Early Racist Skinhead Movement (Part 1)

SKREWDRIVER

Skrewdriver was the first and most influential of British neo-Nazi music groups. Through its leader Ian Stewart (now deceased), Skrewdriver formed the core of a fascist skinhead network in Britain and on the Continent. It worked closely with the National Front and eventually was linked to British members of the Ku Klux Klan. It also influenced and worked closely with such groups as Bound for Glory, an organization which in turn has exerted influence in a network that includes various Hammer Skin factions. Its music and assorted related paraphernalia are distributed by various skinhead merchandise services.

STRIDE FOR PRIDE

This skinhead publication originates in St. Catherines, Ontario. On the next page is reproduced an article by Karl Hand, formerly second-in-command to David Duke. Before his incarceration in Louisiana, Hand organized a militant organization called the National Socialist Liberation Front. It was under Hand's tutelage that the young Carney Nerland, then a member of the Aryan Nations and Ku Klux Klan, received extensive training.

PASTOR PETE PETERS

Pete Peters is one of North America's most influential Christian Identity ministers. His Colorado based organization is a veritable communications empire, boasting an extensive printing and radio broadcasting operation. Peters also owns and operates a site on which large rallies have been staged. He also runs summer camps attended by hundreds each year and at which virulent racist pseudotheology is preached. He also has a following in Canada and has appeared on open line talk shows in various Canadian cities, including Winnipeg. In 1994 Peters' organization sent a packaage of material to a Winnipeg Free Press columnist who then publicly took issue with its offensive contents.

SS ACTION GROUP

The SS Action Group, based in Dearborn, Michigan, was founded in 199. Its publication, Aryans Awake!, advocates a version of Nazi genocidal ideology. The group explicitly states that its aim is to "wipe out Zionism and every Jew who supports it throughout the world." SS Action members have clashed many times with anti-racism protesters in the Detroit area. This group, as well as the Detroit cell of the Northern Hammer Skins, was among the fascist organizations with which members of the Manitoba KKK had direct contacts. The motto on the card shown above -- "Meine Ehre heisst Treue" (repeatedly incorrectly spelled in SS Action literature) -- is a Nazi slogan meaning: "My honour is my fidelity/steadfastness."

IMPERIAL KNIGHTS OF THE KU KLUX KLAN

British Columbia has been the site of well-established KKK groups since the 1960s. This faction has been active since the 190s and is testimony to the successful recruitment drives made by David Duke and his then lieutenant Wolfgang Droege to organize white supremacist activity on the West Coast.`

MANITOBA KNIGHTS

Letter from Bill Harcus to a contact, 1991, listing recent developments in the formation of the Manitoba Knights of the KKK. Cards distributed by the Manitoba KKK.

INVISIBLE EMPIRE, KNIGHTS OF THE KU KLUX KLAN

Cover of the main publication of the Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, headed by J.W. Farrands, Gulf, North Carolina. (The Invisible Empire has restructured itself as a result of legal difficulties in 1993.) A number of Canadian KKK factions, including the Manitoba Knights of the KKK, were affiliated with the Farrands Klan.

GERMANIA

Germania is a German language newsletter published by Ernst Zundel. It is distributed in many countries. The issue shown here was distributed in Alberta in 1993. Zundel's Toronto-based Samisdat operation is among the most important hate propaganda distributors in the world, together withËWhite Power Publications, operated by George Dietz of West Virginia, and Gerhard Lauck's N.S.D.A.P./A.O. (Nationalist Socialist Workers Party of Germany - Overseas Organization), based in Nebraska. Zundel's glorification of Nazism is expressed in the tribute paid to Rudolf Hess (see graphic above) and in books like The Hitler We Loved and Why, published by White Power Publications. His extreme anti-Jewish invective is part of a strategy to deny that the Nazi genocide occurred and to defame death camp survivors as "holocaust racketeers" engaged in spreading what Zundel and other neo-Nazis claim is "a gigantic hoax which cynically and diabolically aims at blackmailing the German people all over the world. ... There were no 'six million holocaust victims.' There was no Nazi  genocide programme. There were no gas chambers for 'exterminating' Jews or anybody else ... I repeat THERE WAS NO JEWISH HOLOCAUST."* __________ * cited in Manuel Prutschi, "The Zundel Affair," in Alan Davies (ed.), Antisemitism in Canada: History and Interpretation (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1992) 258.

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. 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.

See Early Racist Skinhead Movement (Part 2) and our forthcoming series on YT at http://www.youtube.com/user/xeron123456