The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

The Skinhead International: New Zealand


A small racist and anti-Semitic Skinhead movement is known to exist in New Zealand, although estimates of its numbers are difficult to come by. The adult neo-fascist groups that provide the Skins with ideological guidance are themselves believed to have no more than 200 members combined.

One far-right group, the New Zealand National Front, has published a newsletter called Skinhead.

Skinhead attacks are rare. Where they have occurred, the victims have tended to be members of the Indian community.

New Zealand's most notorious Skinhead crime took place in October 1989, when Skinhead Glen McAllister went on a shooting spree with a pump action shotgun in Cathedral Square in Christchurch. He killed 22-year-old Wayne Motz, and then shot himself to death. McAllister had been released from jail only a week before the shooting, after having served two years and three months of a four-year sentence for stabbing another Skinhead. At McAllister's burial, several Skinheads, including his brother, Craig, displayed a Nazi flag and gave the stiff-arm Nazi salute.

Recently, there have been reports of at least one prosecution of a Skinhead in Christchurch for violation of the Anti-Racial Vilification Section of the Human Rights Act. (Anti-Defamation League, 56)

Work Cited

Anti-Defamation League. The Skinhead International: A Worldwide Survey of Neo-Nazi Skinheads. New York: Anti-Defamation League, 1995. Anti-Defamation League, 823 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017.


Disclaimer: not all skinheads are neo-nazis or white supremacists. There are many skinheads who are non- or anti-racist, and who come from a variety of different religious and cultural backgrounds. Nizkor recognizes their achievements in anti-racism: they are part of the traditional, non-racist skinhead subculture and are not the perpetrators of the hate crimes discussed here.

Unless otherwise specified, the word "skinhead" within these pages refers only to neo-Nazi and white supremacist skinheads, the perpetrators of hate crimes and participants in racist organizations. We cannot edit the body of the text above, because it was not written by Nizkor, and to change the wording would be fraudulent. Please keep in mind that not all skinheads are racist.


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