UNTOLD story of the American Hitler – George Lincoln Rockwell

 Nazism in the United States is nothing new. In  fact it was born in the 1930s with the German   American Bund which grew to disturbing levels.  Its originator World War I veteran Fritz Kuhn a   German who moved to the United States in the 1930s  and became a naturalized citizen held a master’s   degree in chemical engineering.

 Their pro-Nazi  agenda supported “U.S. isolationism avoidance   of European conflicts for Germany’s benefit.” They  were also anti-black anti- nonwhite immigrant and   naturally anti-Jewish. After Kuhn went to prison  on tax evasion charges the organization which   used to fill Madison Square Garden with giant  portraits of not Adolf Hitler but rather George  

Washington and other venues had tens of thousands  of followers but they melted away. But after World   War II the American Nazi movement was resurrected  by a World War II veteran who was perhaps even   more radically bent than Kuhn and who idolized  Adolf Hitler. Who was George Lincoln Rockwell?   What stimulated his interest in fascism? How  effective was he? Hello I’m Colin Heaton former   history Professor Army and Marine Corps veteran  and welcome to this episode of Forgotten History.

George Lincoln Rockwell was born in Bloomington  Illinois on March 9th 1918 and was the oldest of   three children of George Lovejoy Rockwell and  Claire Rockwell. His parents were traveling   Vaudeville comedians and actors and they divorced  when Rockwell was 6 years old so he spent his   youth divided between his mother in Atlantic  City New Jersey and his father in Boothbay Harbor   Maine.

 Rockwell attended Atlantic City High School  in Atlantic City New Jersey and applied to Harvard   University when he was 17 years old but he was  denied admission. Instead his father enrolled him   at the Hebron Academy in Hebron Maine. Rockwell  then enrolled at Brown University in Providence   Rhode Island in 1938 as a philosophy major where  he met his future wife Judith Aultman who was a   student at Pembroke College.

 In 1940 he dropped  out and accepted a commission in the United States   Navy. Rockwell attended naval flight schools in  Massachusetts and Florida and served in both the   Battle of the Atlantic and the Pacific War in  World War II. He served a board the USS Omaha   USS Pastores USS Wasp and USS Mobile as a support  photo reconnaissance transport and training pilot.  

On April 24th 1943 Rockwell married Judith and  they had three daughters Bonnie Nancy and Phoebe   Jean. Rockwell and his in-laws had issues as  Judith was not raised to be the “docile and   compliant” wife as Rockwell expected. The marriage  was “marred with violent arguments and on at least   one occasion Rockwell did strike his wife.

” After  the war Rockwell remained in the Naval Reserve but   worked as a signed painter out of a small shop  that his father owned in Boothbay Harbor. Later   he entered the commercial art program at the  Pratt Institute in Brooklyn New York in 1946 so   he and Judith moved there. Rockwell won the $1,000  first prize for his advertisement for the American   Cancer Society but he left Pratt before completing  his last year and he and Judith moved to Maine   to start his own advertising agency. Rockwell 

still in the reserves was called back to duty   as a lieutenant commander at the beginning of the  Korean War in June 1950. The family relocated to   San Diego where he trained Navy and Marine Corps  pilots in both basic and advanced fight schools   specializing in instrument training. It was during  this time that Rockwell began reading old German   propaganda including Mein Kampf and the Protocols  of the Elders of Zion and he was enamored.

 His   devotion was increased due to the rantings  of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s openly hostile   stance against communism the anti-Semitism of  carmaker Henry Ford and famed aviator Charles   Lindbergh’s stance on race and avoidance of the  USA having become involved in foreign conflicts   especially during World War II.

 Rockwell was  stationed in Iceland on an unaccompanied tour   as a Grumman F8F Bearcat pilot and promoted  to commander in 1952. Judith and the children   remained behind with her mother in Barrington  Rhode Island where Judith filed for divorce in 1953. Rockwell attended a diplomatic party in  Reykjavik where he met Margret Pora Hallgrimsson   the niece of Iceland’s ambassador to the United  States and they married on October 3rd 1953 by   Pora’s uncle the Bishop of Iceland.

 They spent  their honeymoon in Berchtesgaden in Germany the   location of Hitler’s Berghof in the Bavarian  Alps. The couple had three children Hallgrimur   Margret and Evelyn Bentina. In September 1955 in  Washington DC he launched U.S. Lady a magazine for   United States servicemen’s wives. The magazine  incorporated Rockwell’s political causes his  opposition to both racial integration and  communism.

 The publication had financial   problems so he had then sold the magazine.  However he still aspired to pursue a career in   publishing and was good at marketing. As Rockwell  stated quote “When I was in the advertising game   we used to use nude women. Now I use the swastika  and storm troopers. You use what brings them in,”   end quote.

 Margret’s father was appalled by all of  this and arrived in the U.S. in 1957 to bring her   back to Iceland after he discovered that Rockwell  was “one of the most active racists in the United   States.” Margret divorced Rockwell soon afterward  and she remarried in 1963. Rockwell returned to   Washington DC in 1955. He gradually became even  more radicalized until according to his biographer   Rockwell “was on the farthest fringe of the right  wing.

” In 1957 to 1958 Rockwell stated that he   had “dreams of himself meeting Hitler.” Rockwell  found support through Harold Noel Arrowsmith Jr. a   wealthy heir and anti-Semite who provided Rockwell  with a house and printing equipment in 1958 and   together they formed the National Committee to  Free America from Jewish Domination. Rockwell’s   first demonstration was on July 29th 1958 in front  of the White House protesting president Dwight D.  

Eisenhower’s decision to send peacekeeping troops  to Lebanon during that country’s brief Civil War   in 1958 which was called Operation Blue Bat.  Rockwell and his supporters were already on the   federal radar especially when they specifically  protested what they called “Jewish control of   the government.

” After the Hebrew Benevolent  Congregation Temple bombing in October 1958   the police raided Rockwell’s home. There was  never any evidence that Rockwell’s people were   responsible but he was under suspicion. Journalist  Drew Pearson was mainly responsible for bringing   Rockwell “to the forefront” after writing an  article describing how “Rockwell and his followers   dressed in uniforms armed themselves with guns  and paraded at his home in Arlington Virginia.

”   In March 1959 Rockwell founded the World Union  of Free Enterprise National Socialists later   renamed the American Nazi Party and then even  later renamed again as the National Socialist   White People’s Party headquartered at his home at  928 North Randolph Street in Arlington Virginia.   Rockwell always creative published his “Animal  Farm” parody a poem and the children’s book “The   Fable of the Ducks and the Hens” in 1959.

 On July  4th 1960 again on the National Mall “Rockwell and   his men were confronted by a mob and a riot  ensued. The police arrested Rockwell and   eight party members. Rockwell demanded a trial  and instead he was committed to a psychiatric   hospital for 30 days.” He was released 12 days