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Serbia: Neo-Nazi groups

National Formation (Nacionalni stroj)
New Serbian Program (Novi srpski program)

See also:

National Formation

Flag of National Formation - Image by Tomislav Todorović, 30 March 2013

National Formation (Nacionalni stroj, Национални строј) was a Serbian neo-Nazi organization, composed mostly of skinheads, which gained nationwide attention in November 2005, after having interrupted an anti-Fascist gathering at the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad by verbal and physical assaulting the participants. It was then revealed to wider public that the group had already existed since 2004 and that they were the authors of a number of racist and anti-semitic graffiti, as well as those which glorified persons indicted before The Hague Tribunal, in Belgrade, Novi Sad and other towns. Fifteen members were eventually sentenced to prison in 2008, but their activities, often violent, were continued in the meantime, along with extensive coverage at their website, which also exposed their program, full of Nazi commonplaces. After a lengthy procedure, the Constitutional Court of Serbia banned the National Formation in June 2011, this being the first such case in Serbia. Their website was closed down shortly afterwards, but the activities were already reduced since the sentencing of 2008 and founding of a new organization - New Serbian Program. Although the group, like many of its counterparts in other countries, claimed to have been a leaderless network of ultra-rightists, its leader appears to have been Goran Davidović, nicknamed "Fuehrer", who moved to Italy before having been extradited to Serbia for serving his prison time and returned there afterwards, using his earlier contacts among Italian ultra-rightists to become one of their leaders in the town of Trieste, where he settled.

Sources:
- Wikipedia (National Formation, English edition)
- Wikipedia (National Formation, Serbian edition)
- Blic, 16 December 2011

The flag of National Formation was black, in proportions about 2:3, charged with a simplified version of the Serbian coat of arms in white. This emblem was copied from a banknote (50 Serbian dinars) issued in 1942 by the puppet government which was installed in Serbia by the German occupational forces (photo, photo). This fact is what makes the link of the flag with the Nazi ideology. The fact that the state symbols, as were used at the time, had to be originally submitted to the occupational command for approval, did not raise any doubts among the new users of the emblem about its acceptability in terms of patriotism.

Tomislav Todorović, 30 March 2013

New Serbian Program

Flag of NSP - Image by Tomislav Todorović, 30 March 2013

New Serbian Program (Novi srpski program) was founded in June 2008 as an attempt to found a legal ultra-rightist organization in Serbia. Successfully registered, it was meant to be a legal cover for the National Formation, which was already in the procedure for banning at the time, for its members, most notably the leader Goran Davidović, were also active in the new organization, especially via the Internet (Vreme, No. 1,009, 6 May 2010). The new organization appeared to have been less active than the old one and its activities were "frozen" in 2010 by Davidović himself, nominally due to internal conflicts, the blame for these having been put mostly on a member who, according to an ultra-leftist site, has "betrayed" his race by close relationship with a "non-Aryan" looking woman, which was proved by their common photographs from a music festival (RevLeft forum).

The flag of New Serbian Program (photo) was red with the emblem in center, consisting of white Cyrillic initials "NSP" on a blue rhomboid which is surrounded, and partly covered, with a black ring fimbriated white and charged with names of the organiazation and the country, also in white. The size of emblem and the aspect ratio seem to have varied somewhat.
The whole design is derived from a another logo used by the group (image, image), which resembles logos of the New Force and other ultra-rightist groups which are members of the European National Front. This suggests that the emblem might have been designed either by Goran Davidović or by some of his Italian contacts, for he is known to have been maintaining good relations with members of New Force and other similar Italian organizations long before having emigrated to Italy in order to avoid the imprisonment after having been sentenced in 2008.

Tomislav Todorović, 30 March 2013