Online neo-Nazi Store and Customers From Central Europe Exposed

From a cabin in a forest outside the small Swedish town of Alingsås, Europe’s Nazis are supplied with white supremacist music, Nazi clothing and racial ideological propaganda. Although many of these items of Nazi merchandise are illegal in some countries where the buyers reside, the business has been going on for years.

An international investigation led by Expressen, with participation from VSquare and its Central European partners, can now expose the Swedish Nazi store Midgård. Midgård has become a major European supplier of Nazi propaganda and has strong ties to the Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR), which was classified as a terrorist group by the US State Department in summer 2024. Shortly thereafter, accounts and sites linked to the Nazi terrorist organization were shut down.

Around the same time as the terror group classification hit the Swedish Nazi merchandise business, a man appeared in casual summer clothing at a post office in Alingsås earlier in August 2024. He was wearing shorts, sandals, sunglasses and a t-shirt paying tribute to the German Nazis killed during World War II. With the text “Revolution” and an image of soldiers in SS uniform emblazened across the back of his t-shirt, and with a picture of German white power band Blutzeugen (Blood witnesses, Nazi Germany’s term for the martyrs of its own movement) and the text “Der Kampf geht weiter” (The struggle goes on) printed on the front, he left the post office with new deliveries for his company tucked under his arm.

The man in the t-shirt was Martin Flennfors, 38. He is the owner and CEO of the Nazi online store Midgård, which, despite strong ties to the terrorist-classified NMR, has continued to operate by selling its propaganda internationally.

In December of 2023, information on approximately 20,000 purchases was put online. The leak, which was spread by the left-wing extremist organization AFA (Antifascistisk Aktion), contained Midgård’s customer register between the years 2017 and 2022 — and provided insight into just how widespread Midgård’s sales are.

In the database, it is possible to see in detail who ordered what and when. Among the approximately 2,500 unique customers who have placed a total of over 7,000 orders, there are several well-known Nazis who are themselves Swedish or have ties to Sweden. These individuals have been convicted of, among other things, incitement against ethnic groups, arson, and politically motivated acts of violence. The leak shows that Midgård, which describes itself as “one of the world’s largest shops for alternative people,” has thousands of customers in 62 countries. After Sweden, Germany, with roughly 3,400 orders, is the most common recipient country. In several of the recipient countries, including Germany, Midgård’s operations had been completely or partially prohibited.

Midgård’s product line connects it to multiple Nazi organizations. In addition to magazines from NMR, and its predecessor SMR, Midgård also sells newspapers from the defunct Swedes’ Party and from the far-right organization Det fria Sweden. Midgård is also a retailer of several international brands, such as the Polish “Keep it White” clothing brand. Midgård’s international network has also connected it to several other stores and producers of white power products. On several occasions, Midgård, on its Telegram channel, has urged followers to also support record companies and retailers in, for example, the United States, Russia, Serbia and Hungary. Among these are the Russian Übermensch shop and the American Hammer shop.

This summer, the US Hatewatch initiative, which is run by the Southern Poverty Law Center, published a review of the approximately 1,500 purchases that were sent to the United States from Midgård. Among Midgård’s American clients are representatives of Nazi and radical right groups such as Volksfront, Patriot Front, Clockwork Crew and the Traditionalist Worker Party. In neighboring Canada, orders have gone to activists for Nazi groups such as Vinland Hammerskins, Aryan Guard and NSC-131.

This Expressen-led investigation has also examined the customer register, focusing on Midgård’s branches in Central Eastern Europe. VSquare’s partners have uncovered the following:

• In Hungary, according to Atlatszo.hu’s analysis of the leaked data, one of Midgård’s customers was a pro-government journalist. Over the years, several shipments of white power music, including works by several Swedish neo-Nazi bands, have been sent to his address.
• In the Czech Republic, investigace.cz found that people who have been punished by the Czech authorities for Nazi-related activities and their proximity to the neo-Nazi scene have been Midgård customers. Midgård’s customer list in the Czech Republic includes people ranging from a lawyer to a businessman in the beauty industry.
• In Slovakia, the Investigative Center of Ján Kuciak (ICJK.sk) discovered several business people, and also a soldier in the Slovakian military who purchased Nazi records, clothing, and other items from Midgård’s catalog.
• In Poland, FRONTSTORY.PL found among the many customers a martial artist successful at both national and European levels, as well as a local politician and a well-known Nazi community organizer.

Serving Orbán’s media empire while ordering Nazi music

One of the most interesting customers of Nazi merchandise in Hungary works at the country’s largest government-controlled media empire, which publishes pro-Orbán propaganda and is owned by a foundation represented by persons close to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party.

This pro-government journalist published a book on the “radical right” and has covered nationalistic topics in his articles. For example, in the mid-2010s, he published an interview with the leader of Betyársereg (Outlaw Army), which was one of Hungary’s most significant far-right paramilitary groups at the time. He also reported on a Swedish town where Hungarian immigrants formed a peaceful and diligent community, contrasting it with Muslim migrants who were portrayed as violent and unable to integrate.

In 2018, several shipments of white power music were sent to this journalist’s address. This included music by Frank Rennicke, a German neo-Nazi troubadour convicted of multiple hate crimes. This journalist also apparently received music by a German band called Faustrecht, multiple band members of which were active in the Blood and Honor movement (the band itself also regularly performed at Blood and Honor events). In Germany, some of their albums have been classified as harmful for minors, which means these albums cannot be publicly displayed in stores and may only be sold to persons above 18.

A national security expert interviewed by Atlatszo.hu revealed that, in early 2024, the pro-government journalist was approached and interviewed by the Hungarian internal security agency, the Constitution Protection Office (Alkotmányvédelmi Hivatal). The investigation allegedly took place in connection with the leaked Midgård database (as well as in relation to clashes between Nazi and Antifa groups in Budapest in 2023, when several people, including both Hungarians and foreigners were arrested). The expert added that there is a possibility that other Midgård customers were also interrogated by the security agency after the database leaked.

According to the leaked data, Hungarian customers mostly bought music from Midgård. The Hungarian pro-government journalist customer said, “Looking at the list, I see that at least one third of the customers were not at all extreme-minded – they were just selling records, spicing up their rock-metal-punk selections with exotic, Swedish, Finnish or Estonian national rock music. Because they were cheap in the 2010’s, and there was a demand – even though no one understood a word of the lyrics. I think what people listen to in their homes is a matter of taste, and we should not peek into each other’s bedrooms or CD players.”

The journalist customer also argued that these are “legal CDs” ordered legally from a registered music publisher. According to him, if a crime were committed, it was by those who hacked into Midgård’s database and then, “with a stigmatizing intent,” compiled a searchable list of customers with names, addresses and phone numbers. “To list people openly, threateningly, on the basis of their supposed political views is no longer a matter of taste, and, in fact, to me, this seems to be fascism,” the avid customer of Nazi music added.

In Hungary, possessing, selling or publicly playing music with Nazi or far-right lyrics is not automatically considered unlawful. However, if there is a trial in which the indictment involves such music, the lyrics are examined thoroughly, line by line, before the judgment is delivered.

Read the full article on vsquare.org.

David Baas – Expressen (Sweden), Daniel Olsson – Expressen (Sweden), Orsolya Fülöp – Átlátszó (Hungary), Mariusz Sepioło – FRONTSTORY.PL (Poland), Investigace.cz (Czech Republic), ICJK.sk (Slovakia). Cover photo: Far-right organisations commemorated the 1945 outbreak in Városmajor on 8 February 2020 – MTI/Tamás Kovács