Since 2023, the number of Neo-Nazi Active Clubs worldwide has increased by 25 percent
Since publishing Neo-Nazi Active Clubs Spreading Globally, Allying with Similar Extremists, and Taking to the Streets in October 2023, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) has found that the Active Club (AC) movement is continuing to expand globally. The first ever Latin American chapter has been established in Colombia, Germany and the U.S. have seen an explosion of chapters, and a new dangerous form of Active Club dedicated to recruiting teenagers has arisen in the U.S.
There are now 187 active AC chapters in 27 countries, up from 149 chapters in 21 countries in late 2023. That represents a growth of 25 percent in a short time. Half of the new groups are “Youth Clubs” that specifically recruit teen boys aged 15 to 18. As with all movements, there is an ebb and flow to the far-right, and in this case, the Active Club movement. Another 37 chapters GPAHE documented in 2023 have either had their social media accounts deleted, have not posted to their accounts since January 2025, or lack other evidence showing they are still functioning. GPAHE also found another nine accounts that were active at one time during this period, but are no longer active. It is unclear whether any of these groups have truly disbanded, simply been deplatformed, or are operating underground (see data in PDF).
Active Clubs are part of a transnational white supremacist movement that engages in physical training, practices mixed martial arts (MMA), and spreads hate propaganda in anticipation of what they believe is an impending “race war.” Conceived by American neo-Nazi Robert Rundo and Russian neo-Nazi Denis Kapustin, the Active Clubs refer to themselves as “White Nationalism 3.0,” an international, decentralized movement of groups working towards the fascist ideal of becoming physically-fit “ubermensch” and a common goal to strengthen the white nationalist movement. Rundo has stated that the Active Clubs are akin to the “minutemen in the early stages of the revolutionary war,” and are bound together by a “leaderless resistance.” The symbol used by most of the Active Clubs is a variation of the Celtic Cross, a well-known neo-Nazi symbol.
Not all of the groups counted in this report use the name “Active Club,” or its prominent symbols, but they employ similar aesthetics, and exist primarily as white supremacist fight clubs. Regardless of having varying names, these organizations are deeply integrated into the Active Club movement, regularly meeting with Active Club groups for MMA matches and spreading the propaganda of fellow AC chapters on their pages.
The significant growth of the movement, made up primarily of young white males, poses a threat to democracy and marginalized communities. ACs have significant ties to neo-Nazis and other far-right extremist groups across North and South America and Europe and are prepping for anticipated racial violence. The Active Clubs are well connected to other white nationalist and extremist groups at the local level, including those with a penchant for violence, such as the white supremacist groups Proud Boys, White Lives Matter (WLM), and Patriot Front in the United States, the antisemitic Action Française and racist Identitarian groups in France, and the neo-Nazi Hammerskins in Canada, Sweden, and Germany.
Active Clubs Spreading Their Global Reach
GPAHE tracks ACs through their Telegram channels and other online accounts. Based on the creation dates of the groups’ social media accounts, GPAHE has found that a significant number of new chapters were created in the past two years, with 30 chapters appearing in 2024 and 20 chapters appearing in the first six months of 2025.
The growth in chapters since 2023 has mainly occurred in Germany (19 new chapters) and the United States (38 new chapters). New clubs have also appeared in Switzerland, Sweden, Canada (two new chapters), the United Kingdom (three new chapters), Chile, Colombia, and Finland (two new chapters). Additionally, more than a dozen Youth Clubs dedicated exclusively to teens aged 15 to 18 have sprouted up (see GPAHE’s previous reporting on the Youth Clubs here).
ACs have now appeared in Latin America for the first time. In Colombia, the Active Club Bogotá D.C. is a new, highly active group, regularly engaging in MMA fighting, physical training, trips abroad, and social events with like-minded groups. Active Club Bogotá D.C. has been a prominent organizer of local MMA tournaments in the area. In February 2025, Switzerland gained its first Active Club chapter, called Active Club Helvetia. AC Helvetia, in the first few months of its short existence, has gone hiking, spraypainted racist propaganda, and held MMA events.
New Regional and Umbrella Groups
The Active Club movement has two different organizational styles. The first involves local organizing independent of other clubs. More recently, new clubs have appeared that represent multiple states. In countries such as Canada, France, and Finland, the Active Clubs are organized in a centralized manner, using one umbrella organization that then helps organize the more local groups in a top-down fashion.
In Germany, an umbrella organization called Active Club Germania was created to coordinate certain local chapters in the country. Like the French, Finnish, and Canadian groups, this main group organizes local groups and facilitates processes for recruitment. In Germany, most of the new local chapters were started between April and October 2024. The chapters in Germany have cross-over with members in the far-right neo-nazi III. Weg (Third Way), the youth group of the neo-Nazi Die Heimat party, Junge Nationalisten, the youth group for the extremist German political party, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), Junge Alternative, until it was dissolved in March 2025, and the transnational white nationalist Identitarian movement. The German ACs accept participants from multiple extremist organizations and seek to avoid in-fighting between members of diverse far-right groups that sign up.
In Canada, a new network of Active Clubs that don’t officially go by that name, Second Sons Canada (SSC), popped up in March 2025. Inspired by the Canadian Active Club movement and created by influencers associated with the white supremacist Diagolon movement, SSC launched a Telegram page on March 21, 2025. Alex Vriend, a Holocaust denier and previous Active Club member, who goes by the name “The Ferryman’s Toll” online, described the Diagolon connected ACs as a “membership-based organization nationwide” during a 2023 livestream discussing plans to form SSC. The group claims to have chapters in Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island.
SSC draws from Active Clubs’ martial arts and combat sports training and requires members to pass a series of physical requirements to join. As is true generally of the AC movement, they draw their ideological framework from the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, saying: “Our birthright has been stolen from us as we are being pushed out of society, academics and the workforce and replaced by foreigners without any roots or connection to the Canadian people.” According to a report published by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN), SSC’s uniforms “imitate the blue jackets and white face coverings worn by Patriot Front,” an American white supremacist organization. Vriend has previously collaborated with Patriot Front leader Thomas Rousseau on a YouTube livestream. While clearly inspired by the Active Club model and other white supremacists, SSC exists as its own network and holds demonstrations, such as at the Halifax Cenotaph, in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, in March 2025.
Members of Second Sons Canada demonstrate in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, in March 2025. (Source: Reddit)
The Active Club Estonia has grown since 2023, sprouting several local chapters. On April 7, 2024, AC Estonia formed Active Club Tallinn, which has engaged in MMA, protests, and harassment of local LGBTQ+ groups. Another local group, created on June 16, 2024, is Active Club Järvamaa, in the region to the southeast of Tallinn. Active Club Estonia has significant ties to white power music groups in the country and participated as part of the “Black Bloc” at the far-right Polish Independence Day march (Marsz Niepodległości) in November 2024, a contingent at the march comprised of the most extreme fascist and neo-Nazi groups from across the continent (see GPAHE’s previous reporting on the Polish Independence Day march here). Active Club Estonia is believed to have ties to the Ukrainian ultranationalist “Azov” brigade, part of that country’s military that at one time was notable for recruiting racists and neo-Nazis. Their members were pictured in Ukraine in combat gear in April 2023.
Finally, four new American Active Club chapters covering multiple states have been created over the past two years. This collection of new neo-Nazi groups, called the Southern Saxon, Saxon Hengist, Alpine Saxon, and Saxon Dawn, refer to themselves as “Folkish” Active Clubs. While they participate in all of the same activities that Active Clubs do, and consider themselves a part of the broader Active Club network, they have created their own symbols to distinguish themselves. They emphasize the color maroon and images of Anglo-Saxon dragons and knights. They are also one of the few Active Club chapters to have fully-functional accounts operating on X/Twitter.
The Southern Saxon chapter refers to itself as a “Dixie Regional Active Club,” and is active in Virginia, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Maryland. The Sons of Hengist (also Saxon Hengist) are referred to as a “Midwest Regional Active Club,” and are active in Michigan, Missouri, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Indiana. Saxon Dawn is referred to as a “Northeast Regional Active Club,” and is active in Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Alpine Saxon is referred to as the “Rocky Mountain Regional Active Club,” and is active in Colorado and the Rocky Mountains region.
Members of this network have travelled abroad to meet far-right groups in other countries, including in South Africa, where a member of Southern Saxon met with someone in Orania, a whites only Afikaner community, “to gain a deeper understanding of how Whites can form international communities.” Orania is a town in South Africa created in 1991 for white people as a “cultural project” to “preserve Afrikaner culture.” Members of this network also regularly post images of stickers in support of the Azov Brigade.
Youth Clubs
Amongst the growing number of Active Clubs are “Youth Clubs,” which have seen a rapid mobilization in the U.S. in the first few months of 2025. According to a post by an umbrella account for Youth Clubs, titled “United Youth,” created on February 24, 2025, they form a “network of pro social young white men nationwide” that act as an “activist,” “nationalist,” and “fraternal and fitness network.” Like the regular Active Clubs, they subscribe to the racist and terrorist-inspiring, “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory. They have members between the ages of 15 and 18, with at least 19 chapters representing 42 states (chapters cover more than one state). The majority of Youth Clubs created channels on Telegram between February and June 2025, with a few set up in 2024. Several Youth Clubs created accounts on the social media platform TikTok, known for having a younger following, but they were subsequently suspended.
Youth Clubs also engage in similar stickering activities as their adult counterparts, which include advertising their own chapters nationwide along with spreading neo-Nazi imagery and white supremacist slogans. These symbols include the Black Sun, which was popularized by Nazi SS leader Heinrich Himmler, and the slogan “conquered, not stolen,” referencing the colonial system and genocide perpetrated by European settlers against Indigenous peoples in North America, which is commonly used by the white supremacist Patriot Front. Several Active Club chapters have endorsed these Youth Clubs, sharing posts and pushing their teenage followers to join them.
A post by The Kalifornian Nationalist Youth shows several pieces of propaganda featuring the Black Sun, an explicitly Nazi symbol, and “conquered, not stolen,” a Patriot Front motto (Source: Telegram).
Since their appearance in the beginning of 2022, the Active Club movement has metastasized across the Western world. Chapters have spread across the entirety of the United States, Canada, through most of Europe, and into Latin America. Clubs are forming out of other white supremacist movements, such as the Diagolon clubs in Canada, and working closely with other neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups. The development of a Youth Club network for teens is particularly concerning, and poses a significant threat to young men online who risk being radicalized.
