| Pekka Siitoin | |
| Birth Date: | 20 May 1944 |
| Birth Place: | Varkaus, Finland |
| Death Place: | Vehmaa, Finland |
| Party: | Patriotic Popular Front |
| Otherparty: | Finnish Rural Party National Democratic Party |
| Occupation: | Politician, actor, photographer, film director, writer, publisher and musician |
| Citizenship: | Finland |
| Children: | 6 |
Timo Pekka Olavi Siitoin (20 May 1944 in Varkaus, Finland - 8 December 2003 in Vehmaa, Finland) was a Finnish neo-Nazi, occultist and a Satanist.
He was born in Varkaus, Finland. According to Siitoin, he was born to a German military officer and Finnish-Russian woman, but he was adopted after his birth.[1] However according to a Security Police report, he was born to Hulde Sifia Rissanen and Olavi Valdemar Siitoin, who were a financially well-off married couple.[2] [3] Valdemar Siitoin had been a member of the Nazi Finnish People's Organisation, and Siitoin claimed to have been a nazi since he was a child.[4]
Pekka Siitoin completed his conscription service in Niinisalo in the Artillery Brigade and was discharged as a corporal.[5] He studied at a business school in Turku and founded his own photography and filming company. The film company Siitoin-Filmi mainly made advertising and travel films. Later, the company published occult, ufology and political literature, most of which Siitoin himself wrote under pseudonyms such as Peter Siitoin, Jonathan Shedd, Hesiodos Foinix, Peter von Weltheim, Edgar Bock and Cassius Maximanus.
In his youth he studied at the Theatre Academy of Finland and was a disciple of Finland's best known clairvoyant,, who Siitoin claims introduced him to Satanism.
Siitoin had joined the Kokoomusnuoret (Youth of the National Coalition Party) in his youth, before joining the Finnish Rural Party in the early 1970s and serving as a vice-chairman of its municipal chapter.[6] Following the breakup of the Rural Party, he would found the Patriotic Popular Front (Isänmaallisen Kansanrintaman), and considered himself to be Führer of the Finnish National Socialist movement. In 1971, Siitoin founded the Turku Society for the Spiritual Sciences.
Siitoin was an associate of the White Emigre satanist Boris Popper, who allegedly provided guns and explosives for his organizations, which were stolen from the Defence Forces.[7] [8] In 1977, Siitoin was convicted of inciting the arson of the printing house Kursiivi which printed the Communist newspaper Tiedonantaja and founding an organization forbidden in the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty.[9] He was sentenced to five years and seven months in prison, however only served three year and a half years. Siitoin had earlier been fined, while convicted of cruelty to animals and vandalism against the Turku Synagogue. In November 1977 the Finnish Ministry of the Interior closed down four of the organizations he had founded, as neo-Fascist and forbidden by the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty. Later Siitoin was convicted for running a private militia and possessing illegal automatic firearms.[10]
Siitoin maintained contacts with National Renaissance Party of James Hartung Madole that likewise blended Satanism and Nazism. The Patriotic Popular Front (IKR) published National Renaissance Party material in Finnish, and Siitoin appeared in NRP's publications.[11] [12] Nils Mandell, leader of the street organization of the Nordic Reich Party collaborated with Siitoin and introduced him to the World Union of National Socialists, to which Siitoin's group was accepted.[13] Siitoin also maintained contacts with the KKK Grand Wizard David Duke and J. B. Stoner in the United States and Fédération d'action nationale et européenne in France.[14] [15] Siitoin was also invited to the events in the Iraqi embassy by Baathist General Salih Mahdi Ammash. Ammash was known for his strong antisemitism, which probably was the reason for the invites.[16] IKR also recruited Finns for the war in Rhodesia in its magazine.[17]
Siitoin would found the National Democratic Party (KDP) in the summer of 1978, to replace the Patriotic Popular Front, which had been banned. The KDP was never on the party register, nor was it even a registered association. However, it functioned like an official association and the party was organized into local departments, which were led by local commanders in different areas.
For a short time, KDP belonged to the umbrella organization called the National Front (also known as National Coalition), which was founded in 1993 and was chaired by Väinö Kuisma. The other member organizations were the Aryan Germanic Brotherhood,[18] the Aryan Union of Blood and the Finnish National Front.
In 1996, Siitoin ran for the city council of Naantali with the slogan "Elect Siitoin the Nazi to the council" and was the fifth most popular candidate, but was not elected due to the D'Hondt method as he was running on his own list.[19] [20]
Siitoin died of esophageal cancer in Vehmaa, Finland.[21] He was buried in Hakapelto Cemetery in Naantali.[22] A documentary film called Sieg Heil Suomi has been made about the Neo-Nazi activities led by Siitoin and Väinö Kuisma.[23]