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Matthias Koehl

Matthias Koehl
Koehl waving the American flag in 1953
2nd Commander
of the American Nazi Party
In office
August 25, 1967 – October 9, 2014
Preceded byGeorge Lincoln Rockwell
Succeeded byMartin Kerr[1]
2nd and 4th leader
of the World Union of National Socialists
In office
April 9, 2009 – October 9, 2014
Preceded byColin Jordan
In office
August 25, 1967 – 1968
Preceded byGeorge Lincoln Rockwell
Succeeded byColin Jordan
Personal details
Born
Matthias Koehl Jr.

(1935-01-22)January 22, 1935
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.
DiedOctober 9, 2014(2014-10-09) (aged 79)
Wisconsin, U.S.
Political partyNational Renaissance Party
United White Party
National States' Rights Party
American Nazi Party
Alma materUniversity of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
OccupationUnited States Marine, politician, writer
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Matthias Koehl Jr. (January 22, 1935 – October 9, 2014) was a U.S. Marine, neo-Nazi politician and writer. He succeeded George Lincoln Rockwell as the longest serving leader of the American Nazi Party, from 1967 to 2014.

Koehl was heavily influenced by the occultism of the Greek–French writer Savitri Devi[2][3] and was also a close friend of the Dutch World War II Nazi collaborator Florentine Rost van Tonningen.[citation needed]

Early life

Koehl was born on January 22, 1935, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Hungarian immigrants of German descent,[3] Koehl's father claimed Matthias would rarely speak with him on personal matters, but was more talkative to his mother.[4] He graduated from a high school in his home town in 1952, going to work in a print shop before entering the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee to study journalism,[4] where he played violin with the civic opera.[5] He subsequently enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and spent 2 years under them before joining the National Renaissance Party in New York.[3]

Politics

After joining the NRP, he subsequently moved between various white supremacist parties. He helped with the organisation of the United White Party and was the national organiser the National States' Rights Party,[3] where he first met George Lincoln Rockwell as they worked on the campaign of John G. Crommelin, before joining Rockwell’s American Nazi Party in 1960.[2]

In 1953, he claimed to have met with the poet and fascist activist Ezra Pound during Pound's imprisonment at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, DC. In 1957, he became secretary-treasurer of the committee to Free Ezra Pound. Pound gave Koehl several signed volumes of his poetry during this period, signing them "Matthias Koehl / HEIL / Ezra Pound / 1953".[6]

He became the leader of the Chicago division of the ANP in 1961 then moved to Rockwell’s headquarters in 1963. This promotion of location accompanied his promotion to corresponding secretary of the World Union of National Socialists and national secretary of the ANP; in addition, he edited and published bulletins for both groups.[3]

Koehl had clashes with Rockwell.[7][8] In August 1966, Rockwell angrily rejected a suggestion from Koehl that they should have more staff (at the time, the ANP did not have enough money for food and could not pay for new employees).[8] On August 24th, 1967, Rockwell and Koehl had another verbal dispute; an “acrimonious showdown” according to Rockwell biography Fredrick Simonelli; and the following day, Lincoln Rockwell was assassinated.[7] While due to the argument there was unsubstantiated speculation Koehl may have been involved, the man convicted for the assassination was a former ANP member named John Patler.[7] At the time, Koehl, who was the deputy commander[9], claimed to newsmen the party "[didn't] know of anyone who [could] fill his shoes"[10], but Koehl succeeded the assassinated Rockwell as commander of the National Socialist White People's Party, known until December 1966 as the American Nazi Party.[3]

During Koehl’s leadership of the group he backed away from their attacks on other racial groups to instead focus on “positive” aspects of the Neo-Nazi ideology.[2] Koehl did, however, still feature extremist anti-minority speech within the organisation; Urban Milwaukee pointed to a line on the website from 2007 saying that trusted supporters must "be non-Jewish, white, and not a fugitive, drug addict or homosexual".[11] Koehl largely stopped the organisation from pursuing the publicity stunts Rockwell had become known for, and instead the spreading of his message was based primarily through pre-recorded messages from Matthias sent to telephones urging the receiver to follow the “White Power message”; one example being his request that people in Washington, D.C. disobey the gun control laws and keep at least 100 rounds for every weapon they own.[12]

In 1983, Koehl renamed the organization "New Order" and made it more overtly religious than political, espousing that Hitler had been sent down to Earth by a divine entity, reflecting his inspiration from Savitri Devi.[2] In the book Black Sun, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke emphasises the extents to which the organisation’s discussion of Hitler was religious; the New Order produced literature praising Hitler in a manner Goodrick-Clarke considered to be imitative of Jesus and Koehl himself directly compared the cause and followers of Hitler to that of the Christian messiah in a 1991 speech to European members of the New Order.[3] His language explicitly rejected democracy as having ruined the world, citing that the victory of the Allied powers led unfavourably to concepts he opposed like Miscegenation, rock music, Alternative lifestyles, HIV/AIDS, crime and corruption.[3]

Splits in the party occurred due to Koehl’s leadership; an article in The Record Herald claimed he lacked the way Rockwell carried himself and commanded respect.[12] Similarly an article in the American Jewish Year Book stated these splits were due to Koehl lacking Rockwell’s leadership ability amongst other things; a few units, example including the division in Los Angeles, split off from the Party rather than following him.[13]

At the end of his life, Koehl was the leader of the World Union of National Socialists, despite his affiliation with Esoteric Nazism having alienated some members.[citation needed] He and the Order came under heavy financial troubles in the 1980s from both the IRS and the cost of living in Washington, D.C., which culminated in him dispersing the Order to Wisconsin and Michigan.[2] Although he maintained a low public profile, Koehl granted an interview to the mainstream writer William H. Schmaltz in Arlington, Virginia, in April 1996 during the preparation of Schmaltz' biography of Rockwell.[citation needed]

Death

Koehl died in the night between October 9 and 10, 2014, at the age of 79 of complications related to cancer.[2]

Works

  • Some Guidelines to the Development of the National Socialist Movement (1969)
  • The Future Calls (1972)
  • The Program of the National Socialist White People's Party (Cicero, IL: NS Publications, 1980)
  • Faith of the Future (1995)

References

  1. ^ "City a Leader in White Nationalism". urbanmilwaukee.com. February 26, 2025. Koehl remained based in New Berlin until he died in 2014 and as an obituary published by the New Order noted: "Under his tenure, the NSWPP flourished into a national organization, with headquarters in many US cities. In the mid-1970s, it ran candidates for local office in Milwaukee and elsewhere."...The group's new leader is Martin Kerr.
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Longtime Neo-Nazi Matthias "Matt" Koehl Dies". Southern Poverty Law Center. October 13, 2014.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Goodrik-Clarke, Nicholas (2001). Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity. NYU Press. pp. 15–18. ISBN 0-8147-3155-4.
  4. ^ a b "Former State Resident New Boss Of Nazis". The Daily Telegram. August 26, 1967. p. 1. Retrieved March 6, 2025.
  5. ^ "Old Berlin". Milwaukee Magazine. December 1, 2008. Retrieved November 16, 2022.
  6. ^ Hanson, Bradford (June 20, 2017). "Matt Koehl and Ezra Pound: The Untold Story". National Vanguard. Retrieved January 4, 2023.
  7. ^ a b c Berry, Damon T. (2017). Blood & Faith: Christianity in American White Nationalism (1st ed.). Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press. p. 48. ISBN 978-0-8156-3532-1.
  8. ^ a b Simonelli, Fredrick J. (Spring 1995). "The American Nazi Party, 1958–1967". The Historian. 57 (3): 561. JSTOR 24451464.
  9. ^ "Nazi Chapter to Celebrate Hitler Birthday". The Free Lance-Star. Vol. 83, no. 88. Associated Press. April 14, 1967. p. 3. Retrieved August 3, 2011 – via Google News.
  10. ^ "Rockwell's Slayer Former Aide". The Daily Telegram. August 26, 1967. p. 1. Retrieved March 6, 2025.
  11. ^ Murphy, Bruce. "Murphy's Law: City a Leader in White Nationalism". Urban Milwaukee. Retrieved February 27, 2025.
  12. ^ a b "Deep splits develop in Rockwell's party". The Record Herald. August 8, 1968. p. 12.
  13. ^ Ellerin, Milton (1968). "Rightist Extremism". American Jewish Year Book. 69: 269. JSTOR 23604346.

Sources

Quelle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Koehl