The Fourth Reich - Banning in The UK

Banning in The UK

This EP was released in the UK through label Shout but its original front cover was banned and replaced by a new one with black-colored background and just the title in red gothic characters. The name The Fourth Reich could lead to confusion because the title seems to suggest a continuation of the Third Reich. Actually, the image cover depicts Austrian psychiatrist and psychoanalysis Wilhelm Reich with a red armband similar to that used by the nazis, but in this case, the armband had the symbol of the orgone physics, which represented duality and its origins in unity, referred by Reich as functionalism.
As a matter of fact, this release was a tribute to Reich, since Þeyr members were interested in his works. The back cover of this record also featured an image of Reich being escorted from the courthouse in Portland, Maine when he was arrested in 1956.

This image is accompanied by a German inscription which reads the following:
Gemäss der Verordung des Reichspräsidenten vom 28. Februar 1933 ist die Verteilung aller ausländischen Veröffentlichungen der politisch-psychologischen Reiche der Verleger für Sexualpolitik (Verlag für Sexualpolitik, Kopenhagen, Dänemark, ebenso, Prag, Tchechoslowakei und Zürich, Schweiz) im Reich bis auf weiteres verboten.*

Translation: According to the order by the Reich’s president on February 28, 1933 the distribution of all foreigners publications pertaining the polito-psychological topics (Publishers for sexual politics, Copenhagen, Denmark, the same as Prague, Czechoslovakia and Zurich, Switzerland) has been forbidden from now on in the Reich.

The fragment clearly refers to Reich’s book Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933), in which he claimed that fascism was the result of sexual repression. This book was banned soon after its publication the same year Nazis took power.