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.
Volksfront, a virulently racist and anti-Semitic group, has become the most active neo-Nazi group on the West Coast and maintains close alliances with many other hate groups. Since its creation in 1994, the group has been growing nationally and internationally. One of Volksfront’s primary goals is to establish an autonomous whites-only living space in the Pacific Northwest and, to this end, the group claims to have purchased several acres of property in Oregon and Washington State.
Quick Profile
- Leaders: Randal Lee Krager and Richard Arden
- Founded: Created by four inmates in an Oregon prison in 1994
- Headquarters: Portland, Oregon
- Publications: Quarterly magazine Folk Tribune; Thule Publications (defunct)
- Other ventures: White power rock concerts, online discussion forums, Internet radio
- Composition: Mostly young white males, the majority of whom are neo-Nazi skinheads
- Ideology: White supremacy, neo-Nazism
- Criminal Activities: Assaults, murder, violent intimidation
- Affiliations: Hate rock bands Intimidation One, Frontline, Jew Slaughter and Criminal Culture; closely associated with Women for Aryan Unity, Hammerskin Nation, Christian Guard, Aryan Nations, Golden State Skinheads and American Front; the group has chapters in other countries including Canada, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Australia
Since Volksfront founder Randal Krager returned the group to the public sphere from an “underground” period lasting from roughly 1999 to 2001, it has opened up several new chapters, has held large gatherings and has forged alliances with other hate groups. The group holds hate rock concerts, publishes hate literature, and produces a white power radio show on the Internet. While Volksfront presents itself as a non-violent “pro-white fraternal association,” many of its members have been convicted of violent hate crimes.
Recent Activities
Volksfront holds a number of events annually, including weekend-long white power concerts two or three times a year. The group also holds “white unity” gatherings and memorial parties in remembrance of white supremacists who have been murdered around the world.
One of the more heavily promoted Volksfront-sponsored events in early 2007 was its Victory Achievement Conference, held in St. Louis, Missouri, on February 24. The purported aim of the conference was to promote unity and activism among members of the white supremacist movement, regardless of group affiliation, politics, or religious beliefs. Over 80 white supremacists attended the event, including racist skinheads from the Hammerskins, and members of White Revolution, Aryan Nations, and Women for Aryan Unity.
Two months earlier, in December 2006, nearly 70 people attended a memorial party in Portland, Oregon, for Eric Banks, a racist skinhead killed by anti-racist skinheads in 1993. In May 2006, Volksfront organized a similar event in Washington State, a fundraising memorial attended by about 50 people for Canadian Steven Patrick Long, who was beaten to death in April 2006 in Ottawa, Canada. According to statements on Volksfront’s Web site, the money generated from the event will go towards erecting a memorial stone on Volksfront-owned land in northern Washington sometime in the spring of 2007.
On February 4, 2006, several members of Volksfront traveled to Arlington, Texas, and helped organize a hate rock concert hosted by the Confederate Hammerskins. White power bands including Red, White & Black, White Wash, Blood in the Face, and the Bully Boys all performed before dozens of racist skinheads. Another Confederate Hammerskin event, the annual “St. Patty’s Day Show,” took place in Ocala, Florida, on March 17, 2006, and was attended by Volksfront leader Randal Krager. He reportedly went to Florida to see his future wife Abbie Chelf, a woman closely tied to the Christian Guard, a Lakeland, Florida, Christian Identity group, as well as to the Confederate Hammerskins.
On October 31, 2005, Volksfront staged a “Rock Against Islam” party in celebration of its 11th anniversary. Approximately 50 people attended, including members of the Northwest Hammerskins. White power bands Frontline and Intimidation One performed. According to Volksfront, the event helped raise seven hundred dollars for “prisoners of war” (white supremacists in prison) and the Afrikaner Charity, which Volksfront established reportedly to aid white farmers in South Africa who are allegedly being targeted for discrimination. Attendees at the event also received Volksfront literature, white power rock CDs and the latest issue of Blood & Honour magazine, published by the British racist skinhead group of the same name with which Volksfront is affiliated.
Several Volksfront members, including Randal Krager, attended Hammerfest 2005, the annual marquis event of the Hammerskins, in Draketown, Georgia, in October 2005. Tom Metzger of White Aryan Resistance also attended and delivered a keynote address. The event featured performances by several white power bands, including Prussian Blue, a white power singing duo made up of teenage twins Lamb and Lynx Gaede.
Shortly after Hammerfest 2005, Krager announced his intention to bring his “crew” to an October 22, 2005, Logan, Ohio, meeting of some of the most prominent racist skinhead organizations in the country. The Logan meeting, hosted by the Ohio State Skinheads, was an attempt by rival racist skinhead groups to settle differences, which were inflamed in early 2005, when Volksfront announced that it was also serving as the American Division of the international racist skinhead group Blood & Honour and also as part of Council 38 (“38” stands for Crossed Hammers) of the Hammerskin Nation. (This caused friction because another group, known as Blood & Honour USA, based in Ohio and Texas, already claimed to be the U.S. chapter of Blood & Honour). Reports about the Logan meeting, posted on the Internet by attendees, indicated that Krager’s group ultimately did not attend. Groups in attendance formed Council 28 (“28” standing for Blood & Honour) and ultimately many of them joined a new racist skinhead group, the Vinlanders Social Club, which has emerged as a serious rival to Volksfront and their Hammerskin allies. The Vinlanders, with Council 28 serving as sort of an executive inner circle, are an umbrella organization for state crews of racist skinheads spanning the southwestern, eastern and midwestern United States.
The rivalry between Volksfront/Hammerskin Nation and the Vinlanders remains high. An Internet exchange at the racist online forum Stormfront indicated that a prominent Vinlander even cut off the ear of a Volksfront member in St. Louis.
One of Volksfront’s most successful events has been its annual white power musical festival known as Aryan Fest. On August 19, 2005, the group held its second annual Aryan Fest in Cascade Locks, Oregon. Approximately 150 people attended Aryan Fest 2005, where anti-Semitic attorney Edgar Steele delivered a keynote speech. White power bands Avalon (United Kingdom), Frontline (California), Criminal Culture (Portland), Red, White & Black (Florida), Platoon 14 (Florida) and Blood in the Face (Florida) performed.
Volksfront’s first Aryan Fest, held in Phoenix, Arizona, in January 2004, attracted 200 extremists from across the country and helped establish Volksfront’s presence in the Southwest. White supremacist leaders Billy Roper, Tom Metzger, and Richard Butler delivered speeches at the event, which was co-sponsored by Women for Aryan Unity. Music acts included Max Resist, Rebel Hell, Wolf’s Hook, American Standard, Cradle Song, and Patriot’s Call.
Ideology
Volksfront’s white supremacist ideology promotes hatred of Jews, blacks and other minorities and appears to have inspired members to action; several have committed crimes, including assaults, against Jews and blacks. In April 2007, Jacob Laskey, a Volksfront member, received an 11-year sentence for throwing rocks engraved with swastikas at a Eugene, Oregon, synagogue during services in 2002. This was not the first time a Volksfront member attacked a synagogue. Chris Lord, who was linked to Volksfront, served four and a half years in prison for shooting at a synagogue in Eugene, Oregon, with an assault rifle in 1994. That same year, Randal Krager, the leader of Volksfront, pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree intimidation for phoning three Jewish people and threatening to slit their throats and burn their homes. Volksfront members and associates have been convicted of attacks against other minorities, as well.
Unlike some other white supremacist groups, Volksfront is ideologically and theologically flexible, allowing its followers considerable leeway in their beliefs as long as they share a commitment to white supremacy and a “folkish” lifestyle. Volksfront is therefore able to attract members from movements such as Creativity and Christian Identity. In fact, Volksfront leader Randal Krager, an Odinist, married Abbie Chelf, a Christian Identity adherent. Most Volksfront members, however, are Odinists, a Norse pagan religion with many racist adherents. Volksfront’s official symbol reflects its Odinist roots. It is made up of the neo-pagan Life Rune (algiz), symbolizing life and protection, in white, which is encircled in black on a red background. The acronym of Volksfront (VF) is bisected by the rune.
As part of its ideological vision, one of Volksfront’s stated goals is to establish a semi-autonomous “whites-only” living space in the Pacific Northwest, which it calls the “Northwest Territorial Imperative,” a term coined by Aryan Nations founder Richard Butler. Volksfront claims to have already purchased a large parcel of land in Oregon for this purpose. Later, in an April 2007 post on the Volksfront Internet forum, Krager announced that the group had purchased an additional 2.5-acre parcel in Southern Oregon. In the same post, he claimed that the group was planning to purchase land in the Midwest, as well. The group also claims to own property in northern Washington State.
According to its Web site, Volksfront plans to construct a “European-American” community center on the land, which it intends to use as a national headquarters with an incorporated school, library, museum and recreation center; it also intends to use the land for homestead-style housing and agriculture.
To advance its Northwest Territorial Imperative, Volksfront has sought to recruit as many white Americans as it can. Once recruitment numbers swell to a certain level, the group hopes to relocate its members to the land, where they plan to aggressively participate in the local elections process. The long-term goal is to stock the local government with Volksfront members, who according to Krager would eventually pass laws requiring forced “repatriation” of minorities. Krager adds that under a Volksfront-run government, “drug dealers and sex offenders will be put to death” and “abortions will be outlawed.”
Leadership
Volksfront’s leader, Randal Lee Krager, founded the group in 1994, along with three other inmates in an Oregon prison. Although Krager claimed he resigned as head of Volksfront in 2004, he continues to be the main influence behind the group. Krager and Volksfront’s other leaders are based in Portland, Oregon.
Randal Lee Krager
Like many leaders in the white supremacist movement, Randal Lee Krager earned the respect of his peers by committing hate crimes and serving prison time, including two years for his 1992 assault on an African-American father of four who was left paralyzed. Shortly after establishing Volksfront and being released from prison in 1994, Krager pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree intimidation for phoning three Jewish people and threatening to slit their throats and burn their homes. He was sentenced to 14 months in state prison and 24 months probation.
Krager, who has Nazi “SS” bolts tattooed on the underside of his forearm, cultivates a blue-collar image to gain credibility in the racist skinhead culture, which is rooted in the working-class. In addition to Aryan Fest and other large events, Krager also throws smaller parties to help forge alliances with other racist groups – a strategy that seems to be working. After Aryan Fest 2004, a weekend-long white power rock concert organized by Volksfront and held in Phoenix, several messages posted on Volksfront’s Web site reflected the degree to which Krager’s leadership is appreciated by other hate groups. A representative of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement noted the way Krager “delegated his authority…the whole organization walked in the trail blazed by Randy.” A post by a member of Women for Aryan Unity described how Krager “can take on a leadership role and do with with [sic] class, fairness, but be stern!” A representative of the fledgling neo-Nazi group, the National Socialist Skinhead Front, added that “Randy is very focused and has taken VF with fullforce [sic] to become the honorable organization it is today.”
Though Krager announced his resignation as Volksfront’s president in December 2004 and appointed Richard Arden to take his place, his activity and influence in the organization appear undiminished. Krager organized Aryan Fest 2005 in Portland; led a contingent of Volksfront members to Hammerfest in Atlanta, Georgia, in October 2005; and organized the Volksfront 11-year anniversary party.
Richard Arden
Late in 2004, Randal Krager announced that he would step down as president of Volksfront and that Richard “Rick” Arden, vice-president at the time, would succeed him. Arden, tattooed with the white supremacist symbols “14” and “88” on respective forearms as well as the crossed-hammers crest of the Hammerskins, accepted the position in an Internet post on the Volksfront forum, and relocated from southern California to be near the group’s headquarters in Portland, Oregon. Krager, however, still appears to be in charge of the group. Arden plays bass for the Volksfront-sponsored white power rock band, Intimidation One, known today as Criminal Culture. Arden also plays in the band Jew Slaughter.
Abbie Chelf
After relocating to Portland to live with Randal Krager, Abbie Chelf, a Christian Identity group adherent, seems to have risen to a role of leadership among the few women in Volksfront circles. She also maintains her involvement with the Florida-based Christian Guard. After a March 2006 fundraiser held by Christian Guard at a Hammerskin event, Chelf wrote online, “On behalf of the Christian Guard, I would like to thank everyone who bought items from us and donated to our fundraiser.”
Chelf has taken to giving advice to members of the group and the white supremacist movement at-large in the Volksfront online forum, and at her online social networking profile. After the 2006 arrest for probation violations of Kyle Brewster, a Portland-area racist skinhead who was involved in the 1988 killing of an Ethiopian immigrant, Chelf suggested in light of Brewster’s activity on the Internet, “I think we all need to keep our profiles as "low-profile" as possible....let's not give the pigs [Chelf’s term for law enforcement] more ammo against us than they allready [sic] have.”
When asked on an Internet forum what her hobbies were, Chelf wrote, “God and Christian Identity, reading and educating myself-especially History, real History, not the Jewish lies...i love white power music.”
Dylan Wheeler
In 2005, Volksfront Webmaster Dylan Wheeler, a one-time member of the white power rock band Intimidation One, created a Web site, Folkcom.com, modeled after mainstream social networking sites on the Internet. Within a few months of its launch, Folkcom, short for Folk Community, hosted the profiles of over 2,000 white supremacists nationwide and beyond. Folkcom membership was initially made up of only racist skinheads, but its popularity grew to include Klansmen, Christian Identity adherents, Holocaust deniers, and neo-Nazis. Because many of these right-wing extremists are separated from each other by great distances, Folkcom helped them overcome this obstacle and let them share details about their lives, events and ideologies in an unprecedented fashion – including photographs, music and video files.
In September 2005, Wheeler shut down Folkcom after rumors circulated claiming that Volksfront leaders were spying on Folkcom members’ private messages. Many Folkcom users have since relocated to other online social networking sites.
Affiliations
Volksfront is closely associated with the Hammerskins, Aryan Nations, Golden State Skinheads, American Front, Women for Aryan Unity, and Free Your Mind Productions. In addition, white supremacist leaders such as the now-deceased Richard Butler of Aryan Nations, Billy Roper of White Revolution, Tom Metzger of White Aryan Resistance, and attorney Edgar Steele have attended Volksfront gatherings.
In fall 2005, Krager announced that four groups were unifying under an umbrella organization called Blood and Honour American Division: Volksfront, the Hammerskins, Women for Aryan Unity, and the Florida-based Christian Guard.
In 2005, Volksfront also absorbed a racist skinhead group, Northern California Aryan Volk (NCAV), to create a northern California chapter, closely aligned with Sacramento-area groups Golden State Skinheads, American Front, and Hangtown Bootboys. In February and March 2005, Volksfront, the Golden State Skinheads, and American Front protested the establishment of a “Hate Free Zone” by the city of Placerville, California. Approximately 24 racist skinheads staged demonstrations on three consecutive weekends in opposition to homosexuality and multiculturalism -- the racists held placards reading “homosexuality is a crime against nature,” and “love your race,” while synchronizing Nazi-style one-armed salutes.
In March 2007, another racist skinhead group, the Midwest-based Retaliator Skinhead Nation, disbanded and joined Volksfront.
Volksfront has also extended its reach internationally, with chapters located in Germany, Spain, Australia, Portugal, and Canada. In particular, the Volksfront-Canada chapter, based in Trail, British Columbia, and led by Todd Conroy, is extremely active and often hosts events that Volksfront members throughout the Pacific Northwest attend. In addition to frequent meetings and social activities, Volksfront-Canada recently held a fundraiser on February 3, 2007, for Canadian white supremacist, Glenn Bahr, in Vancouver, BC. Bahr was found guilty by a Canadian Human Rights Commission tribunal in December 2006 for distributing hate propaganda on the Internet through his group’s Web site, called Western Canada For Us. Volksfront-Canada also co-sponsored the May 2006 fundraiser in Washington State for murdered Canadian white supremacist Steven Patrick Long.
Tactics
Volksfront conducts leafleting drives to attract recruits and to exploit controversial public issues. For example, in 2003, the town of Springfield, Oregon, considered renaming Centennial Boulevard after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Volksfront capitalized on the situation by distributing flyers in Springfield calling for repeal of the Martin Luther King, Jr., national holiday and which attacked King with derogatory labels. The flyer, which could be downloaded from Volksfront’s Web site, stated that “White students should not be taught to honor a traitor to our country, a sexual deviant and plagiarist fraud.” The renaming in honor of Dr. King did not occur.
While Volksfront spreads its message through the traditional means of publications, such as the quarterly magazine Folk Tribune and ROA (Race Over All) Publications launched in July 2006, and by producing and distributing white supremacist leaflets and literature, the group has also become adept at managing Internet communities via several Web sites. Its Web sites include information about the group’s history, editorials by members, information about upcoming events, news stories and downloadable hate literature. Several units have their own Web pages and sites that provide information about local activity. The Web sites also contain guestbooks and discussion forums.
White Power Music Connection
Volksfront plays a big role in the white power music scene. In addition to hosting a number of white power music events, Volksfront works with many white power bands. It is most closely related to Intimidation One, a hate rock band named for the hate crime law in Oregon that Volksfront characterizes as discriminatory against whites. Volksfront helped found the band in 1993, which went on to release “Frontline Soldiers,” the first of its several albums, two years later. Intimidation One, renamed Criminal Culture in 2005, has played for racist skinhead audiences throughout North America and Europe. In addition, Volksfront members play in another white power band ominously named Jew Slaughter. Other notable bands that have ties to Volksfront and have played at concerts the group sponsored include Aggressive Force, American Standard, Bound for Glory, Cradle Song, Cut Throat, Max Resist, Rebel Hell, Valhalla’s Patriots, Wolf’s Hook, Youngland, and Down Right Hateful.
In 2002, Volksfront created the Upfront Records label, which produced various CDs, including “Martyrdom: Volume One,” a benefit album to support Ken Mieske, a member of the neo-Nazi East Side White Pride who brutally murdered Ethiopian immigrant Mulugeta Seraw in Portland, Oregon, in 1988. Among the bands included on the Mieske benefit CD were Jew Slaughter and Intimidation One. Upfront Records shut down in 2003 and Volksfront directed its members to Panzerfaust Records and Imperium Records for white power merchandise. As of August 2005, Volksfront redirected members to Free Your Mind Productions, a Hammerskin-affiliated label based in Valdosta, Georgia. Also in 2005, Volksfront sponsored the northern California white power rock band, Frontline, as a result of Volksfront’s merger with another racist skinhead group, Northern California Aryan Volk.
Prison Support
Volksfront mobilizes its constituency to provide financial and moral support to imprisoned white supremacists. Its “Prisoner of War Affairs Department” mails free Volksfront literature to prisoners incarcerated for what it describes as “political crimes”: actions “in service or defense of European-Americans” or in “waging war against a power hostile to the White Race.” Volksfront defines a POW as “a person incarcerated as a direct result of waging war against a power hostile to the White Race.” Despite its proclamation that it is “completely anti-crime,” every member on Volksfront’s POW list has a major criminal conviction. Among those listed as POWs are Byron de la Beckwith, who murdered civil rights activist Medgar Evers in 1963; Yori Kahl, who murdered a United States Marshal in 1983; neo-Nazi Ken Mieske, who murdered Ethiopian immigrant Mulugeta Seraw in Portland, Oregon, in 1988; and Erich Priebke, a World War II SS officer serving a sentence for executing 335 Italian civilians in March 1944. Members of The Order, a violent white supremacist group that carried out murders and robberies in the 1980s, are also on the POW list.
Interestingly, a Volksfront member who has not been listed as a POW is Kurtis Monschke. Monschke, who has the Volksfront emblem tattooed on his chest, was the unit leader of a Volksfront probationary unit in Washington when he and three other racist skinheads murdered a homeless man in Tacoma in March 2003. Three later pleaded guilty and Monschke was convicted of murder. Shortly after his arrest, Volksfront attempted to distance itself from him and erased all his written entries from its Web site. The group released an “official statement” condemning the murder of the victim, who was a white veteran, and saying that the crime was “a disgrace to the Folkish Movement” and that “the perpetrators, if found guilty, should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Criminal Activity
Since its founding, members of Volksfront have been arrested for a number of violent crimes against African-Americans, Jews, homosexuals and other minorities. Other members have come to Volksfront with long criminal histories.
Jacob Laskey, formerly Volksfront’s Prisoner Affairs Coordinator in Eugene, was arrested in 2005, along with his brother, Gabriel Doyle Laskey, Jesse Lee Baker and Gerald Anthony Poundstone, for throwing rocks engraved with swastikas at a synagogue in Eugene, Oregon, during a religious service in October 2002. They were indicted for conspiracy to violate civil rights and other related charges. Jacob Laskey also faced charges of attempting to intimidate a witness in the case. Jacob and Gabriel Laskey both pleaded guilty in August 2006. Poundstone received 15 months in prison in September 2006 after pleading guilty. Jacob Laskey was sentenced to 11 years and 3 months in prison in April 2007. (Laskey had previously been charged with battery and commission of a hate crime for allegedly beating and threatening an African-American man in December 2000 in Jacksonville, Florida.) Gabriel Laskey and Baker are still awaiting sentencing.
Kurtis Monschke, 20, a probationary unit leader for Volksfront, was sentenced to life in prison on June 4, 2004, for his role in the March 23, 2003, murder of Randall Mark Townsend, 42, in Tacoma, Washington. Prosecutors indicated that Monschke, who has the Volksfront emblem tattooed on his chest adjacent to a swastika that is similar to the one depicted on the main racist skinhead character in the film American History X, instigated the brutal attack in an effort to establish his fledgling crew among higher-ranking members of Volksfront. Emulating a brutal scene in the film, Monschke and his three followers placed Townsend’s open mouth on a railroad tie and stomped several times on the back of his head. Each blow was accompanied with shouts of “white power.” Scotty James Butters, 20, David Nikos Pillatos, 19, and Tristain Lynn Frye, 22, all pleaded guilty and testified against Monschke.
On January 25, 2003, five skinheads attacked a 17-year-old black youth in the parking lot of his residence in Vancouver, Washington. Matthew R. Schmoyer, Carl D. Wolff, Brandon Webb, Jeremy R. Whitten and one other skinhead who was later acquitted had been partying at Schmoyer’s apartment before heading to a Volksfront-sponsored concert near Hillsboro, Oregon, called “Rock Against Communism.” The group was holding the concert to raise legal funds for a Volksfront “comrade” whom they felt was “wrongfully charged with assault.” Whitten was sentenced for misdemeanor assault after striking a plea agreement. Wolff, Webb and Schmoyer were convicted of malicious harassment.
In April 1998, Brian Zauber, a former member of the Volksfront Arizona unit, was charged with ethnic intimidation, aggravated assault, simple assault, possession of an instrument of crime, reckless endangerment and disorderly conduct after he and four cohorts attacked three women whom they thought were lesbians in a Philadelphia park. Zauber was convicted in July 1998 but fled sentencing and is still considered a fugitive. Zauber left Volksfront and the state of Arizona after a rumor surfaced that he had been selling Volksfront memberships to skinheads without the approval of Volksfront leadership.
Chris Lord, who was linked to Volksfront and the neo-Nazi group American Front, shot at Temple Beth Israel in Eugene, Oregon, with an assault rifle on March 20, 1994. According to police reports, Lord shot 10 rounds at the temple, half of which entered through the windows and damaged the interior. Lord was convicted of first-degree intimidation, unlawful use of a weapon, first-degree criminal mischief and being a felon in possession of a firearm and was sentenced to four and a half years in prison. Lord’s accomplice, George Dennis Smith, was also convicted.
In 1998, Volksfront claimed to have gone temporarily “underground” and to have shut down its entire operation for what it described as “internal reasons” and in response to “illegal police and governmental pressure.” When returning from its claimed “underground” status in 2001, Volksfront indicated on its Web site that it “learned with time that ‘Hate Crimes’ and illegal actions are unproductive and not necessary [sic] to achieve the goals we strive for.” This statement was a rhetorical attempt to portray a more respectable image but does not reflect an actual effort by the group to distance itself from other violent white supremacists or reign in its own members from committing violent hate crimes.
Background
Founding and Expansion: “Volk Uber Alles!” - “Race Over All!”
Four inmates in an Oregon prison founded Volksfront in 1994 to “revive the dying pro-White movement.” Of the four, neo-Nazi Randal Lee Krager is responsible for bringing Volksfront outside prison walls and setting up its headquarters in Portland, Oregon. Krager was serving a 36-month sentence for attacking and permanently disabling an African-American man with a blunt object in 1992.
Southeast Portland, with a particularly active skinhead scene, has served as Volksfront’s headquarters since its inception. Soon after its founding, Volksfront’s numbers grew to about 50 members in seven cities. During its first few years, Volksfront distributed hate literature in local neighborhoods and cultivated relationships with white supremacist rock bands. In 1998, Volksfront also provided security for Holocaust denier David Irving, who made a stop in Vancouver, Washington, during a speaking tour. Later in 1998, however, Volksfront went temporarily “underground” and shut down its entire operation due to what it described as “internal reasons” and “illegal police and governmental pressure.”
Since Volksfront’s reemergence in 2001, its Portland leadership has established units in Oregon, Washington State, California, Arizona, Missouri, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, and the Carolinas, as well as Spain, Portugal, Germany, Canada and Australia. There had been a unit in Mohnton, Pennsylvania but it collapsed due to infighting.
Volksfront, however, is expanding eastward to the Midwest, where it has begun to recruit new members. The group’s February 24, 2007, Victory Achievement Conference, held in St. Louis, Missouri, attracted over 80 white supremacists.