“Death to enemies of the fatherland”:
Violent Right-Wing Extremism infiltration
of the milieu of Polish football hooligans
Rafał Pankowski, Przemysław Witkowski
C O L L E G I U M C I V I T A S
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Citation:
Pankowski, R., Witkowski, P. (2023). “Death to enemies of the fatherland”:
Violent Right-Wing Extremism infiltration of the milieu of Polish football
hooligans. [In:] The Virus of Radicalization. (Ed.) Kuczyński, P. Warsaw:
Collegium Civitas. pp. 159-187. [Online] https://civitas.edu.pl/wp-
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Extremism-infiltration-07.pdf
DOI: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.22151858.
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“Death to enemies of the fatherland”:
Violent Right-Wing Extremism infiltration of the milieu
of Polish football hooligans
Rafał Pankowski
Przemysław Witkowski
Abstract
Football hooligans are a group extremely prone to radicalization. Research
and analyses from Western and, especially, Eastern European
countries show a strong infiltration of this group of fans by Violent RightWing
Extremism (VRWE). This is aided by the cult of strength and violence
as well as the violent actions of this category of football fans. The
aim of this work is to investigate this phenomenon in the Polish context
and to describe the relationship between right-wing extremists and the
environment of football hooligans and “ultras.” Numerous incidents related
to the VRWE ideology at stadiums will be listed, as well as direct
relationships between the VRWE activists and football hooligans. This
will make it possible to place the case of Poland in the international context
of this phenomenon and to show the advancement of this process.
Keywords
Football, hooligans, ultras, VRWE, RWE, far right, Neo-Nazis, Neofascists,
Poland
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Rafał Pankowski, Przemysław Witkowski
Introduction
Football culture is an important channel of political expression and socialization
in both Western and Eastern European societies (Carr, Parnell,
Widdop, Power, Millar (Eds.) 2021). Football stadiums can be
viewed as binding sites for identity-formation processes. Expressions of
ideological (e.g. national) symbolism in football culture constitute a significant
element of the contemporary construction of national identities.
Such expressions also serve as tools for constructing a vision of the
enemy who is excluded from the ideal imagined community, and vilifying
“the other” (Schmitt 2012). The performative repertoire of identityformation
rituals in football culture draws in many cases upon historical
imagery.
This is why political groups based on nationalism, historical resentment,
and hostility to foreigners and minorities find it particularly easy
to operate in such an environment. Football hooligans in many countries
are also particularly susceptible to radicalization. There are many examples
of states where nationalistic and xenophobic tendencies
(Wachter, Fanizadeh 2007) have led to transparent and easily traceable
cooperation of these circles with Violent Right-Wing Extremism (VRWE)
groups (Carr, Parnell, Widdop, Power, Millar (Eds.) 2021). Such tendencies
have been identified in the United Kingdom (Garland, Treadwell
2010), Germany (Claus 2017), and Italy (Testa, Armstrong 2008; eosdem
2010; Martin 2018). This is even more visible in Eastern Europe (Wilson
2006; Benedikter, Wojtaszyn 2017), especially in Serbia (Nielsen 2013),
Croatia (Hodges 2018; Perasović, Mustapic 2017), and Russia (Glathe,
Varga 2018; Glathe 2016; Arnold, Veth 2018).
This article aims to indicate similar connections in the case of Polish
football hooligans, showing selected examples (mainly concerning the
largest Polish cities: Warsaw, Gdańsk, Kraków, Wrocław, and Białystok)
of the scope and depth of the relationship between VRWE and hooligan
circles. It is an attempt to answer the question of whether the Polish
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“Death to enemies of the fatherland”: Violent Right-Wing Extremism infiltration of the milieu of
Polish football hooligans
case is in line with the trends indicated above in other Central and Eastern
European countries. The primary research material will be numerous
press articles from the past decade reporting on this type of relationship,
as well as reports collected by the association “Never Again,”
which has been monitoring hate speech, hate crimes, and extremist
events in Poland for more than 25 years, publishing compilations in the
form of the so-called Brown Book (Kornak 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014; Kornak,
Tatar 2016; Tatar 2019).
In this study, we understand far-right radicalization as the process by
which individuals or groups come to embrace attitudes or engage in actions
that support violence in the pursuit of far-right extremist causes.
We understand the concept of the milieu in a broad sense, as the people,
the physical and social conditions, and the events among which someone
acts or lives. A milieu of radicalization is a space where radical or extreme
messages are encountered, either online or offline. In the context
of this research, the milieu can be understood as the football stadium or
club, but most importantly, as a social network and communicative
space influenced by radical ideology.
In this work, we use Kossakowski’s division of fans into three primary
groups, namely activists, ultras, and hooligans (“hools” for short) (Kossakowski
2021). Activists are simply fans involved in their sports club,
co-creating fan associations or organizing trips to matches. “Ultras” are
fans who are exceptionally devoted to their club. They organize the scenery
in the stadium, support the cheering, use flares, and create and display
banners in the stadium. Political ideologies sometimes influence
these groups. “Hools” are gangs of fanatical fans of the club who physically
attack the supporters of another club, often engaging in regular
“battles” with them and the police, causing physical damage and material
losses to the opponents, the police, and residents of the area where
such fights take place (Ibidem). In this work, we will mainly deal with
the latter two groups, focusing on the “hools” as the most aggressive
and most often infiltrated by Right-Wing Extremism (RWE).
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Rafał Pankowski, Przemysław Witkowski
Historical context
Sports – and football in particular – have long been associated with national
(and nationalist) symbolism and ideology. The rise of mass-audience
sports in the twentieth century accompanied the emergence of the
modern nation-state as a unit of social organization. In the case of Poland,
as with several other East European nations, the emergence of a
modern national identity occurred in the absence of an independent nation-state
and its array of national institutions. Therefore, arguably, the
sports club had an additional function. It could, on occasion, serve as a
substitute point of reference in national identity building. As the historical
circumstances of Polish statehood and nationhood in the twentieth
century changed, so too did the social function of football. Poland was
not an independent state until 1918; the first clubs established in the
early twentieth century often served as a focus of national identity without
the nation-state (Gawkowski, Braciszewski 2012). In 1919, the Polish
Football Association (PZPN) was formed as one of the symbols of the
new Polish state.
Commemorations and celebrations of the legacy of ethnic diversity
by fans have remained notably absent in contemporary Eastern European
football. Numerous displays (such as large banners) in football stadiums
extol ethnonationalist pride and commemorate national(ist) heroes.
This seems to be a consequence of the current hegemony of an
ethnonationalist perspective on the history of sports in the region of
Central and Eastern Europe, including Poland. Boff Whalley points to
“football’s traditional masculinity, conservatism, racism, homophobia
and nationalism” (cited by Kuhn 2011: 7).
As shown by Ryszard Kapuściński (1992), the game can also serve as
a pretext for war or at least one of the blocks in the build-up towards
conflict between nations. Indeed, sport was commonly utilized as a way
of raising new generations of physically fit and patriotically minded conscripts
for the military forces of nation-states (Kuligowski 2012). The
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“Death to enemies of the fatherland”: Violent Right-Wing Extremism infiltration of the milieu of
Polish football hooligans
historical role of football in the process of “nationalization” or “patriotic
education” in Poland is stressed, for example, by the football historian
Józef Hałys, who suggests that the goal was “through sports, through
football, to mold people of diverse educational backgrounds, professions,
even religions – into good Poles” (Hałys cited in Świąder 2006).
During World War II and the Nazi occupation of Poland, playing football
was prohibited, but games continued as a form of resistance
(Ibidem). After 1945, football was strongly controlled by the newly established
Communist regime, and served its propaganda purposes. At
the same time, the fans’ movement and the stands were, or became as
the system decayed, a place where resistance to the authorities was occasionally
expressed. Eventually, with the economic and political transformation
after 1989, accompanied by unemployment and a decline in
living standards for some social groups during the transition period that
generated much anger and frustration, stadiums became places of even
more politicized expressions (Pankowski 2010). Aided further by the
transfer to Poland of the trend already visible in Western Europe, especially
in England – that is, the infiltration of the fan movement by RWE
– Polish stadiums in the 1990s were full of racist and xenophobic symbolism
and fierce clashes with the police or between groups of fans of
different teams (Ibidem).
Contemporary context
The political usage of football is not limited to the history of openly nondemocratic
politics. Numerous contemporary mainstream political leaders
have sought to associate themselves with the game, and the association
has served their popularity; Polish ex-prime minister Donald Tusk,
who is an active football player, and current Hungarian prime minister
Viktor Orbán are but two well-known examples from the region of EastCentral
Europe. It has become impossible to imagine a crucial interna-
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Rafał Pankowski, Przemysław Witkowski
tional football game without the attendance of high-level figures wearing
football fan scarves or other accessories of fan culture and expressing
their “support” for the players.
However, even while the economic and political mainstream has been
intensely involved in the game, fan culture has often grown increasingly
alienated and oppositional towards liberal democracy. The radical subculture
functioning in the context of football was imported to Eastern
Europe from the West (especially, but not exclusively, Great Britain) in
the 1980s and 90s (Garland, Treadwell 2010). Over the years, it has also
gained a regional specificity. While the extreme expressions of the subculture,
including hooligan violence during and around games, did not
disappear entirely in many Western countries, such sights have become
rare in the West as football culture in general has evolved since the
1980s. As spaces, stadiums underwent gentrification, ticket prices increased,
and some of the most active hooligans were subject to stadium
bans or police repression. The rules of FIFA, UEFA and national leagues,
which are strict regarding the prohibition of violence in the stands and
the symbolism of RWE, also had an effect.
As a result, in some of the biggest football clubs, it can be said that
violence in stadiums has practically almost disappeared, as have racist
symbolism and xenophobic cheers. A different process occurred in the
countries of Eastern Europe, where RWE dominated the stadiums in the
1990s, and for a variety of reasons has remained strong ever since (Wilson
2006; Benedikter, Wojtaszyn 2017). Therefore, the atmosphere of
an average league match in Eastern Europe can often be different from
the West; instances of violence and xenophobic behavior, for example,
are more likely to occur in the stadiums of Eastern rather than Western
Europe. Polish fan culture has retained its violent edge, including significant
strands related to xenophobia. Thus, the group identity constructed
through the rituals of the football fan subculture in Poland
tends to be a narrower, exclusivist community, emphasizing the boundaries
of gender, race, and ethnicity.
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“Death to enemies of the fatherland”: Violent Right-Wing Extremism infiltration of the milieu of
Polish football hooligans
The radicalization of football fans in Poland is the result of several
processes. First, its formation was primarily influenced by reactions
to policies of successive governments which realized that fans should
be dealt with. The center-right government of 2007-2015 enforced a
different policy on violent fans to that of the right-wing populist government
that succeeded it. The organization of EURO 2012 by Poland,
together with Ukraine, meant for the center-right liberals the need to
ensure the safety of participants in this important event. This period
is considered a turning point for football fans, as many of the government’s
actions were perceived as repressive (PAP 2013). From this
time also comes a kind of founding myth, to which “hools” return,
honoring their leaders and heroes who fought unequally with the police
and security forces.
The post-2015 right-wing populist government used a different tactic:
not only allowing annual nationalist marches on Independence Day,
co-organized by the far-right nationalist leaders of the football fans’
movement, but giving them open support (Witkowski 2021). The
marches constitute a political resource that can be used in various ways.
Although the mainstream media has pointed to threats to the security of
citizens (Sewastianowicz, Rojek-Socha 2021), the state-controlled media
does not condemn the xenophobic slogans and aggressive behavior
directed against minorities during the marches.
The next factor that cannot be overestimated was the rapid development
of social media in the 2010s. In the case of “hools,” Internet 2.0
undoubtedly strengthened their movement, due to the wave of hate
speech, a large part of which was directed not only at supporters of hostile
clubs but at a new and generalized enemy: minorities. This is another
symptom indicating the infiltration of the hooligan community by
VRWE.
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Infiltration
Extremist groups – especially those from the far right – have long attempted
to infiltrate fan culture, promote their messages, and recruit
new members. The National Front and the British Movement in the UK
in the 1970s and 80s employed tactics of leafleting and initiating chants
(Garland, Treadwell 2010), not dissimilar to the way Polish radical right
groups acted in numerous stadiums in the 2000s and 2010s. The longest-existing
Polish nationalist and neo-fascist groups looking for supporters
among football fans are the National-Radical Camp (Obóz
Narodowo-Radykalny, ONR) and the All-Polish Youth (Młodzież
Wszechpolska, MW). These groups take their inspiration (and their
names) from radical-nationalist groups that existed in Poland in the
1920s and 30s (Pankowski 2010). Together, they have organized a significant
annual event, the Independence Day March in Warsaw on November
11, in which thousands of Polish football fans take part every
year, and which has become a significant ritual as an expression of radical-nationalist
political ideology by fans of different Polish clubs (Mazzini
2020).
The ONR and MW are political organizations with ambitious goals
amounting to a radical reconstruction of society and a rejection of the
democratic system. In line with their traditions, they seek to construct
an ethnostate where liberal values are shunned, and minorities are excluded
through the slogan “Poland for the Polish.” Both groups have frequently
utilized radical youth subcultures such as skinheads as a strategy
to promote their ideological messages and recruit members. Although
often extreme in their positions, the ONR and MW do not seem to
be socially isolated. On the contrary, they seem to have numerous opportunities
for access and interactions with the social mainstream, including
through institutions such as the Catholic church (Pankowski
2010).
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“Death to enemies of the fatherland”: Violent Right-Wing Extremism infiltration of the milieu of
Polish football hooligans
Other, still more extreme groups or their representatives operate in
the fan community and often even play a central role in it. One of these
is the National Rebirth of Poland (Narodowe Odrodzenie Polski, NOP) –
an extreme nationalist political party belonging to the international
neo-fascist movement of the Third Position (Witkowski 2019). The
NOP’s leader is Adam Gmurczyk, and its official publication is the
Szczerbiec magazine. It claims to reject both capitalism and socialism,
proclaiming anti-Semitism, distributism, corporatism, and Catholic religious
integralism of a sedevacantist current. It refers to the political
thought of the Walloon Nazi collaborator Leon Degrelle, the leader of
pre-war Romanian fascists Corneliu Codreanu Zelea, or directly to Benito
Mussolini (Ibidem). The NOP has existed since the 1980s and has
committed numerous acts of violence in Poland: attacks on ethnic, sexual,
and religious minorities, political opponents, or lectures at universities
(e.g., a lecture by Zygmunt Bauman in Wrocław in 2014) (Obirek
2014). Despite numerous accusations against the party and several convictions
for its members and activists, the organization has not been
banned (Ibidem).
The NOP has organized numerous demonstrations in Wrocław. In that
city, a tram was rented and driven with carriages decorated with a large
Celtic cross, the slogan “White Power,” and an advertisement for the
xenophobic portal Fuckpc.com (short for “fuck political correctness”).
From time to time, a voice shouted “once with a sickle, sometimes with
a hammer [hit] a red mob” through the loudspeaker. The group organized
a walk to one of the islands on the Odra River in Wrocław, where
a puppet depicting the Polish-Jewish historian Professor Jan Tomasz
Gross was thrown into the water. The extreme nationalists also gathered
in honor of the anti-communist partisans from the National Armed
Forces, commemorating the anniversary of the creation of the pre-war
ONR, the attack of the Third Reich on Poland, the 1981 Martial Law anniversary,
or the anniversary of the date of occupation of eastern Poland
by the USSR in 1939. They demanded “the final solution to the problem
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Rafał Pankowski, Przemysław Witkowski
of Gypsy nomads” in Wrocław and called Wrocław “the City of Nationalism.”
The NOP’s flagship activity in the city was the celebration of November
11 (competing with the Warsaw Independence March), organized
under the slogan “March of Patriots.” All these events were attended
by numerous fans of the Wrocław sports club WKS Śląsk
Wrocław (Witkowski 2018) and fans of teams allied with WKS “hools”
(Motor Lublin, Lechia Gdańsk, Wisła Kraków – all also dominated by
REW fanatics).
Gaining the support of Roman Zieliński, the leader of the stadium
hooligans of Śląsk Wrocław, turned out to be of crucial importance for
the nationalists from NOP. This “hools” leader experienced a “national
awakening,” as he described in his book How I Fell in Love with Adolf
Hitler, and declared himself to be a passionate nationalist, anti-Semite,
and anti-communist (Rybak 2015). Thanks to his cooperation, fans appeared
en masse at extreme-right demonstrations, and xenophobic slogans
were raised at the city stadium, along with flags depicting crossed
out sickles and hammers; fans also hooted at non-white players. On
the stands, there were banners with the words “Skinheads” and a visible
Celtic cross, a 10-meter banner with the slogan “White Power,”
and other nationalist symbols such as the “wolf hook” (Wolfsangel) or
“phalanx” (a symbol of Polish fascists). The now-defunct website
wroclawianie.info, formerly one of the most famous and biggest websites
associated with fans of the Wrocław club, distributed dozens of
sticker designs, some of which contained racist and anti-Semitic inscriptions
and drawings: the figure of Hitler with a Roman salute against the
background of the Silesian flag, the slogan “Skinheads Hooligans 88,” or
the figures of three men in boots kicking a black man and the caption
“This is how the nobility from Wrocław have fun” (“Tak się zabawia
szlachta z Wrocławia”). National Rebirth of Poland activists handed out
nationalist leaflets to fans and urged them to visit the far-right websites
nacjonalista.pl, Wrocławianie.info, and nop.org.pl; they also recruited
new supporters at the stadium (Witkowski 2018).
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“Death to enemies of the fatherland”: Violent Right-Wing Extremism infiltration of the milieu of
Polish football hooligans
Another RWE group, this time international, active among Polish fanatics
is Blood and Honor. This is a Nazi “international” with a loose
structure. It describes itself as a worldwide pan-Aryan organization
dedicated to the struggle for the survival and prosperity of the White
Race. Its name comes from the Hitler Youth motto (Blut und Ehre). It
preaches “white nationalism,” “white supremacy,” and “white separatism”;
that is, Nazism, racism, and apartheid, respectively. Blood and
Honor activists believe that “whites” should remain the majority in Europe
and the US, and dominate these regions politically, economically,
and culturally. In their opinion, immigration of “colored” people and low
birth rates threaten the “white race.” They are accelerationists and insurrectionists.
They consider themselves a pan-Aryan white resistance
movement against the oppressive forces of the “Zionist Occupation Government”
(ZOG); they maintain that the governments of Western countries
are pawns in an international conspiracy led by Jews. They preach
a nationalist revolution and praise violence. Different national Blood
and Honor units use diverse symbols; however, common elements include
the Gothic font, the colors of the Third Reich flag (black, white,
and red), and Nazi symbolism, including the Totenkopf (skull and crossbones,
symbol of the 3rd
SS Panzer Division Totenkopf – concentration
camp guards) and the triskelion (Forbes, Stampton 2015).
Groups and activists associated with Blood and Honor are visible in
many groups of football fans in Poland; in several of them, they even
have vital functions. One of the leaders of the Lechia Gdańsk “hools” is
Grzegorz H., aka “Śledziu” (“Herring”). He is a close associate of the
famous Gdańsk gangster, Olgierd L., and a neo-Nazi. Reportedly, he has
five swastikas, the motto of the SS, Adolf Hitler’s face, and a vast Celtic
cross tattooed on his body, and he is a regular guest at Blood and Honor
events in Poland, both sports events and music concerts. He also has
been sentenced to several years of imprisonment due to numerous links
with the criminal underworld. Olgierd L., the unofficial “employer” of
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Rafał Pankowski, Przemysław Witkowski
Grzegorz H., is a well-known gangster from Gdańsk who has served several
years for pimping and has a record as a Nazi-skinhead; he is also a
regular guest at Blood and Honor events (Superwizjer TVN 2019).
From 2005 to 2009, in Białystok, the largest city in north-eastern
Poland, there were regular violent conflicts between VRWE “hools” and
the so-called “Praetorians,” politically non-radicalized Jagiellonia
Białystok “hools.” The former wanted to take control of the fanatics’
section of the stadium at all costs. In December 2005, Adrian R., the
head Praetorian, was killed in front of his home. During this period,
VRWE took control of the stadium of the Jagiellonia Białystok. From
there, they created a criminal organization headed by Adam S. aka
“Staszyn,” Herbert Ż. aka “Herbciak,” Krzysztof G. aka “Litwin,” and Tomasz
P. aka “Dragon.” In 2013, the Central Investigation Bureau of the
Polish police managed to infiltrate two undercover policemen into the
management of the Białystok VRWE “hools.” In the summer of 2014, the
first detentions were made. “Dragon” and “Staszyn” were charged by
the prosecutor’s office with managing an organized criminal group,
dealing drugs, and benefiting from prostitution. “Litwin” has been
charged with inciting racial hatred.
The case file shows that Białystok RWE created a complicated criminal
organization closely connected with the “hools.” They were involved
in pimping and drug trafficking; for the latter, they needed a stadium.
It was there that they recruited young people into the organization. Such
initiates first dealt with painting swastikas; when they were good, they
went into the so-called ultras – that is, the leading group at the Jagiellonia
stadium. Above them were hooligans: militias taking part in hooligans’
matches. All this was managed by the board of directors controlled
by VRWE connected with Blood and Honor (Kowalewski 2014). During
the brutal attacks on Pride in Białystok in 2019, one of the leaders attacking
LGBT demonstrators was the aforementioned “Dragon” and his
followers from the group of Jagiellonia Białystok “hools” (Zaremba
2019).
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“Death to enemies of the fatherland”: Violent Right-Wing Extremism infiltration of the milieu of
Polish football hooligans
Another Polish network Blood and Honor participant, Krzysztof F. aka
“Fornal,” has played an essential role for the “hools” of the Odra Opole
team since the 1990s. He is also the leader of the local Opole community
of Nazi-skinheads, called the Aryan Hooligans (“Aryjscy chuligani”).
“Fornal” also visits London, regularly attends Chelsea London matches,
and supports the Chelsea Headhunters gang, bringing together neo-Nazi
fans of the latter club. Fornal’s son, Patryk F., is also an active RWE, and
as a 16-year-old, he physically attacked a black footballer from Odra
Opole for racist reasons (Seeb 2008). Both father and son are regular
guests at Polish Blood and Honor events. Active participants of the Blood
and Honor network can also be found as leaders of “hools” (or at least
important figures in the stadium environment) in such Polish football
clubs as Piast Gliwice, GKS Katowice, Stilon Gorzów, and Motor Lublin
(Kornak 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014; Kornak, Tatar 2016).
Other groups of RWE penetrate the group of “hools” and “ultras” of
Raków Częstochowa football club. One of the founders of ONR, Patryk
Litwiniak, has been the press spokesman of the Wieczny Raków association,
the fan organization of Raków Częstochowa (Kuczyński 2011). The
famous football zine addressed to the fans of Legia Warszawa, Droga
Legionisty, is edited by an editor of the neo-fascist magazine Szturm,
using the pseudonym “Łukasz Grower.” Also, the fan groups “White Legion”
(Orłowski 2015) and “Teddy Boys 95” (Kornak 2009) of this football
club are dominated by active VRWE.
An important hub for RWE communication with football fans is the
To My Kibice magazine published in Bełchatów, which describes fights
among supporters and stadium banners. It has a unique annual insert
on the occasion of the November 11 Independence Day March, the most
prominent nationalist demonstration in Poland (and probably throughout
Europe).
International contacts are an essential element in penetrating the fan
milieu of RWE activists. It is worth listing here some foreign groups of
RWE fans with whom Polish clubs have alliances. Fanatics of the Ruch
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Rafał Pankowski, Przemysław Witkowski
Chorzów football club have regular contact with Frente Atletico, a group
of neo-Nazi Atletico Madrid fans (TOK26 2019), who have the SS Totenkopf
symbol in their logo and are closely related to the Spanish branch
of Blood and Honor. Polonia Warszawa “hools” are aligned with another
group of RWE fans: Ligallo Fondo Norte, supporting Real Zaragoza. A
Wisła Kraków “hools” gang, the Wisła Sharks group, has a close alliance
with neo-Nazi SS Lazio fans. “Hools” from Krakow take part in fights
alongside Lazio fans; you can find photos of them carrying Nazi greetings
(Maciejasz 2015).
Other important international alliances that facilitate contacts with
foreign RWE involve fans of the following football clubs: Legia Warszawa
– Den Haag, GKS Katowice – Banik Ostrava, WSK Śląsk – SFC
Opava, Widzew Łódź – CSKA Moskwa, Górnik Zabrze – Hajduk Split,
Cracovia – Ajax Amsterdam, Pogoń Szczecin – Ujpest Budapeszt and BFC
Dynamo Berlin, Piast Gliwice – BATE Borysów (red 2017), Góral Żywiec
– MSK Zilina, Orlęta Radzyń Podlaski – Dinamo Briest, Hutnik Kraków –
1. FC Magdeburg, and Odra Opole – FC Sopron. The effects of these alliances
and infiltration of the football fan community by RWE are often
visible in stadiums in the form of “spectacles” organized in the stands
by fans or the banners they bring with them, as well as the participation
of fans in RWE demonstrations and other public activities.
Outcomes of infiltration
Thanks to this infiltration, openly neo-Nazi references have become an
element of the performative repertoire of Polish football “hools.” Nazi
symbolism partly mimics the antics of Western European hooligan
groups such as the notorious Chelsea Headhunters, influenced by the
neo-Nazi terrorist organization Combat 18 (Lowles 2014). Some of the
most graphic examples include displays of Nazi swastika banners by
fans of Legia Warsaw (Ostałowska, Podolska 2000).
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“Death to enemies of the fatherland”: Violent Right-Wing Extremism infiltration of the milieu of
Polish football hooligans
In October 2002, during a game against Widzew Łódź, a club mocked
as “Jewish” by its rivals, Legia fans displayed a large banner with the
infamous slogan “Arbeit Macht Frei,” which adorned the gates to Nazi
concentration camps, including Auschwitz. It was accompanied by antiSemitic
chants and songs with references to Nazism and gas chambers.
The club was subsequently fined by the PZPN, a historic first (and rare)
case of punishment of a Polish club for its fans’ racist and anti-Semitic
behavior (Jk, jar no date). Other documented direct references to the
imagery of the Nazi Third Reich include the notorious display of a portrait
of Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess in the stadium of Lechia Gdańsk,
another large Polish club (Szadurski 2004).
There is also a correlation here – “hools” were directed by active
VRWE and the symbols of VRWE visible at the stadium. During the
2010s, stadium displays of the swastika at major Polish clubs generally
ceased. However, Nazi references still occurred, for example invoking
the symbolism of Auschwitz; on March 16, 2019, during the Fourth Division
match between Okocimski KS Brzesko and Tarnovia Tarnów, local
hooligans along with their guests from Unia Tarnów chanted insults
about the visiting team, including “Jews are burning” and “Barrack six,
Zyklon B, F..ck Tarnovia.” They also chanted the second slogan on their
way to the stadium (Tatar 2019).
Such expressions of sympathy for the regime of Nazi Germany have
never been commonplace, but they cannot be easily dismissed as isolated
incidents. In fact, they are illustrations of a wider phenomenon of farright
cultural hegemony in East European stadiums. Much more common
have been other neo-Nazi references and symbols which are less obvious
to an observer not familiar with the codes of the neo-Nazi subculture.
Among many examples, one can list banners bearing the symbolism of
Blood and Honor. Many such banners – always in the red-white-black colors
of the Third Reich and using the Gothic script – often with club names,
have been displayed in football stadiums. In 2019, for example, such banners
were displayed by fans of Jagiellonia Białystok, Odra Opole, and Śląsk
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Rafał Pankowski, Przemysław Witkowski
Wrocław (Tatar 2019). In all three cities, participants in the Blood and
Honor network were leading “hools” during this period. On September 6,
2019, a similar banner was unfurled during a game between the Polish
national team and Slovenia (Wawrzynowski 2019). The Celtic cross,
adopted as an international racist symbol of “White Power,” has often
been displayed on banners and flags bearing direct resemblance in their
design to the Third Reich flag (with only the swastika replaced by the
“Celtic cross” sign). An example was flown by Lechia Gdańsk fans during
their Poland Cup semi-final match against Raków Częstochowa on April
10, 2019 (Tatar 2019). These “hools” were directed by active RWE and the
symbols of RWE were visible at the stadium.
Another example of clear Nazi symbolism is the Totenkopf (death’s
head) image, historically worn by SS concentration camp guards. Since
the early 1990s, the Totenkopf – a version of the skull and crossbones –
has become the symbol of Combat 18, another neo-Nazi organization
(Lowles 2014). Such symbols have frequently been seen on banners in
Polish stadiums; displayed, for example, by fans of Arka Gdynia for several
years, including 2019. In the same year, fans of two other clubs,
Widzew Łódź and Ruch Chorzów, were spotted displaying the Totenkopf
during their games (Tatar 2019). Less openly provocative than the swastika,
these symbols are nevertheless rooted in the historical tradition of
the Nazi movement. In any case, the “fascist salute” has not disappeared
entirely from football matches. At some clubs, such as Wisła Kraków,
Stilon Gorzów, and Gryf Słupsk, fans have also displayed the flag of the
Confederacy from the time of the US Civil War. In the context of contemporary
European football, this symbolizes racist ideology (Ibidem).
Another example of quasi-fascist historical references at a football
game occurred in Czestochowa on November 14, 2010, during a thirddivision
match between Raków Częstochowa and Olimpia Grudziądz.
Fans displayed a banner reading “Warszawa. Han pasado” (“Warsaw.
They have passed,” in Spanish). This was a reference to the words
chanted by the soldiers of General Franco during the Spanish Civil War
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“Death to enemies of the fatherland”: Violent Right-Wing Extremism infiltration of the milieu of
Polish football hooligans
(1936-1939), to mock the defeated Republican army’s slogan “No pasaran!”
(“They shall not pass!”). The slogan related to the Independence
Day march three days previously, which had been organized by the extreme-right
National-Radical Camp (ONR) (Ibidem).
The slogan “Our Honor is fidelity,” based on the Nazi SS motto “Meine
Ehre heißt Treue,” has also appeared in football fan culture, for example
on scarves worn by Lechia Gdańsk fans (Ibidem). On January 12, 2011,
the Internet portal of the Wprost weekly published a photograph of an
MP from the right-wing populist party Law and Justice (Prawo i
Sprawiedliwość), Anna Zalewska, taken in a corridor of the Parliament,
in which she wore a scarf of second-division club Górnik Wałbrzych
which bore this motto (Kornak, Klymenko 2011). Zalewska at the time
represented the Wałbrzych constituency; she went on to become Minister
of Education and later a Member of the European Parliament.
Yet another type of historical reference in stadium displays in Poland
is related to “indigenous” radical-nationalist traditions and symbols going
back to the 1920s and 30s. These symbols can also be described as far
right, but their enthusiasts tend to see them as separate from the German
Nazi tradition. In the case of Poland, these include displays of symbols of
the nationalist (National-Democratic) movement such as Mieczyk
Chrobrego (Chrobry’s Sword, a former symbol of the Greater Poland
Camp, Obóz Wielkiej Polski), or “falanx,” the symbols of the NationalRadical
Camp (Obóz Narodowo-Radykalny), a violently anti-Semitic farright
organization established (and banned) in Poland in 1934 and revived
in the 2000s. An example of a large-scale display of home-grown nationalist
imagery is a gigantic banner (so-called “sector flag”) with a portrait
of right-wing nationalist politician Roman Dmowski (1864-1939) and his
famous quote “I’m Polish, therefore I have Polish duties,” displayed by
Lech Poznań fans during an away match with Zagłębie Lubin on November
27, 2009 (Kornak, Klymenko 2011). Dmowski, who crafted modern
Polish right-wing nationalism and anti-Semitism, is highly popular
among some football fans who share his ideology.
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Rafał Pankowski, Przemysław Witkowski
Other displays by Polish football fans with references to historical
events and figures almost invariably focus on military struggles and personalities,
usually men and usually from the mid-twentieth century.
Commemorations of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising are popular at football
games, especially around the date of its anniversary (August 1). A popular
motif is the glorification of the so-called Cursed Soldiers (Żołnierze
Wyklęci): anti-communist nationalistic guerrillas active in Poland after
1945, many of them controversial figures charged with anti-Semitism
and arbitrary killings. The cult of the Cursed Soldiers and the concept of
honoring them comes from the circles of the extreme right and has been
developing since the 1990s; it has achieved the status of an official state
cult under the right-wing populist Law and Justice government, especially
sustained by one of the main government institutions dealing with
shaping the historical discourse – the Institute of National Remembrance.
The soldiers’ cult in Polish stadiums preceded their officially
celebrated glorification at the highest state level by several years. According
to a far-right “hools” leader, Roman Zielinski, the first such display
(fan choreography) took place at the stadium of Śląsk Wrocław on
May 7, 2011 (Zieliński 2019).
Janusz Waluś, the Polish-born racist killer of the South African antiapartheid
activist and Communist Party leader Chris Hani, is occasionally
referred to as “the last of the Cursed Soldiers.” Since the late 2010s,
a growing number of displays in stadiums across Poland have celebrated
him as a hero (Saintourens 2018; Davies 2018). Prayers for his wellbeing
and release from jail are offered at the annual pilgrimage of Polish
football fans to the Catholic shrine of Częstochowa, which is an important
event in community and identity-building efforts and is loaded
with far-right symbolism (Davies 2017). The cult of this character also
comes from far-right circles. Waluś has been worshiped since the 1990s
by neo-fascist skinheads, and to this day his main eulogists are former
and present RWE. Some of them, for example Mariusz Bechta and Tomasz
Szczepański, are employed today in public institutions; the former
176
“Death to enemies of the fatherland”: Violent Right-Wing Extremism infiltration of the milieu of
Polish football hooligans
at the Institute of National Remembrance, the latter at the Museum of
Independence.
In some cases, historical references in stadiums focus on designating
enemies. For example, references to the Warsaw Uprising often contain
explicitly anti-German statements, as in the case of Legia Warsaw during
the game with Astana FC on August 2, 2017 (Kilpatrick 2017). During
the controversy over the Polish Act on the Institute of National Memory
in 2018, in some stadiums banners appeared with the words “German
Death Camps.” In the opinion of Polish RWE, it is not the Nazis who were
responsible for the death camps, but the Germans, the main geopolitical
enemy of Poland according to nationalists for over a hundred years. Despite
the fact that Polish RWE often share a hostile attitude towards
Jews, liberalism, or the left wing with German RWE, historical resentments
and past events mean that they are regularly in conflict with their
German counterparts.
Another example of pointing to enemies was the large fan choreography
at the Śląsk Wrocław stadium on May 3, 2012. This included a large
banner with the caption “We know the murderers of the Polish nation,”
followed by a list of communist security service personnel with Jewish
names (JW 2012). The display clearly alluded to the widespread negative
(anti-Semitic) stereotype of Jews as supporters of communism
(known in Polish as Żydokomuna – Judeo-communism). Anti-Semitism
remains a significant problem in Polish football as evidenced by graffiti,
murals, and chants. This continues despite the almost complete lack of
Jews among either players or spectators at the games today; another
example of so-called “anti-Semitism without Jews.” Drawing on widespread
anti-Jewish prejudices, fans of opposing teams often use the
word “Jew” as a term of abuse. In many cases they point to a Jewish
element in the history of the opposing club. Many clubs have such elements,
providing much room for anti-Semitism. Again, anti-Semitic conspiracy
theories and anti-Semitism are a very common theme in RWE,
transferred here directly to the football community.
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Rafał Pankowski, Przemysław Witkowski
Some observers are inclined to see anti-communist displays in Polish
stadiums as a direct reaction to the decades of communist rule
(Wąsowicz 2015). Tragic events from that period are commemorated by
football fans both in stadiums and in other settings. While the communist
period indeed provides a (negative) point of reference in these
expressions, the above assumption needs to be questioned, because few
such manifestations of anti-communism took place in stadiums during
the 1990s. In fact, they did not become widespread until the 2010s, and
the vast majority of participants have had no personal experience of living
under communist rule. Thus, the phenomenon belongs to the realm
of a “constructed memory” rather than “memory” per se. At the same
time, open anti-communism and, more broadly, anti-leftism, is one of
the basic elements of fascist and far-right ideology.
A more radical slogan with a historical genesis – also displayed in
stadiums and chanted in Polish nationalist street demonstrations – is
“Death to enemies of the fatherland” (“Śmierć wrogom ojczyzny”),
which originated as a Cursed Soldiers motto. Today it symbolizes the
idea of the violent exclusion of real or imagined enemies from the national
community. Many of the Cursed Soldiers represented nationalist
groups, and you can see here a clear reference to the ideological roots of
the contemporary Polish extreme right.
It is important to mention the spillover effect of the communitybuilding
processes which take place within the stadium culture. The rituals,
ideologies, and patterns of behavior are not limited to the confines
of the stadium. On the contrary, they can be observed in numerous other
public settings. The same banners and chants that originated in the stadium
can be witnessed, for instance, during street demonstrations taking
place on historical anniversaries such as the annual Polish Independence
Day march in Warsaw. In this way, the ideological component that
was brought into the fan culture from outside is amplified and channeled
back into the broader social environment, well beyond the world
of football. Other RWE demonstrations where delegations of “hools”
178
“Death to enemies of the fatherland”: Violent Right-Wing Extremism infiltration of the milieu of
Polish football hooligans
have appeared in club colors have included the Patriots’ March in
Wrocław, the marches on the anniversary of the introduction of martial
law in Poland, the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939,
the National Day of Remembrance of the “Cursed Soldiers,” and also
commemorations organized by RWE in Silesia of the Silesian uprisings
against Germany.
Conclusions
As this article indicates, football culture in Poland has been used as a
cultural resource and political tool by nationalist movements promoting
particular versions of national “memory” and “identity.” It is also a form
of symbolic propaganda theater (Kossakowski 2017; Kossakowski,
Nosal, Woźniak 2021) where the ideals of the current Polish right-wing
populist movement are supported and presented (Pankowski 2010). In
turn, the prevalence of nationalist discourse at football events has influenced
and reinforced the historical and political discourses outside of
the setting of the stadium. This prevalence also derives from the increasingly
visible ties between RWE organizations and the football fan
community, with RWE taking control of “hools” groups, recruiting participants
for RWE demonstrations and members for the organization,
or organizing openly extreme-right-wing political demonstrations at
stadiums.
Due to the processes described in this article, the impact of VRWE on
“hools” can be assessed as similar to other cases in Eastern Europe, such
as those of Serbia, Croatia, and Russia. Most of the main groups active
in the “hools” environment are organizations belonging to the ideological
trends of the Third Position, national radicalism, and neo-Nazism.
The effect of these groups’ influence on the environment of “hools” and
“ultras” is a saturation with VRWE ideology, which is presented publicly
at the stadium. There is also a noticeable spillover of VRWE content from
the stadium into public discourse, and the penetration of slogans and
179
Rafał Pankowski, Przemysław Witkowski
worldviews of VRWE groups into the demonstrations and protests of
mainstream right-wing groups. In the third decade of the twenty-first
century, the right-wing nationalist radicalism of “hools” has become a
component of the political scene in Poland, and the long-lasting activity
of RWE organizations and their infiltration of this environment have
contributed to this. This illustrates another important characteristic of
the Polish football fan community, namely the potential for its mobilization
as a vehicle of far-right violence.
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“Death to enemies of the fatherland”: Violent Right-Wing Extremism infiltration of the milieu of
Polish football hooligans
About Authors
Rafał Pankowski, sociologist of culture, political scientist, professor at
Collegium Civitas. He was the first Pole to receive a scholarship
from Eton College. Since 1996, deputy editor-in-chief of the “NEVER
AGAIN” magazine, co-founder of the NEVER AGAIN Association, coordinator
of the UEFA Euro 2012 RESPECT Diversity educational
program. He worked, among others as an expert-consultant in the
Department of Tolerance and Non-Discrimination of the OSCE, he
cooperated with many expert organizations and academic institutions,
e.g. with London’s Chatham House, the Vienna Institute of Human
Sciences and the Center for European Studies at Chulalongkorn
University in Bangkok. He received the honorary badge of the Commissioner
for Human Rights “For merits for the protection of human
rights,” as well as the Medal of Honor “Uprising in the Warsaw
Ghetto” and the Paul Ehrlich-Gunther K. Schwerin Human Rights
Award.
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6594-2643
Collegium Civitas, Warsaw, Poland
mail: rafal.pankowski@civitas.edu.pl
Przemysław Witkowski, doctor of humanities (Ph.D.) in the field of political
science. Two-time scholarship holder of the Minister of National
Education and Sport (2005, 2006). Author of the books
Glory to Superman: Ideology and Pop Culture (Warsaw 2017) and
Laboratory of Violence: The Political History of the Roma (Warsaw
2020). Assistant professor at Collegium Civitas in Warsaw.
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6455-3198
Collegium Civitas, Warsaw, Poland
mail: przemyslaw.witkowski@civitas.edu.pl
187
WARSAW 2023
ISBN 978-83-66386-33-4
DOI: 10.6084/M9.figshare.22331338
About the book "The Virus of Radicalization":
"I regard this monograph as an example of high-quality academic
craftsmanship. It is an important supplement to the literature on the
phenomena and processes of radicalization and extremism (primarily those
taking place in the Polish socio-political system, but not only). It will be
interesting both for scientists, students and a wider audience interested
in socio-political issues."
Associate Professor Mikołaj Cześnik, Ph.D., SWPS University of Social
Sciences and Humanities, Warsaw, Poland
"The volume is a collection of chapters on the topic of mostly right-wing
political radicalization in Poland, Europe, and the world. (...) Excellent
empirical case studies of particular cases of political radicalization
in Poland and Europe are the bulk and the highlight of the volume. (...)
Overall, the volume is a useful, well-written and well-conceived contribution
to literature on political radicalism and crisis of liberal democracy."
Jacek Lubecki, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science and International Studies,
Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA, USA