Synopsis
The singer bawls slogans of violence, the skinheads clamor and raise their arms for the Hitler salute: when Thomas Kuban filmed a neo-Nazi concert with a hidden camera for the first time, he made insights into a youth culture that outsiders hardly ever dare enter possible. Six years on, he has made around 40 undercover recordings, also in countries outside Germany. There is one song that he comes across again and again on his concert tours: “Blood must flow, to extremes, extensively, we shit on the freedom of this Jews’ Republic…”. The material that Thomas Kuban has compiled over the years is highly-charged – unique not only in Europe, but probably also all over the world.
Luring in and radicalizing young people through right-wing extremist rock – it does the trick: according to a study, right-wing extremism in Germany has become one of the largest youth movements. A budding market has also been developing around these music events for some time: CDs of the respective bands are produced by their own labels and sold in specialist shops or over the Internet. The same goes for far-right merchandize. This all generates money for the expansion of the “movement” at the same time.
The journalist Thomas Kuban has documented all of this with a hidden camera and thereby placed himself in great danger. The public interest in his images however is completely disproportionate. His fruitless search for support for a film project that he expects will have a great impact, demonstrates this in particular: a trip through Germany and Europe, returning to the locations where he filmed secretly. Political policy-makers, authorities and citizens are the focus. Thomas Kuban tries to find answers to the questions: how is it that the right-wing extremist party mile can be celebrated across all borders and how can this be overcome?
The author Peter Ohlendorf accompanied Thomas Kuban on his journey with the camera. These observations are set against sequences of undercover material. Quasi-fictional elements arising from safety concerns are integrated into the documentary film: the film’s protagonist must remain anonymous; his name is therefore a pseudonym. The willful disguise not only protected him, but in its over-emphasis, also makes the society’s reception of his character a central theme. Even Thomas Kuban’s voice is made unrecognizable. As with the disguise, the style of language was developed freely, though it tends towards his real identity and keeps strictly to the facts.
