{"id":302964,"date":"2025-06-20T14:39:42","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T14:39:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/americanstudies-june-20-2025-american-nazis-neo-nazis-and-charlottesville\/"},"modified":"2025-06-20T14:39:42","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T14:39:42","slug":"americanstudies-june-20-2025-american-nazis-neo-nazis-and-charlottesville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=302964","title":{"rendered":"AmericanStudies: June 20, 2025: American Nazis: Neo-Nazis and Charlottesville"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

[In the summer
\nof 1945<\/a>, Nazi scientists began arriving in the United States, recruited to
\nwork in the US government and eventually
\nits space program<\/a> as part of Operation
\nPaperclip<\/a>. But they weren\u2019t the first nor the only American Nazis by any
\nmeans, and this week I\u2019ll AmericanStudy a handful of others, leading up to a weekend
\npost on an interesting and fraught recent cultural representation of Paperclip.]<\/p>\n

On how to
\nrespond to a resurgent neo-Nazi movement. [NOTE: I originally shared this post
\na few years back; let\u2019s just it hasn\u2019t become
\nless relevant<\/a> since.]<\/span><\/p>\n

The
\nAmerican neo-Nazi movement has been present for more than half a century\u2014in the
\nsame mid-1960s years that Tom Lehrer was releasing \u201cWernher von Braun,\u201d a
\ndishonorably discharged Navy veteran named <\/span>George
\nLincoln Rockwell<\/span><\/a> founded the <\/span>American
\nNazi Party<\/span><\/a> (ANP), and the organization has been active in American politics
\never since (despite Rockwell\u2019s <\/span>August
\n1967 murder<\/span><\/a> by disgruntled former ANP member John Patler). Over those decades
\nit has also spawned competing organizations such as <\/span>Matthias
\nKoehl\u2019s New Order<\/span><\/a>, a monthly magazine (<\/span>The Stormtrooper<\/span><\/i><\/a>), and a
\nbriefly active 1970s youth organization (the <\/span>National
\nSocialist Liberation Front<\/span><\/a>, or NSLF). Reading all the info in those
\nhyperlinked posts (none of which, to be clear, are from the organizations
\nthemselves) makes me want to take a shower, but it\u2019s important not to look away
\nfrom the fact that American Nazis have been a vocal political force (if of
\ncourse a minority one) for more than 50 years.<\/span><\/p>\n

In August
\n2017, however, almost exactly 50 years after Rockwell\u2019s murder, neo-Nazis
\nenjoyed their moment of greatest national visibility: the <\/span>August
\n11-12 white supremacist \u201cUnite the Right\u201d rallies<\/span><\/a> in my
\nhometown of Charlottesville. The single most famous neo-Nazi participant in
\nthose hateful rallies was <\/span>James Fields<\/span><\/a>, the
\ndomestic terrorist who drove his car into a crowd of protesters, killing <\/span>Heather
\nHeyer<\/span><\/a>. But while neo-Nazis might want to disavow Fields\u2019 blatantly
\nillegal action, I\u2019m sure they were much happier with the Friday evening march
\nand rally on the University of Virginia grounds, at which neo-Nazis sporting
\nswastikas and offering Hitler salutes chanted slogans such as \u201cBlood and soil\u201d
\nand \u201c<\/span>Jews will
\nnot replace us!<\/span><\/a>\u201d By emphasizing the presence of neo-Nazis at the rallies, I don\u2019t
\nmean to downplay the many other white supremacist forces there, nor quite
\nfrankly the centrality of these communities to mainstream 2010s right-wing
\nAmerican politics (there\u2019s a reason why President Trump argued for \u201cvery fine
\npeople on both sides\u201d in Charlottesville). But while white supremacist rhetoric
\nand violence has been a common thread in <\/span>Charlottesville
\nand American history<\/span><\/a>, the overt embrace of Nazism in this moment
\nfelt distinctly new and even more threatening still.<\/span><\/p>\n

So how do
\nwe respond to that resurgent neo-Nazi movement (other than by <\/span>punching Nazis<\/span><\/a>, which
\nI\u2019m fine with but isn\u2019t sufficient by itself as a collective response)? It will
\ncome as something less than a surprise to know that a main answer of mine is
\nthat we need to better engage with our histories, including those about which
\nI\u2019ve written in this week\u2019s series. But we really do, for lots of reasons but
\nespecially this one: despite our understandable desire to define it as
\nsomething entirely outside of and opposed to our national identity, Nazism is
\nindeed as American as, well, the <\/span>Ford Mustang<\/span><\/a>. Or,
\ny\u2019know, the <\/span>moon landing<\/span><\/a>. But so
\ntoo is fighting Nazis, not just on the battlefields of Europe but in
\ncommunities and conversations here at home. Which is to say, the original
\nAntifa wasn\u2019t just all <\/span>those WWII
\nsoldiers<\/span><\/a>\u2014it was also, and I would argue especially, someone <\/span>like Isadore
\nGreenbaum<\/span><\/a>. As always, learning the horrific histories of American Nazism
\nalso means learning the inspiring histories of figures like Greenbaum (and the
\n100K New York protesters with whom he shared that 1939 activism). There are no
\nmore important lessons than those for our renewed fight here in 2020. <\/span><\/p>\n

Special
\npost this weekend,<\/span><\/p>\n

Ben<\/span><\/p>\n

PS. What
\ndo you think? Other histories or stories you\u2019d highlight?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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