The National Socialist Movement USA

The National Socialist Movement is the second largest neo-Nazi group in the country, trailing only the National Alliance. While some neo-Nazi organizations prefer blazers to brownshirts, this Minneapolis-based hate group is a throwback to the 1960s-era American Nazi Party, from which it descended: members wear Nazi uniforms and openly display swastikas to a degree unusual even among white supremacists. This explicit Nazi imagery apparently has not hurt its stature or standing on the racist right; in recent years it has grown considerably in membership and influence, with dozens of chapters across the country. Part of the reason for the group's growth has been its appeal to racist skinheads and other young white supremacists, who join in NSM activities ranging from literature distribution to armed paramilitary training.

Leader: Jeff Schoep

Headquarters: Minneapolis, MN

Founded: 1974 by Robert Brannen and Cliff Herrington

Publications: NSM Magazine

Other Media: Web site, literature distribution, conferences and rallies

Ideology: Neo-Nazi; NSM calls for a "greater America" that would deny citizens to Jews, nonwhites, and homosexuals.

Composition: Mostly young, including racist skinheads; the group also has older holdovers from George Lincoln Rockwell's American Nazi Party of the 1960s.

Connections Ties with various Klan, racist skinhead and other neo-Nazi groups.

Significance: One of the most explicitly "Nazi-like" neo-Nazi groups, emulating the uniforms and paraphernalia of the Third Reich. It has a vaguely paramilitary structure, with military ranks for its members.

Origins

Like most neo-Nazi groups active in the United States today, the National Socialist Movement traces its roots back to the 1960s and George Lincoln Rockwell's American Nazi Party, the first well-established neo-Nazi organization in America. After Rockwell's assassination in 1967, a variety of neo-Nazi factions sprang up from the disorganized and fractious remnants of the ANP. One such group was a small neo-Nazi group started by two former Rockwell stormtroopers, Robert Brannen and Cliff Herrington, in 1974. Operating under the dubious name of the National Socialist American Workers Freedom Movement, it was tiny and its influence did not extend much beyond its headquarters in South St. Paul, Minnesota.

During the 1970s, Brannen suffered multiple strokes and was succeeded by Herrington in 1983. Herrington (born 1947) ran the group for over a decade, by which point it had expanded to only a handful of chapters outside of Minnesota. Before 1993, when Herrington and a fellow member showed up, in Nazi uniform, at a Minnesota legislative committee hearing to protest a proposed gay rights bill, the local media was largely unaware of their group's existence. However, by the mid-1990s, the group's presence, at least in the Twin Cities, was well-known, especially since some of its members enjoyed wearing their Nazi uniforms in public.

In 1994 Herrington stepped down from command (though he remains an active member) in favor of his much younger second-in-command, Jeff Schoep. Schoep, born in 1973, had been active in the group from an early age and was much more able to appeal to racist skinheads and other young white supremacists and racists. He made his first splash in 1998 when trying to host a major white supremacist event. Prominent neo-Nazis such as Allen Vincent and Thomas Metzger endorsed Schoep and his group, by then renamed the National Socialist Movement. Vincent said that Schoep had "great bloodlines" and predicted he would be able to unite the different white supremacist groups in the United States and make Minneapolis-St. Paul the "national headquarters" for the white revolution.

Structure

The NSM is paramilitary in structure; its members claim to be lieutenants, sergeants, and other military ranks. One of the most openly Nazi-like of the various neo-Nazi groups in the United States, its members frequently wear uniforms patterned after those of the Third Reich. Jeff Schoep, the head of NSM, is its "commander," and the various chapters of the groups are termed "units." In just a few years, the NSM has grown from a few chapters to dozens. However, most of its chapters are quite small, and many tend to be very short-lived. In 2004, it has between 100 and 200 members and hangers-on in 38 chapters.

Not only is the NSM paramilitary in structure, but its members also engage in armed paramilitary training. In 2000, one of its Ohio members began offering weapons and other military training at a farm in that state, and NSM members from several states attended. In issues of its various periodicals over the years, the NSM has advocated weapons training for whites and has published the recipes for explosives such as fertilizer bombs.

The membership of the NSM tends to be young; many of its members are current or former skinheads. However, the NSM also still has a number of older members, such as "Wild Bill" Hoff, whose neo-Nazi involvement stretches back to the 1960s and George Lincoln Rockwell.

Ideology

Openly worshipful of Hitler, the NSM is one of the more explicitly neo-Nazi groups in the United States. However, like other neo-Nazi groups, it is not a clone of the Third Reich, but has been Americanized and modernized. Its platform calls for an all white "greater America" that would deny citizenship to nonwhites, Jews, and homosexuals. The NSM reserves most of its vitriol for Jews and immigrants; it is crudely racist and anti-Semitic.

Like other neo-Nazi groups such as the National Alliance, the NSM has worked to capitalize on perceived anti-immigration sentiment in America, holding or participating in various anti-immigration rallies around the country. In August 2003, for example, the NSM staged an anti-immigration rally at the state legislature in Indianapolis, Indiana, to protest the rise in Hispanic immigrants in Indianapolis. "They are dragging down the economy and stealing jobs…making a lot of Americans feel like second class citizens," Schoep told reporters.

Unlike its main rival, the National Alliance, the NSM actively works with other white supremacist groups ranging from racist skinheads to the Klan to White Revolution. As early as 1993, Schoep claimed to be the leader of the "United Patriot Front," a group he envisioned would unite the Klan, the Posse Comitatus, and other racist groups. The NSM has held numerous "unity rallies" designed to bring various white supremacist factions together. One of its more recent occurred in Topeka, Kansas, a state with an active NSM membership, in the summer of 2002. There some 21 marchers and dozens of sympathizers from a variety of extremist groups faced off against hundreds of angry counterprotesters. Schoep, waving a noose, yelled to the crowd that he came to Kansas "to speak the truth for my race, my people, my nation." In 2003, the NSM and White Revolution, a new group headed by former National Alliance member Billy Roper that is also interested in "white unity," participated together at a number of events.

ATTENTION!

This material is taken from the Anti-Defamation League - USA and is incomplete and distorted.

Know that The National Socialist Movement is primarily an anti-Soviet and anti-communist party! The hatred of the left movements in this party is much stronger, here they are in complete solidarity with the Zionists!

The Anti-Defamation League is itself a Zionist version of National Socialism, Fascism and Obscurantism!

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