Yes, Tomáš Vandas is a famous Czech Nazi

The thing is, Šídlo was telling the truth. Vandas is Czech, he is famous, and he is a Nazi, or to be more precise, a neo-Nazi.

In February 2010, the Supreme Administrative Court dissolved the Dělnická strana (Workers’ Party, or DS), led by Vandas, because it was a neo-Nazi, racist, xenophobic party carrying on Hitler’s National Socialism. The court also pointed out that the DS did not hesitate to use violence and wanted to transform the system in the Czech Republic from a democratic one to a totalitarian one.

Vandas &. Co. immediately moved into the prepared shell of another party called the Dělnická strana sociální spravedlnosti (Workers’ Social Justice Party). Those keeping track of his movements referred to that party by the acronym DSSS.

The reason for that was clear enough. The DSSS never publicly distanced itself from its previous ways or its previous ideology – on the contrary, the public appearances by its representatives did not differ from the previous ones, they were just as hostile toward human rights defenders, LGBT+people, migrants, Romani people, etc.

That applies to this day, when the supporters of Vandas have taken another “sidestep”, leaving the DSSS for a party called “Bezpečné ulice” [“Safe Streets”]. On its website, Vandas writes the following, among other things: “I believe that if a politician wants to be a real politician, not a person who is out of touch with real life, then he must never forget where he began his work, his principles and his roots. I do not want to reconcile myself to the direction in which our country is heading, the direction in which all of Europe is heading, which is inundated with immigrant parasites. I see this as a great danger against which we must fight with all our strength.”

Or he also wrote this: “I have been advocating for the program of the Workers’ Social Justice Party, of which I used to be the chair. Now, as an unaffiliated independent, I am supporting the Safe Streets party.”

Among the slogans of the “Safe Streets” party we find pearls such as these: “NO to immigrants on our territory”, or “NO to support for inadaptable, parasitic citizens”. In other words, Vandas has stuck to the Nazi intentions and vocabulary of the dissolved DS to this day.

When explaining its decision to de-register the DS, the Supreme Administrative Court cited this passage from the party’s newspaper, the Workers’ News [Dělnické listy] no. 22, vol. VII (5/2009): “There has already been enough privileging of the parasites who are flocking to us from all corners of the world under the vision of an easy living, supported by generous social welfare benefits. There has already been enough tolerance for the inadaptable leeches who, moreover, have the audacity to speak of racial discrimination and oppression. The time of apathy and running in place is over. The state, represented by the post-November [1989] set, has failed…”

Elsewhere the DS published this: “We want a pure, white country, without parasites and other vermin… Nobody will stop the Workers’ Party. […] once the Workers’ Party gets into power, it will be turning the tables on the non-governmental organizations working with minorities.”

Vandas also espoused the DS and its Nazism even after the party was dissolved. For example, in November 2018, his DSSS convened a gathering in Litvínov to mark the 10th anniversary of its attempted pogrom against Romani people there and the violence committed against police by the neo-Nazis and the football hooligans who participated.

“Just a few dozen party supporters made it to that event this time. One person was charged through an accelerated preliminary proceeding with showing sympathy for a movement planning to suppress human rights and freedoms,” the Czech Interior Ministry wrote of the event in its Extremism Report for the fourth quarter of 2018.

In May 2021, speaking at the Kameňák Ranch, where one of these so-called “patriotic” rallies was held, Vandas said the following: “The Workers’ Party unambiguously supported and always will support the unification of national forces… We’ve had a local town councillor in Duchcov for the sixth year in a row now. We cleaned out the gypsy ghetto there and put it in order. So we certainly have some work behind us of which we do not have to be ashamed…”

In September 2022, fake election campaign fliers appeared in the town of Bílina signed by “The Roma of Bílina”. The fliers told people not to vote for Vandas and his group called “Bílina Clean and Safe” (Čistá a bezpečná Bílina), positing that if he were to win, he would drive Romani people out of town, deprive them of their welfare benefits, and they would no longer be able “to live comfortable lives without working”.

Police reported that the “Bílina Clean and Safe” movement had printed the fliers themselves. Again, these are the same Nazi intentions and rhetoric that Vandas used in his Workers’ Party.

During the first half of 2023, according to the Interior Ministry, the Workers’ Youth (Dělnická mládež, the DSSS youth organization) presented ever more extreme posts on social media and made no attempt to mask its neo-Nazi direction. If Vandas no longer wanted to be seen as a Nazi, he would have to distance himself from his past, condemn it, and explain his evolution.

Vandas has never done any such thing, though. Instead, he proudly espouses Nazism, both verbally through his declared intentions and through his deeds as a local assembly member in Bílina.