George Lincoln Rockwell (9 March 1918 – 25 August 1967) was the founder of the American Nazi Party and its Commander from March 1959 to 25 August 1967, preceding Matthias Koehl. He was assassinated by a disgruntled former party member in 1967.
Biography
George Lincoln Rockwell was born in Bloomington, Illinois on 9 March 1918, the son of two vaudeville comedians and actors. He was raised in Atlantic City, New Jersey and Boothbay Harbor, Maine, and he served as a US Navy commander during World War II. In 1950, he, his wife, and their three children settled in San Diego, California, where he became a supporter of Adolf Hitler and Nazism, inspired by Joseph McCarthy's anti-communism and by Douglas MacArthur's presidential bid. While stationed in Iceland during the 1950s, Rockwell divorced his first wife and married an Icelandic socialite. However, she also divorced him in 1957 after learning that he was one of the most active racists in the United States. In 1958, Rockwell cofounded the "National Committee to Free America from Jewish Domination", and he protested against President Dwight D. Eisenhower's intervention in Lebanon because he believed that it had been orchestrated by Zionists.
Rockwell wearing a Nazi uniform
In March 1959, he cofounded the "World Union of Free Enterprise National Socialists" (WUFENS), which he renamed to the "American Nazi Party" in 1960. One of Rockwell's missions was to take the Ku Klux Klan into the modern age, and he coined the term "White Power" and was active in opposing the Civil Rights movement due to his belief that it was controlled by communists and Jews. In 1962, he cofounded the World Union of National Socialists (WUNS) while celebrating Hitler's birthday in Gloucestershire, England, and he also gave a medal to one of his Nazis who punched Martin Luther King Jr. in the face. In 1966, the ACLU defended his right to stage marches or parades in Jewish neighborhoods during Jewish holidays. He also founded a racist record label, organized a "Hate Bus" to fight back against the Freedom Riders, befriended black nationalist leaders such as Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X due to their shared support for racial segregation, donated $20 to the Nation of Islam after praising Muhammad for making millions of his followers "admirable human beings in spite of their color", for opposing racial mixing as a "Jewish fraud", and for being "The Black People's Hitler". On 25 August 1967, Rockwell was mortally wounded by a sniper, disgruntled Marxist ANP member John Patler, as he left an Arlington, Virginia laundromat, and his father told reporters that he had expected his son's death for some time. He left behind 300 ANP members and 3,000 financial supporters, and a young David Duke hailed Rockwell as the greatest American who had ever lived.