UNTOLD story of the American Hitler – George Lincoln Rockwell – Forgotten History

Nazism in the United States is nothing new. In  fact it was born in the 1930s with the German   American Bund which grew to disturbing levels.  Its originator World War I veteran Fritz Kuhn a   German who moved to the United States in the 1930s  and became a naturalized citizen held a master’s   degree in chemical engineering. Their pro-Nazi  agenda supported “U.S.
isolationism avoidance   of European conflicts for Germany’s benefit.” They  were also anti-black anti- nonwhite immigrant and   naturally anti-Jewish. After Kuhn went to prison  on tax evasion charges the organization which   used to fill Madison Square Garden with giant  portraits of not Adolf Hitler but rather George   Washington and other venues had tens of thousands  of followers but they melted away.
But after World   War II the American Nazi movement was resurrected  by a World War II veteran who was perhaps even   more radically bent than Kuhn and who idolized  Adolf Hitler. Who was George Lincoln Rockwell?   What stimulated his interest in fascism? How  effective was he? Hello I’m Colin Heaton former   history Professor Army and Marine Corps veteran  and welcome to this episode of Forgotten History.
George Lincoln Rockwell was born in Bloomington  Illinois on March 9th 1918 and was the oldest of   three children of George Lovejoy Rockwell and  Claire Rockwell. His parents were traveling   Vaudeville comedians and actors and they divorced  when Rockwell was 6 years old so he spent his   youth divided between his mother in Atlantic  City New Jersey and his father in Boothbay Harbor   Maine.
Rockwell attended Atlantic City High School  in Atlantic City New Jersey and applied to Harvard   University when he was 17 years old but he was  denied admission. Instead his father enrolled him   at the Hebron Academy in Hebron Maine. Rockwell  then enrolled at Brown University in Providence   Rhode Island in 1938 as a philosophy major where  he met his future wife Judith Aultman who was a   student at Pembroke College.
In 1940 he dropped  out and accepted a commission in the United States   Navy. Rockwell attended naval flight schools in  Massachusetts and Florida and served in both the   Battle of the Atlantic and the Pacific War in  World War II. He served a board the USS Omaha   USS Pastores USS Wasp and USS Mobile as a support  photo reconnaissance transport and training pilot.   On April 24th 1943 Rockwell married Judith and  they had three daughters Bonnie Nancy and Phoebe   Jean.
Rockwell and his in-laws had issues as  Judith was not raised to be the “docile and   compliant” wife as Rockwell expected. The marriage  was “marred with violent arguments and on at least   one occasion Rockwell did strike his wife.” After  the war Rockwell remained in the Naval Reserve but   worked as a signed painter out of a small shop  that his father owned in Boothbay Harbor.
Later   he entered the commercial art program at the  Pratt Institute in Brooklyn New York in 1946 so   he and Judith moved there. Rockwell won the $1,000  first prize for his advertisement for the American   Cancer Society but he left Pratt before completing  his last year and he and Judith moved to Maine   to start his own advertising agency.
Rockwell  still in the reserves was called back to duty   as a lieutenant commander at the beginning of the  Korean War in June 1950. The family relocated to   San Diego where he trained Navy and Marine Corps  pilots in both basic and advanced fight schools   specializing in instrument training.
It was during  this time that Rockwell began reading old German   propaganda including Mein Kampf and the Protocols  of the Elders of Zion and he was enamored. His   devotion was increased due to the rantings  of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s openly hostile   stance against communism the anti-Semitism of  carmaker Henry Ford and famed aviator Charles   Lindbergh’s stance on race and avoidance of the  USA having become involved in foreign conflicts   especially during World War II.
Rockwell was  stationed in Iceland on an unaccompanied tour   as a Grumman F8F Bearcat pilot and promoted  to commander in 1952. Judith and the children   remained behind with her mother in Barrington  Rhode Island where Judith filed for divorce in 1953. Rockwell attended a diplomatic party in  Reykjavik where he met Margret Pora Hallgrimsson   the niece of Iceland’s ambassador to the United  States and they married on October 3rd 1953 by   Pora’s uncle the Bishop of Iceland.
They spent  their honeymoon in Berchtesgaden in Germany the   location of Hitler’s Berghof in the Bavarian  Alps. The couple had three children Hallgrimur   Margret and Evelyn Bentina. In September 1955 in  Washington DC he launched U.S. Lady a magazine for   United States servicemen’s wives. The magazine  incorporated Rockwell’s political causes his   opposition to both racial integration and  communism.
The publication had financial   problems so he had then sold the magazine.  However he still aspired to pursue a career in   publishing and was good at marketing. As Rockwell  stated quote “When I was in the advertising game   we used to use nude women. Now I use the swastika  and storm troopers. You use what brings them in,”   end quote. Margret’s father was appalled by all of  this and arrived in the U.S.
in 1957 to bring her   back to Iceland after he discovered that Rockwell  was “one of the most active racists in the United   States.” Margret divorced Rockwell soon afterward  and she remarried in 1963. Rockwell returned to   Washington DC in 1955.
He gradually became even  more radicalized until according to his biographer   Rockwell “was on the farthest fringe of the right  wing.” In 1957 to 1958 Rockwell stated that he   had “dreams of himself meeting Hitler.” Rockwell  found support through Harold Noel Arrowsmith Jr. a   wealthy heir and anti-Semite who provided Rockwell  with a house and printing equipment in 1958 and   together they formed the National Committee to  Free America from Jewish Domination.
Rockwell’s   first demonstration was on July 29th 1958 in front  of the White House protesting president Dwight D.   Eisenhower’s decision to send peacekeeping troops  to Lebanon during that country’s brief Civil War   in 1958 which was called Operation Blue Bat.  Rockwell and his supporters were already on the   federal radar especially when they specifically  protested what they called “Jewish control of   the government.
” After the Hebrew Benevolent  Congregation Temple bombing in October 1958   the police raided Rockwell’s home. There was  never any evidence that Rockwell’s people were   responsible but he was under suspicion. Journalist  Drew Pearson was mainly responsible for bringing   Rockwell “to the forefront” after writing an  article describing how “Rockwell and his followers   dressed in uniforms armed themselves with guns  and paraded at his home in Arlington Virginia.
”   In March 1959 Rockwell founded the World Union  of Free Enterprise National Socialists later   renamed the American Nazi Party and then even  later renamed again as the National Socialist   White People’s Party headquartered at his home at  928 North Randolph Street in Arlington Virginia.   Rockwell always creative published his “Animal  Farm” parody a poem and the children’s book “The   Fable of the Ducks and the Hens” in 1959.
On July  4th 1960 again on the National 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  and instead he was committed to a psychiatric   hospital for 30 days.” He was released 12 days  later and found mentally competent to stand   trial but nothing came of it.
He then published a  pamphlet titled “How to Get Out or Stay Out of the   Insane Asylum as a guide to those who may find  themselves in a similar situation. As a result   of his political activities the navy discharged  Rockwell one year short of retirement stating   he was “not deployable” due to his political  views. Rockwell later blamed the Jews for his   being terminated.
On January 15th 1961 Rockwell  and his associates picketed the local premiere   of the film “Exodus” at the Saxon Theater in  downtown Boston. After Boston Mayor John F.   Collins declined to deny Rockwell’s group a permit  “members of the local Jewish community organized   a counter demonstration of 2,000 protesters in  response on the corner of Tremont and Boylston Streets.
” This action forced the police to  converge on the theater and force Rockwell   into a police cruiser that took him to Logan  International Airport where Rockwell was then   boarded onto a flight to Washington D.C.” In  1962 Rockwell planned a major rally to celebrate   Hitler’s birthday on April 20th and he joined  British Neo-Nazi Colin Jordan in Gloucestershire   England where they organized the World Union  of National Socialists.
In September Rockwell   “awarded one of his members a medal for punching  Martin Luther King Jr in the face.” This was when   King was in Birmingham Alabama on September  28th 1962 speaking to the Southern Christian   Leadership Conference attended by 300 people.  He was attacked by 22-year-old Roy James who was   sitting in the sixth row.
James rushed forward  and hit King in the jaw and then again in the   neck. Rockwell approved of the attack. During  the 1964 United States presidential election   Rockwell was a write-in candidate receiving 212  votes. He then ran as an independent in the 1965   Virginia gubernatorial election receiving 5,730  votes or 1.20% of the vote finishing last among   the four candidates.
Rockwell then returned to  “organizing protests on the National Mall in   Washington and at other sites and espousing his  twisted beliefs and hatred across the country.”   This was also when he started his publication “The  National Socialist Bulletin” later renamed “The   Stormtrooper Magazine” in honor of the German  publisher Julius Streicher who had published   “Der Sturmer” which was the official anti-Jewish  and anti-Communist Nazi Party publication under   Adolf Hitler.
The American Nazi Party wore  the uniforms and marched with Nazi flags down   American streets but Rockwell was also flexible.  He assisted the Ku Klux Klan in organizing civil   rights protesters one more reason the feds  took an interest in him. Ironically Rockwell   was a very outspoken Holocaust denier and  he once told a reporter “I don’t believe   for one minute that any 6 million Jews were  exterminated by Hitler. “it didn’t happen.
” Rockwell also called Adolf Hitler the “white  savior of the 20th century” and believed “that   Martin Luther King Jr was a tool for Jewish  Communists desiring to rule the white community.   He blamed the civil rights movement on Jews and  viewed most of them as traitors.” When the Freedom   Riders became active in the Civil Rights movement  Rockwell then created his “Hate Bus” a Volkswagen   mini bus “decorated with racist slogans and  imagery that he drove around the country to   rallies.” This was when the BBC referred to  Rockwell as the “American Hitler.” Rockwell
advocated for the deportation of all blacks to  Africa such as to Liberia and funded by the U.S.   government. He also believed in racial segregation  and white separatism and he agreed with Elijah   Muhammad and the early Malcolm X of the Nation  of Islam both men preaching the same thing.   Rockwell spanned the nation “speaking at rallies  and universities leading demonstrations and   debating notable black activists such as Black  Panther founder Stokely Carmichael.
” Rockwell   also coined the term “White Power” in 1966  as a response to the Black Power movement.   In the summer of 1966 Rockwell “led a counter  demonstration against Martin Luther King fighting   segregation in the white Chicago suburb of Cicero  Illinois” believing “King was a tool for Jewish   Communists who wanted to integrate America.
” in  November of 1966 the American Civil Liberties   Union once again represented Rockwell defending  his right to stage marches or parades in Jewish   neighborhoods during Jewish holidays. Rockwell  “believed that integration was a Jewish plot   to rule the white community” and soon came  to believe that the Klan “was stuck in the   past and ineffective in helping him wage a modern  racial struggle.
” Rockwell aligned his group with   other neo-Nazi groups around the world as part of  the World Union of National Socialists. On August   25th 1967 the 49-year-old George Rockwell was shot  and killed in Arlington Virginia by former Nazi   Party member John Patler. Patler was the editor  and cartoonist for “The Stormtrooper Magazine”   whom Rockwell kicked out of the party for alleged  Bolshevik leanings”.
Patler had “changed his name   from John Patsalos as a homage to Adolf Hitler.”  Rockwell was at the Dominion Hills Shopping Center   while trying to do his laundry. As he went to his  car to get bleach Patler fired from the rooftop   of the shopping center. Patler was arrested half  an hour later after throwing his gun into Four   Mile Run nearby when he was spotted with wet  trousers waiting for a bus by a police officer.
Hearing of his son’s death Rockwell’s  78-year-old father said “I am not surprised   at all. I’ve expected it for quite some time.”  The Commonwealth’s Attorney pushed for Patler   to receive the death penalty but he only received  a 20-year prison sentence and he was released on   parole after just 8 years.
Patler then violated  his parole and received an additional 6 years   in jail. Upon Rockwell’s death he was succeeded  by his second in command Mattias Koehl who led   the organization until his death in 2014 and had  renamed the group the “New Order” in 1983. Koehl   relocated its national headquarters to Wisconsin.  Another former associate William Luther Pierce   founded the “National Alliance” and he also wrote  the racist dystopian novel “The Turner Diaries”   which became a Bible for future generations of  would be domestic terrorists.
Many additional   neo-Nazi groups were formed over the years such  as the “Aryan Brotherhood” “Aryan Nation” since   Rockwell’s death. Some of them were formed by his  followers and other groups were formed by newer   generations of white supremacists. Most of these  groups have simply died off and become irrelevant.   It is quite ironic that during Rockwell’s long  tenure as head of the American Nazi Party that   his group never really became involved in  overt violence although they preached it   but they were suspected of a couple of bombings  arsons and robberies however nothing was ever
proven.