Hate: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party

by William H. Schmaltz

George Lincoln Rockwell flew U.S. Navy fighters against the Germans and Japanese during World War II yet after the war he founded the American Nazi Party. On 25th August 1967 he was assassinated. This is the first time the details of Rockwell's bizarre, hate-filled life have been told. Author William H. Schmaltz brings us in on Nazi planning and strategy sessions, and dangerous personnel conflicts among the stormtroopers. We learn of the strange relationship between Rockwell;s Nazis and the Black Muslims of Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X, and the rationale behind Rockwell's repeated attacks on Martin Luther King Jr. Today, more than thirty years after his assassination, Rockwell;s poisonous legacy continues to spread among America;s radical Right, including the white separatist militias, the skinheads, the Ku Klux Klan, and those who deny the Holocaust.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, American History, Biography, American, Biography Memoir

Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Arthur Read · Rating 5 out of 5]

American Führer

"I am anti-Zionist and anti-Communist Jews, and any other form of treason. I'm pro-American republic."

— George Lincoln Rockwell, 1958

William H. Schmaltz has written an utterly engrossing political biography of George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi Party, who today still remains the gold standard of far-right provocateurs.

The son of successful vaudeville performers, Rockwell was himself a man of exceptional talents. After dropping out of Brown University to fight in World War II, he served with distinction in the Navy as a pilot, reaching the rank of Commander. Upon his return to civilian life, Rockwell studied commercial art and won recognition and a prestigious advertising industry award for his work. He was tall, handsome, charming, witty, honest, intelligent, well-read, and regarded by everyone who met him as a gentleman. The world was his oyster.

How then does a man with such ability and a lovely family willingly trade all that in for a life of ostracization and austere poverty by taking up the mantle as Adolf Hitler's American counterpart?

Schmaltz delivers the fascinating answer:

A movement was under way to get General MacArthur the Republican nomination in 1952. Rockwell liked the idea and made telephone calls to see what he could do to help. He read a letter to the editor in the San Diego Union by a woman asking for volunteers to help organize a MacArthur rally. Rockwell called her, and she invited him to her home to discuss the situation. There he told her his idea of renting a hall for the rally. The woman stopped him and with a sad face said, "No, you can't get a hall so easily, even if you pay. They won't rent one." "What do you mean?" Rockwell blurted. "Who won't rent one?" The woman glanced quizzically at her husband, took a deep breath, and said, "The Jews." "The Jews?" Rockwell burst out. "What have the Jews got to do with it? What do they care whether you get a hall or not?" "They hate MacArthur," was the reply. She unfolded a copy of the California Jewish Voice and pointed to an article condemning MacArthur. There were others like it. Rockwell sat in disbelief. It was too fantastic. He felt things were somehow being misinterpreted. The woman gave him some materials to take home and read.

One of the papers, "Common Sense," by Conde McGinley, detailed how Jews instigated the 1917 Russian Revolution. Noting that the sources listed were the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia and the Overman Report to President Wilson, Rockwell decided to check the "facts" himself. He went to the San Diego Public Library and dug through journals to locate the citations in "Common Sense." The citations checked out. It suddenly occurred to him that if the woman was telling the truth about the Russian Revolution being Jewish led, perhaps she was telling the truth about an "international Jewish conspiracy" to destroy the civilization of the gentiles. So it was there in the basement of the San Diego Public Library Rockwell awoke from "thirty years of stupid political sleep."

Remarkably, this book was somehow free of the expected unprofessional propensity to cast aspersions which usually accompany biographies of far-right figures, and which, if included, would have ruined it. At some points the author seems content to simply chronicle the activities of Rockwell and his oddball American Nazi Party followers year by year, with little commentary to liven it up.

But that is a minor quibble in an otherwise fascinating study. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in fringe political movements, especially in the uniquely American context. You will also get an unsettling look at the ugly reality of the 1960s Civil Rights revolution at the grassroots level as it intimidated and harassed ordinary people just trying to live their lives, in stark contrast to the dulcet tones describing it today by the establishment.

[Cwn_annwn_13 · Rating 5 out of 5]

After all these years George Lincoln Rockwell still remains one of the most interesting figures to appear on the white nationalist scene. Son of a famous in his day vaudeville performer, went to an ivy league school, flew missions in ww2 and Korea, married to the daughter of the Icelandic ambassador to the United States, a talented artist and cartoonist, the list goes on and on. Rockwell really is someone who could have been a success at almost anything he chose to in life and is not the typical maladjusted freak that often gravitates toward white nationalism in its various forms.

Schmaltz has written a very fair and unbiased account of Rockwell and his "stormtroopers", who were a menage of brawlers, ex-cons and misfits along with some genuinly talented individuals. Rockwell in many ways was like a great pro wrestling heel with his agitation techniques, he inflamed crowds beyond the boiling point to out and out brawling riots many a time, but he also often won over initially hostile crowds using his sense of humor, (Rockwell was a VERY funny guy!) He was also the first public figure in the white nationalist scene to reject and ridicule the right wing, he was the first to draw alliances with black radicals (he had meetings with Malcolm X and was a guest speaker at NOI rallies a few times) so he was and actually still is a man years ahead of his time in many ways. The life of Rockwell is covered in this book from childhood to his assassination at the hands of one of his most dedicated followers in a very fair, unbiased, and fascinating account of the life and times of GLR.

[Michael O'Brien · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a difficult book to read and will be a tough one to review --- not because it was poorly written, but because it's subject, a hardcore racist and anti-semite, is repugnant. I won't dress it up --- there is crude, offensive gutter language in it --- but I do think it serves a purpose that's illustrative. By not sparing people's sensitivities, you can see just how bad things can get.

In my desire to read this year on the American Civil Rights Movement and what kind of people they faced, I felt that this biography offers an opportunity to see the events leading someone to become racist, the rationales and justifications they use, and the tactics they use against the objects of their hatred. In this, this book does not disappoint. Nazis surely are history's greatest villains -- so even more loathsome must be the man who, just 15 years after they were defeated in World War 2, restarted this party in the nation that gave so much to defeat them. However, to his credit, Schmaltz resists the temptation to turn this into a vilification. The facts of Rockwell's life say enough, and, by simply giving us these facts, vilification's hardly necessary --- the truth has its day, and does not speak kindly of this man.

One of the things I found disturbing is that Rockwell did not have the background I might have expected of a hardcore racist leader. He was not abused, his family was not bigoted. Other than his parent's divorcing, he had a fairly normal childhood. He does seem to have been intelligent, and was neither abused nor bullied. He did have headstrong, defiant personality. Yet, I've read many a bio of other men of similar personality in childhood who grew up to become successful.
In fact, Rockwell joined the Navy during World War 2, and served creditably and competently as a naval aviator, fighting in the Pacific Theater.

I've known many men, including myself, who were children of divorce, also joined the military, becoming military aviators. For must of us, all that I've known, the experience of military service, if anything, reinforced the idea of teamwork with everyone, regardless of background. And, there is nothing in Rockwell's own service in the Navy to indicate otherwise. In short, he was a professional, honorable naval officer, eventually rising to the rank of commander. So what follows next in his life still puzzles and bothers me.

Somewhere, during his recall to naval service due to the Korean War, Rockwell seemed to doubt the nature of where America was headed. Just small doubts, it seems. Then a seemingly inocuous suggestion from a woman acquaintance he barely knew --- that the reason the newspapers were soft on communists and against Gen. MacArthur was because they were all controlled by Jews -- seems to have been the spark that ignited Rockwell's radicalization. And, similar to that of some Islamic terrorists, this radicalization apparently came almost out of nowhere, and then proceeded rapidly.

Throughout the 50s, Rockwell's views and political activities increasingly became more bigoted, more racist, and more antisemitic. So much so, that the Navy suspended his naval service, and then ultimately discharged him from the service just 6 months short of the 20-year retirement eligibility. Even more distressing is the toll this took upon his wife and family. Rockwell's activities were causing them to daily receive death threats as well as attacks upon the family home -- ultimately prompting her to flee to her native Iceland, taking their 4 children with her.

I thought, after reading this, I might understand why Rockwell was indifferent to these things, but, as well as Schmaltz relates the story, I'm still perplexed. A man might have his prejudices --- but George Lincoln Rockwell threw away an honorable, respected naval career and endangered and eventually lost his family -- just to pursue and agitate on the far fringe of a society that was rapidly moving away from the bigotries that drove Rockwell.

I know one ought not to feel sympathy for a Nazi, but one of the saddest parts of this book is when Rockwell is alone --- virtually broke, unemployed, --- the utilities to his vandalized home cut off. And, during this nadir, he seems to experience a moment of clarity. Resolving to abandon his efforts to restart the Nazi Party, he gathers his last savings, flies to Iceland to reconcile with his estranged wife and to rebuild his relationship with his children, and try to start a new life there. Only to be flatly rebuffed by his wife, and asked to leave. This really was Rockwell's last chance at a redemption that he now would never find again, nor ever attempt. One wonders what might have happened had his wife and her family accepted him. Might Rockwell have recovered, might he have become a better man, seen the relative tolerance of Scandinavian society and taken that world view, and, although never famous or infamous, become someone better than those --- a father to his children, a good husband to his wife. We'll never know.

For, after this, Rockwell's descent into hatred, paranoia, and megalomania go from a slow stroll into an accelerating downward spiral that is painful and disgusting to read. At this point, this is no longer a man with merely odd or distasteful personal views, but one who actively does his utmost to win others to them.

Which brings up other issues: how does a free, open society accommodate those with unpopular, discordant, or repugnant views and opinions? This is something that arises repeatedly in this book. There is a notion in my own generation that we're somehow more tolerant and more against racism and bigotry than people were 50-60 years ago, but, clearly, this is not the case.

Rockwell did not find fertile ground for Nazism in America then, not even in his efforts to gain a following in the Jim Crow South. Quite the contrary, he was vigorously opposed with counter-demonstrations, heckling, death threats, vandalism, intimidation, and physical assaults --- as well as harassment from local officials and law enforcement. Even in the South, Rockwell was opposed. Yet, inexplicably, Rockwell persisted in his brand of hatred, nonetheless. In fact, these system to have crystallized his sense of superiority and certitude that his beliefs were in the right.

One thing I found particularly manipulative and misleading was Rockwell's frequent claims to be protecting Christian civilization with his Nazi efforts --- even, as in private, he repeatedly ridiculed Christianity as being silly for its fixation upon a "dead Jew nailed to a piece of wood." But this is coming from a man who, by this time, was beyond shame in even more vile slurs against black and Jews.

Yet, despite being an entertaining speaker with good wit and humor, Rockwell never did gain much more than 200 members to the American Nazi Party (ANP). This book does a good job at telling how the ANP was kept from growing larger. For the initial violence, as Rockwell's Jewish opponents in the ADL and Jewish War Veterans, learned was counter-productive --- merely generating the attention and publicity that Rockwell craved and sought to gain yet more support.

Ultimately, the most successful tactics against the ANP was his opponents ignoring their street demonstrations, organizing plain silence (vs heckling and seizing the rostrum) at Rockwell's college speeches, and using the power of Government regulation and enforcement to wear the ANP down. Rigorous code enforcement on ANP meeting places, strict enforcement of traffic regulations, and the internal revenue code did much to damage and hobble the ANP such that it never could acquire the financial resources to grow beyond a few hundred.

As the turbulent 60s continued, Rockwell increasingly seems a man out of his time, a man fighting vainly against social changes in an America that's passed bigots such as him by.

However, Rockwell's demise would not come at the hands of the people he hated. He was slain by a disaffected former supporter. Ironically, the man who promoted hatred would be undone by one of his own whom he trained to hate -- much as Malcolm X would also be murdered by former fellow Nation of Islam co-religionists whom he'd taught also to hate others for their race.

So what's the point of reading a book like this? It's definitely not for everybody. However, I do think that it shows how a man can become the most vile racist and bigot, gain a following --- and how such a man can be contained and held back in a free nation. In Germany, Hitler took over and ended as a tragedy for the world --- in America, Rockwell, the man who would be Hitler, ultimately ended as a farce --- cut down in a laundromat parking lot ---- his remains ironically cremated in the manner in which he wished upon the Jews he hated.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

To date, the best biography of the founder of American neo-Nazism. Written in a remarkably accessible style, with dozens of great photos, but also a good index and reference section. Rockwell's growing popularity in the 1960s refutes many simplistic views of the period as one of Leftist triumph.

[Bobby Daugherty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Biography of the head of the American Nazi Party. Rockwell was known to have worked with minority personnel in the Navy and said to have been fair. I think witnessing the crass abuse of German civilians accelerated whatever prejudices he may of harbored and developed them into something he could no longer control. He was a gifted orator and intelligent man, and he was murdered by one of his own followers who happened to be Jewish. The potential for a story in his assassin is interesting as he could of been a self hating Jewish man, a legitimate Nazi who snapped when he realized he was Jewish, or an assassin sent by ZOG justifying Rockwell's accusations that the government is controlled by Jews.

[Louis · Rating 3 out of 5]

William H. Schmaltz’s Hate: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party is biography of the founder of the American Nazi Party, including his rise and fall. It is difficult to pinpoint precisely what transformed George Lincoln Rockwell from a seemingly ordinary individual into an ardent supporter of Hitler and National Socialism, as well as a driving force in the rise of Holocaust denial.

The American Nazi Party endured countless court battles and protests and Rockwell was even briefly committed in a mental institution; however, whether he was truly mentally ill—in the strict clinical sense—is far from clear. Additionally the American Nazi Party continuously struggled to get off the ground—even by the standards of hate groups the party never gained much traction in acceptance of its ideas or in fundraising. Furthermore, while Rockwell was somewhat successful in getting media and press coverage, the day to day operations were fraught with infighting and mismanagement.

The American Nazi Party eventually became a target for the FBI’s COINTELPRO operations, although the impact was debatable—the IRS’ seizure of the party’s property and assets had a more demonstrable impact than the FBI’s attempts to disrupt the organization. It is conceivable that the American Nazi Party would have eventually collapsed under its own weight, even if the FBI had never gotten involved. Regardless, the organization fell into disarray in 1967, after Rockwell was murdered by a former member.

Although Hate is well researched and written, it’s still extremely difficult to for me to fully comprehend how someone could sincerely hold such hateful and extreme views. It’s even harder to understand Rockwell’s delusions of grandeur—he genuinely believed a majority of people would eventually support his cause. What may be hardest of all to understand is Rockwell’s willingness to lose everything for it—he not only lost multiple marriages but a stable military career, and almost any chance of having employment outside of the American Nazi Party.

[Joe Blow · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very well researched look at the man behind the American Nazi Party and all its players. I really enjoyed this book, but at the same time it made me very sad. George Lincoln Rockwell was a very well spoken, smart man but had the wrong ideas on just about everything.

Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.
—Matthew 26:52

[Garrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book about a strange and seemingly sincere and smart man. Very well-written and interesting.

[Mickey McIntosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best look at George Lincoln Rockwell.
Rockwell didn't come fro a poor or abused background, and served in World War II, and Korea, but never showed any racist views until the mid 50s50s when he was convinced the Jewish people were behind the communist movement. From then on Rockwell became one of the strongest voices in the white power movement. This book takes a look at Rockwell and his views, and how he tried to lead the nation in a new Nazi movement, and how even after his death, he became one of the most influential voices in white supremacy.
Dealing with hate, and prejudice, this book is a look into one of the more darker realities in history.
Good read, but not pretty.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing book- not just a biography of a single person but of a mostly forgotten counter-culture not usually associated with that era.
I’m struck by the similarities by today’s alt-right movement, and their copying of Rockwell’s techniques, including agitation at university speaking engagements, street theatre, and even his whining, self-pitying complaints and constant attempts to portray himself as the “real victim”.
I wonder if they read the book to its conclusion- it doesn’t end well for Rockwell, as it usually doesn’t for Nazis.

[Brook · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a story of the American Nazi Party (ANP) from its inception to modern iteration. For those interested in 20th century American history, especially those interested in the Civil Rights movement and counter-movement, this garners 5 stars. As someone who has read plenty on the CR movement, but not as much about the counter protests, it was still very interesting.

George Lincoln Rockwell is, as the title suggests, the founder of what would become the ANP. He, like everyone in the ANP discussed in the book, had some other misfortune or perceived misfortune befall them, something that may still be common today amongst those who find membership in fringe groups both far left and right. They find strength outside that they cannot, for the most part, find inside.

The most interesting part of this book, for me, was the analogs between the ANP, state's rights, and other white party movements of the 50s and 60s and the right-wing protests of today. The rhetoric, minus the overt racism, sexism, and other language more acceptable of the time, is the same. The absolute blind hatred is the same. The desire to agitate for the sake of attention is the same. The couching of their true issue in another, less offensive issue is the same, especially compared to today's right-wing protests after the 2008 election.

Reading this as the Tea Party Protesters marched on Washington and across the nation at protests was eerie.

Again, those interested in the counter-movements of the 50s and 60s will greatly enjoy this book.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book - recommend for anyone who wants a flavor for the turmoil of the 60's. Yet disturbing.

[TR · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story of Rockwell's interesting life tells itself.