Frank Collin | |
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1st President of the National Socialist Party of America | |
In office 1970–1977 | |
Preceded by | Position established |
Succeeded by | Harold Covington |
Personal details | |
Born | Chicago,Illinois | November 3,1944
Political party | National Socialist Party of America (1970–1977) |
Other political affiliations | American Nazi (c. 1960s) |
Profession | Political activist,New Age author |
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Francis Joseph Collin (born November 3, 1944) is an American former political activist and Midwest coordinator with the American Nazi Party, later known as the National Socialist White People's Party. After being ousted for being partly Jewish (which he denied), in 1970, Collin founded the National Socialist Party of America. (N.S.P.A.) [1] In the late 1970s, his planned march in the predominantly Jewish suburb of Skokie, Illinois was challenged; however, the American Civil Liberties Union defended Collin's group's freedom of speech and assembly in a case that reached the United States Supreme Court to correct procedural deficiencies. Specifically, the necessity of immediate appellate review of orders restraining the exercise of First Amendment rights was strongly emphasized in National Socialist Party v. Village of Skokie, 432 U.S. 43 (1977). Afterward, the Illinois Supreme Court held that the party had a right to march and to display swastikas, despite local opposition, based on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Collin then offered a compromise, offering to march in Chicago's Marquette Park (where Martin Luther King had been attacked in 1966) instead of Skokie. [2] [3] After Collin was convicted and sentenced in 1979 for child molestation, he lost his position in the party. [4] [5]
After being released early on parole from prison, Collin created a new career as a writer, publishing numerous books under the pen name Frank Joseph. He wrote New Age and hyperdiffusionist works supporting the pseudoarchaeological idea that Old World peoples had migrated to North America in ancient times and created its complex societies of indigenous peoples. This thesis is rejected by mainstream scholars.
Collin was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, where he attended local schools. His father, Max Frank Collin, was born Max Simon Cohn in Munich, Germany, on August 23, 1913, [6] the son of Jewish parents who were murdered in The Holocaust, and was a survivor of Dachau concentration camp. [7] Frank's mother, Virginia Gertrude née Hardyman, was born in Chicago on August 18, 1920, and was Catholic. [8]
As a young man, Collin in the 1960s joined George Lincoln Rockwell's National Socialist White People's Party. [4] He became the Midwest coordinator. [9] He broke with the NSWPP due to a disagreement with Rockwell's successor, Matt Koehl, [4] who was elected as the party leader by popular vote after Rockwell was assassinated on August 25, 1967. The falling out stemmed in part from published accounts by Max Collin, Frank's father, who said that he was a Jewish Holocaust survivor and had changed his name from Cohen (or Cohn) to Collin. [10] [11] Frank Collin denied having Jewish roots and maintained that his father was not telling the truth. [11]
In 1970, Collin formed another organization, the National Socialist Party of America (NSPA), later known as the American Nazi Party. It attracted other disaffected members of the NSWPP, [4] as well as Michael Allen, Gary Lauck and Harold Covington. [4] Covington helped buy a building for the group which they called Rockwell Hall, [4] where Collin and some other members lived in a barracks in upper floor. [11] Collin ran for alderman of Chicago in 1975 and pulled 16% of the vote. [4]
The NSPA began holding anti-black demonstrations in Chicago's Marquette Park. [12] The Chicago authorities became concerned about violence and passed an ordinance which required demonstrations to post large insurance bonds. [12] [13] Collin went to the ACLU and they filed a suit. [13] While the case was proceeding without public notice, Collin attempted to contact other cities about holding demonstrations. [13] Skokie, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, responded with a notice that the group would need to post a bond, similar to the recently enacted ordinance in Chicago. [13] Collin's plan for his neo-Nazi group to march in uniforms through Skokie, which was heavily Jewish with numerous residents who were Holocaust survivors, generated public outrage and the media attention which Collin sought. [4] [12]
Also in 1977, Koehl's NSWPP began a campaign in their paper White Power about Collin's father being Jewish, [4] including publications of what they stated were Max Simon Cohn's naturalization records. [4] Collin and the NSPA leadership continued to deny the claim and said the images were fakes. [4]
During this time, according to Jeffrey Kaplan, Covington found pictures in Frank Collin's desk that linked Collin to the sexual abuse of young boys. [14] In what Kaplan described as a play for power in the organization, Covington and the other NSPA members turned the evidence on Collin over to the police. [14] After Collin was arrested, Covington took over leadership of the NSPA and moved the headquarters from Chicago to North Carolina. [4] A 1980 article in The New York Times reported that Frank Collin was expelled from the American Nazi Party for illicit intercourse with minors and the use of Nazi headquarters in Chicago for purposes of sodomy with children. The report indicates that the Nazis "tipped" the police who arrested Collin." [15] Collin was convicted of child molestation [14] [16] and sentenced to seven years in prison at the Pontiac Correctional Center in 1979. He served three years. [14]
Upon his release from prison, Collin "reinvented himself under the pseudonym of Frank Joseph, a New Age writer and a pagan worshiper". [16] His time in the Pontiac Correctional Facility in Illinois had coincided with the period when Russell E. Burrows worked there as a prison guard. [17] He subsequently wrote many books and articles in support of Burrows Cave, an alleged cache of ancient treasure in an unrevealed location, supposedly discovered by Russell Burrows in southern Illinois." [18] In 1987, he had his first New Age book published, The Destruction of Atlantis: Compelling Evidence of the Sudden Fall of the Legendary Civilization .
He wrote articles for Fate magazine, and he was also the editor of The Ancient American magazine. [19] The Ancient American focuses on what it says is evidence of ancient, pre-Columbian transoceanic contact between the Old World and North America, with the implication that all complex aspects of North America's indigenous cultures must have originated on other continents. The magazine's claims are similar to discredited nineteenth century theories, and as a result, they are considered dubious or exploitative by scholars. [20]
The swastika is an ancient religious and cultural symbol, predominantly found in various Eurasian cultures, as well as some African and American ones. In the Western world, it is more widely recognized as a symbol of the German Nazi Party who appropriated it from Asian cultures starting in the early 20th century. The appropriation continues with its use by neo-Nazis around the world. The swastika never stopped being used as a symbol of divinity and spirituality in Indian religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. It generally takes the form of a cross, the arms of which are of equal length and perpendicular to the adjacent arms, each bent midway at a right angle.
Skokie is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. According to the 2020 census, its population was 67,824. Skokie lies approximately 15 miles (24 km) north of Chicago's downtown Loop. The name Skokie comes from a Potawatomi word for "marsh". For many years, Skokie promoted itself as "The World's Largest Village". Skokie's streets, like that of many suburbs, are largely a continuation of the Chicago street grid, and the village is served by the Chicago Transit Authority, further cementing its connection to the city.
George Lincoln Rockwell was an American Neo-Nazi activist. Rockwell founded the American Nazi Party in 1959 and became the self-styled Führer of Neo-Nazism in the United States.
The American Nazi Party (ANP) is an American far-right and neo-Nazi political party founded by George Lincoln Rockwell and headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. The organization was originally named the World Union of Free Enterprise National Socialists (WUFENS), a name to denote opposition to state ownership of property, the same year—it was renamed the American Nazi Party in order to attract 'maximum media attention'. Since the late 1960s, a number of small groups have used the name "American Nazi Party" with most being independent of each other and disbanding before the 21st century. The party is based largely upon the ideals and policies of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party in Germany during the Nazi era, and embraced its uniforms and iconography.
The National Socialist Party of America (NSPA) was a Chicago-based organization founded in 1970 by Frank Collin shortly after he left the National Socialist White People's Party. The NSWPP had been the American Nazi Party until shortly after the assassination of its leader George Lincoln Rockwell in 1967. Collin, a follower of Rockwell, developed differences with his successor Matt Koehl.
James Nolan Mason is an American neo-Nazi. Mason is an ideologue for the Atomwaffen Division, a neo-Nazi terrorist organization. After growing disillusioned with the mass movement approach of neo-Nazi movements, he began advocating for a white supremacist revolution through terrorism. He was referred to as the "Godfather of Fascist Terrorism" in the Fair Observer. He has been convicted of assault and weapons charges, as well as charged with sexual exploitation and possession of pornographic images of a minor. In 2021, Mason is one of only two individuals sanctioned by the Canadian Government on its list of terror-related entities.
Joseph Charles Tommasi was an American Neo-Nazi who founded the National Socialist Liberation Front. He advocated extremism and armed guerrilla warfare against the U.S. government and what he called its "Jewish power structure." Tommasi wanted anarchy and lawlessness so that the "system" could be attacked without protection. Tommasi was derisively nicknamed "Tomato Joe" by rival neo-Nazis because of his Italian heritage and "less than Nordic complexion." He was later expelled from the group for using drugs and misusing group funds.
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Marquette Park, the largest park on the southwest side of Chicago, Illinois, at 323 acres (1.31 km2), is located at 41.768°N 87.703°W in the city's Chicago Lawn neighborhood. The park is named for Father Jacques Marquette (1637–1675).
Harold Armstead Covington was an American neo-Nazi activist and writer. He advocated the creation of an "Aryan homeland" in the Pacific Northwest and was the founder of the Northwest Front (NF), a white separatist political movement that sought to create a white ethnostate.
William John Beattie is a Canadian Neo-Nazi who was the founder and former leader of the Canadian Nazi Party. The establishment of the Canadian Nazi Party, re-named the National Socialist Party in 1967, marked a re-emergence of organized neo-Nazi activity in Canada that had been dormant since the days of Adrian Arcand.
National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, 432 U.S. 43 (1977), arising out of what is sometimes referred to as the Skokie Affair, was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court dealing with freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. This case is considered a "classic" free speech case in constitutional law classes. Related court decisions are captioned Skokie v. NSPA, Collin v. Smith, and Smith v. Collin. The Supreme Court ruled 5–4, per curiam. The Supreme Court's 1977 ruling granted certiorari and reversed and remanded the Illinois Supreme Court's denial to lift the lower court's injunction on the NSPA's march. In other words: the courts decided a person's assertion that speech is being restrained must be reviewed immediately by the judiciary. By requiring the state court to consider the neo-Nazis' appeal without delay, the U.S. Supreme Court decision opened the door to allowing the National Socialist Party of America to march.
Skokie is a 1981 television film directed by Herbert Wise, based on a real life controversy in Skokie, Illinois, involving the National Socialist Party of America. This controversy would be fought in court and reach the level of the United States Supreme Court in National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie.
Joel Barry Pollak is a South African born American conservative political commentator, writer, radio host, and attorney. He currently serves as the senior editor-at-large for Breitbart News. He attended Harvard College ('99), the University of Cape Town ('06), and Harvard Law School ('09). In 2010, he was the Republican nominee for U.S. Congress from Illinois's 9th congressional district, losing to incumbent Democrat Jan Schakowsky. From 2009 to 2010 he was a research fellow at the Hudson Institute, and since 2017 he has been a radio host at SiriusXM.
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In 1979 Collin's ambition to lead a new Nazi America was thwarted when he was arrested, convicted, and sent to prison on child molestation charges.
Covington, his rival for NSPA "power", made the fortuitous discovery (while rifling through Collin's desk) that the half-Jewish fuehrer also had a weakness for pedophilia and did not hesitate to photograph his dalliances with a number of young boys. As a result, Collin was sent to prison.