Know your nazis who is NSV?

We hereby call on every anti-fascist in the Low Countries to come on March 27 to Ghent for a resistance demo! Our comrades from AFA Brussels made this very informative text about the NSV. With permission we publish it on our website as well.

Nationalistisch Studentenverbond (NSV) is a far-right extremist student organisation, that functions as a breeding ground for Vlaams Belang leaders and other fascist groups.

It’s part of a wide network of ultranationalist and ultra-catholic groups that exert pressure on schools and universities in Flanders, and actively repress leftist, queer, racialised, anti- colonial and feminist voices.

NSV has a very busy agenda for 2025. They will hold meetings in Leuven, Gent, Brussels, Antwerpen, Hasselt, etc. On March 27, the will hold a «remigration» march in Ghent, calling for mass deportations (see attached images).

How long will the Belgian universities (and students) allow and facilitate the propagation of fascist ideologies by these organisations?

Origins

NSV was created in 1971, after the Katholiek Vlaams Studentenverbond (KVHV), when the group around Edwin Truyens was expelled due to ideological differences.

KVHV is an ultra-catholic and nationalist organisation similar to the NSV, and is strongly embedded in the universities Leuven, Gent, Brussels and Antwerpen. Many Vlaams Belang and N-VA leaders are lifelong members of KVHV.

NSV is part of the New Right movements coming up around the 1980’s, that aimed to make fascist ideas acceptable again. Edwin Truyens became a co-founder of Vlaams Belang and was on a local electoral list in 2024.

Along with KVHV, the NSV occupies a central role in the Flemish far-right environment structuring mass events like the IJzerwake and the Vlaams-Nationaal Zangfeest, where neo-nazi’s can freely mix with N-VA and Vlaams Belang politicians.

NSV has always loved nazi symbolism. Next to their signature hats, you can h recognise them by their Black-White-Red ribbons, thereby using the same colours as the German Reich and the Nazi Regime. It used the Celtic Cross; an international neo-nazi symbol, on its publications and as decoration for its meetings for decades.

It uses the Tyr-rune as its logo, which was the official flag of the «Führer schools» of Adolf Hitler’s NSDAP. The NSV published a paper called Signaal, a reference to a Nazi propaganda paper during the World War II.

The NSV gets direct inspiration from fascism. It promotes Joris Van Severen as an ideological example, the leader of the fascist VerDiNaSo.

It has constantly and openly performed Erika, a Nazi propaganda song, during mass events. The semi-official song of NSV consists of death threats to communists, syndicalists, socialists, Moroccans, black people (by using the n-word), French-speakers and Jewish people (by referring to them as «dirty»).

During the 1980’s, NSV was an extremely violent group. It had ties to the paramilitary Vlaamse Militanten-orde (VMO).
Together, they carried out raids and incendiary attempts on French-speaking schools, leftist spaces, Francophone churches and a bar in Sint-Niklaas, injuring several people. NSV members also organised violent attacks on people with an immigrant background.

NSV members have joined right-wing extremist groups, amongst whom neo-nazi formations, from the violent Vlaamse Jongeren Mechelen (1995-2005) to Voorpost and Nieuw- Solidaristisch Alternatief (2008-2019), who liked doing Hitler salutes and later merged with Nation. NSV has ties with Schild&Vrienden, KVHV, Vlaams Belang, Project Thule, N-VA, and others. NSV has founded different groups, like the Vlaams Nationalistisch Jeugdverbond (NSJV), a youth indoctrination organisation that parades in Hitlerjugend-adjacent uniforms at Flemish nationalist events. In 2009, it formed the Autonome Kameraden, a violent group copying anarchist aesthetics to carry out attacks on leftist student organisations.

NSV has produced the entire leadership of Vlaams Blok and later Vlaams Belang. Edwin Truyens called NSV the «original Vlaams Blok-study group». Many Vlaams Belang leaders are still actively involved with the NSV and exert control over the organisation.

Filip Dewinter (founder) was a prominent member and the leader of violent raids. Tom Van Grieken (VB president) was known for his aggressions on leftist students.
Tom Vandendriessche (VB leadership) produced neo-nazi themed NSV pamphlets and made swastikas during the meetings. Rob Verreycken (VB Leadership) once beat up PVDA-member Kris Merckx and led a charge injuring three students in Gent.

NSV also has permanent access to Vlaams Belang infrastructure. Vlaams Belang provides them with safe spaces, material support, social media advertisement and free beer at recruitment events. This is all funded with your taxpayer money.

Timeline of major events [1971-1985]

1971: Founding of NSV.
1978: Founding of the youth-section NJSV by Filip Dewinter.
1981: The NSV propaganda paper Signaal calls the «maintenance of the purity of the Nordic Race» the most important national struggle.
1984 (Gent): Battle of the Bottles.
NSV-members and Leftist students fight and pelt each other with glass bottles. NSV is expelled from the Politiek-Filosofisch Konvent in reaction to the group’s violence.
1984 (Sint-Niklaas): NSV-members attempt to murder a man of Moroccan origin, stabbing him three times in the throat. They are released barely a month later for «good behaviour».
1985 (Antwerp): A leftist student that attempted to take away a NSV banner following the shock electoral victory is threatened with a knife by NSV members.
1985 (Sint-Niklaas): An NSV-member starts a fire in a PVDA-PTB-linked bookshop, leading to his imprisonment. Filip Dewinter (Vlaams Belang) starts a fund to free the «political prisoner ».

Timeline of major events [1986-1998]

1986 (Brussels): Filip Dewinter (Vlaams Belang) and 45 NSV-members armed with brass knuckles and batons distribute flyers at the VUB. It transforms into a raid on the university, injuring two students.
1989 (Oostende): NSV celebrates the 100th birthday of Adolf Hitler Café Het Kroegske. Some thirty NSV-members do the Hitler salute. One member exhibits an original SS-uniform, while the bar’s owner wears a Ku Klux Klan t-shirt.
1996 (Gent): The leader of NSV-Gent, Dieter Van Parys, declares equality to be a myth, calls for racial inequality, apartheid and ethnic segregation, and declares black people (using the n-word) to be physically, culturally and mentally inferior, along other violent insults. Van Parys is now senator for Vlaams Belang.
1998 (Gent): A series of violent NSV attacks on leftist student bars and anarchist squats send a Blokbuster (antifascist organisation) member to the hospital. Leftist organisers tied to Blokbuster receive death threats.

Timeline of major events [2002-2009]

2002 (Gent): The leader of NSV-Gent says that people are right when they call the NSV fascists and nazi’s, amongst other insults directed at the organisation.
2003 (Gent): NSV-members commemorate Kristallnacht, the biggest pogrom carried out by Nazi Germany, by inviting a neo-Nazi band to Café De Roeland. The lyrics call for war on the «Jewish dogs» and «blood orgies for the Aryan race».
2006 (Antwerp): After the aggression on a Leftist Socialist Party (LSP) leader by NSV-members, NSV co-founder Valkeniers (Vlaams Belang, Leadership) openly legitimises nationalist street violence.
2006 (Hasselt): Local NSV-leader Thierry Vanroy (Vlaams Belang) declares his hope that « once democracy collapses into chaos, a fascist iron hand will be there to take over ».
2009 (Antwerp): A meeting from Actief Linkse Studenten (ALS) is attacked by NSV-members, but they are repelled by the protection service organised by ALS and Blokbuster.

Timeline of major events [2010-2013]

2010: NSV is recognised as a student organisation in Gent, Antwerp and Leuven, granting it access to university facilities and subsidy programs.
2010: NSV organises a conference hosting European far-right figures like Franck Vanhecke (Vlaams Belang), Bruno Golinisch (Front National) and the neo-nazi leader Nick Griffin (British National Party). The BNP is the founder of the international terrorist and neo-Nazi network Blood and Honour – Combat 18.
2013 (Antwerp): NSV hosts speakers from Casa Pound (Italian fascist organisation) and the Hungarian Guard (Openly antisemitic far-right paramilitary group) at an «international conference». This is too spicy even for Vlaams Belang, who refuse to host them in their buildings.

Timeline of major events [2015-2023]

2015 (Edegem): NSV hosts a meeting with Alexander Doegin, the fascist ideologue of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. The meeting was supposed to happen in Antwerp, but was prohibited.
2015 (Antwerp): NSV joins the «Mars voor het Gezin» to protest against abortion and egual rights for LGBTQI+ people. They are accompanied by Vlaams Belang leader Filip Dewinter.
2017 (Antwerp): The NSV march fails, with barely 80 participants. Tom Van Grieken (Vlaams Belang) is there too, along with 250 antifascists.
2018 (Gent): NSV and Schild&Vrienden march in support of the South African white Afrikaners, 200 far-right nationalists sing the anthem of the Apartheid regime. The counterprotest brings 500 people.
2023 (Leuven): A judge orders the KU Leuven to allow the NSV conference hosting Martin Sellner, the far-right extremist leader of Austria’s Generation Identity (who also comes to the NSV «remigration» march on 27/03 in Ghent). Sellner and Schild&Vrienden members show «White Power» hand-signs on a social media post.

Timeline of major events [2024]

March 2024 (Leuven): Dries Van Langenhoven holds a lecture organised by the NSV at KU Leuven, despite the protests of local antifascists. Van Langenhoven publicly insults women and racialised people, leading the KU Leuven to definitively withdraw its recognition of NSV.
March 2024 (Antwerp): NSV co-organises a march in Antwerp, with 200 participants. Voorpost, Schild&Vrienden, KVHV, and Vlaams Belang members and leaders are present, along with groups from the Netherlands (Geuzenbond), France (An-Tour-Tan) and Austria (FPÖ). They sing the national anthem of the Apartheid Regime.
November 2024 (Antwerp): NSV organises a «March for Remigration» in Antwerp, with 150 participants. Project Thule, Voorpost, Geuzenbond and Vlaams Belang members participate. They are outnumbered by some 500 antifascist counter-protestors.

Time to kick the fascists out!

The NSV has a busy agenda. The taxpayermoney and infrastructure provided by Vlaams Belang and our universities allow them to be very active.

NSV is an openly fascist, racist, misogynistic, queer-phobic, Islamophobic and antisemitic organisation, and maintains ties with the most extremist and violent groups present in Belgium.

Time to kick the fascists out!
Like in Leuven, the NSV sections in Brussels, Antwerpen, Gent and Hasselt must be expelled from our campuses to guarantee the safety and integrity of all students.

As Brussels antifascists, we stand in full solidarity with our comrades in Ghent!