Patriotic Popular Front

The Patriotic Popular Front (Isänmaallinen Kansanrintama, IKR) was a neo-Nazi party founded in Finland by Pekka Siitoin.

Patriotic Popular Front
Leader	Pekka Siitoin
Secretary-General	Seppo Lehtonen
Deputy Leader	Tapani Pohjola[1]
Deputy Secretary	Jari Hyvärinen[2]
Founded	1976[3]
Banned	1977
Succeeded by	National Democratic Party
Newspaper	Pohjantähti
Membership	100
Ideology	Neo-Nazism
Political position	Far-right
Party flag

Former French Foreign Legion soldier Timo Pekkala organized firearm drills for the group. Members of the IKR were responsible for the Kursiivi printing house arson.^[4]

Background

Tiedonantaja magazine claimed that Boris Popper had acted as a financier of Siitoin and acquired weapons and ammunition from the military's warehouses for the use of Siitoin's groups.^[5][4] A founding member of IKR, Tapio Saarni, son of a fish shipping tycoon funded the group.^[6]

Siitoin maintained contacts with likeminded National Renaissance Party of James Hartung Madole that likewise blended Satanism and Nazism and Matt Koehl's American Nazi Party that promoted Esoteric Hitlerism.^[7][8] IKR published National Renaissance Party material in Finnish, and Siitoin appeared in NRP's publications.^[9][10] IKR also maintained contacts with the KKK Grand Wizard David Duke and J. B. Stoner in the United States and Fédération d'action nationale et européenne in France.^[11][12] IKR also recruited Finns for the war in Rhodesia in its magazine.^[13] IKR also corresponded with the CEDADE that counted Leon Degrelle among its members.^[14] IKR cooperated and with Order of Flemish Militants that was led by half-Finnish Bert Eriksson and that perpetrated multiple firebomb attacks against minorities.^[7]

Siitoin also extended an invitation to Wiking-Jugend to visit him, and Wiking-Jugend did hold a camp in Finland in 1976 and created controversy by plastering posters calling for the release of Rudolf Hess.^[15]

After IKR members had sent multiple letter bombs to political enemies and held a parade in Nazi uniforms, authorities had had enough. IKR was banned in 1977 as contrary to the Paris Peace Treaty forbidding fascist organizations. However, Siitoin immediately founded a new party called the National Democratic Party.^[16][17][18]

The party operated its own printing house that published its magazine, Finnish translation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and holocaust denial books. According to a member list confiscated from Siitoin, the party had about 100 core members.^[10] Peripherally involved people who were involved in the distribution of material was about 1600.^[19]