I hadn’t seen this question posted previously and I was wondering why exactally do punks hate nazis?
Everybody hates Nazis.
Well most people do, but punks espically seem to hate nazis.
As far as I know, for the sames reasons other people don’t like fascism and racism.
In my experience, they’re just a bit more willing to stand up to them than most people. As long as were generalizing, note that most nazis hate punks.
Punks need a cause with which to define themselves.
Punk has somewhat of an anarchist bent to it. So you can imagine that this might conflict with fascism.
I dunno. Back in the early 80’s a lot of SoCal punks sported nazi symbols, though this seemed more for shock value than any commitment to National Socialist ideology. And Skrewdriver sure doesn’t hate nazis. They are nazis.
I think punks might have more hate for nazis because some neo-nazi groups are very close to punk rock in their look and music. So punks have to say, in effect, “Hey, those guys might look a little like us, but we are not like them and we hate what they’re about.”
I suspect it’s because they recruit from the same population of disaffected, angry middle-class white teenagers. And I say this as someone who hung out with punks all through high school, and who has a lot of affection for them.
Also, there’s a fair amount of confusion in the public between the two groups, I think (although there’s more confusion between Nazis and skinheads–thus groups like SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice, or SHARP). Punks and nonracist skins get so pissed at being lumped in with Nazis that they work overtime to distinguish themselves from the latter group.
Daniel
Punks are for anarchy. Fascism is the exact opposite of this.
I think Larry Borgia’s got it.
Goose steppers and moshers clearly are at the extreme ends.
Yup, Larry Borgia has it – hence the “Nazi punks suck!” meme.
I also remember a cute punk chick who explained the tribalism of punk bootlaces to me circa 1988 or so. White laces for white supremacy, red laces for the blood of white heroes or some such crap, pink laces for queer-positive punks, and black laces for anti-fascist punks (or punks who hold themselves above the “fashion punks,” I guess.)
Superficially, punks appear fairly homogeneous in their non-conformity, but there is a lot of conflict between opposing ideologies in the sub-sub-cultures.
I imagine that if I wanted to dress in way that was very similar to a subset of people that had ass-backwards and offensive values, I’d be pretty demonstrative about how opposed I was to that sort of thing.
I wouldn’t lump “moshers” in with goose-steppers. Whatever you mean by “moshers”.
For nazis: The Goose step.
For punks: The Mosh pit.
Unless you can get a better name for a typical Punk dance step, that is the best I can do. 
And they are not lumped together; they are as opposite to each other as it can be.
Sorry, I got confuzzled a minute, thought you were putting them together :embarassed:.
If your are talking nazi skinheads… it was my experience that “back in the day” they would come to punk rock shows and start fights, wreck shit, and generally piss everyone off. This, combined with the fact that if they could get a bit of five-on-one going after the show, you might end up taking a pretty good beating for being a “fucking peace punk”, soured relations between the punks and the nazi skins.
Of course in the name of fairness, I should relate the following anecdote…
In my younger. more politically charged days, my roommate and I billeted a couple of West Berlin anarchist punks who were in our city for an anarchist conference. I came home one day to find out that they were outraged… outraged that they had been walking around the city and had seen skinheads out in public who were not being harrassed. According to them, this was unheard of in West Berlin. Apparently they spent most of their time at home fighting with the skinheads… beating them up when they caught them, and finding out where they lived and setting fire to their residences. They couldn’t understand how we suffered suffered the skinhead presence in our city so passively.
Anyway, I think the Dead Kennedy’s said it best…
*Ten guys jump one, what a man
You fight each other, the police state wins
Stab our backs when you trash our halls
Trash a bank if you’ve got real balls
Nazi punks
Nazi punks
Nazi punks-Fuck Off!*
As someone who was into ‘ponk rawk’ back in the Eighties, I’ll second this, and I couldn’t say it any better.
I think The Ramones provide a significant data point since there is a lot of crossover among certain groups.
The KKK took my baby away
They took her away
Away from me
No mention of Johnny Ramone?
I think another reason for the emphasis is that the vast majority of punks are white, and such a demographic can lead outsiders to believe that it’s that way because of overt hostility toward non-whites, and not a matter of individual choices re: one’s music and how to dress. (Of course, you could also say that the punk scene is exclusionary toward non-whites due to its overwhelming whiteness, even if that’s not intentional. It’s not just Nazis who are racists, you know. But this thread isn’t about that.)