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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] and was also a close friend of the Dutch World War II Nazi collaborator Florentine Rost van Tonningen.[citation needed]

Early life

Born on January 22, 1935, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Hungarian immigrants of German descent, Koehl studied journalism at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee[3] and played violin with the civic opera. A teenage antisemitic activist, Koehl worked with hate groups on the East Coast and the South before joining George Lincoln Rockwell's American Nazi Party and the Marine Corps.[4]

Politics

Koehl joined James Madole's National Renaissance Party, the United White Party and the National States' Rights Party, 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".[5]

In August 1967, formerly a deputy commander,[6] Koehl succeeded the assassinated Rockwell as commander of the National Socialist White People's Party, known until December 1966 as the American Nazi Party.[7] 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] 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] 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".[8]

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. ^ Milwaukee Journal, September 4, 1967.
  4. ^ "Old Berlin". Milwaukee Magazine. December 1, 2008. Retrieved November 16, 2022.
  5. ^ Hanson, Bradford (June 20, 2017). "Matt Koehl and Ezra Pound: The Untold Story". National Vanguard. Retrieved January 4, 2023.
  6. ^ "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.
  7. ^ "Nazi Party Changes Name". The Free Lance-Star. Vol. 82, no. 297. Associated Press. December 19, 1966. p. 8. Retrieved August 2, 2011 – via Google News.
  8. ^ Murphy, Bruce. "Murphy's Law: City a Leader in White Nationalism". Urban Milwaukee. Retrieved February 27, 2025.

Sources

Allikas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Koehl
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