Bill White: Nazi Group Sees Explosive Growth In Wake Of September 11 Attacks.National Alliance Sees Numbers Triple As Protests Show Strength

“What are you doing for dinner tonight?” the young Nazi girl asked your humble correspondent at a recent demonstration against Israel. “Feel like going drinking with a bunch of skinheads?” It wasn’t my thing. But the invitation alone would seem a mystery – only five months ago I’d reported, erroneously, that this young girl was addicted to heroin. (I’d been fooled by a rumor planted by a rival Nazi) But now she was smiling and looking for a date – and why not? The communists that had come to demonstrate against “fascism” had dwindled to less than a dozen, and her group was reaping the fruits of openly challenging a traditional American taboo – in the wake of September 11, her National Alliance demonstration against Israel had drawn a dozen reporters, three television stations, and shown Washington’s left that there was a new force in town. My “cute”-ness and good looks probably also didn’t hurt.

Call it an unintended side effect of the World Trade Center attacks. Think of it as a form of domestic Blowback. Since Muslims blew up the New York World Trade Center and the Pentagon in protest of America’s support for Israel, it’s support of “moderate” Muslim regimes so they won’t attack Israel, and it’s blockade of Iraq to keep it from becoming a regional competitor to Israel, the National Alliance has been the only voice on the American political landscape to both protest America’s foreign policy, protest the new anti-civil liberties measures, and to connect those issues with America’s Jewish minority – the group that all political observers know have foisted these policies on America, but which no political observers will speak about. Its honesty has brought it profit. A group that beforehand had, according to a recent public statement, had 170,000 people a week downloading its radio broadcasts, now reports that traffic has doubled – presumably to more than 340,000 downloads per week – and that its membership, which had already begun to pick up after decades of slump, is skyrocketing – tripling in new applications since the attacks.

It is also seeing its politics changing. Despite decades of advocating racial separation and denouncing democracy and the idea of free speech, the free press, and civil rights, after the 9-11 attacks, the National Alliance made the following demands of Israel: “Stop the institutionalized racism which treats non-Jews born in Israel as second-class citizens … Allow true freedom of religion for people of all faiths in Israel … Allow true freedom of speech and assembly for all people in Israel. … and Accept responsibility for the fact that Israel's terrorist actions against the Palestinians and others are the direct cause of acts of terrorism against the United States!”

Even their leader, Dr William Pierce, has adopted a conciliatory tone, stating in a recent radio broadcast that:

“I certainly have never been pro-Arab or pro-Muslim, but … we need have no fundamental conflict with Arabs or Muslims, because they are in their part of the world and we are in ours. They have their religion and their way of life, and we have ours. Because we are separate and both of us would like to stay that way, we need have no conflict. … Really, there is no reason for us to hate each other … Separation and non-interference make good neighbors.” This from a man that once write a book describing how all non-white people in America would be rounded up into canyons and executed in mass graves.

So while September 11 has changed the world, has it also changed the National Alliance? And if not, will the same policies that have kept Alliance growth minimal in the past boomerang back against their current surge in support? To understand these questions it is necessary to first look a bit into history.

From American Nazi Party to National Alliance In 1958 George Lincoln Rockwell, a World War II and Korean War-era Commander in the United States Navy, launched the American Nazi Party as a statement of his disillusionment with other conservative groups – like the John Birch Society and William Buckley’s National Review – which he had dealt with in the 1954 – 1958 period, and which he felt were not addressing the “Jewish issue”. His first act of protest was a demonstration outside the White House, where his followers carried banners reading “Save Ike From The Kikes”. His last act was to drive down to a laundromat in August 1967, where he was assassinated by a former member. William Pierce, a physics professor in Oregon, first saw Rockwell on TV in 1963, and in 1964 he joined Rockwell, working on the production of the National Socialist World newspaper. In 1965, he left his teaching position in Oregon to support Rockwell full-time. Though never a formal member of the group, Pierce was valued by Rockwell for his intellect. Other members of the group saw things differently. Pierce refused to attend public demonstrations held by the organization, and was viewed by many of the other members as a pure academic who feared physicalconfrontation. In contrast, Pierce viewed most of these other members as “defective” people, and held their personal quality responsible for the failure of Rockwell’s movement.

After Rockwell’s death, as various factions within the American Nazi Party, now re-christened the National Socialist White People’s Party, fought for control of the organization, Pierce wandered off to join Willis Carto in founding the Youth for Wallace campaign, a political group supporting the presidential aspirations of segregationist George Wallace. After the Wallace presidential bid failed, Pierce transitioned the group into the “National Youth Alliance” and took control of the organization with the help of some other former American Nazi Party members. In 1971, Carto accused Pierce of stealing his mailing list and using it to slander him; Pierce’s break with Carto had occurred.

In 1974 the National Youth Alliance dropped the word “Youth” and became the National Alliance – Pierce, then 36, was a bit old for “youth”. In 1985, Pierce bought a 346-acre farm for $95,000 cash, intended as a base for his Church of Cosmotheism – a religious movement Pierce had started in 1977. Originally intended as a religious retreat and commune for the religion’s members, the ADL, an offshoot of the semi-Masonic B’nai B’rith Lodge, attacked Pierce’s religious tax-exempt status and prevailed in courts, causing Pierce to abandon the Church idea and convert the property formally to a base for the National Alliance.

Membership in the Alliance from the early 1980s through the mid 1990s was essentially flat. A report issued by the ADL indicated that no more than 1500 individuals had passed through the membership of Pierce’s group in that period, and at least half of those had not been retained. However, in the mid-1990s, due to the efforts of groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center and the ADL, Pierce began to attract national media attention, and his membership figures began to increase geometrically. One of Pierce’s smartest moves was selling the rights to his 1979 novel the Turner Diaries to Jewish publisher Lyle Stuart, owner of Barricade Books, publisher of works such as the Anarchist Cookbook. After selling these rights, a number of Jewish organizations immediately moved to promote Pierce’s book, stating that it was the inspiration behind the Oklahoma City bombing. This new-found fame was the spark of mainstream media coverage of Pierce, which propelled readers of newspapers to Pierce’s website, http://www.natall.com, where they began to download his radio broadcasts. Pierce is an intelligent man, and his broadcasts, which are only carried on shortwave and a handful of US AM-FM radio stations, began to attract a national audience they otherwise could never have reached.

Explosive Growth

The National Alliance’s membership numbers are picking up. A group that attracted less than 1500 in 1994 was issuing a membership book numbered just under 3000 in year 2000. By mid-2001, it had issued a membership book numbered just under 3500. According to sources within the Alliance, new members have tripled in rate since September 11. Pravda estimates that, if this is true, by the end of the year the group will have had 4500 members since its inception, of which between 2250 and 2750 will be “active”. In comparison, Rockwell’s group never had more than 100 “stormtroopers” at any given point.

The growth has also been reflected in increasing income and increasing profits from the music label Resistance Records, which Pierce purchased in 2000. Pierce’s group charges each member a $10 monthly membership free, bringing in about $15,000 a month, or $180,000/year. Sales of Resistance Records were estimated by the ADL to be approximately $70/order, with 50,000 orders processed per year, for a gross revenue of $3.5 million. Since much of Pierce’s labor is under-market, and the cost of producing Cd’s is relatively low, it is estimated that $1.5 - $2 million of that per year is profit. According to Alliance sources, sales have increased at least 150% since the 9-11 bombing. Post 9-11, it can be expected that Pierce will bring in $2.25 - $3 million in profits per year from the label alone. Pierce also has a substantial income based on contributions from a number of wealthy individuals that may supplement his income by as much as $1 million, according to various discussions that have been published on the internet, and derives some small profits through his book distributorship, National Vanguard Books. All in all, it appears that Pierce’s pre-September 11 gross revenues of as much as $5 million annually may have increased to as much as $7 million as a result of the attacks – with as much as $4 million of that being netted on top his group’s operating expenses. In comparison, a group like the Southern Poverty Law Center, an anti-hate organization opposed to Pierce, draws in $22 million in annual revenue and has approximately $200 million in reserves. Pierce’s growth has both concerned and frightened groups like the SPLC. In a July interview with the Associated Press, the Center’s Mark Potok said that Pierce, because of his money, wealth, fame, and popular support, had become virtually untouchable. Six years before, the SPLC had won an $80,000 judgment against Pierce, claiming he wrongfully attempted to shelter a property belonging to a defendant the SPLC had won a large judgment against. Pierce paid the judgment in cash.

Source of Income (per annum) Pre - 9/11 Post - 9/11 ----------------------------------------------------------- Membership Dues $0.18 mil $0.30 mil

Resistance Records $3.50 mil $5.25 mil

Donations $1.00 mil $1.00 mil ------------------------------------------------------------ $4.68 mil $6.55 mil

A late note on these figures: Billy Roper, National Alliance Membership Director, asked to comment on this portion of the article, states that this estimate of Resistance Record’s current income is “a bit higher than we actually bring in currently, but not unreasonably so” and that our estimate of their membership is “a lot closer than the SPLC's estimates and indicate to me that you have better sources than they do.”

Hendrik Moebus

To show this new found strength, the National Alliance has launched a series of highly public demonstrations in the nation’s capital. The response has been impressive – the anti-racist left, amazed that the demonstrations are even occurring, have been unable to effectively mobilize against them, and the Alliance’s choice of high-profile targets has brought them significant attention.

Of the two most recent demonstrations, the first most notable has been against the German Embassy in the deportation case of Hendrik Moebus, the German “Satansmoerder” – Satanic Killer – who went into exile in America after being accused of violating his probation and German speech laws, and who was subsequently hired by Pierce to help build Resistance Records’ international presence. Moebus and two friends killed a fifteen year old classmate in 1994. He went to prison in Germany, where he served four years of a six year sentence and was released in 1998. In 1999, he was solicited by the police of the German state of Thuringia as an informant. He refused, and in revenge was charged later that year with violating German thought-crime laws. In December of 1999 he fled to America, where he spent some time with the White Order of Thule before making his way to the compound of the National Alliance in June of 2000. In August of 2000, Moebus was arrested by US Marshals on an extradition warrant. (for a more detailed background on Moebus, check out the previous article by this correspondent, “Satan’s Thule” -- http://www.overthrow.com/ln/archive/ln20010812124456.html.

Moebus was denied his full appeals, and the Alliance took to the streets in protest. On July 29, Mussolini’s birthday and the day of Moebus’ final extradition, approximately 100 supporters of the Alliance and Mark Cotterill’s American Friends of the British Nationalist Party appeared at the embassy waving flags and banners calling for free speech in Germany, the release of Hendrik Moebus, and the continued legal status of the National Democratic Party, a far-right German organization. Describing the protest in the Sьddeutsche Zeitung, writer Adrian Kreye wrote (translated from the German):

“Ropers’ men, the neo-Nazis, right-wing extremists and skinheads, gathered themselves in a proper and disciplined manner before the German Embassy, in the wealthy portion of Northwest Washington. Most were in suits and tie. They carried flags with the runes of the National Alliance, with the old-English cross of the American Friends Of the British National Party, with posters supporting the NPD and slogans written in English and German. For the few passer-bys, who went past on Sunday afternoon here, they looked like respectable citizens.”

The demonstration was almost immediately attacked by club and tire-iron wielding “anti-haters” who managed to bloody Alliance Membership Director Billy Roper before being hauled off by police. But beyond that initial burst of anger, the left’s response was weak. While anti-racists typically out number racists three to one or more at demonstrations, here the groups Anti-Racist Action and Left Turn barely drew and even crowd. The Alliance was also aggressive and confident, and as confrontational as the left, something the left was not used to. Despite their after rally speeches of encouragement, the leftists were confused.

There were ironies in the left response as well – ironies such as the fact that the anti-racist rally had been primarily organized by National Alliance press releases. Though it sounds strange, the National Alliance organizers had worked overtime lobbying anti-racist groups to come out and protest, making sure that the confrontation they would bring would bring the Alliance more press. The tactic worked. The demonstration was covered in both major Washington papers the next day.

No Jews = No War

If the German Embassy demonstration was a success, the Israeli Embassy demonstration, held November 10, was a rout. This time the Alliance not only foiled the tire-iron ambush, conducted by the same group of youths, but saw a demoralized leftist demonstration dwindle from small to literally nothing as it retreated from the field in defeat. Such things have never been seen before in DC. Organized as the American Against Terrorism Committee, the Alliance brought out 60 people to demonstrate, and were accompanied by about a dozen reporters, including 3 TV station, writers from Harpers and USA Today, a German paper, and, of course, Pravda. The leftists quickly seemed upset that the Alliance forces were getting the lion’s share of attention, and sent out representatives to contact reporters. Matt Bowles, and organizer for a Palestinian-support group, had this to say:

Bowles: “Hey, are you a reporter?”

Pravda: “Yes.”

Bowles: “Would you like an interview?”

Pravda: “No, I think I know what’s going on.”

Bowles: “Well, I’d like to make a statement anyway.”

Pravda: “Ok. If you must …”

Bowles: “I just want to say that we oppose the Nazi appropriation of the Palestinian cause and the attempt by Nazis to align themselves with the Palestinains.”

Pravda: “Um … okay.”

The one Palestinian in attendance agreed with Bowles view:

“They want to make it about Jews. It isn’t about Jews. It is about land. They are just using our cause, and it is infuriating.”

But what was most infuriating for the anti-Alliance forces was the impotence of their demonstration – so infuriating that within an hour the “anti-racist” crowd, organized by the Baltimore-based Anti-Fascist Action and the International Socialist Organization splinter group Left Turn, had dwindled from 60 in number down to 8, and had little presence left but one angry blonde college girl from nearby American University attempting to yell obscenities across the police line – though the aforementioned six youths with clubs had left only to lie in wait around a corner, where they again attempted to attack the Alliance as they left, but were this time run down by the horses of a mounted police unit.

All in all, the day was a victory for the Alliance – and it was interesting to see how the Zionist press reacted the next day. The Moonie-owned Washington Times ignored the rally. The Jewish-owned Washington Post ran a photo of the rally, but declined to use the pejorative “Nazi” in describing the demonstrators, refused to print the name of their organization, the National Alliance, and played down the anti-Jewish theme of the rally, ignoring the majority of signs, which carried statements like “No Jews = No War” and Ariel Sharon’s quote on “Jewish control” of the American government. The press didn’t feel comfortable covering the rally for what it was, and that too was a type of victory.

Contraindications

Despite their recent success, the National Alliance still has challenges to overcome. One is the nagging attempts by others on the right to recruit away their membership. Another is the proclivity of some of their members towards dysfunctional lifestyles. The third involves basic issues of honesty, internal organization, and the need to expound a positive political program. All three have hurt the Alliance in the past, and threaten to hold the Alliance back in the future.

Though perhaps the least of their concerns, the efforts by others on the right to confront and recruit away from the Alliance have been perceived by Alliance members as a major issue for quite a while. Harold Covington, a rival National Socialist and former Rhodesian military man who heads the modern version of the National Socialist White People’s Party, has this to say about his former party comrade:

“The … right wing con game the National Alliance … rake[s] in the shekels by PRETENDING TO BE [AN] ORGANIZATION which [is] actually doing something, instead of what they are – [a] weirded out personality cult and mail order business to support William Pierce … Like American society as a whole, the racial right has become almost completely corrupt. … [I]t has become impossible for anyone not to acknowledge, at least privately, the near certainty that William L. Pierce has been a Federal asset and informant for at least ten years.” Richard Barrett, who runs an organization called the Nationalist Movement that, admittedly, often puts out press releases suggesting they are not fully attached to reality, has been another activist of concern. Regarding Pierce, Barrett has the following to say:

“Mr. Pierce is a terrorist under criminal investigation by the Justice Department. He has been successfully sued and poses a threat to the security of anyone whomight be in conspiracy withhim…. [He] is a terrorist, who has been involved in sordid undertakings. His associates have been jailed for criminal activities and he is under investigation, even now. … He is, of course, also an atheist and a Hitler-worshiper, which has no market among the American people. … Contacts with him or anyone associated with him would be like having sexual relations with an AIDS-carrier.”

Both of these individuals, though, have exerted their pressure on the Alliance mainly through sniping on the internet and over email, and have little access to the larger mainstream audience that the Alliance recruits from. If the Alliance succeeds in moving out of the political ghetto of “hate”-fulness and into the broader mainstream of politics, it is likely that the influence these groups will be able to have on their Alliance and their membership will drop to null.

Of greater concern is the proclivity of much of the Alliance’s existing cadre towards dysfunctional lifestyles. As their Chairman William Pierce put it in the April 2001 issue of their National Alliance Bulletin, commenting on their annual national meeting, the “Leadership Conference”: “We have … a few members who really belong in the Ku Klux Klan instead of the Alliance: those who primarily see the Leadership Conference as an opportunity to get drunk with like-minded spirits after the meeting. … I am afraid that the soft and comfortable living in America has affected our members as much as it had the general public. … [W]e have no room in our organization for White trash: for hobbyists, for drunks and drifters, for born losers, for the immoral and the irresponsible and the weak, for exhibitionists, for the lukewarm and the wavering.”

Ex-members have had similar criticisms. In 1998 Kirsten Kaiser, ex-wife of Alliance organizer Kevin Strom, and a woman whom other members of the group describe as “weird”, told the following to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report: “[T]here is something wrong with everybody I know in the movement. Nobody has a regular job, nobody has a regular [non-mail-order] wife. They don’t have girlfriends, they don’t have cars that work, they don’t have any health insurance. They don’t have a real life.”

Petty criminality has also plagued the Alliance. Earlier this year, one member was arrested in a highly publicized shoot out with the police in Indiana. Another was arrested in New York for stockpiling illegal weapons. An associate of the Alliance, the aforementioned Mark Cotterill, came under investigation for tax and immigration fraud and money laundering scams. One Alliance member came under investigation for attempted murder after police found evidence he had cut the brake line in another member’s car as part of a political ploy to take a state-wide leadership spot. Despite dedicating an entire chapter of its membership handbook to the identification and exclusion of “defectives”, it appears the Alliance has not fully managed to avoid them.

Which brings up the last issue the group faces – issues of honesty, of organization, and institutional culture. Questions of the group’s platform and whether or not it wants a mass movement still haunt it.

To the public, the National Alliance claims to not be a National Socialist organization, but this is an outright lie. According to page 120 and 121 of the book, in answer to the question is the National Alliance a neo-Nazi group?", members are instructed to tell “Couch Potatoes” that:

"'No, I am not a Nazi, and the National Alliance is not a Nazi organization.”

While instructing members that with non-“Couch Potatoes”:

"We are obliged to explore the question more deeply, and in so doing we have an opportunity to use one of the catchiest ideas of all: the idea of National Socialism."

And

"It is also wrong for us to shut our minds to the eternal truths embodied in the National Socialist idea: they are the truths upon which our own creed is based."

This kind of obfuscation seems to primarily be a means the Alliance uses to avoid putting out a specific political program of any kind. Thought their literature does revolve around broad concepts such as “racial purity” and an “essentially religious order” to society, no National Alliance literature, internal or external, lays out any specifics as to what those terms mean, or what a future, Alliance-organized society would look like. Concurrently, Pravda has found many National Alliance members have difficulty in discussing political, economic, or social topics that don’t directly reflect to race, and have difficulty discussing the image of the future which they suppose they are fighting for.

The other organizational defect within the Alliance is its inability to cultivate and use a broad “supporter” base in supplement to its “membership”. Hitler in Book II, Chapter 11 of his Mein Kampf (the only chapter of that book that was both original to Hitler and published essentially unedited), wrote:

“Every movement will have to sift the material it wins into two large groups: supporters and members. The function of propaganda is to attract supporters, the function of organizations is to win members. A supporter of the movement is one who declares himself to be in agreement with its aims, a member is one who fights for them. …

“The greatest danger which can threaten a movement is a membership which has grown abnormally as a result of too rapid successes. … In consequence of their first victory, so many inferior, unworthy and worst of all cowardly, elements have entered their organization that these inferior people finally achieve predominance over the militants and then forces the movement into the service of their own interests, lower it to the level of their scanty heroism, and do nothing to complete the victory of the original idea.

“It is, therefore, most necessary that a movement, for pure reasons of self-preservation, should, once it has begun to achieve success, immediately block enrollments and henceforth increase its organization only with extreme caution and after the most thorough scrutiny.”

This appear to be the National Alliance strategy, but it is forgetting one thing that the German Nazis realized in practice – that there must be secondary organizations designed to mobilize and utilize the “supporters”, if only as a source of fundraising and as warm bodies to fill the seats at rallies and to impress the social-democratic press. Perhaps this style of organizing is residue from Pierce’s disdain of the “defective”, but it has left the Alliance with no way to bring the general public into the general movement. While someone like Morris Dees accepts donations from thousands of individuals without demanding they take legal training and litigate at his side, the Alliance often disdains the idea of allowing people who do not want to be active with them to support them. Short of groups that use Scientology-like mind-control techniques and devastating financial exploitation of their membership in order to discourage desertion, large organizations have not been built on such principles.

Conclusions

The National Alliance has seen explosive growth in the past two months that threatens to propel them out of the political “hate” ghetto and convert them into a political organization with mainstream political power and appeal. Though they face some difficulties, most of these can and likely will be overcome with time and experience. The transformation from a vaguely defined body into an organization with a specific program, when and if it occurs, should be seen as sign of serious political maturity – as should any sign of diversification of political power and creation of organizations design to utilize their “supporter” base to contribute to the growth of the organization.

With the future in America uncertain, and the President seizing near dictatorial powers that are sure to be wielded against American citizens before the end of his term, the threat to civil liberties and the racial analysis of that threat has growing appeal. Already, the culture of US cities is largely divorced from the culture of mainstream American life, and as a government which already cannot police more than a quarter of any major city turns against its people in the wilderness, it will find itself increasingly impotent over remote areas, and thus will be driven to allot itself increasingly dictatorial powers, which will, conversely, increase the size and influence of groups like the Alliance. With the nature of the divide falling largely along ethnic and class lines, and with the government being strongly identified in the minds of many white working class Americans with an increasingly alien rule of both “the Jews” and the white bourgeoisie, the National Alliance movement is certainly positioned to take the lead in capitalizing on this to effect social and economic change.

The main question remaining is exactly what kind of social and economic change America would actually see. Is Pierce truly the blood-thirsty nihilist his broadcasts often portray him as, or are these extreme statements he makes merely the product of anger and the need for a gimmick to draw his organization attention? The question is open but important – the theorists Julius Evola predicted that near the end times there would come a series of “Titanic” or “Luciferian” rebellions that would claim to uphold the principles of the Golden Age, but would actually be the mechanisms by which the final death cycle of civilization were brought into play. He also predicted a race of Heroes that would arise to oppose them. So we are left with a question: Is Pierce the Titan or the Hero? If the American government continues its course, in time we may get a chance to find out.