Introduction
Blood & Honour (B&H) is a neo-Nazi skinhead group that originated in England in 1987 from the skinhead music scene. The group promotes white-power ideology through the proliferation of music festivals and recordings.* B&H claims to be a “musical based resistance network” that acts as a “global confederacy of like-minded freedom fighters.”* British skinhead and singer Ian Stuart Donaldson founded the group with Nicky Crane in 1987 and named it after the motto of the Hitler Youth movement in Nazi Germany.* Blood and Honour was also the name of a song performed by Donaldson’s white-power band, Skrewdriver. According to B&H, the 1985 song became “an anthem then flagship for generations of people to come who were far sighted enough to see the abyss our people, culture and future faced if we continued on the road we were taking.”*
Donaldson died in a 1993 car crash, but B&H has continued to spread across Europe and into the United States. Crane died of an AIDS-related illness two months after Donaldson’s death. B&H continues to hold annual music festivals to celebrate white power and memorialize Donaldson.* B&H has chapters across the world, including in the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland, Belgium, and Serbia. Authorities discovered B&H graffiti in Bosnia in February 2020.* B&H has been banned in several European countries, including Germany and Spain.* In the United Kingdom, B&H members are forbidden from joining the police.* B&H has also spread to Australia,* Canada,* and the United States.*
B&H is closely associated with the violent neo-Nazi group Combat 18, which originated as an armed faction of B&H. Donaldson’s death caused a rift in B&H between those committed to promoting white power through music and those who sought out more violent methods.* Combat 18 is still closely linked to B&H. When the Canadian government banned both groups in 2019, it labeled Combat 18 the “armed branch” of B&H.*
Leadership
Ian Stuart Donaldson and Nicky Crane co-founded B&H.* B&H chapters have no formal leadership.*
Base of Operations
B&H was originally founded in England but has since spread across Europe, Russia, Australia, and North America.*
Website
Blood & Honour Worldwide, Blood & Honour Australia, Blood & Honour Italy, Blood and Honour/Combat 18 USA (site discontinued), Blood and Honour/Combat 18 Canada (discontinued), Blood and Honour/Combat 18 Poland (discontinued)
Membership Size and Relevance
B&H has no formal membership.* B&H inspired the related Combat 18 neo-Nazi group, which acts as the violent faction of B&H.* Combat 18 largely drew its membership from white supremacists associated with B&H and the Chelsea Headhunters soccer hooligan gang.*
In June 2019, Canada designated B&H and Combat 18 as terrorist groups. It was the first time Canada designated far-right groups.* Facebook banned B&H the following day. According to Canadian group Organization for the Prevention of Violence, B&H’s presence in Canada reached 60 to 70 members between 2016 and 2017, but the group failed to expand beyond Alberta and its membership began to decline after 2017.* Germany, Russia, and Spain have also banned B&H.* In April 2021, U.S. Representative Elissa Slotkin called on the U.S. government to designate more than a dozen foreign white supremacist groups as terrorist organizations, including B&H and Combat 18.*
Recruitment and Propaganda
B&H holds music festivals and rallies throughout the year to spread its propaganda and attract new members.* B&H promotes itself as “white rock & roll resistance” and also “rock against communism.”* B&H also publishes an eponymous magazine* and several online radio programs through its 28 Radio network.* B&H promotes the 14-word mantra: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”*
Official B&H chapters use the group’s “Sign of the Brotherhood”: a grinning skull-and-crossbones imposed over red, white, and black diamond on top of a triskelon. The triskelon is an ancient symbol from pre-Christian Europe comprising three curved or jointed segments spiraling from a common center. The red in the diamond represents the “sacred blood” and those who have died defending it, while the black represents courage and the white represents the white ethnicity.* B&H commonly uses a banner with the words “Blood” and “Honour” separated by a triskelon. B&H propaganda may also reference the original German phrase, “Blut und Ehre.” B&H members frequently use the numerals 2 and 8 or 28 representing the alphanumeric equivalent of the letters B and H.*
B&H maintains its own prisoner support network, the White Cross, to aid those who have been arrested, charged, and sentenced for crimes related to B&H. The support network is self-funded to ensure “no 28 prisoner is left behind or forgotten in their times of need.”*
Violent Activities
Combat 18 is the violent offshoot of B&H. While B&H is affiliated with acts of vandalism and espousing a racist ideology, Combat 18 is primarily responsible for violent activities associated with B&H, which itself focuses more on spreading neo-Nazi propaganda through music festivals.* Nonetheless, B&H members do arm themselves and promote violence.* When Russia banned the group in 2012, it linked B&H to several terrorist attacks.*In Australia, authorities have linked B&H to death threats against immigration supporters.* Canadian police have also linked B&H to multiple violent attacks.*
Rhetoric
- B&H Australia homepage, undated: “We believe it is important for all Racially conscious people to become active participants in pro-White movements such as Blood & Honour. If you really believe in saving the White Race, get out and start interacting with those who share a similar goal. Individually we are weak, united we are strong!”*
- B&H homepage, undated: “Sadly our founder and leader Ian Stuart Donaldson was taken from us in 1993. But his legacy has remained and flourished, his dream of a movement run by and for skinheads, behind a musical front remains, and has grown into a confederation of like minded people, stronger than ever. A movement, offering people an alternative lifestyle to the drug infested, pro homosexual, race mixing scene fanatically pushed by today's powers to be, is giving hope to thousands around the world.”*
- Ian Stuart Donaldson, B&H homepage, undated: “Eventually there will be a race war and we have to be strong enough in numbers to win it. I'll die to keep this country pure and if it means bloodshed at the end of the day, then let it be.”*
- Ian Stuart Donaldson, B&H homepage, undated: “To achieve all of this we, and our European comrades, must above all have faith. Our enemies are strong, and presently we are relatively weak in numbers, but unbeatable in spirit. We must realize that we, and our enemies, are engaged in a struggle for the survival of the European races. If we fail we will be destroyed along with European civilization; and we must accept in our hearts, that if victory is eventually ours we must deal with our enemies in the most ruthless fashion. If we do not destroy their cancer at the root we will have to face up to its reincarnation at a later stage. We must have faith in this, our battle to the death.”*
Social Media
Facebook (banned), VK