Early Racist Skinhead Movement (Part 2)

CONFEDERATE HAMMER SKINS

The Dallas area based Confederate Hammer Skins are notorious for their violence. A Canadian skinhead associated with the Texas group was found guilty in the murder of an African-American man (Christopher Brodsky). Plans were also disclosed in the late 1980s that the Confederate Hammer Skins were conspiring to plant cyanide capsules in the air conditioning unit of a Dallas synagogue. Some researchers believe that the group received a significant amount of money via Tom Metzger from various armed robberies committed by members of the Aryan Nations' silent Brotherhood. Canadians, including Ottawa's Mark Bauer, have been affiliated with the Confederate Hammer Skins. It is also the case that the CHS is part of a skinhead network that includes such groups as the Northern Hammer Skins and similar groups in the Western U.S. and in the Northeast. The card includes the phrase "Hail Victory!", which is the English version of the German Nazi salutation "Sieg Heil!" The designation "88" is also a common shorthand greeting used by most white supremacists. The number "8" represents the eight letter of the alphabet, "H"; thus "88" is short for "HH" which in turn represents the salutation "Heil Hitler!"8In a "Skinheads Directory" from New Beginnings: Voice of the NewNational Socialist, published in Melrose, Florida [the graphics here are also taken from July 1990 issue], some of the international scope of organized racist Skinhead groups can be glimpsed. Neo-Nazi rock bands and Skin formations in various parts of the U.S. are listed, as are contacts in Sweden, Australia, Belgium and Germany. Among the Canadian groups listed are Women for Aryan Unity cells in Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver. Of the Aryan Resistance Movement, based in Mission, B.C., it is stated that "ARM has many units across Canada." Reference is also made to Canadian "National Socialist and related Organizations" such as Ernst Zundel's Samisdat Publishers, the Ontario Free Speech League and the publication Maximum National Socialism from the Manitoba KKK.

ARRESTING OFFICERS

This group is one of dozens of racist music bands that are active in the North American neo-Nazi network. Others include RAHOWA (the band of the Canadian chapter of Church of the Creator), Aryan, and Odin's Way, a Canadian group which played at the 1994 Aryan Nations World Congress. Such groups perform a political function in that they target and recruit youth through Nazi 'skinhead' music. The Arresting Officers have also cultivated contacts with many Canadian neo-Nazis, including Manitoba's Bill Harcus who did graphic design work for the Philadelphia-based group and with whose members he stayed in contact through letters.

ARYAN WOMEN'S LEAGUE

The White Warrior also disseminates material from the Aryan Women's League which, in turn, is an offshoot of Tom Metzger's White Aryan Resistance (WAR). The Aryan Women's League claims chapters in various Canadian provinces, including Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia.

NORTHERN HAMMER SKINS

The Northern Hammer Skins are among the most active of neo-Nazi groups currently operating in Canada. In Winnipeg 4 NHS members have been charged in assault cases. One former member received a 2 year sentence in a gay bashing incident (the sentence was later reduced to months). Another NHS member charged is also a military reservist, a point which has again raised the issue of racists in the armed forces. Given the disclosures of neo-Nazi activity among members of 2 Commando of the Canadian Airborne Regiment and Aryan Nations recruitment at the Esquimalt naval training base, the membership of reservists in violent neo-Nazi groups has been noted with concern. The Winnipeg chapter of the NHS is linked to numerous other groups in Canada and the U.S., including the Confederate Hammer Skins, Eastern Hammer Skins, WAR, the American Nazi Party, a Quebec KKK faction, the Heritage Front, and the neo-Nazi group Bound for Glory, based in East St. Paul, Minnesota. Researchers note that the Northern Hammer Skins have successfully recruited skinheads away from the Aryan Resistance Movement in B.C., from Alberta's Final Solution, and from Ontario skinheads associated with the Church of the Creator. Members of the Winnipeg chapter have reportedly received ideological and paramilitary training in Quebec.

THE WHITE WARRIOR

The White Warrior is a publication of the Montreal unit of the Aryan Resistance Movement (ARM). It is unique in that it publishes English and French language articles in a given issue. ARM has exerted a powerful influence on the racist skinhead movement in Quebec and other regions of Canada. (White Power Canada skinheads associated with ARM were charged in 1992 in at least two cases of murder of men thought to be homosexual.

DAN SIMS

[photo] Daniel Joshua Sims, involved in the April, 1990 assault against Keith Rutherford; now underground in the United States.

BILL HARCUS

[photo] Bill Harcus with lawyer Doug Christie Winnipeg, September, 1992 shortly before charges were stayed against three members of the Manitoba Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.H

POSTERS

Posters at the 'Skin Bin,' the Edmonton headquarters of the Final Solution. The poster on the left states that "Communism is Jewish," a theme of far right propaganda that persists, despite the demise of the Soviet Union and its allies. It is a theme which is based on the neo-Nazi notion that there is a Jewish-Zionist elite which conspires to control the government and world economic system. The poster on the right graphically illustrates a common theme among white supremacists: the myth that immigrants, especially people of colour, are invading Canada and taking away jobs. The poster depicts gross caricatures of Sikh, Asian, African and Jewish men and states: "White Canadians WATCH OUT! We want your jobs! (It's happening NOW! We want your homes! We want your country! WAKE UP!"

TATOOS

[photo] Neo-Nazi tattoos depicting a Celtic cross, Nazi battle flag, the Iron cross, a swastika and a version of the Death Head.

EDGAR FOTH

[photo] Edgar Foth (Bruderheim, Alberta), is one of two Canadian members of the Aryan Nations terrorist organization known as The Order (or The Silent Brotherhood). Foth has been a member of the Aryan Nations since at least 1984 when he first attended the Aryan World Congress in Idaho. He has worked closely with the Final Solution skinheads, served as bodyguard for Ernst Zundel and Doug Christie during Zundel's trial in Toronto in 1985, and has organized security at KKK/Aryan Nations events. Foth is considered to be among the most dangerous of active Canadian fascists. Canadian Aryan Nations leader Terry Long--who worked closely with the Final Solution--has said: "The skinheads are a spontaneous uproar, a rejection of everything that our present so-called democratic system stands for, which is only democratic for Jews, queers and niggers. ... Since 1980 we've obtained members from all across Canada from the Skinhead movement, and we're very impressed. ... It's totally spontaneous, and the Jews can't stop it, and that's what is driving them crazy. ... They are the new order." (Butler and Long cited in Kinsella, Web of Hate, 260-261 and 262)

Far from being a "spontaneous uproar," there is a high degree of coordination and cooperation between racist youth and the leadership of groups like the KKK, Aryan Nations, Church of the Creator, Heritage Front and the White Aryan Resistance. [photo: Janine Boersta, Final Solution, Edmonton] [photo: Kelly Lyle (l), leader of the Calgary chapter of the Final Solution.]

Leaders of the organized hate movement have cultivated contacts with neo-Nazi skinheads and other youth. Richard Butler, Aryan Nations leader, welcomes the union between skinheads and other more traditional sectors in the far right network: "It's happening not only in Canada and the United States, it's happening in Belgium and Holland and France and Norway and Sweden and Australia and New Zealand and South Africa. It's happening wherever white men are. All of a sudden the white race is starting to awaken. After World War Two, you in Canada were forced to let in anything that walked and give them welfare. [Non-whites] are raping the citizens of Canada, raping the citizens of the United States. They are trampling across your borders to destroy your culture and everything else. I think the young people are starting to awaken to that fact."

[photo:] Note the Confederate flag (widely used as a symbol of white supremacy) on the flight jacket of this Canadian skinhead. (The posters also depict various elements of neo-Nazi propaganda, including: - calls for violence (to "fight terror with terror" through a "White Revolution"); - the dangers posed by immigrants ("White Man, Beware!"); - anti-Jewish invective; - pro-apartheid sentiment.