, the organisation organises up to fifteen concerts a year in the UK.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite journal</ref>

In January 2025, the UK Government announced a full asset freeze against Blood & Honour, "an entity it has reasonable grounds to suspect of being involved in terrorist activities through promoting and encouraging terrorism, seeking to recruit people for that purpose and making funds available for the purposes of its terrorist activities".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Description and symbolism

The group is composed of White Nationalists and has links to Combat 18.<ref name="Storm">Template:Cite web</ref> Its official website self-describes as a "musical based resistance network" and dubs its "global confederacy of freedom fighters" Brotherhood 28.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Sometimes the code 28 is used to represent Blood & Honour, derived from the second and eighth letters of the Latin alphabet, B and H. Though different national chapters of Blood & Honour use different Nationalist symbols based on their location, common symbolic traits include the usage of a modernised Blackletter script, colours of the Nazi German flag, and other Nazi symbolism, including the Totenkopf Death's Head insignia of the SS-Totenkopfverbände and concentration camp units.<ref name="symbols">Template:Cite web</ref>

International groups

By 1989, Blood & Honour magazine had international circulation,<ref>Shaffer, Music, Youth and International Links in Post-War British Fascism, p. 129.</ref> and over the next decade, branches formed across all of Europe, North America, and Australia.

Western Europe

Germany

The white power skinhead subculture had spread to Germany in the early 1980s, introduced by British troops stationed there.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> German label Rock-O-Rama Records had Skrewdriver and other English RAC bands on their roster.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Blood & Honour Deutschland formed in 1994. The branch published their own magazine, and were prolific in organising white power music concerts. Uwe Mundlos, Uwe Böhnhardt, and Beate Zschäpe—perpetrators of the National Socialist Underground murders—were supported by members of the Thuringia and Saxony chapters of Blood & Honour.<ref>Template:Citation</ref>

In 2000, the German government banned Blood & Honour Deutschland as a criminal organisation,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and raided the homes of thirty members.<ref>Dyck, Reichsrock, p.44</ref> Köehler reports that the group immediately reformed under the name Division 28 (B and H being the second and eight letters of the alphabet respectively) and continued their previous activities.<ref>Köehler, "The German ‘National Socialist Underground (NSU)’ and Anglo-American Networks", p. 131.</ref>

Netherlands

A Dutch branch of Blood & Honour called under the name Hou Kontakt formed in the early 1990s, but collapsed around 1995.<ref name=":3">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":4">Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2001, a group of neo-Nazi skinheads from Limburg called the Mijnstreek-Oost Skins formed a new branch under the name Blood & Honour Nederland.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":4" /> A contingent of dissatisfied ex-members of the Nederlandse Volks-Unie (NVU) joined in the following year.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> They had been affiliated with a radical offshoot of the NVU called the Racial Volunteer Force (RVF), led by Eite Homan.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2004, the NVU/RVF affiliates split away to form their own branch, using the names B&H/RVF and B&H/C18.<ref name=":5">Template:Cite web</ref> The remainder of Blood & Honour Nederland continued, using the name Blood & Honour Traditional.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The RVF branch criticised the Traditional branch for focussing too much on social events, concerts, and drinking, rather than political action, and were notable for their extreme "outspoken support of violence" and extreme antisemitism.<ref name=":5" /><ref name=":3" />

Relations between the two groups were hostile. At a 2004 concert organised by the NVU, members of B&H/RVF stormed the stage to attack Slovenian band Skullkrusher; Skullkrusher were affiliated with the Traditional wing of Blood & Honour, and had disparaged a local C18 chapter in an interview with Blood & Honour magazine.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Blood & Honour Nederland was at its peak around 2006, having experienced success with recruiting from a far-right element of the gabber subculture called "Lonsdalers".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> By 2010, the membership of these groups had collapsed, and there were only two or three regional Blood & Honour branches active.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":4"/> As of 2022, Blood & Honour played "little if any role of significance in the Netherlands," according to a government report.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

France

A French branch of Blood & Honour formed in 1999 under the name Blood & Honour Midgard.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Dyck, Reichsrock, p. 67.</ref> By 2010, this branch had closed, and a new group called Blood & Honour Hexagone formed in 2011.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This group was based in the south of France near Marseille, and was led by Loïc Delboy.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Blood & Honour Hexagone had only 12 members, with another 4 "prospective members" and 7 "supporters", but their concerts drew hundreds of attendees.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Blood & Honour Hexagone was disbanded by the French government in 2019.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Three of its leaders were also prosecuted for "participation in a combat group", but all were acquitted of this charge in 2022.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Four members were convicted of separate weapons offences and imprisoned or fined.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Belgium

In 2001, Blood & Honour Midgard founded a section in Flanders called Blood & Honour Midgard Vlaanderen. This group was headquartered in Bruges.<ref name=":6">Template:Cite web</ref> Three skinheads from this chapter killed a black man in a random attack in 2006.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In October 2008, the leader and two other key members from this Midgard branch were arrested for violating Belgium's Anti-Racism Law.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Two concerts that they organised had been filmed by undercover police and a journalist, who captured attendees giving the Nazi salute and calling for the persecution of Jews. All three were convicted in 2011 and sentenced to three months of imprisonment, suspended for two of the men.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

A separate group in Flanders formed in the same year, calling themselves Blood & Honour Vlaanderen. Unlike the Midgard branch, this group was not officially recognised by Blood & Honour's UK leadership.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> They were also known as Bloed, Bodem, Eer, Trouw (BBET), which was the name of the magazine they published.<ref name=":6" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Nordic countries

Blood & Honour demonstrating on Finnish independence day

Scandinavia

Blood and Honour Scandinavia was formed in 1996 by Marcel Schilf and Erik Blücher, with headquarters in Sweden.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Schilf and Blücher were allied with Combat 18, and supported that faction's bid for control of Blood & Honour in the United Kingdom.<ref>Ravndal, "Right-wing Terrorism and Militancy in the Nordic Countries", p. 775.</ref> Blood & Honour Scandinavia published an English-language magazine and maintained a website, where Blücher posted his writings under the pseudonym Max Hammer.<ref name=":2">Shaffer, Music, Youth and International Links, p. 246</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> These writings advocated a strategy of "leaderless resistance" to incite a race war.<ref>Wilhelmsen, "From New Order to the Millennium of White Power", p. 29.</ref> They established a Danish branch in 1998, which also published its own magazine.<ref name=":2" /><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Schilf and another key member died in 2001; a leadership struggle followed, and the group soon disintegrated.<ref>Ravndal, "Right-wing Terrorism and Militancy in the Nordic Countries", p. 779.</ref>

Finnish Blood & Honour member Marko "Jäsä" Järvinen ran the Ainaskin video production company. Järvinen produced video magazine "Kriegsberichter" that contained violent Nazi propaganda like a refugee center being burned down and instructions on how to build explosives.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Finland

A short-lived Finnish chapter of Blood & Honour formed in the mid-1990s.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> A second iteration formed in 2003, and was still active as of 2020.<ref>Kotonen, "Politics, violence and transgression in Finnish Rock Against Communism music", p. 416.</ref> The group has connections to the Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM), and members were photographed with the Soldiers of Odin in 2018 and 2019.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Members of Blood & Honour have been candidates for the far-right Finns Party.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Finns Party councillor Risto Helin was photographed wearing a Blood & Honour shirt and he donated Adolf Hitler paraphernalia to an affiliated skinhead club in Vaasa.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=ts.fi>Template:Cite web</ref> Blood & Honour gained attention in Finland when an affiliated "April Group" distributed "wanted dead or alive" posters of Left Alliance chair Suvi-Anne Siimes.<ref name=ts.fi/>

Finnish pro-MMA fighter Niko Puhakka ran security for Blood & Honour Helsinki. The skinheads got into an armed confrontation with another gang on 14 August 2012 at the Roihupelto club where Puhakka was wounded by a bullet.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=Laitos>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Prominent members of the associations who rent for Blood & Honour are Atte Enroth and Jarkko Räsänen who have convictions for anti-immigrant violence stretching back to the 1990s.<ref name=Laitos/>

Blood & Honour Kouvola organized charity football matches and concerts for disabled veterans in 2005, and were donated the use of the city's stadium for the event. After the media brought up Blood & Honour's violently racist character, the representatives of the city denied knowing what sort of organization it was. The event raised thousands of euros, which were accepted by the veterans' organization, although they stated they do not endorse Blood & Honour.<ref>RAHANKERÄYS: Rotuvihamielinen Blood and Honour -järjestö on lahjoittanut Sotainvalidien Veljesliitolle viime vuosina tuhansia euroja. Varainhankintaa tuki myös Kouvolan kaupunki. Keskisuomalainen. 9.12.2005.</ref>

Since 2022 Finnish Blood & Honour has organized an annual "White Boy Summer Fest" together with Hammerskins and Veren Laki (Law of Blood), a neo-Nazi combat sports collective connected to the NRM. The festival includes concerts and MMA tournament.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Southern Europe

Spain

A Spanish branch formed in 1999 under the name "Asociación Cultural Sangre y Honor" (transl. "Cultural Association Blood & Honour).<ref>Dyck, Reichsrock. p. 70.</ref> The group was headquartered in San Sebastián de los Reyes, with sections in four other Spanish cities.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> They organised RAC concerts, sold neo-Nazi merchandise, and published a free magazine from 2001.<ref>Dyck, Reichsrock. p. 71.</ref> In 2010, 14 members were found guilty of criminal association and possession of illegal weapons.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Madrid court ordered the dissolution of Sangre y Honor as an unlawful association, and the Supreme Court upheld this decision in 2011.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Greece

A Greek chapter, Blood & Honour Hellas, formed in 1999.<ref>Dyck, Reichsrock, p. 100.</ref> They were supported by far-right political party Golden Dawn, and maintained links.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

United States

In the United States, two rival groups claim the name: Blood and Honour Council USA and Blood and Honour America Division.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Other countries

Blood & Honour is banned in several countries. It was banned in Russia in 2012.<ref name=":0" /> In 2019, the government of Canada placed Blood & Honour on its list of designated terrorist groups.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 1999, some Blood & Honour groups published support on their official websites for the Malexander murders in Sweden.Template:Citation needed

Blood & Honour Australia & the Southern Cross Hammerskins have been organising the annual Ian Donaldson Memorial concert in Melbourne since 1994. Reports by the media that the concert in 2019 was cancelled at the last minute were false, as it went ahead as it does each year without incident.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

• Bloed-Bodem-Eer en Trouw (Flemish splinter group of Blood & Honour Vlaanderen)
• List of neo-Nazi bands
• List of neo-Nazi organizations
• Nazi punk
• Vlaamse Militanten Orde
• White power skinhead
• List of white nationalist organizations

Further reading

• Lowles, Nick; Silver, Steve (eds.) (1998). White Noise: Inside the International Nazi Skinhead Scene. London. Template:ISBN.
• London, Paul. Nazi Rock Star: A Biography of Ian Stuart.
• Marshall, George (1990). Spirit of '69: A Skinhead Bible. Dunoon, Scotland: ST Publishing. Template:ISBN.
• Marshall, George (1996). Skinhead Nation. S.T. Publishing. Template:ISBN.

External links

• Template:Official website
• Blood & Honour symbol, in the Anti-Defamation League's "Hate On Display" database