George Lincoln Rockwell

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George Lincoln Rockwell (9. března 1918 - 25. srpna 1967) byl zakladatel American Nazi Party (Americké nacistické strany). Rockwell byl hlavní postavou neonacistického hnutí v poválečných USA a jeho myšlenky ještě dnes ovlivňují mnohé bílé nacionalisty a neonacisty.

Dětství, mládí a vzdělání

Rockwell se narodil ve městě Bloomington, ve stétě Illinois jako nejstarší ze tří dětí. Jeho otec, George Lovejoy "Doc" Rockwell, byl napůl Angličan a napůl Skot a jeho matka, Claire Schade Rockwell, byla napůl Francouzka a napůl Němka. Oba byli komedianti a herci. Rozvedli se, když bylo Lincolnovi šest let. Ten pak trávil své mládí zčásti s rodinou své matky v Atlantic City (New Jersey) a částečně s rodinou svého otce ve městě Boothbay Harbor (Maine). Zde se také stal vášnívým jachtařem a rybářem.

Rockwell se pokusil o studium na Harvardu, ale nebyl přijat. Po roce ho otec poslal do internátní Herbon Academy poblíž Lewistonu (Maine). Zde se začal zajímat o filosofii a důležitá sociální témata, což ho vedlo k přehodnocení jeho vztahu k náboženství. Dříve sám sebe považoval za hluboce věřícího, ale po opakovaném přečtení bible se označil za ateistu. Považoval náboženství ne za opium lidstva, ale za důležitý pilíř naší civilizace. Později založil rasistickou sektu Christian Identity.

V roce 1938 nastoupil na Brown University ve státě Rhode Island s hlavním zaměřením na filosofii. Zde poprvé popřel tezi, že by si všichni lidé byli rovni a že člověk je utvářen svým okolím.

Vojenská služba a manželství

Ve druhém ročníku byl přesvědčen, že je jen otázkou času, kdy USA vstoupí do války s nacistickým Německem. Proto se rozhodl opustit universitu a dal se k námořnictvu. Rockwellovi se zalíbila disciplína a v roce 1940 nastoupil na hodiny létání v Massachusetts a na Floridě. Po ukončení jeho výcviku byl převelen do Norfolku. Při přesunu lodí USS Pastores musel uklidňovat rasistické nepokoje, které vypukly mezi bílými a černými vojáky, kteří spali ve stejných místnostech. Řešení, které navrhl on a ostatní důstojníci, byla separace černých a bílých. Po losu mincí se stal velitelem černých námořníků.

Během války černí byli odděleni od bílých a Rockwell vůči nim nikdy nebyl nepřátelský. Při jedné oslavě jim dokonce dal láhev šampaňského. Později se ale jeho postoj k černým změnil a prosazoval úplnou segregaci černých a bílých jako řešení amerického rasového problému.

24. dubna 1943 se oženil s Judy Aultmanovou, kterou potkal na Brownově universitě. Po svatbě studoval další námořní školu na Floridě. Po ukončení studia sloužil v Pacifiku a jeho největší úspěch bylo plánování letecké podpory v bitvě o Guam.

In 1952, Rockwell was ordered to report to Norfolk, Virginia. Upon arrival, he was told that his next post would be Iceland. Since families were not permitted to be with Americans stationed in that country, his wife and children moved in with her mother in Barrington, Rhode Island. After a few months in Iceland, Rockwell returned to his family in Rhode Island. A short time later, Rockwell and his wife were divorced. After several months after his return to Iceland, Rockwell attended a diplomatic party in Reykjavík, Iceland's capital. At the party, Rockwell met Thora Hallgrimsdottir, who later became his wife.

[edit] Civilian career

After the war ended, Rockwell became a commercial artist. He applied to the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and was accepted for the following year. Rockwell and his wife moved to Boothbay Harbor, Maine, and in spring 1946, he built a photography studio and found work painting commercial signs. Later that year, they moved to New York City, where Rockwell started his studies at Pratt. While at Pratt, Rockwell was introduced to the modern art movement, which he considered foreign and Communist. He saw Jews as promoters of the movement, and mistakenly believed cubist Pablo Picasso was Jewish.

In 1948, he won the $1,000 first prize for an ad he did for the American Cancer Society. [1] The contest was sponsored by the National Society of Illustrators in New York. Rockwell left Pratt before finishing his final year, and started an advertising agency in Maine. Rockwell's career as a commercial artist was interrupted when he was recalled to duty as a Lieutenant Commander at the start of the Korean War. He moved his wife and two children to San Diego, California, where he trained Navy and Marine pilots.

Upon returning a second time to civilian life, Rockwell saw a business opportunity in starting a new magazine that would appeal to United States servicemen's wives. In September 1955, he launched the publication U. S. Lady. After presenting the idea to generals and admirals who headed public relations departments for the various military services, Rockwell began his publication efforts in Washington, D.C. The new enterprise would also incorporate Rockwell's political causes: his opposition to both racial integration and communism. Rockwell financed the operation through stock sales and subscriptions. With a staff of 30, Rockwell could only promise to pay his employees before the successful launch of the first issue. The publication continued to have financial troubles and Rockwell would later sell his interest in the magazine. However, Rockwell still hoped to become a publisher.

For a while, Rockwell worked for William F. Buckley Jr., and promoted Buckley's magazine National Review among conservative college students. Later, Rockwell decided conservatives were "human ostriches" who would never take a stand against his enemy, the Jews. Rockwell failed to start his conservative newspaper or the right-wing unity organization he envisioned. [edit] Political activism

During his time in San Diego, Rockwell began to pay close attention to politics and became influenced by Senator Joseph McCarthy's stance against Communism. Rockwell supported General Douglas MacArthur's Republican candidacy for President of the United States. Rockwell adopted the corncob pipe, following MacArthur's example. Rockwell attended a Gerald L.K. Smith rally in Los Angeles and read Conde McGinley's Common Sense, a political newspaper that introduced him to anti-Semitism and the Jewish Question. He read Mein Kampf and the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion , and privately adopted Nazi beliefs. He published an Animal Farm-type parody, The Fable of the Ducks and the Hens. This was Rockwell's interpretation of Jewish power in twentieth century United States. In 1952, Rockwell began working with anti-semitic and anti-communist groups. That year, he attended the American Nationalist Conference, which was organized by Conde McGinley’s Christian Educational Association.

In July 1958, Rockwell picketed in front of the White House to protest President Dwight D. Eisenhower's decision to send troops to the Middle East. One day he received a large package from one of his supporters, which contained an 18-foot-long Swastika flag. He placed the flag on the wall of his home and made an altar with Adolf Hitler's photo in the center, lighted with three candles in front. According to his autobiography, Rockwell claimed to have had a religious experience and swore allegiance to his leader, saluting "Heil Hitler!" Rockwell and a few supporters got uniforms, armed themselves with rifles and revolvers, and began to parade about his home in Arlington, Virginia. The window to his home was left open, showing the huge Swastika flag. Drew Pearson wrote a news column about Rockwell, giving his first bit of publicity. In the presidential election of 1964, Rockwell ran as a write-in candidate, receiving 212 votes. He ran unsuccessfully for governor of Virginia in 1965 as an independent, polling 5,730 votes, or 1.02 percent of the total vote. According to one of Rockwell's biographers, he was in demand on the lecture circuit and spoke to more than 100 college audiences. [edit] American Nazi Party

In March 1959, Rockwell formed the World Union of Free Enterprise National Socialists, a name apparently chosen to imply opposition to state ownership of property. In December of that year, the name would be changed to the American Nazi Party, and the headquarters moved to 928 North Randolph Street in Arlington, Virginia. The formation of the party resulted in his discharge from the United States Navy and the forfeiting of his pension. Rockwell had to send his wife, Thora, and the four children to Iceland for their personal safety. The separation was supposed to have been temporary. In the months that passed, they grew distant. Rockwell went to Iceland and tried to reconcile with his family. However, he was unable to save his second marriage and they later divorced. Meanwhile, relations with his biological family would never be the same either. Both his brother and sister refused to ever speak with him. His father never forgave his son for dishonoring his name. Only his mother remained in contact.

In order to gain press attention, Rockwell held a rally April 3, 1960, on the National Mall of Washington, D.C. The Washington Evening Star reported the Nazis were a flop and the rally was a failure. Rockwell returned and gave a two hour speech, gaining more press attention.

Rockwell's next tactic was to hold a rally at Union Square in New York City. He went there to demand a permit to speak. The crowd almost rioted as Rockwell began to answer reporters' questions. Rockwell said that 80 percent of the Jewish population in America were Communist sympathizers and therefore traitors who should be gassed. He was given a protected escort out of New York City and never received the permit to hold the rally.

Rockwell's next planned rally was set for July 3, 1960, again on the Mall. Rockwell and his men were confronted by a mob and a riot ensued. The police arrested Rockwell and eight party members. Rockwell demanded a trial but instead was being sent to a mental institution for thirty days of observation. In less than two weeks he was released and found capable of standing trial. He published a pamphlet on this experience titled, How to get out or stay out of the insane asylum. Thereafter, he became more careful in his rhetoric. In summer 1966, Rockwell led a counter-demonstration to Martin Luther King's attempt to bring an end to de facto segregation in the white Chicago suburb of Cicero, Illinois. He believed King was merely a tool for Jewish Communists to integrate America. Although he admired J. Edgar Hoover's stand against communist subversion and would have approved of Hoover's tactics against King, unbeknownst to him, Rockwell was also targeted by the FBI's counter intelligence program: COINTELPRO. A later edition of White Power with the swastika removed A later edition of White Power with the swastika removed

Rockwell led the American Nazi Party in assisting the Ku Klux Klan and similar groups during the Civil Rights Movement, by countering the Freedom Riders and the March on Washington. But he soon came to believe the Klan was stuck in the past and ineffective for helping him wage a modern race struggle. After hearing the slogan "Black Power" during a debate in 1966 with Black Panther Stokely Carmichael, Rockwell altered the phrase and started a call for "White Power." White Power would later become the name of the party's newspaper and the title of a book authored by Rockwell.

Rockwell's principal message was racial separation and attempted to form friendly associations with the Nation of Islam. He praised Elijah Muhammad as the "Black people's Hitler," and for doing the best job in promoting integrity and pride among his people. Rockwell also admired Malcolm X and saw him as the next true leader for Black America.

If separation was not achieved, Rockwell believed America faced long-term racial problems and predicted a great race war, where "the uniform would be skin color." Rockwell believed the conflict was approaching with whites eventually becoming America's new racial minority.

Rockwell once gave an interview to Alex Haley, the author of the novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family, which was made into a TV miniseries. The interview was published in Playboy magazine in the April 1966 issue. Rockwell agreed to the interview because of the magazine's appeal to white males. For many, this was the first time Rockwell's ideas were presented to the public without censorship. The interview was dramatized in Roots: The Next Generations, with Marlon Brando portraying Rockwell and James Earl Jones portraying Haley. [edit] Party Headquarters

The location he established as the headquarters of his American Nazi Party (2507 North Franklin Road in Arlington) is now a coffee shop called "The Java Shack" [2], and serves a racially diverse community. The two-story house he established as his "Stormtrooper Barracks," which some of the locals dubbed "The House on Hatemonger Hill" (6150 Wilson Boulevard, in the Dominion Hills district of Arlington), has since been razed and the property incorporated into the Upton Hill Regional Park. [edit] World Union of National Socialists

In August, 1962 Rockwell travelled secretly to England through Ireland. In the Cotswolds, he co-founded the World Union of National Socialists with Colin Jordan's British organization the National Socialist Movement, before being deported back to the states. In 1966 the international group published National Socialist World, edited by former physics professor William Luther Pierce. [edit] National Socialist White People's Party

On January 1, 1967, Rockwell announced the party’s next stage of development. He officially changed the name of the American Nazi Party to the National Socialist White People's Party (NSWPP). Its new slogan would be “White Power” replacing “Sieg Heil.” The new strategy would be to capitalize on growing support in the wake of the Chicago rallies and to focus the organization’s commitment to a universal white nationalism as opposed to Nordic or Anglo-Saxon provincialism. An internal party newsletter, the “National Socialist Bulletin”, was started to convey and help direct these new efforts.

On June 9-11, the party held its national conference in Arlington aimed at reorganizing its leadership and “charting a new course of professionalism.” The ANP party publication The Stormtrooper magazine was replaced by a newspaper titled White Power.

Rockwell also was the first to shed the Nordicist ideology of what an Aryan was and replaced it with Pan Europeanism, which accepted all white ethnicities such as Italians, Greeks, and Spaniards. German National Socialism had only accepted Northern and western Europeans as Aryan. [edit] Hatenanny Records and the Hate Bus

In the 1960s, Rockwell attempted to draw attention to his cause by starting a small record label named Hatenanny Records (the name was based on the word Hootenanny, a term given to certain folk music performance). The label released several 45 RPM singles, including recordings by a group credited as Odis Cochran and the Three Bigots, and were sold mostly through mail order. A truncated version of one of the band's recordings, Ship Those Niggers Back appears in the documentary The California Reich. When the Freedom Riders drove their campaign to desegregate bus stations in the deep South, Rockwell secured a Volkswagen van and decorated it with Swastikas and white supremacist slogans, dubbing it the Hate Bus and personally driving it to speaking engagements and party rallies. It was later repossessed after the American Nazi Party defaulted on a loan.


[edit] Assassination

On June 28, 1967, the first attempt was made on Rockwell’s life. Returning from shopping, he drove into the party barracks’ driveway on Wilson Boulevard and found it blocked by a felled tree and brush. Rockwell assumed that it was another prank by local teens. As a young trooper cleared the obstruction, two shots were fired at Rockwell from behind one of the swastika-embossed brick driveway pillars. One of the shots ricocheted off the car right next to his head. Leaping from the car, Rockwell pursued the would-be assassin. On June 30, Rockwell petitioned the Arlington County Circuit Court for a gun permit; no action was ever taken on his request.

On August 25, 1967, Rockwell was killed by gunshots while leaving the Econowash laundromat at the Dominion Hills Shopping Center in the 6000 block of Wilson Boulevard in Arlington, Virginia. Two bullets crashed through his 1958 Chevrolet’s windshield and it slowly rolled backwards to a stop. Rockwell staggered out of the front passenger side door of the car, pointed towards the shopping center roof, and then collapsed face up on the pavement.

The gunman ran along the shopping center roof and jumped to the ground in the rear. A shop owner and customer briefly gave chase, but were unable to get a clear look at the fleeing figure. Other customers called the Arlington County police and checked Rockwell for a pulse. He had none; the one bullet that struck him had ripped through several major arteries just above his heart. The internal bleeding was so heavy that Rockwell died in two minutes.

A half hour later at a bus stop several miles away, John Patler - a former member of Rockwell’s group - was arrested as the suspected assassin by a passing patrolman familiar with the Arlington Nazis. Later that day, after hearing of his son’s death, Rockwell’s 78-year-old father commented laconically, “I am not surprised at all. I’ve expected it for quite some time.”

Matt Koehl, the number two man in the NSWPP, moved to establish legal control over Rockwell’s body and all NSWPP assets. At the time of his death, the NSWPP had approximately 300 active members nationwide and perhaps 3,000 financial supporters. Although Rockwell’s parents wanted a private burial in Maine for him, they did not feel up to a public fight with the Nazis for his body. On August 27, an NSWPP spokesman reported that Federal officials had given verbal approval to a planned military burial of Rockwell at Culpeper National Cemetery, which was his right as an honorably discharged veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces.

On August 29, several dozen NSWPP troopers and about 100 party supporters formed a procession and drove the 65 miles from Arlington to Culpeper. At the cemetery gates they were met by General Carl C. Turner and 60 MPs who had been rushed in from Vint Hill to enforce the U.S. Army’s burial protocol. They were backed by dozens of police from various jurisdictions. No mourners bearing Nazi insignia would be allowed into the cemetery. The NSWPP troopers’ refusal to remove their uniforms led to a day-long standoff. They unsuccessfully tried to force their way into the cemetery three separate times. Several arrests resulted. With daylight fading, General Turner declared that Rockwell could not be buried until the NSWPP made a new request to the Pentagon and agreed to follow protocol.

The Nazis returned to Arlington with Rockwell’s body. Plans were made to bury Rockwell in Spotsylvania County, but they fell apart when local Jewish organizations protested. Fearing that Arlington County officials might seize the body, the NSWPP had Rockwell cremated the next morning and a memorial service was held that afternoon at party headquarters. On February 8, 1968, the NSWPP filed suit to obtain a Nazi burial for Rockwell’s remains at any National Cemetery. On March 15, 1969, a Federal district judge upheld the Army Secretary’s ruling that Rockwell was ineligible for a burial with full military honors in a national cemetery. The final resting place of Rockwell’s remains is uncertain.

The controversy after Rockwell’s death wasn’t limited to the disposition of his remains. It soon spilled over into the trial of his accused assassin. Following psychiatric evaluation, John Patler was judged competent to stand trial. Patler pled not guilty at his preliminary hearing and on September 29, 1967, he was bound over by a grand jury on the charge of first degree homicide. His trial began on November 27 amid tight security at the Arlington County Courthouse. On December 15, Patler was found guilty and released on bond to await sentencing. On February 23, 1968, Patler was sentenced to 20 years in prison, at that time the least punishment possible for a first degree murder conviction. The Virginia Circuit Court postponed imprisonment pending his appeal.

On November 30, 1970, the Virginia Supreme Court upheld Patler’s conviction and 20-year sentence for slaying Rockwell and ordered him to begin serving his sentence. On May 16, 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected Patler’s appeal based on claims of witness contamination. In August 1975, Patler was paroled from the Pulaski correctional unit after serving less than four years of his sentence. Judge Charles S. Russell, who had presided over Patler’s murder trial, wrote a lengthy letter to the parole board supporting Patler’s release. It was the only time he ever did this in his career. The following year, however, Patler violated the terms of his parole and was returned to prison for an additional six years. On December 30, 1977 Patler petitioned the Henry County Circuit Court to change his surname back to its original form, Patsalos. After serving out the remainder of his sentence, John Patsalos returned to the New York City area.

The strip mall where Rockwell was slain is still called the Dominion Hills Shopping Center. In the past, admirers of Rockwell have painted a swastika on the exact spot of the parking lot where he died. [edit] Legacy

Rockwell has inspired long-timed White activist leader David Duke. As a student in high school, when Duke learned of Rockwell's assassination, he reportedly said "The greatest American who ever lived has been shot down and killed." In the mid 1960s, Rockwell had a strategy to develop his Nazi political philosophy within the Christian Identity religious movement. Previously, Christian Identity had anti-Semitic and racist views, but not a Third Reich orientation. The Christian Identity group Aryan Nations started to use various Nazi flags in its services, and its security personnel started wearing uniforms similar to those worn by Rockwell's stormtroopers. Two of Rockwell's associates, Matt Koehl and William Luther Pierce, formed their own organizations. Koehl, who was Rockwell's successor, moved the NSWPP to Wisconsin and founded New Order. Pierce founded the National Alliance.