UNTOLD story of the American Hitler – George Lincoln Rockwell
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
