On August 25, 1967, George Lincoln Rockwell, an American neo-Nazi political activist and the leader of the National Socialist White People's Party (NSWPP), formerly the American Nazi Party (ANP), was assassinated by John Patler, an expelled member of the NSWPP. Patler fired two shots at Rockwell from the roof of a nearby building, while Rockwell was visiting a local laundromat close to the party's headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. The second shot struck Rockwell in the chest; Rockwell died there at 12:02 p.m. Patler was arrested 45 minutes later, about a mile and a half away.
Rockwell was the founder of the ANP; he was one of the earliest Holocaust deniers, called for forcibly sending all Black people to Africa, and for the murder of Jews. Despite attention and widespread notoriety, neither Rockwell nor his party achieved political power and his following was largely insignificant. Rockwell had a complicated relationship with Patler, who left and rejoined the party several times. Patler was ultimately expelled in March 1967 for a variety of reasons, among them abandoning his post and causing dissension within the group's ranks. In June 1967, Rockwell was subject to an assassination attempt at his home. The perpetrator of this incident was not caught; prosecutors later alleged it to be Patler.
At trial, Patler was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison, of which he served eight. He was paroled, but was returned to prison after violating his parole. The evidence against Patler was circumstantial, and Patler has never admitted guilt, though several legal appeals were all unsuccessful. The funeral itself was highly publicized, with a standoff between Rockwell's followers and authorities. During the resulting chaos, Rockwell's successor Matt Koehl had Rockwell's body smuggled out of the funeral home and cremated.
Rockwell's death had a significant impact on the neo-Nazi movement, and Rockwell was seen as a martyr by them. Though Rockwell was succeeded as group leader by Koehl, Koehl's leadership was poor and resulted in numerous schisms and people being driven from the party. Rockwell's death shocked the neo-Nazi movement, which as a whole decentralized after his death, and experienced large shifts in tactics and ideology. Many conspiracy theories emerged among Rockwell's followers, ranging from baseless allegations of a Jewish conspiracy to a coup by other high-ranking members of the NSWPP. Rockwell continues to be greatly influential on neo-Nazis.
Background George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party
George Lincoln Rockwell was the founder and leader of the American Nazi Party. He had founded the ANP in 1959, effectively the start of the neo-Nazi movement in the United States. He called for gassing "Communist Jews" and forcibly deporting all Black people to Africa; he was also one of the earliest Holocaust deniers. A retrospective 2017 article from The Washington Post said Rockwell was then "one of the most hated men in America". The party had only a few members, but garnered substantial media attention; according to researcher Spencer Sunshine, though Rockwell was not the first American neo-Nazi, Rockwell "started the neo-Nazi movement in the United States as we know it." Scholar William H. Schmaltz wrote that Rockwell was the founder of an "Americanized version of National Socialism".
Despite the attention and widespread notoriety, Rockwell and his party did not achieve political power and his following was largely insignificant. Rockwell ultimately came to recognize that a political movement solely devoted to provocation had limited real-world prospects, and so began to brainstorm new methods. With it came a broader kind of racism, not just believing their audience to be Nordic or Germanic Whites, but Southern and Eastern Europeans, calling this "White Unity". In an effort to "de-Nazify" the party to increase its appeal to the masses, on January 1, 1967, the group underwent several changes, and was renamed to the National Socialist White People's Party (NSWPP). With the name change came a shift in the iconography to be more American.
In a June 1967 meeting, it was agreed that the party would shift away from the German National Socialist model, though the exact details of this meeting were later contested among those who attended. ANP second in command and "Hitler cultist" Matt Koehl opposed all these changes, as did William Luther Pierce, though Rockwell eventually prevailed. It may have been discussed that Koehl be replaced as second in command and successor by Karl Allen, an estranged former member of the ANP, if Allen was brought back into the group. Several reconciliation meetings were held between Allen and Rockwell but Rockwell was assassinated before they could conclude. A week before Rockwell's death, the infant daughter of Rockwell and his mistress Barbara von Goetz died of a congenital illness, saddening him.
John Patler
Rockwell's eventual murderer was John Patler, a member of the party, who helped produce Rockwell's propaganda as an editor for The Stormtrooper Magazine. Patler was ethnically Greek, which led to criticism of his presence in the party by some neo-Nazis. He changed his surname from Patsalos to Patler to make it sound more like Hitler. Some other party members, mostly Pierce and Koehl, disliked him due to his Greek ethnic background and taunted him. Rockwell liked Patler, whose presence he defended by arguing for the expanded idea of master race which included Greeks; "White" rather than the Nazi idea of "Aryan". Koehl and the members who agreed with him viewed this change as heretical. The changes to de-center the Nazism of the party and apply a broader base of racists that included Southern Europeans, including Greeks, were instigated by Patler.
Patler was known to be unstable and had some Marxist sympathies; he left the ANP in 1961 with Dan Burros to form the American National Party, only to rejoin. Patler viewed Rockwell as a father figure but also blamed him for the problems in his life, and they began to conflict on several points. From 1966 to 1967, Patler drifted in and out of the party. Rockwell also had an affair with Patler's wife. Afterwards, Patler sent Rockwell a letter telling him he was fine with this. Patler and his wife had two children together; after which he became more self-confident and questioned his position in the group. Hating the separation from his family, in March 1967, he left his post in Spotsylvania and returned to Arlington. Rockwell then had the locks on his door cut off and Patler's possessions moved to Arlington.
Afterwards, Rockwell wrote a discharge letter against Patler, including that he was guilty of "abandoning his post, gross insubordination and insulting conduct to superiors, neglect of duties, promotion of dissension among the ranks, promotion of distrust by non-Nordic members of the party, and usurpation of authority". Patler was then immediately dismissed. Rockwell delegated this to Koehl instead of doing it himself. Patler spent the rest of the spring enraged over his treatment, writing letters disavowing Rockwell and the ANP, before again returning to begging for his forgiveness. In his last letter to Rockwell, Patler wrote: "I don't think there are two people on earth who think and feel the same as we do. ... You are a very important part of my life. I need you as much as you need me. Without you there is no future". Rockwell attempted privately to negotiate to bring him back into the organization, asking NSWPP member Chris Vidnjevich to speak with him. Patler was still angry about his dismissal, and told Vidnjevich that: "Rockwell is an evil genius and he must be stopped."
Prior assassination attempt Rockwell had been claiming for years that his enemies were stalking him, and said for years that he believed he would be shot to death. Alan Welch, a member of the group, said that several months prior to the assassination, Rockwell had asked him to return to Arlington because he believed that someone was trying to kill him. On June 28, 1967, Rockwell was subject to a failed assassination attempt at his home. He found the party's headquarters' driveway to be blocked with a fallen tree and branches. When Rockwell went to clear it, a shot was fired, only narrowly missing his head. Rockwell attempted to chase the shooter but he escaped, and Rockwell was unable to identify him.
Rockwell claimed that there had been two men. Rockwell's bodyguard Francis Joseph Smith claimed that afterwards, Rockwell told him he may have recognized one of the men, and that he "suspect[ed] treachery from someone very close to me" but that he did not want to say anything because, if he was wrong, it would irreparably damage the party. Pierce said Rockwell told him there was actually only one man. After the murder and Patler's arrest, Hancock recounted witnessing this:
After this incident Rockwell contacted the police, and applied for a handgun carry permit two days later. As of his death, the permit was pending. He also increased his security.
Assassination
On August 25, 1967, Rockwell woke up at 6:30 a.m. and had breakfast with other NSWPP members. The party planned to do an afternoon trip to Washington, D.C., where they would distribute the premiere issue of White Power, the group's new newspaper. Rockwell worked on his book, White Power, which was published after his death. Rockwell left the party's headquarters in Arlington, at 11:30 a.m. to do his laundry. He told the group members that he would be back shortly. The laundromat was close to headquarters, just across Wilson Boulevard. He parked in front of the laundromat.
After entering the laundromat, Rockwell told the attendant, Ruby Pierce, that he had forgotten something. His last words were that: "Oh, I forgot something"; the manager of the laundromat, John Hancock, said it had been bleach. Returning to the car, Rockwell started it, backed out, and put it in drive. While Rockwell was in his car, two shots were fired through the driver's side windshield of his car. The shooter aimed from the laundromat's roof, which was flat and able to be stood on. The killer used a long-barrelled broomstick Mauser pistol. The first shot missed Rockwell, though hit his shirt, nicking the fabric, and instead hit the car's front seat.
The second shot hit Rockwell in the chest and ruptured his aorta. The shot pushed Rockwell back against the car seat and knocked his corncob pipe out of his mouth. The car, now with its driver incapacitated, rolled backwards and bumped another car, ending up at the other side of the lot. Rockwell crawled into the passenger seat, opened the door from inside the car, and stepped out into the parking lot. It took Rockwell a minute or so to die. He rose to his feet, pointed to the roof the shooter had shot from, and turned to look at his headquarters. Rockwell's knees then buckled and he fell to the ground. Rockwell died there at 12:02 p.m, death resulting from massive hemorrhaging resulting from damage to the blood vessels.
Reaction The killing made headline news internationally and resulted in a wide amount of notoriety. The news cycle continued for over a week, especially given what occurred at the funeral. Rockwell's estranged father, the former vaudeville actor George Lovejoy Rockwell, said of his son's murder that: "I'm not surprised at all. I've expected it for quite some time. I think he would have liked to have gotten rid of the whole Nazi mess. He was more afraid of his own men than people were of him." He also said that to him, it seemed like his son had had a sort of premonition of his own death. The mayor of New York City, John Lindsay, said that the killing evidenced "violence breeds violence and extremism breeds extremism", and advocated for increased gun control.