Sonnenkrieg Division

Sonnenkrieg Division (SKD) was founded by Andrew Dymock, who had earlier founded the System Resistance Network, a successor to National Action after that group's proscription in December 2016. Modelled on the American Atomwaffen Division, it drew on the doctrine of the Order of Nine Angles.¹²

Prosecutions

Michael Szewczuk, 19, of Leeds, a co-founder, and Oskar Dunn-Koczorowski, 18, of West London, shared control of the group's page on Gab, where they posted material encouraging lone-actor terrorism, including an image of Prince Harry with a gun to his head captioned as a "race traitor." At the Old Bailey on June 18, 2019, Judge Rebecca Poulet QC, calling the content "abhorrent as well as criminal by reason of their clear intention to encourage terrorist acts," sentenced Szewczuk to four years and three months and Dunn-Koczorowski to eighteen months' detention.² Dymock was arrested at Gatwick Airport in December 2018, convicted of fifteen counts, twelve of them terrorism offences, in June 2021, and sentenced by Judge Mark Dennis QC on July 21, 2021, to seven years with three years' extended licence.¹ Harry Vaughan, an eighteen-year-old Tiffin School student arrested on June 19, 2019, in an investigation of the Fascist Forge forum, had made and uploaded SKD propaganda and kept bomb-making manuals; he pleaded guilty to fourteen terrorism offences and in November 2020 received a suspended sentence from Mr Justice Sweeney, who called him "a dangerous offender."³ Jacek Tchorzewski, who admired the group, wrote in a notebook, "Let's fill our hearts with terror and London's streets with blood."⁴

Proscription

On February 24, 2020, the Home Office announced orders to proscribe Sonnenkrieg Division and to treat the System Resistance Network as an alias of National Action, following a meeting of the Proscription Review Group. "By proscribing these groups we are making it much harder for them to spread their hateful rhetoric," said the Home Secretary, Priti Patel. The Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2020, made on February 27, added "Sonnenkrieg Division" to the list after Ansaroul Islam and came into force on February 28; membership or support carries up to ten years' imprisonment.⁵ The Feuerkrieg Division was proscribed later that year.⁶ Australia listed Sonnenkrieg Division in August 2021, its first designation of a far-right group, before The Base.⁷