For Law Enforcement

This document is an archived copy of an older ADL report and may not reflect the most current facts or developments related to its subject matter.

The National Socialist Movement (NSM) is currently the largest neo-Nazi group in the United States. This is due primarily to setbacks experienced by other major neo-Nazi groups in the country between 2002 and 2007. Nonetheless, despite the stability of having the same leader for nearly two decades, the group has not managed to attract a large following. It has consistently maintained a membership of several hundred members.

In 2009, the group eschewed its Nazi-style brown shirts and uniforms in favor of black fatigue-like clothing with NSM insignia. At rallies, the members, dressed in black pants and shirts, often carry banners or shields bearing the group’s insignia, which includes a swastika and the NSM logo.

While the NSM movement has members in every region of the United States, the Northeast currently has the most local units. This is a departure from the group’s historically Midwestern and Southern membership.

Quick Profile

Leader: Jeff Schoep
Headquarters: Detroit, Michigan
Founded: 1974 by Robert Brannen and Clifford Herrington
Business ventures: NSM88 Records, videogames and CDs
Publications: N.S.M. Magazine, local chapter bulletins
Other activities: Literature distributions, conferences and rallies, Internet forums and blogs
Ideology: Neo-Nazi; NSM calls for a “greater America” that would deny citizenship to Jews, non-whites, and homosexuals.
Composition: Mostly young, including racist skinheads.
Affiliations: Ties with various Klan groups, racist skinheads and other neo-Nazi organizations
Significance: One of the most explicitly “Nazi-like” neo-Nazi groups, which emulates the Third Reich. It has a vaguely paramilitary structure, with military ranks for its members.

The NSM promotes its virulently anti-Semitic and racist ideology at rallies throughout the country. Between 2009 and 2011, the group’s rallies have focused mainly on immigration. The group also promotes its message through the group's Website, a white power music company and videogames.

Recent Developments

Developments between 2009 and 2011

The National Socialist Movement lost one of its most active leaders in May 2011. On May 1, Jeff Hall, the southwest regional coordinator for the NSM, was allegedly shot and killed by his 10-year-old son at their home in Riverside, California. The motive for the killing has not been made public yet.

In 2011, the NSM began growing in the Northeast. As a reflection of that growth, the group held its annual national meeting in Pemberton, New Jersey in April 2011.

In 2010, the Arizona and California NSM units were particularly active as the group focused mostly on immigration and border issues. NSM members patrolled the U.S.-Mexico border in both states. In Arizona, JT Ready, an NSM member and anti-immigrant extremist carried out border patrols near Phoenix with other NSM members. In June 2010, Ready left the NSM to form his own group, The American Border Guard, an extreme border vigilante group.

Jeff Hall, who was NSM’s southwest states regional coordinator and head of its California chapter before his May 2011 murder, ran for a seat on the board of the Western Riverside Municipal Water District in 2010. Hall managed to garner 27.79% of the vote (6,738 votes). The day after the election, the NSM gloated on its Web site about the percentage of votes that Hall won.

An NSM member received a jail sentence in December 2010. Mariusz Wdziekonski, a Polish national, was found guilty of a hate crime for spray-painting anti-Semitic epithets and neo-Nazi and white supremacist hate symbols on dozens of headstones at a Jewish cemetery in Norridge, Illinois in January 2008. Wdziekonski received a seven-year prison term.

In 2009, the most active NSM units were in Missouri, Wisconsin, and California. The group participated in adopt-a-highway programs in Springfield, Illinois and in Denver, Colorado. The adopt-a-highway program allows various civic groups to participate in cleaning stretches of highway. This was an effort by the NSM to present itself as a white civic group.

In September 2009, the NSM also tried reaching out to young people by selling their white power music CDs in bulk so they could be distributed at schools, concerts, malls and other places where youths congregate.

2008 Developments

Although the NSM lost units around the country in 2008, some of the more active units in the Midwest were able to recruit more members. The Missouri and Wisconsin units were the most active NSM chapters. The group also established new representatives in Idaho, Kentucky, North Carolina, and West Virginia.

In December 2008, Paul Paletti, the NSM's Wisconsin Membership Director, pleaded guilty to battery, resisting arrest, and obstructing police in state court in Waukesha, Wisconsin. The December 2008 plea agreement required Paletti to pay $1,713 in fines and to serve two years probation, during which time he was forbidden from engaging in any white supremacist activities. Rather than agree to the terms of the probation, in February 2009, Paletti asked that his probation be revoked. A short time later, his revocation order was processed and he served six months in jail.

Paletti, 35, who has a tattoo of the number “88,” the white supremacist code for “Heil Hitler,” was originally charged with felony battery as a hate crime for assaulting a Mexican teenager outside a bar in April 2007, but the charge was reduced to misdemeanor battery as part of the plea arrangement. Paletti insisted that he was not part of any extremist group.

In fall 2008, the NSM established a chapter in Riverside, California. The chapter reached out to and worked with other white supremacists including “skinheads, Klansmen, and pro-white socialists from all around California.” During the group’s second meeting, held in December 2008, members burned a Mexican flag, which one referred to as a “buzzard rag.

2007 and 2006 Developments

Between 2006 and 2007, the NSM experienced a lot of change. The membership of the National Socialist Movement (NSM) grew slightly in 2007, which can be attributed to vigorous recruitment efforts, the demise of another neo-Nazi group, the National Vanguard, and the continued downward spiral of the National Alliance, once the largest neo-Nazi organization in the U.S. In the late summer of 2007, former members of the neo-Nazi groups National Alliance and National Vanguard broke away from their old organizations and started a new NSM unit in Phoenix, Arizona. They soon boasted of a group of members in Tombstone and many new members in the Phoenix area, and began to hold monthly meetings.

The NSM's growth occurred despite internal bickering that resulted in a number of key members leaving the group in mid-to-late 2007, including John Taylor Bowles, who was the head of the group's South Carolina chapter and its 2008 presidential candidate; Nick Chapell, who was the head of the NSM's Viking Youth Corps and the group's treasurer; and Jim Ramm, who ran a Website for the group and helped develop an anti-Semitic and racist videogame.

The departure of Bowles, Chapell and Ramm marked the second time in two years that infighting led to splits within the NSM. Bickering had previously led to key members either resigning or being expelled from the group in June 2006. Those who left included the group's then media liaison, Bill White and Cliff Herrington, a long-time NSM leader.

Other Significant Events

In February 2007, testimony in a Florida court revealed that the NSM Florida unit leader David Gletty was an FBI informant. According to the testimony, Gletty's cooperation with the FBI led to the arrest of Tom Martin, 23, and John Rock, 35, after Gletty wore a wire to a meeting and agreed to help them rob a drug dealer. Martin and Rock also reportedly discussed having robbed several other drug dealers. Martin was a member of White Revolution, a white supremacist group, and John Rock was allegedly a member of the Confederate Hammerskins, a racist skinhead group.

A major loss to the NSM was the December 2006 death of Bill Hoff, a long-standing NSM member and its 2008 vice-presidential candidate. Hoff had been an open white supremacist for decades, including a stint as the Grand Dragon for the New York Invisible Empire (a Ku Klux Klan group) in the late 1980s before he relocated to South Carolina where he eventually joined the NSM.

Recent Activity

NSM’s Activities in 2011

On April 15, 2011, the National Socialist Movement held its annual national meeting in Pemberton, New Jersey. About 30 anti-racists went to the site of the meeting and had a violent clash with the NSM. Six white supremacists needed medical attention and two were hospitalized. Police arrested two members of Anti-Racist Action who participated in the melee and charged them with inciting a riot. They are being held on $50,000 bail.

The next day, 50 members and supporters of the NSM held a rally in front of the New Jersey State House of Representatives where they were met by about 200 to 300 counter-protestors. Speakers from the NSM focused mostly on immigration and urban crime. Several hundred police officers were present at the scene. Police arrested at least three counter-protestors after the event ended.

In March 2011, about 30 NSM members, led by Jeff Hall, the southwest regional director of the group who was murdered in May 2011, held an anti-immigration rally in Claremont, California. About 200 to 300 counter-protestors confronted the NSM at the rally.

NSM’s Activities in 2010

In 2010, the National Socialist Movement‘s activity focused almost exclusively on immigration. Between April and November 2010, the group held four large anti-immigration rallies: in Los Angeles, California in April 2010; in Las Vegas, Nevada in June 2010; in Knoxville, Tennessee in August 2010, and in Phoenix, Arizona in November 2010.

At the rally in Los Angeles, which preceded the group’s annual national meeting, an estimated 500 counter-demonstrators confronted approximately 50 NSM members. The counter-demonstrators physically attacked two men and police arrested five people who protested against the NSM.

Similar massive counter-demonstrations and physical violence occurred during each of the other three NSM rallies. Police arrested two NSM sympathizers on gun possession charges and one counter-demonstrator for disorderly conduct at the Knoxville, Tennessee rally. At the Phoenix rally, authorities arrested two counter-demonstrators for throwing rocks at police officers. Police used pepper spray and tear gas to disperse the crowd that confronted the NSM, which was estimated at almost 300.

Other NSM chapters held small demonstrations in areas all over the United States. Between March and December, 2010, the NSM held anti-immigration rallies in Missouri, Minnesota, and Florida. On several occasions, small groups dressed in NSM garb counter-demonstrated against rallies in support of immigration reform, including the 2010 Las Vegas, Nevada “Rally for America” and the 2010 Austin, Minnesota “Stop the Raids” vigil.

NSM’s Activities in 2009

NSM continually exploited the immigration issue as an opportunity for recruitment. A January 2009 newsletter put out by its New York unit featured an article about the border watch operation, stating “If you are an Aryan and worried about your children's future and the future of America, and you live within reach of the Southern California border and you wish you join the fight then get in touch. Your country needs you now.”

Between May 2009 and December 2009, the National Socialist Movement (NSM) held at least six protests against immigration around the country: in Riverside, California in October and September 2009; in Phoenix, Arizona, in November and May 2009; and in Austin, Minnesota in October and July 2009. The group was often confronted by counter-demonstrators. At the October 2009 rally in Riverside, California, between 400 and 600 counter-protestors confronted about 20 NSM members. Police arrested two counter-demonstrators, one for instigating a physical attack on the NSM and the other for assault. The October 2009 NSM rally in Austin attracted 75 -100 counter-demonstrators who pelted the NSM members with glitter balloons and tomatoes. Police had to use mace to subdue the crowd and arrested several counter-demonstrators on charges ranging from disorderly conduct to unlawful assembly and obstruction of property.

The NSM also held two anti-gay protests in 2009. At a gay pride festival in Columbia, Missouri, in June 2009, about a dozen NSM members shouted, “death to gays.” At a rally in Pottawattamie County, Iowa, in April 2009, the group staged a rally outside the Pottawattamie County Courthouse to protest the legalization of gay marriage in Iowa.

In addition, the NSM held their annual national meeting in St Louis, Missouri, in April 2009. That same weekend, a small group of NSM members protested outside the Skokie Holocaust Museum.

NSM Activity 2008 and 2007

In late December 2008, three members of the National Socialist Movement's (NSM) Southern California unit patrolled the U.S.-Mexican border. In addition to displaying a flag bearing a swastika and taking photographs, the group boasted about being “armed up” in preparation for the operation.

That same month, the National Socialist Movement held a “Mid Atlantic Leafleting Event” which, the group claimed, included volunteers from other extremist groups and various states. An “action report” posted to the NSM Web site claimed that several individuals associated with the NSM and other organizations, including Alexandria White Pride, distributed more than 12,000 anti-Obama fliers in cities throughout Virginia and West Virginia.

In an attempt to portray itself as a responsible, community-minded organization, the Springfield, Missouri unit of the NSM adopted a highway to clean up in Springfield in late 2008. In an Internet post discussing the action, the group explained, “We want to show Springfield that we care. We are showing our commitment to cleaning up America by starting right here in our town. NSM Springfield is a part of the solution!”

In November 2008, about ten members held an anti-immigrant rally in Tyler, Texas, and faced over 100 counter-protestors. Also in November 2008, members of the group staged an anti-immigrant rally and march at the State Capitol in Jefferson City, Missouri. Following the demonstrations, the group held a private after-party that included a swastika lighting, a book burning, and a “feast” the following day.

In July 2008, approximately fifty members of the NSM and their supporters held a public rally in front of Thrift World in Omaha, Nebraska, where they destroyed a Mexican flag and exchanged insults with counter-protesters. The NSM chose Thrift World because of the store's connection to the American Clothing Company. Federal authorities indicted the latter company in April on charges that it knowingly employed illegal immigrants.

In April 2008, the group held a much-publicized march and rally in Washington D.C., “against illegal immigration.” The featured speaker was Ted Junker, a former German SS soldier during World War II and the founder of a Wisconsin museum devoted to Adolf Hitler. The rally attracted only about 30 NSM members and supporters, who were drowned out by anti-racist counter-demonstrators.

In December 2007, National Socialist Movement (NSM) leader Jeff Schoep announced that he was moving the group's headquarters from Minneapolis to Detroit. The NSM does not have a physical site for its headquarters but, as before, Schoep's home serves as the group's base. Schoep also announced new appointments in the group and stated that “the National Socialist Movement is aggressively strengthening the organisation [sic] with mandatory leadership requirements including mandatory training seminars and other measures designed to increase the level of efficiency across the board.”

In April 2007, Nick Chappell, the leader of NSM Viking Youth Group and the NSM's treasurer, purchased the Redneck Shop, the decade-old Klan museum and regalia store established by the Invisible Empire of the International Knights “Emperor” John Howard. The NSM planned to hold events at the shop. However, Nick Chapell's departure from the NSM in the fall of 2007 severed the NSM connection.

Earlier in 2007, in an apparent effort to expand its Internet presence and build up a base of potential members and supporters, the NSM purchased a white supremacist social networking Website dubbed “New Saxon.” The Website was originally developed as “an online community for whites by whites” by white supremacist Todd Findley. However, in March 2007, he was arrested in Florida for alleged grand theft and organizing a scheme to defraud investors in a housing development project that never materialized. He claims to have sold New Saxon to NSM in order to raise money for his defense. New Saxon has quickly become popular among white supremacists frustrated by restrictions on hate speech at most mainstream social networking sites.

The NSM also held numerous anti-immigrant rallies, including events in Omaha, Nebraska, in September 2007, in Austin, Texas, in November 2006 and in Orlando, Florida, in February 2006. The group sponsored other rallies as well.

In April 2007, the NSM held its annual meeting in South Carolina, which included a public rally against immigrants and a celebration of Adolf Hitler's birthday. In March 2007, about 24 NSM members, clad in Nazi uniforms, and 14 supporters held a rally at the University of Missouri in Columbia to protest the "promotion of Marxism" there. There were over 1,000 spectators and counter-protesters. Police arrested seven protestors on suspicion of charges that included disturbing the peace by fighting, trespassing and assaulting a police officer.

In January 2007, the NSM, emulated book burnings in Nazi Germany by holding a book burning of its own in St. Paul, Minnesota. However, it was sparsely attended due to the severe cold.

The NSM also continued its publicity-seeking “public image” projects by trying to join local community initiatives. The NSM's Women's Division reportedly donated money in August 2007 to Amber Alert, the system that uses media announcements to help track abducted children. In May 2007, members of the Kansas unit of the NSM traveled to Greensburg, Kansas, to help with tornado relief efforts. The group reportedly donated money to the Red Cross to aid victims of the tornado.

Ideology

Openly worshipful of Hitler, the National Socialist Movement (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; it is Americanized and modernized. Its platform calls for an all white “greater America” that would deny citizenship and virtually all protection under the law to non-whites, Jews and homosexuals. The NSM reserves most of its vitriol for Jews and immigrants; it is crudely racist and anti-Semitic.

The NSM's “The 25 Points of the National Socialist Movement of America” portray an astoundingly ego-centric philosophy. Predicated on the group's demand for the cessation of tax and loan interest collection, U.S. withdrawal from all international bodies and the establishment of a white nation, these “points” have no relation to justice or democracy.

Citizenship in “the nation” would be granted exclusively to whites (Jews and homosexuals are classified as non-white). Non-citizens would not be granted any access to government, healthcare, schooling, and financial institutions. Immigration would be allowed, but only to white immigrants.

Like other neo-Nazi groups, the NSM has worked to capitalize on anti-immigration sentiment in America.

Leadership

Jeff Schoep, leader of the National Socialist Movement (NSM), took on his role as “commander” of the organization in 1994 when he was only 21 years old. The previous leadership felt that Schoep, who had been active in the NSM from an early age, might appeal more to racist skinheads and other young white supremacists.

When Schoep assumed leadership of the group, it had been operating on the fringes of neo-Nazi movement and was eclipsed by larger and more prominent groups such as Aryan Nations and especially the National Alliance. Schoep proved to be an energetic leader and was able to recruit younger, more active members into the group. By the early 2000s, the NSM had numerous chapters and between 100 and 200 members.

In conjunction with these developments, other changes such as the death and decline of leaders of various other neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups such as National Alliance, Aryan Nations, National Vanguard and the Creativity Movement , allowed Schoep to emerge as one of the longer-lasting neo-Nazi leaders. He has also managed to keep his group together despite internal bickering, which led to splits in 2006 and 2007, and the departure from the group of former NSM leaders. Those who left included Cliff Herrington, who had been the one to hand over the reins to Schoep in 1994; Bill White, the group's former media liaison, and John Taylor Bowles, who had been the NSM's 2008 presidential candidate. All three went on to form their own neo-Nazi organizations but the organizations formed by White and Bowles are currently defunct.

Herrington briefly returned and participated in NSM events such as the group’s national rally in St. Louis in April 2009, and its anti-immigration rally in Knoxville, Tennessee, in August 2010. By the end of 2010, however, Herrington was back promoting the Nationalist Socialist Freedom Movement, a group he had formed in 2006 when he first left the NSM.

Schoep has taken advantage of the new technologies on the Internet to spread the NSM's virulently anti-Semitic and racist message more broadly and easily, and led the group's expansion into the white power music business.

Structure

The National Socialist Movement (NSM) is paramilitary in structure; its members claim to be lieutenants, sergeants, or other military-themed ranks. 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 a few dozen. However, most of its chapters are quite small, and many tend to be very short-lived.

Not only is the NSM paramilitary in structure, but its members have engaged in armed paramilitary training. 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 members are current or former racist skinheads. Since January 2009, the number of NSM units has declined from 55 to 39. While the NSM movement has members in every region of the United States, the Northeast currently has the most units. This is a departure from the group’s historically Midwestern and Southern membership.

Affiliations

Unlike some other extremist organizations, the National Socialist Movement (NSM) actively works with other white supremacist groups ranging from racist skinheads to the Klan to other neo-Nazi groups.

The NSM’s August 2010 march and rally in Knoxville, Tennessee, attracted an unusually diverse crowd of white supremacists. In addition to the NSM, the group of approximately 80 included members of the United Knights of Tennessee Order of the Ku Klux Klan, the neo-Nazi SS Action Group, Volksfront, a neo-Nazi organization and the Confederate Hammerskins, a racist skinhead group.

In April 2009, the NSM celebrated Hitler’s birthday by holding public rally under the Gateway Arch in St Louis, Missouri. In addition to NSM members there were several Klan members, Hammerskins, and members of the Aryan Nation’s Prison Ministry. Later that same weekend the NSM collaborated with the Illinois National Socialist Front (INSF) to protest the opening of the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie, Illinois. Also present was Art Jones, a long time pro-white activist, former member of the white supremacist National Socialist White People’s Party, and a frequent candidate for elective office.

During a September 2009 protest in Belleville, Illinois, the NSM was joined by several Klansmen, members of the INSF, and William DeBoer, founder of the Illinois-based White Boy Society. The protest stemmed from what the group alleged was a hate crime against a white victim by black assailants.

NSM members also attended the “National Alliance 2007 International Holocaust Revisionist Conference” at the National Alliance property in Hillsboro, West Virginia. Speakers at the event included Willis Carto, anti-Semitic propagandist and publisher of American Free Press and The Barnes Review, a Holocaust denial publication; Arthur Butz, Holocaust denier and associate professor of electrical engineering at Northwestern University, and Edward Fields, a long-rime white supremacist.

Speakers at an April 2006 event in Lansing, Michigan included Klan members and white supremacist Hal Turner. Also in attendance was veteran white supremacist Tom Metzger. Two months later, a joint Klan and NSM event occurred at the Antietam Battlefield in Sharpsburg, Virginia.

At a June 2005 rally in Yorktown, Virginia, the NSM teamed up with the American Thule Society, a white supremacist group, in an event to “honor our brave American forefathers.” Speakers included representatives from both groups. The NSM reported that the event was attended by members from various white supremacist groups including the Old Glory Skins, Aryan Nations, KKK, Creators, Teutonic Knights, and American Front. After the rally, KKK Imperial Wizard Virgil Griffin's organization, Cleveland Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, emailed Jeff Schoep to let him know that the Klan members that had been sent to the rally in support of the NSM had been turned away by police.

Criminal Activity

In December 2010, Mariusz Wdziekonski, a Polish national and a National Socialist Movement (NSM) member was found guilty of a hate crime for spray-painting anti-Semitic epithets and neo-Nazi and white supremacist hate symbols on dozens of headstones at a Jewish cemetery in Norridge, Illinois in January 2008. Wdziekonski received a seven-year prison term.

In December 2008, Paul Paletti, the NSM's Wisconsin Membership Director, pleaded guilty to battery, resisting arrest, and obstructing police in state court in Waukesha, Wisconsin. The December 20, 2008, plea agreement required Paletti to pay $1,713 in fines and to serve two years probation, during which time he was forbidden from engaging in any white supremacist activities. Rather than agree to the terms of the probation, in February 2009, Paletti asked that his probation be revoked. A short time later, his revocation order was processed and he served six months in jail.

In 2006, a number of National Socialist Movement (NSM) members were involved in criminal activity, including one murder.

David Ryan Drake was found guilty of killing David M. Scarano on June 6, 2006, during a party in Cave Creek, Arizona. According to court documents, Drake, a self-proclaimed member of the NSM, arrived at the party in his storm trooper uniform, and Scarano, who was Hispanic, took exception to Drake's blatant display of white supremacy. Scarano made some comments and a fight between the two ensued. While they were on the ground, Drake's Nazi armband fell to the ground and Scarano stepped on it. Drake then took out a six-inch Nazi dagger and stabbed Scarano in the abdomen, while shouting racial slurs. Drake was convicted on January 18, 2007, in Maricopa County Superior Court, of one count of manslaughter and sentenced to 9 years in prison.

Kenneth Lee Krauss (Crouse) of Berryville, Virginia, was arrested on weapons charges in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, on August 19, 2006. Krauss, a “Corporal” in the NSM, ran the group's northern Virginia Web site. Police pulled him over after he was allegedly driving erratically following a Klan gathering at a Harpers Ferry community event. Police reportedly found a loaded, concealed weapon, a machete, and several other knives in his vehicle.

Daniel Benson, of Spokane, Washington, and Ervin Stradley, of Libby, Montana, pleaded guilty in late July 2006 to disorderly conduct and causing a public nuisance for yelling racial slurs at a white woman and her two, part-Native American children while they were sitting in their car at a red light. Both Benson and Stradley are members of the NSM. According to Libby police, Benson and Roland were originally charged with malicious intimidation (a hate-motivated felony), harassment, disorderly conduct, and assault stemming from the incident. As part of a plea agreement the most serious charges were dropped, their sentences suspended, and both were released from jail. Stradley had served nineteen days in jail since his arrest on July 1, and Benson had served twenty-three days.

Tactics

Over the years, the National Socialist Movement (NSM) has displayed a growing ability to attract media coverage of the organization's activities. The group’s open display of Nazi symbols and salutes attract counter-demonstrators, who often show up in droves. The sometimes violent confrontation between the two groups often receives media attention.

The NSM turns to other tactics, as well, including running candidates for office; getting involved in adopt-a-highway programs; distributing CDs and operating a white power music company and a whites-only social networking site.

Jeff Hall, the Southwest states regional director of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement (NSM) and head of its California chapter, ran for a seat on the board of the Western Riverside Municipal Water District in 2010. He managed to garner 27.79% of the vote (6,738 votes). The day after the election, the NSM gloated on its Web site about the percentage of votes that Hall won.

In September 2009, the NSM announced their “Fall Project,” a plan to distribute white-power CDs nationwide. The NSM offered fellow white supremacists the ability to buy the CDs in bulk at a low cost and to distribute them at football games, outside concerts and college campuses and at the mall to young people.

The plan to distribute white power CD was done in conjunction with NSM88 Records, the group's retail Website. In addition to neo-Nazi, NSM and white supremacist clothing, jewelry and other paraphernalia, NSM88 Records has a catalog with over 700 CDs and 80 video titles.

In 2008, the group also began a new tactic, which was to participate in adopt-a-highway programs in Springfield, Illinois and in Denver, Colorado. The adopt-a-highway program allows various civic groups to participate in cleaning stretches of highway. This is part of the NSM’s effort to present itself as a group interested in civic duties.

In spring 2007, the NSM purchased the New Saxon social-networking Website, which promotes itself as “an online community for Whites by Whites.” Though not as feature friendly as mainstream sites, it remains popular with white supremacists and provides a way for the NSM to recruit new members.

In December 2006, the NSM announced that it had created an expanded and enhanced version of an earlier game, “ZOG's Nightmare.” [ZOG stands for Zionist Occupied Government, which refers to the belief that the Jews occupy and control the government, as well as the media.] To play the game, individuals have to make their way through a series of levels within a city populated by “inferior” races, where the player is being hunted by a police agency that has been taken over by Jews. The purpose of the game, according to the NSM, is “to liquidate all the non-white invaders and purify the NSM Party headquarters.” A new updated version, “ZOG's Nightmare II,” was released at the NSM's April 2007 national meeting in Laurens, South Carolina.

YouTube has also been a useful propaganda vehicle for the NSM and its members. The NSM posts rally footage and NSM members produce and post their own propaganda.

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 (ANP), 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 storm troopers, 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 in 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 remained 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 more able to appeal to racist skinheads and other young white supremacists. He made his first splash in 1998 when trying to host a major white supremacist event. Prominent neo-Nazis such as Allen Vincent and Tom 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.