| National Socialist Movement | |
| Colorcode: |
|
| Abbreviation: | NSM |
| Leader: | Burt Colucci |
| Ideology: |
|
| Headquarters: | Lakeland, Florida |
| International: | World Union of National Socialists[5] |
| Country: | United States |
| Position: | Far-right[6] |
| Newspaper: | NSM Magazine (2007-2017)[7] |
| Split: | American Nazi Party |
| Youth Wing: | Viking Youth Corp (inactive)[8] |
| Membership: | 400 (2011)[9] 12 to 24 (2024) |
| Blank1 Title: | Ethnic group |
| Blank1: | White Americans |
| Colors: | Red, white and blue (national colors) Black (customary) |
The National Socialist Movement (NSM), sometimes abbreviated as NSM88, is a Neo-Nazi organization based in the United States.[10] Once considered to be the largest and most prominent Neo-Nazi organization in the United States, in recent years its membership and prominence have plummeted.[11]
It was a part of the Nationalist Front.[12] and it is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.[13]
The National Socialist Movement was founded in 1974 in St. Paul, Minnesota by Robert Brannen and Cliff Herrington. The NSM, originally known as the "National Socialist American Workers Freedom Movement", was one of several groups that split off from the American Nazi Party after the assassination of George Lincoln Rockwell.
Brannen originally served as the leader, before being succeeded in 1983 by Herrington as Brannen's physical health was declining.[14]
In 1994, Jeff Schoep became the group's chairman,[15] a position which he held until January 2019.[16]
It was revealed in 2004 that Clifford Herrington, co-chairman of the NSM, was the husband of Andrea Herrington,[17] [18] founder and "high-priestess" of the theistic Satanist organization and website Joy of Satan Ministries,[17] [18] leading to conflict both within the NSM itself and Joy of Satan Ministries, and to the Herringtons' eventual departure from the NSM.[17] [18] [19]
The National Socialist Movement was responsible for leading the demonstration which sparked the 2005 Toledo riot.[20] In April 2006, they held a rally on the State Capitol steps in Lansing, Michigan, which was met by a larger counter-rally and ended in scuffles.[21]
In January 2007, a former Ku Klux Klan leader in Maryland who had disbanded his chapter to join the NSM was arrested for statutory rape after allegedly forcing an underaged girl to perform fellatio on him on two separate occasions.[22]
In December 2007, the organization's headquarters was moved to Detroit, Michigan.
In January 2009, the National Socialist Movement sponsored a half-mile section of U.S. Highway 160 outside of Springfield, Missouri, as part of the Adopt-A-Highway Trash Cleanup program.[23] The highway was later renamed the "Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Memorial Highway" by the state legislature.[24]
In 2009, the National Socialist Movement had 61 chapters in 35 states, making it the largest neo-Nazi group in the United States according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.[25] As of 2015, the National Socialist Movement claimed direct organized presences in seven countries around the world, and other affiliations beyond that.[26]
On April 17, 2010, 70 members of the National Socialist Movement demonstrated in front of the Los Angeles City Hall, drawing a counter protest of hundreds of anti-fascist demonstrators.[27]
On December 17, 2010, an NSM member was sentenced to seven years in prison after vandalizing 57 graves at the Westlawn Cemetery, a Jewish cemetery in Illinois. The suspect was a 21-year-old Polish immigrant male charged with the crime in February 2008. He was convicted on two charges of felony vandalism and sentenced to 7 years in prison, the maximum sentence.[28] [29]
On May 1, 2011, Jeff Hall, a leader of the California branch of the National Socialist Movement, was killed by his 10-year-old emotionally troubled son, who claimed he was tired of Hall beating him and his stepmother.[30] Hall had run in 2010 for a seat on the board of directors of a Riverside County water board, a race in which he earned approximately 30% of the vote.[31] Around this time, the National Socialist Movement was described by The New York Times as being "the largest supremacist group, with about 400 members in 32 states, though much of its prominence followed the decay of Aryan Nation and other neo-Nazi groups".[9]
The National Socialist Movement held a rally on September 3, 2011, in West Allis, Wisconsin, to protest incidents at the Wisconsin State Fair on August 5, 2011, when a large crowd of young African-Americans allegedly targeted and beat white people as they left the fair around 11 p.m. Police claimed that the incident began as a fight among African-American youths that was not racially motivated.[32] [33] Dan Devine, the mayor of West Allis, stated on September 2, 2011, "I believe I speak for the citizens when I say they [the National Socialist Movement] are not welcome here."[34]
In 2012, two former members of the National Socialist Movement were arrested and sentenced to prison for drug trafficking, stockpiling weapons, and plotting terrorist attacks against a Mexican consulate in the United States.[35]
In 2012, an NSM member named Craig Cobb began buying up land in Leith, North Dakota and by 2013, Cobb owned twelve plots of land, in the town which had just twenty-four people at the time. Cobb had expressed a desire to turn the town into a neo-Nazi community.[36] Locals opposed this move and in response, advocated to disincorporate Leith back into Grant County proper.[37] In November 2013, Cobb was arrested and charged with three counts of terrorizing stemming from an incident in which he confronted another town resident with both a shotgun and a rifle.[38] Cobb no longer owns any buildings in Leith. He deeded six properties back to the town at no charge and sold off a few others. Three are still owned by other white supremacists, but they have shown little inclination to take up where Cobb left off.[39]
As of March 2015, the organization had planned a return to Toledo, Ohio, for a rally focusing on crime in the area. In June 2016, the group helped organize with the Traditionalist Worker Party the rally which turned into the 2016 Sacramento riot.[40] [41]
In November 2016, following the election of Donald Trump, the organization changed its logo and flag, replacing the swastika with an othala rune in an attempt to enter mainstream politics.[42] [43] Schoep's account was suspended by Twitter on December 18, 2017.[44] [45]
In 2017, the television series Hate Thy Neighbor featured the National Socialist Movement and prominent member Daniel Burnside.
After the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, two lawsuits targeting 21 racist "alt-right" and hate group leaders, including the National Socialist Movement and Jeff Schoep, were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia and another lawsuit was filed in Virginia Circuit Court.[46]
In November 2018, the National Socialist movement held a rally at the Arkansas State Capitol, which would be their last under the leadership of Schoep. Twenty people participated, and one member was seen carrying the flag of the AWB as well as the flag of apartheid-era South Africa.[47]
On February 28, 2019, the Associated Press reported that, according to Michigan corporate records, Schoep had been replaced as director and president of the National Socialist Movement in January by James Hart Stern, a Black civil rights activist. Stern became its leader after Schoep asked for help. Schoep wanted to get out of the organization due to the mounting legal issues against it, and said he wanted to use his position to undermine the group. Stern had previously been instrumental in dissolving a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in Michigan. Stern took credit in a blog post for Schoep's decision to replace the swastika as the group's symbol with the othala rune, and that he would be meeting with Schoep to sign a proclamation in which the movement would disavow white supremacy.
In 2014, Stern and Schoep became friends when Schoep called Stern to ask about his connection to Edgar Ray Killen, the head of the Klan chapter that Stern dissolved. When Stern learned that Schoep was a white supremacist, he arranged for a meeting between the two men. They engaged in debates about the Holocaust, the swastika, White nationalism, and the fate of the National Socialist Movement, with Stern attempting to change Schoep's mind. He could not do that, but in 2019, Schoep came to him and asked for his advice concerning the group's legal problems. He felt that the National Socialist Movement was an "albatross hanging around his neck" and wished to cut ties with the group to start a new organization that would be more appreciated in the mainstream of white nationalism. Stern then encouraged Schoep to turn control of the NSM over to him, and Schoep agreed.
Stern filed documents with a Federal court in Virginia, asking that it issue a judgment against the group before one of the pending Charlottesville-related lawsuits went to trial, but because the law does not allow a corporation to be its own attorney, Stern looked for outside counsel to re-file the papers. Stern did not plan to dissolve the movement, in order to prevent any of its former members from reincorporating it. He planned to turn the group's website into a place for lessons about the Holocaust.
The group's former community outreach director, Matthew Heimbach, commented that Schoep had been in conflict with its membership, which resisted the ideological changes that Schoep wished to make, and wanted to remain "a politically impotent white supremacist gang". Heimbach estimated that the group had 40 dues-paying members as of 2018. In a video posted on his blog, Stern took credit for "eradicating" the National Socialist Movement.[48] [49]
In March 2019, Schoep announced that he was leaving the NSM and giving his position to Burt Colucci and declared that Stern was not the legitimate leader.[50] [51] Since then, Schoep has renounced his racist past and he has also renounced his involvement in all racist groups.[52]
The dispute over leadership led to a legal battle between Stern and Colucci, and they each filed corporation registrations in their respective home states: Stern in California and Colucci in Florida. The original incorporation in Michigan was dissolved in June 2019. Stern died of cancer in October 2019, leaving Colucci as the de facto leader of the NSM, and resulting in the cancellation of a final hearing to settle the dispute.[53] [54]
After Colucci took control of the NSM, he reversed Schoep's decision to use the othala rune as the group's symbol, and the group returned to using the swastika. The NSM website claims that this decision was reversed because the othala rune "has no power."[55] Colucci and nine other members of the NSM protested a Detroit pride festival in June 2019, in a rally that garnered international attention, during which members destroyed (and pretended to urinate on) an Israeli flag.[56]
In April 2021, Colucci was arrested in Phoenix, Arizona for aggravated assault on a Black man. Witnesses say he pulled a gun and aimed it at the man, along with hurling threatening remarks. The incident began with a dispute over trash pickup. His bail was set at $7,500. Two days before his arrest, he led a group of 15 members of the National Socialist Movement in a rally, although they had expected 100.[57]
In January 2022, Colucci was once again arrested along with two other members of the NSM after attacking a Jewish man named David Newstat who confronted them during a rally. Colucci and one other member were charged with assault, while the other was charged with grand theft.[58] Colucci was not convicted until April 2024. He was found guilty of misdemeanor battery, although he had originally been charged with assault and battery with hate crime enhancements. He was scheduled to be sentenced on May 2, 2024.[59]
In June 2023, Colucci led 4 other members in a rally in Lakeland, Florida, although he also expected 100 people at this rally.[60] [61]
The NSM does not keep an official count of members, but membership is open to "non-Semitic heterosexuals of genetic European descent," according to its website.[62] According to the Anti-Defamation League, since Colucci took control, the NSM's membership has fallen to one or two dozen and it has failed to attract significant participation at its events, commenting that the dispute between Stern and Colucci negatively impacted the group's reputation. In 2024, long-time member Daniel Burnside, who had previously received international media attention, left the NSM, denounced the far-right, and asked for forgiveness.[63]