The German Klaus Armstroff (*1957 in Jena), electrician by profession, is a right-wing extremist politician and neo-Nazi. He was a member of the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), then founded the right-wing extremist party Der III. Way, of which he is federal chairman. Armstroff is considered a link between right-wing party structures and the "free comradeship" (Freie Kameradschaften) scene in southern Germany.
Life
Klaus Armstroff served as a representative of the NPD in the district council of the district of Bad Dürkheim since 2009 and was until summer 2013 member of the NPD state executive board of the federal state Rhineland-Palatinate. He ran as candidate for the party in the general election in 2013 and received 1.3 percent of the votes in the constituency of the South Palatinate. The NPD state association was led until summer 2013 by his wife Dörthe Armstroff. Klaus Armstroff was one of the protagonists of the ingroup fighting within the Rhineland-Palatinate state association of the NPD. He belonged to the nationalist- oriented wing of the NPD and disapproved the new NPD state board with Markus Walter and Ricarda Riefling, which caused him to leave the party.
Armstroff belonged to the National Socialist wing of the NPD. His party, Der III. Weg, understands itself ideologically as "national revolutionary" and partly ties in with the program of the so-called left wing of the NSDAP around the Strasser brothers. In tune with this ideology, he said during a march in Plauen in May 2014: "Capitalist entrepreneurs [...] put the Germans on the siding of long-term unemployment and crave fresh blood of foreigners." At the Federal Party Congress 2014, he called to spread leaflets in front of refugee shelters and to rally people against foreigners.1
At the founding party of the party Der III. Weg on September 28, 2013 in Heidelberg, Armstroff was elected federal chairman. In Rhineland-Palatinate then parts of the "free comradeship" structures around the "Action Office Rhein-Neckar" (Aktionsbüro Rhein-Neckar) turned towards Der III. Weg. Since January 2014, under Armstroff the party began offensively to recruit from structures of the "Free Network South" (Freies Netzwerk Süd) in Bavaria, banned in July 2014.2
Klaus Armstroff is an electrician, multiple father and lives in Weidenthal, Rhineland-Palatinate.
- 1"Verfassungsschutzbericht 2014," Bayerischen Landesamtes für Verfassungsschutz, 2015, https://web.archive.org/web/20150702050521/http://www.verfassungsschutz.bayern.de/imperia/md/content/lfv_internet/service/vsb_2014_pressefassung.pdf.
- 2Johannes Hartl, "'III. Weg' will expandieren," Blick nach rechts, May 19, 2015, https://www.bnr.de/artikel/hintergrund/iii-weg-will-expandieren.