American Nazi Party
The American Nazi Party is an American neo-Nazi political party founded by George Lincoln Rockwell in 1959. In Rockwell's time, it was headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It was renamed the National Socialist White People's Party in 1967. Rockwell was murdered by former ANP member John Patler later that year. Following Rockwell's murder, the organization appointed Rockwell's second in command, Deputy Commander Matt Koehl, as the new leader.
The NSWPP, now under Koehl's command, was subject to ideological disagreements between members in the 1970s and 1980s, leading to several members being kicked out and forming their own groups. Koehl renamed the NSWPP the New Order in 1983, which came with a shift in the organization towards esoteric neo-Nazism. After Koehl's death in 2014, a long-time member and officer of the New Order, Martin Kerr, assumed leadership.
History
Background and founding
The American Nazi Party was founded in October 1959 by George Lincoln Rockwell, a commercial artist, publisher, and commander in the United States Navy. Rockwell had become radicalized into National Socialism after an initial contact with antisemitic anti-communist figures, and became a neo-Nazi after reading Adolf Hitler's autobiography Mein Kampf in 1950.After this experience, Rockwell spent several years organizing extreme right-wing political groups; he initially tried to do this in a socially acceptable fashion, but came to see this as a failure as it did not attract an extreme enough audience. He eventually decided to go public with his antisemitism, and made more extreme and explicit political efforts. When Rockwell's supporters were implicated in the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation Temple bombing, it caused a backlash against him, and Rockwell's wife and family cut ties with him. Now miserable, Rockwell had a Nazi "religious experience" and committed to overt, explicit advocacy of Nazism. In October 1959, Rockwell founded the American Nazi Party.
Activities
Its headquarters were established at 928 North Randolph Street in Arlington, which also became Rockwell's home, and a nearby farmhouse served as a barracks for its members. Under Rockwell, the party explicitly embraced Nazi uniforms and iconography, and embarked on high profile media stunts designed to gain the maximum amount of press coverage. The group itself was quite fringe and had few members in comparison with the very large amount of publicity it garnered. Members regularly protested and caused disruptions.The Virginia House of Delegates revoked the ANP's corporation charter in June 1962 and banned the use of the name "Nazi" or "National Socialist" in charter names. A new charter was submitted under the name of ANP, Inc., which was rejected on a technicality. It was recreated under the name the George Lincoln Rockwell Party with only a single change on the board of directors.
In September 1962, ANP member Roy James punched Martin Luther King Jr. twice while King was speaking at a convention. King did not defend himself and instead spoke to him. James expressed regret and apologized shortly after the attack, but later went back on it. James was sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $25 after pleading guilty to charge of assault and battery and disorderly conduct. King had not wanted to press charges, but Birmingham Judge Charles H. Brown insisted on trying James, calling the incident an "uncalled for, unprovoked assault." In September 1962, Rockwell awarded James a medal for the deed.
In November 1963, when King was set to speak in Danville, Virginia, to set up a dialogue with whites, Rockwell sent ANP member Karl Allen and another member to instigate against him. He initially planned to have Allen stay there for some time to harass King, but this plan was derailed by the Kennedy assassination.
Rockwell's money habits and usage of the ANP's funding resulted in regular problems for the party and rough conditions for its members. Many became dissatisfied with his leadership. The second highest ranking member, Karl Allen, left the ANP in December, claiming it was for personal reasons. This surprised Rockwell, and he was disturbed to lose the best educated member of the group and second in command. Many party members left and followed Allen, and drew up a list of grievances against Rockwell and his leadership tactics, particularly an inability to "refrain from inserting his personality and judgment into every minute part of the Party's operation". They enumerated a list of grievances to be addressed and changes in the party's operations if they were to rejoin. Rockwell refused to address the demands. He was most worried about a demand that he would no longer have sole discretion over the board of directors, which he worried would be used to take control of the party. From then on declared them to be "the mutiny" and kept them out of the ANP.
After several years of living in impoverished conditions, Rockwell began to experience some financial success with paid speaking engagements at universities where he was invited to express his controversial views as exercises in free speech. This prompted him to end the rancorous "Phase One" party tactics and begin "Phase Two", a plan to recast the group as a legitimate political party by toning down the verbal and written attacks against non-whites, replacing the party rallying cry of "Sieg Heil!" with "White Power!", limiting public display of the swastika, and entering candidates in local elections.
During the 1960s, the FBI's COINTELPRO "White Hate" program placed the ANP under surveillance and undertook operations aimed at discrediting and disrupting its activities as part of a broader targeting of white supremacist and extremist groups.
The years 1965 and 1967 were possibly the height of Rockwell's profile. He was interviewed by Playboy magazine, an event that stirred controversy within the ranks. At the time Rockwell had about 500 followers.
Name change and assassination of Rockwell
On January 1, 1967, the group underwent several changes. Rockwell changed the name of the American Nazi Party to the National Socialist White People's Party, changed the logo to a stylized eagle, and replaced their slogan of Sieg Heil with White Power, all in an effort to Americanize the organization and increase its appeal. This alienated some hard-line members. The new name was a "conscious imitation" of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Rockwell wanted a more "ecumenical" approach and felt that the swastika banner was impeding organizational growth. Rockwell was killed on August 25, 1967, before he could implement party reforms.On August 25, 1967, as Rockwell left a laundromat, a former follower named John Patler shot Rockwell from the roof of the building. One bullet missed, the other hit his chest and ruptured his heart. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Koehl's succession and ideological divisions
Rockwell's second in command, Deputy Commander Matt Koehl, a staunch Hitlerist, assumed the leadership role after a council agreed that he should retain command. In 1968, Koehl moved the party to a new headquarters on 2507 North Franklin Road, clearly visible from Arlington's main thoroughfare, Wilson Boulevard. In 1969, NSWPP William Luther Pierce and Joseph Tommasi founded the National Socialist Liberation Front as a youth wing of the American Nazi Party, aiming for it to appeal to White college students. In 1970, David Duke joined the NSLF youth wing.Koehl's leadership style resulted in many members leaving the group or being kicked out. The party began to experience ideological divisions among its followers as it entered the 1970s. Thereafter, the members engaged in internecine disputes, and they were either expelled by Koehl or they resigned. After the murder of Rockwell, the party dissipated and ad hoc organizations usurped the American Nazi Party logo. Those included James Burford in Chicago and John Bishop in Iowa. Some members of the NSWPP chose to support William Luther Pierce, who was kicked out by Koehl, and formed the National Alliance in 1974. Others went with Joseph Tommasi, who was abruptly kicked out of the group for unclear reasons by Koehl in 1973. Tommasi founded the National Socialist Liberation Front in 1974, using the same name as the NSWPP's youth wing, but in effect an entirely new group. The new NSLF was a highly militant splinter of the NSWPP that attracted its most radical members; members were linked to several violent attacks.
In 1975, members of the California NSWPP were the subject of the academy award nominee documentary film The California Reich.
In 1982 the Internal Revenue Service took action to foreclose on the group's headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. The site of the party headquarters, 928 North Randolph Street in Ballston, Virginia, is now a hotel and office building. After Rockwell's death, his successor Matt Koehl relocated the headquarters to 2507 North Franklin Road in Clarendon, Arlington, Virginia. The small building, often misidentified today as Rockwell's former headquarters became The Java Shack.
New Order
Koehl's NSWPP changed its name to New Order on January 1, 1983, on the grounds that the people in the area "are not people looking to join revolutionary organizations", saying that it was moving to an area in the Midwest which it would not reveal for security reasons. This was announced by Martin Kerr, the leader at the Franklin Road headquarters. Due to recruitment issues along with financial and legal trouble, Koehl was forced to relocate the group's headquarters from the DC area, eventually finding his way to scattered locations in Wisconsin and Michigan. The name change reflected the group's neo-Nazi mysticism and it was still known by that name in 2010.The organization briefly attracted the media's attention in October 1983, when it held a private meeting at Yorktown High School in Arlington, Virginia. New Order's Chief of Staff, Martin Kerr, claims that the group is no longer a white supremacist group and focuses on advocating "in favor of people, not against other races or ethnicities...we consider the white people of the world to be a gigantic family of racial brothers and sisters, united by ties of common ancestry and common heritage. Being for our own family does not mean that we hate other families." The SPLC still classifies them as neo-Nazis and as a "hate group". After Koehl's death in 2014, Kerr assumed leadership and maintains the New Order website and organization.