Of my many role models, personal heroes, and inspirations, the one who stands out the most is Alan Berg, the late lawyer-turned-liberal talk-radio host who was well known for his brash, witty, and uncensored style of debate.
Berg, who was Jewish, loved to debate his callers over many issues, but his favorite targets were neo-Nazis, racists, and anti-Semites. Berg was well known for calling out racism on his show and daring neo-Nazis to call in to argue with him. If they did, Berg would proceed to mock, belittle, and laugh at them, pushing and prodding his targets until they were frustrated and flustered beyond belief.
Tragically, Berg's life was cut short on June 18th, 1984, when he was felled by machine-gun fire outside his home in Denver, Colorado. The assassins were members of a clandestine neo-Nazi terrorist organization called The Order, founded by a charismatic young neo-Nazi hell-bent on overthrowing the US government and installing a white supremacist ethnostate.
Berg wasn't the first person murdered by The Order, nor was he the last, but his killing was the group's most notorious crime, and it showed the entire world the lengths to which extremists would go to silence their critics.
Last year, I wrote a two-part series about Berg's life and the terrorist group that ended it. It is a fascinating story, and I encourage others to read it. It serves as a dire warning about the dangers of far-right terrorism, and the damage that a small, dedicated group of ideological fanatics can do.
Although The Order was dismantled by the FBI, with its leader killed in a shootout and its members imprisoned, the group's deadly legacy continues to live on, and its exploits have inspired the creation of numerous neo-Nazi groups determined to finish what The Order had started.
And today, one of those groups is posing an increasingly sinister threat - a threat that could soon overshadow its predecessors and pose an even greater danger to society. Its members are heavily armed, well-trained, and fanatically devoted to neo-Nazi ideology, and they have demonstrated no compunctions about using violence to achieve their goals.
The growing terrorist threat that is the Atomwaffen Division can no longer be ignored.
Mason and Manson
The Atomwaffen Division (German for "Atomic Weapons") is a relatively new organization. Formed in late 2015 as a splinter group from the now-defunct neo-Nazi website Iron March, Atomwaffen was based in the US but has now expanded across the globe, with chapters in Canada, Germany, Britain, Estonia, Russia, and Ukraine.While Atomwaffen draws much of its inspiration from well-known neo-Nazi works such as The Turner Diaries, their main source of inspiration comes from a little-known manifesto entitled SIEGE, published by a notorious white supremacist named James Mason.
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| Longtime neo-Nazi James Mason is widely regarded as the leader of Atomwaffen, though he publicly denies it. Mason wrote an incendiary newsletter called SIEGE, which was later compiled into a book. |
James Nolan Mason has been stooped in neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideologies for almost his entire life. At the age of 14, Mason joined the American Nazi Party, and at age 24 he joined the even more extreme National Socialist Liberation Front, and began writing screeds openly calling for a "white revolution" against the United States.
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| During the 1980s, James Mason published a racist newsletter called SIEGE. The newspaper has since been compiled into a book, which serves as a manifesto of sorts for the Atomwaffen Division. |
While writing SIEGE, Mason established contact with an even more notorious figure: the charismatic cult leader and mass murderer Charles Manson. Manson was reviled by most people - even neo-Nazis - but Mason saw Manson as something of a new Adolf Hitler, and in him he saw a potential plan to set his dream of white revolution into action.
During the 1960s, Charles Manson led a drug-fueled, quasi-hippie, mostly-female cult which committed numerous gruesome murders across the state of California - the most notorious of which was the murder of actress Sharon Tate. The murders were part of an attempt on Manson's part to provoke an apocalyptic race war between blacks and whites - a scenario which the cult called "Helter Skelter". After this race war had resulted in the destruction of civilization, the cult believed, Manson would rise from the ashes and become the new supreme leader of the United States.
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| Charles Manson (1934-2017) led a violent cult in the 1960s that committed numerous murders with the goal of igniting a race war in the United States - a scenario he called "Helter Skelter". While Manson was motivated purely by ego rather than ideology, his "Helter Skelter" scenario inspired many neo-Nazis like James Mason and groups like Atomwaffen. |
Although Manson's motivations were purely egotistical instead of ideological, James Mason took to heart the idea that a "Helter Skelter"-like race war was the best way to bring about societal collapse and the rise of a new Nazi regime, just like what was chronicled in The Turner Diaries. Mason considered Manson to be a personification of Adolf Hitler, and urged his fellow neo-Nazis to adopt "Helter Skelter" as part of their ideology.
In SIEGE, Mason praised Charles Manson, writing "I would include in the first rank the name of Manson, probably the farthest ahead of his time, for having done in fact many of the things outlined in the [...] Turner Diaries."
"I have done what I could to inject [...] as many of Manson's ideas into Movement thought as possible", Mason continued. "I have had limited success. But having accomplished this much, I can only hope that the seeds have been planted and the torch passed."
Mason's success, it appears, was greater than he anticipated. Atomwaffen has not only adopted his admiration for Charles Manson and his idea of "Helter Skelter", but has even prominently featured him in their propaganda.
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| Charles Manson is a frequent subject of veneration in Atomwaffen propaganda. |
Atomwaffen, however, has gone far beyond idolizing individuals like Charles Manson. They have also followed in the footsteps of neo-Nazi terrorist organizations before them, chief among them a group called The Order.
Ode to The Order
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| The Order was a neo-Nazi terrorist group active in the 1980s that sought to overthrow the US government. Its members committed bombings, robberies, and the murders of three people, including radio host Alan Berg |
Active from 1983 to early 1985, The Order was a small, clandestine neo-Nazi terrorist group made up of about two dozen members. Led by a charismatic white supremacist named Robert Mathews, The Order committed bank robberies, bombings, shootouts, and assassinations, with the goal of sparking a "white revolution" against the US government and establishing a "White American Bastion" in the Pacific Northwest.
Much like Atomwaffen has done with SIEGE, The Order drew much of its inspiration from an incendiary, racist novel known as The Turner Diaries.
Penned by notorious white supremacist William Luther Pierce, The Turner Diaries chronicles a fictional, apocalyptic race war between white supremacist rebels and a Jewish-controlled world government. The novel culminates in the atomic bombings of Israel, Washington D.C., and New York City, the extermination of all Jews and nonwhites, and the installation of a global, all-white "New Order" where Adolf Hitler is elevated to sainthood and Nazism becomes the only acceptable religion.
Robert Mathews took the book's call for violent rebellion to heart, and he devised a six-step plan for white revolution:
Step 1: Organize a group
Step 2: Establish goals for the group
Step 3: Procure funds for a war chest through robberies and counterfeiting
Step 4: Recruit new members into the group
Step 5: Assassinate individual enemies
Step 6: Launch guerilla and sabotage attacks on urban targets to trigger a race war
Ultimately, The Order made it to Step 5 with the assassination of radio host Alan Berg. It was only thanks to an informant, Tom Martinez, that law enforcement managed to take down The Order before it could complete its deadly revolution. Mathews would be killed in a fiery shootout with FBI agents and the remaining members of his group were sent to prison.
But even though The Order has been long dead, both Mathews and his fellow terrorists have become revered as martyrs by the white supremacist movement, elevated to near-sainthood by neo-Nazis seeking to finish their mission. The Order has inspired numerous like-minded organizations - such as the Aryan Republican Army - to commit similar acts of terrorism in furtherance of a race war, and Atomwaffen is one of these groups.
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| This Atomwaffen Division propaganda poster pays homage to The Order with a quote from their "Declaration of War": "When the day comes, we will not ask whether you swung to the right or whether you swung to the left - we will simply swing you by the neck!" |
Atomwaffen has dedicated itself to follow in the footsteps of The Order, adopt their tactics, and, more importantly, learn from its mistakes. Members of the group venerate Robert Mathews and his mission, and Atomwaffen has structured itself in accordance with the idea of "Leaderless Resistance" - wherein small "terror cells" are set up across the country to individually sow chaos rather than launch attacks from a single organized group.
Rather than have a single base of operation, Atomwaffen has chapters in 28 different states, each of which contain less than ten members and its own regional commander. With no centralized leadership or base of operation, Atomwaffen has been able to operate with relative impunity from law enforcement investigations - something The Order was unable to do for very long.
Atomwaffen and Violence
One should not make the mistake of thinking Atomwaffen is simply an online community or a harmless collection of angry young men. Unlike their counterparts on forums like 4chan and Reddit, Atomwaffen has shown a willingness - a dedication even - to take their fight to the real world.In recent years, Atomwaffen has been following in the footsteps of Robert Mathews' six-step plan. They have organized their group and set their agenda, and they have already begun actively recruiting new members. College campuses have been flooded with vile recruitment flyers, and Atomwaffen has expanded its outreach onto the internet, spreading racist hashtags and posting videos showing group members training in full combat gear and wielding assault rifles.
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| Atomwaffen propaganda is littered with racism, anti-Semitism, extreme hatred, and a glorification of violence. |
Atomwaffen first made its debut into the real world in June, 2016, following the horrific massacre at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. At a vigil honoring the 49 victims of the attack, an Atomwaffen member interrupted mourners with racist chants, Nazi salutes, and a sign reading "GOD HATES FAGS" - the slogan of the notoriously anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church.
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| An Atomwaffen Division member interrupted a vigil for the victims of the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting with a vile sign and racist slogans. It was one of the group's first public appearances. |
Since then, Atomwaffen has appeared at numerous rallies, sometimes brandishing weapons. Their members are notorious for wearing black uniforms and face masks with skulls, and they have also shown a propensity for violence.
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| Armed Atomwaffen members demonstrate outside an ADL office in Houston, TX, in late 2016 |
At the infamous 2017 Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville, VA, a transgender woman named Emily Gorcenski was brutally beaten and assaulted while protesting against the neo-Nazis. Gorcenski's assailant was later identified as Vasillios Pistolis, a member of Atomwaffen and, most frighteningly, an active-duty soldier in the United States Marine Corps. Pistolis even bragged about the crime (and other assaults during the rally) on an encrypted chat with other Atomwaffen members, which was later leaked to the media.
"I drop kicked Emily Gorcenski", Pistolis boasted on the chat. "I dropped kicked [sic] that tranny that made the video crying."
Although Pistolis was never charged with assault, he was later imprisoned for making false statements and disobeying orders. He avoided a dishonorable discharge and, when released, he will have his criminal record expunged.
But Atomwaffen has gone far beyond petty violence at rallies. Recently, Atomwaffen has graduated to Step 5 of Robert Mathews' plan - murder.
And, in this area, they have already outdone their predecessors in The Order.
The most notorious murder committed by an Atomwaffen member was the killing of a 19-year-old gay Jewish college student named Blaze Bernstein, who was stabbed to death by his classmate, 20-year-old Samuel Woodward. Woodward, it was later revealed, was not only a member of Atomwaffen but had actually trained with the group at one of their many secretive "hate camps" set up across the country.
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| 19-year-old Blaze Bernstein, an openly-gay Jewish college student, was murdered in 2018, in a case that made national news. Bernstein's killer, Samuel Woodward, was a member of the Atomwaffen Division. |
This murder was by no means the first committed by Atomwaffen. And, tragically, it wasn't the last, either. Since 2017, Atomwaffen members have been held responsible for eight murders in three different states, as well as numerous robberies, assaults, and terrorist plots.
On May 19, 2017, police in Tampa Palms, Florida, were called to a convenience store following a report of an armed gunman holding hostages. Upon arriving at the scene, officers confronted and arrested the suspect, 18-year-old Devon Arthurs, a self-proclaimed Salafi Jihadist and a known member of the Atomwaffen Division. When police searched Arthurs' apartment, they found that he had shot and killed his two roommates (who were also Atomwaffen members) and had stockpiled numerous firearms. In addition to weapons and neo-Nazi paraphernalia, officers found a framed photograph of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in Arthurs' bedroom.
Only a few days later, another Atomwaffen Division member, Brandon Russell (also a roommate of Arthurs') was arrested by the FBI after he and another Atomwaffen member were arrested while driving in a car filled with assault rifles, body armor, and over 1,000 rounds of ammunition. When searching Russell's garage, agents found blasting caps, homemade detonators, and explosive chemicals such as nitromethane, ammonium nitrate, and HMTD - explosives powerful to destroy a commercial jetliner. Russell later confessed that he intended to use these weapons and explosives to attack nuclear facilities, synagogues, train stations, and other civilian targets.
That December, another Atomwaffen member, 17-year-old Nicholas Giampia, made national news for another brutal crime. After they refused to let their daughter date him due to his neo-Nazi views, Giampia shot and killed his girlfriend's parents in their home in Reston, Virginia, before unsuccessfully attempting suicide.
Online, Giampia had been a proud admirer of James Mason and SIEGE, and had openly flouted his Atomwaffen membership. Charged with two counts of first-degree murder, Giampia still awaits trial, facing a sentence of up to life in prison.
There have been numerous other members of Atomwaffen linked to murders and attempted terrorist attacks. For the sake of time, I cannot run through all of them in detail, but here are the highlights:
*November 2018: Atomwaffen member Jeffrey Clark was arrested by the FBI following a tip claiming he and his brother, Edward, were planning a massacre at a synagogue in Washington.
At Clark's home, authorities found Atomwaffen propaganda, bulletproof vests, helmets, guns, and hollow-point bullets, as well as online posts which linked Clark to Robert Bowers - the neo-Nazi who massacred 11 Jewish worshipers at a Pittsburgh synagogue the previous month.
Jeffrey Clark was charged with weapons violations and currently awaits trial. His brother, Edward, committed suicide after being tracked down by the FBI.
*February 2019: Atomwaffen member Benjamin Bogard was arrested by the FBI in Texas following an anonymous tip that he was planning a cross-country killing spree targeting minorities and had inquired about purchasing components needed to make a bomb. On Bogard's computer, agents found child pornography and a disturbing video in which Bogard brandishes a shotgun, fantasizes about slaughtering women and minorities, and refers to himself as a "future mass shooter".
*August 2019: Atomwaffen member and former army engineer Conor Climo was arrested in Las Vegas by FBI agents after authorities learned he was attempting to build IEDs as part of a series of planned terrorist attacks. In Climo's home, authorities found bomb-making materials, assault rifles, sniper rifles, pipe bombs, and jars of thermite - the latter of which he had intended to use to destroy natural gas pipelines.
Agents also found numerous sketches and detailed plans for a joint bombing and sniper attack on a synagogue, a mass shooting targeting a gay bar, and attacks on police stations and ADL offices.
*September 2019: Atomwaffen member Andrew Thomasberg was arrested by FBI agents in McLean, Virginia, for illegally selling firearms. Agents found 20 loaded weapons in Thomasberg's home and car, as well as other evidence indicating he had been planning a mass shooting. Thomasberg pleaded guilty to making false statements and illegal possession of firearms and drugs, and could face up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced in February, 2020.
*September 2019: FBI agents arrested army specialist and Atomwaffen member Jarret William Smith in Fort Riley, Kansas, after receiving a tip that he had been building bombs. Smith, it was revealed, had intended to use these bombs to destroy news stations, cell towers, and even target his fellow soldiers. Smith had also planned to go to Ukraine and join his friend and fellow Atomwaffen member Craig Lang - currently wanted for the robbery and murder of two people in Florida - in fighting alongside the Azov Battalion, a neo-Nazi militia involved in the Donbass War.
*November 2019: Atomwaffen member Aiden Bruce-Umbaugh was arrested by police in a traffic stop in Garza County, Texas. Inside Bruce-Umbaugh's car, officers discovered military uniforms, a machete, an AR-15 rifle, two AK-47 assault rifles, a SIG Sauer pistol, marijuana, and more than 2,000 rounds of ammunition.
Bruce-Umbaugh had previously been flagged by the FBI as an "Extreme Risk", and had his collection of shotguns, pistols, five assault rifles, and several illegal gun components confiscated one month earlier.
*November 2019: Atomwaffen member Richard Tobin was arrested in New Jersey by FBI agents after he ordered several vandalism attacks on synagogues in the area. Tobin had previously planned to massacre blacks with a machete at a local mall, but had backed out at the last minute.
On Tobin's computer, FBI agents found manuals and instructions for building bombs and homemade detonators.
A Threat That Can't Be Ignored
Even as I was writing this article, Atomwaffen members continued to make the news for planning terrorist attacks. Last week, FBI agents arrested seven neo-Nazi militants for plotting to assassinate two leaders of Antifa and launch terrorist attacks at a pro-gun rally in Richmond, Virginia. All seven men were members of an Atomwaffen splinter group called "The Base".Just three days ago, in fact, FBI agents and Seattle Police seized a cache of weapons from Atomwaffen leader Kaleb Cole, who had been in the car with Aiden Bruce-Umbaugh when he was arrested in November, 2019. Cole, who has not been arrested, has been known to establish paramilitary training camps for Atomwaffen members in Washington State, and he was even recently banned from entering Canada due to his racist and violent rhetoric.
The danger posed by Atomwaffen is too great to ignore any longer. It is only by sheer luck that the group had not managed to carry out a large-scale terror attack, and it is clear that the group has shown absolutely no compunction about using continuing to use violence to further their cause.
The similarities between Atomwaffen and The Order are uncanny. Both are secretive, extremist neo-Nazi organizations that call for outright war against the US government. Both groups structured themselves into small "terror cells" according to the idea of "leaderless resistance". Both groups were trained in paramilitary and guerilla warfare tactics. Both groups started out by committing small crimes, eventually graduating to armed robbery and murder. And both groups were implicated in numerous attempted - and successful - acts of terrorism and violence.
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| Atomwaffen members conduct paramilitary training in a recruitment video. Like The Order, Atomwaffen glorifies violence, is well-trained in combat tactics, and has established a highly-dangerous terrorist network across the United States. |
The Order only killed three people, but they had the potential to be far deadlier. The group had planned to poison water reservoirs and blow up power stations and natural gas pipelines - acts that could have potentially killed tens of thousands of people. It was only thanks to the actions of a brave informant, Tom Martinez, that The Order was taken down before more people fell victim to Robert Mathews' revolution of hate and terror.
But now that same revolution of hate and terror is brewing once again. The Order has been reborn, this time as the Atomwaffen Division, and it is now even more violent, fanatical, and dangerous than it was before. Atomwaffen is bigger, bolder, better-armed, better trained, and has learned from the mistakes of The Order. Atomwaffen has already outdone The Order with its body count, and they are dead-set on fulfilling the mission that Robert Mathews began.
If we are looking for the next major terrorist threat against our country, we should look no further than Atomwaffen. They are the biggest domestic terror threat that our country currently faces, and we cannot afford to turn a blind eye to their increasingly violent activities.
And for those who say that Atomwaffen is only a small band of "kooks", and therefore doesn't pose a major threat, I can only remind them of what happened in Oklahoma City back in 1995, or in Cokeville in 1986, or in Medina in 1983, or, yes, in Denver in 1984.
Don't tell me it can't happen again. It can. All it takes one determined fanatic.
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