Marduk was formed by Morgan Steinmeyer Håkansson in order to form the "most blasphemous band in the world". Their musical style was that of a straightforward death metal influenced take on black metal music, but as the years progressed their style and imagery became more of a fast and intense form of black metal. Marduk's predominant lyrical topics are Satanism, anti-Christianity, blasphemy, death, Third Reich history, and World War II. The latter two are a later addition to their lyrical/conceptual themes, stemming from their 1999 release Panzer Division Marduk. Marduk have recorded further songs relating to those chapters of human history, such as "The Hangman of Prague", "Night of the Long Knives", "Deathmarch" and others. On the Nightwing album the band samples a march by the fascist and anti-semiticIron Guard in Romania. The band's fixation on Nazi-era Germany has caused a great deal of controversy, leading to multiple performances being cancelled, and leaving the band unable to tour multiple countries in various parts of the world. Much of this controversy stems from a 1995 interview with Nordic Vision Magazine, in which guitarist Morgan Steinmeyer Håkansson was quoted as saying "in Germany, where magazines as “Rock Hard” and “Metal Hammer” have decided that we are a facistic band and refuse to print any ads with Marduk the reason for this is that in a German magazine I said that we in Marduk want to prevent immigration to Sweden and that I was proud over the fact that my grandfather was a serving German officer during the second World War” and that “immigrants – who poison our environment” should not be allowed into Sweden. In September 2016, The band was supposed to tour the U.S. with Carach Angren, Rotting Christ, and Necronomicon but was forced to drop out, leaving the other three to continue on, due to unresolved delays in obtaining visas. Due to that, the band was forced to postpone the tour to early 2017. In late February their planned Oakland show was cancelled by the venue for fears of security issues after a local anti-fascist group targeted the band and reportedly threatened the venue staff. In April 2018 vocalist Mortuus and drummer Fredrik Widigs were accused of purchasing items from the Nordic Resistance Movement, a Swedish neo-Nazi organization, after sale records for various purchases were uncovered, including Mortuus and Widigs' real names, personal email addresses, and shipment records confirmed the material was shipped to the members' home addresses. The items included stickers and flyers promoting the NMR and the books "Our Way - The Nordic Party Movement Party Program" and "National Socialism - The Biological Worldview". Marduk denied these claims on their official Facebook page stating, "No Marduk member has ordered anything from the website in question, or ever had any form of interaction with the organisation operating it. This is all we have to say about the matter." On 26 April 2018 the band released their first single "Werwolf" off their latest album Viktoria which was released on 22 June.
