Nazi sympathizer network buying up Cape Breton properties with 'colony' in mind: German report
Der Spiegel , Germany’s largest weekly magazine, has caused a stir in Nova Scotia after reporting that prominent Nazi sympathizers are in the middle of setting up a new radical colony on Cape Breton Island.
The magazine, citing documents it has obtained, reported that hundreds of Germans have already signed up for the initiative. The report says far-right populist Germans Eva Herman and Andreas Popp, as well as Frank Eckhardt, a local real estate professional, are leading the charge.
Herman was fired as a news anchor for Germany’s national broadcast ARD in 2007 after endorsing the family politics of the Nazis, whereas Popp, known as a “doomsday prophet,” has written works based on widely debunked conspiracy theories.
The pair currently live in Cape Breton where, via a wider organization of right-wing academics, Der Spiegel reports they invite groups of “clear thinkers” four times a year for one-week seminars.
The “extreme ideology” gatherings push the idea that Europe is on the verge of a system collapse, the Halifax Examiner, citing Der Spiegel, reports . Cape Breton — and Canada — is seen as a more stable alternative, and Herman and Popp allegedly implore those of a like mind to buy land there.
According to Der Spiegel, the pair form part of a larger network founded by Frank Eckhardt, a real estate professional who also lives in Cape Breton. Der Spiegel reports that Eckhardt is known as a Reichsbuerger — a person who feels the German state that arose after the Nazi defeat in the Second World War doesn’t have legitimacy.
Eckhardt’s real estate website calls Canada a place where you escape the “increasingly authoritarian and runaway administrative machinery” of the European Union. Der Spiegel reports that at the end of 2019, Interpol in Ottawa informed German intelligence of Eckhardt’s activities in this country, but Herman and Popp have denied being linked to Eckhardt, whom Der Spiegel claims is a Holocaust denier.
After reporting on Der Spiegel’s story, the Halifax Examiner reported that it received an email from Herman and Popp, in which they denied any association with Eckhardt. They forcibly denounced denial of the Holocaust, and said they are taking legal action over Der Spiegel’s investigative report linking them to Eckhardt.
“The report in Germany … contains many false statements,” they wrote. “We have nothing to do with Frank Eckhart, the real estate agent from Cape Breton. Andreas last had seen Mr. Eckhart about 15 years ago, Eva does not know the man at all and has never had any contact with him.”
The Examiner responded that it will not be removing the article, saying that it had merely reported Der Spiegel’s investigation accurately.