“From Pittsburgh to Budapest”: Hungary To Play Host To (Another) Far-Right Extremist Meetup

Budapest — which has in recent years played host to International Far-Right Fight Night, racist and anti-semitic football hooliganism, and the now-banned neo-Nazi “Day of Honour” —  will host yet another international far-right extremist meetup next month.

Over the second weekend of November, far-right extremists have planned two separate evening concerts. Acts that explicitly promote racism, antisemitism and violence, and some who are linked to international neo-Nazi networks banned in several countries, will take the stage at an undisclosed location.

These concerts, titled “European Brotherhood” (Európai Testvériség) and “Hands Across the Sea,” respectively, will feature bands from Hungary, Greece, Poland and the United States.

The promoters — Nordic Sun Records, a Hungarian far-right extremist record label and webshop — state on their website that the concert will take place in Budapest’s 4th district (Újpest), north of the city centre.

Tickets for the November 10 concert featuring two Hungarian and two Polish bands, as well as a Greek band, are advertised for €16 in advance and €20 at the door. The concert the following evening, featuring three American and two more Hungarian bands, costs €40 in advance at €50 at the door, or €50 in advance for both concerts.

As Bellingcat noted in our previous investigation of a neo-Nazi concert in Finland, In-person events are crucial to the neo-Nazi scene and related subcultures: the European Union (EU) law enforcement agency, Europol, noted they “place high value on physical meetings and group activities” in a report earlier this year.

Nicolas Potter, a researcher at the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, a German NGO which works to combat racism and far-right extremism, warned EU policymakers in an address to the Council of Europe earlier this year that far-right extremist events, including concerts, “serve as spaces of radicalisation, recruitment and fundraising.”

The November 2023 Budapest concerts, first advertised in September, have been promoted by the Hungarian branch of the neo-Nazi Blood and Honour network on its website and Telegram channel. Blood and Honour is banned in Germany, Spain and Russia, and was listed as a terrorist organisation by the Canadian government in 2019.

In a statement to Bellingcat, a spokesperson for the Budapest Metropolitan Police said the force “will take the necessary measures if there is information suggesting a criminal offence or its preparation. If necessary, we will cooperate with our domestic and foreign counterparts.”

“Hammerskins associate”

The flyer for the November 11 concert, featuring three American bands, indicates that it is being organised by both Nordic Sun Records and “A.D.S.” — a reference to American Defense Records, an American white supremacist record label.

American Defense Records is run by Pittsburgh-based Travis Condor, described by the US-based Anti-Defamation League as “well-known in the white power music scene.”

Condor is a former US soldier and performs in two of the three American bands slated to appear at the Budapest concert. During a podcast episode posted on a neo-Nazi Telegram channel on September 21, Condor discussed the upcoming shows and stated, of Hungary, “I’m excited to play over there.”

In 2011, Condor pleaded guilty in an Ohio court to assaulting a homeless man with three other men. A US soldier at the time, Condor admitted in his plea agreement that he struck the defenceless homeless man under a Cincinnati bridge “two or three times…in the body with a bat and/or club.”

The ADL has identified Condor as a “Hammerskin associate” and the US-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) identified him as among those photographed alongside Hammerskin members and other white supremacists at the 2017 ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

As Bellingcat has noted in our previous investigations on ‘White Boy Summer’ in Finland and ‘European Fight Night’ in Hungary, the Hammerskins have been described as “the most violent and best-organised neo-Nazi skinhead group in the United States.” 

Authorities in Germany banned the country’s Hammerskins affiliate in September 2023 and reportedly raided the homes of dozens of members. The Hammerskins’ activity, the German interior ministry said in September 2023, “manifests itself in particular through the distribution of recordings of right-wing extremist and antisemitic music, the organisation of right-wing extremist concerts, and the sale of right-wing extremist merchandise.” 

A request for comment sent to a phone number associated with Condor was not returned.

Martyrs and Murderers

In 2020, one of the bands which Condor is a member of — and one slated to perform in Budapest — released an album featuring a photo of American neo-Nazi Robert Jay Mathews emblazoned on the packaging art, with the word “Sacrifice” underneath.

Mathews was the founder of The Order, an American white supremacist terrorist organisation that was active in the early 1980s. Members of The Order murdered Jewish talk radio host Alan Berg in June 1984. Mathews died after a shootout with federal authorities in 1984 and is considered a martyr by American far-right extremists.

Condor’s band features more than just photos of far-right terrorist leaders. A song, titled “Day of the Rope,” on this same release is a reference to The Turner Diaries, the 1978 white supremacist novel that has inspired acts of far-right extremist violence, including the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing that killed 168 people.

The song, as well as others on the album, contains racist and antisemitic language and explicit calls to violence, including the threats “got you in our scope” directed at Jews and “journalist scum won’t be spared the garrote.”

Other bands slated to perform are no less subtle in expressing their far-right extremist views and affiliations to international neo-Nazi networks like the Hammerskins and Blood and Honour. (Bellingcat is not naming the bands to avoid amplification).

One of the Polish bands’ releases features songs with titles like “Rahowa” — an acronym for ‘racial holy war’, a white supremacist slogan — and “Crew 28”, a reference to Blood & Honour. The Polish-language lyrics and visuals in the album’s liner booklet explicitly reference the neo-Nazi network. They were even less subtle with a release in the early 2000s titled Krew & Honor: ‘Blood & Honour’ in Polish.

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