The American Nazi Party (ANP) was founded by George Lincoln Rockwell in 1959. Originally called the World Union of Free Enterprise National Socialists (WUFENS), The ANP used a heavy racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric to achieve its main goal of reviving Nazism in the United States. In post-WWII United States, they were the first party to openly use swastikas and other Nazi imagery, as well as openly defend Adolf Hitler’s regime of terror and deny the Holocaust. Rockwell, as leader of the party, was called the “American Fuehrer”.
ANP headquarters were located in Arlington, Virginia, with additional “Storm trooper Barracks” set up in a farmhouse on the tallest hill in the county. The driveway pillars of the party’s headquarters were embossed with swastikas.
Rockwell’s use of dramatic publicity stunts garnered the ANP much-needed public attention. After each stunt, funds would pour in from supporters around the country. Rockwell had originally run the National Committee to Free America from Jewish Domination for Harold Noel Arrowsmith, who later became the chief financier for the ANP.
Two notable public stunts by the ANP were:
- A rally held in New York City where Rockwell had gone to demand a speaking permit ended in a near-riot when Rockwell said that 80% of America’s Jews were communist sympathizers and thus, traitors.
- Rockwell and the Deputy Commander of the ANP were arrested after a fight broke out while they were handing out pamphlets near the White House. The pamphlets were filled with hateful material such as, ‘When they snarl “you are Nazis,” we gleefully reply “You’re damned right, and we will shortly give you Jew traitors the gas-chamber, like the Rosenbergs!”.’ After the ANP’s lawyer David L. Shapiro, a Jew, had them acquitted, Rockwell told him, “Listen up, Jewboy, just because you got me off, that doesn’t do anything for you. Make sure you understand that I’ll watch as you and all the other Jews go to the gas chamber.”
On January 1, 1967, Rockwell changed the name of the American Nazi Party to the National Socialist White People’s Party (NSWPP). Its new slogan was “White Power” and the party’s publication The Stormtrooper magazine was replaced with a newspaper named White Power. Shortly after, on August 25, 1967, Rockwell was murdered by former party member John Patler.
The new NSWPP struggled under Rockwell’s successor and never gained the same amount of public attention.
The new NSWPP struggled under Rockwell’s successor and never gained the same amount of public attention.
