ABSTRACT
The Ludwig group has for a long time been described in the media as a group of serial killers active during the Years of Lead, but analysis of the group’s claims instead highlight a deeply ideological nature. The claims of the group’s criminal actions, comprised of seven leaflets released by the Ludwig group in 1980–1984, has been examined through the analysis of language register, syntactic and rhetorical structure, adopted lexicon and co-occurrences. The analysis showed how the Ludwig group has as its founding ideology the Nazi one, and in particular what is defined as esoteric Nazism. Ludwig’s relationships with other far-right groups that have emerged recently and are the focus of ongoing investigations have been analyzed from a historical and ideological perspective.
