National Socialist League (United States)

National Socialist League
Leader Russell Veh
Founded 1974 (1974)
Dissolved After 1988 (After 1988)
Headquarters Los Angeles, California
Newspaper NS Mobilizer
Ideology Nazism
White supremacy
Homonationalism
Political position Far-right

The National Socialist League was a gay neo-Nazi political party in the United States that existed from 1974 until the late-1980s. It was founded by Russell Veh in Los Angeles, United States. Veh financed the party using the profits from his printing business. He also financed the party with a film distribution unit that specialized in Nazi propaganda films, including Triumph of the Will. The National Socialist League had chapters in various parts of California, and implied in their mass mailing on July 4th, 1978 that they had established an off-shoot organization in Manhattan.[1][2]

An advertisement for the far-right gay National Socialist League in the leather magazine Drummer in 1975

History

The party was founded in 1974 by Russell Veh and several other California-based neo-Nazis. The National Socialist League was unique in restricting its members to gay Nazi men. The group distributed membership applications declaring NSL's "determination to seek sexual, social, and political freedom" for Aryans.[3]

In 1977 NSL applied for a free table at the Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade and was denied, although Christopher Street West - the organization which runs LA Pride - had at that time a policy of total non-exclusion. This resulted in major debates within the community and coalesced in 1978 when Christopher Street West reversed its total non-exclusion stance and said that as a private organization they could act to endorse their community principles.[4]

Before disappearing in the late 1980s, the National Socialist League put out a journal called NS Kampfruf, later renamed NS Mobilizer.[5] The magazine contained typical Nazi rhetoric as well as drawings of scantily clad SS soldiers with swastikas covering their genitals to emphasize the "sexual trip" described by the recruiting pitch.[6]

The National Socialist League survived until at least 1988, when it was reported as blaming the AIDS virus on Jews and Communists.[7]

Organizing efforts in San Francisco

The National Socialist League placed advertisements identifying themselves as the Gay Nazis that included their phone number in order to recruit new members during 1974 and 1975 in the classified ad section of the San Francisco gay newspaper the Bay Area Reporter.[8] The NSL also advertised in the leather magazine Drummer, despite apprehension and personal dislike of Nazism by editor Jack Fritscher.[9]

Anti-Jewish film distribution controversy

While normally low-profile, the NSL stirred a controversy in 1983 when it attempted to market the infamous 1930s Nazi anti-Semitic film Jud Süß ("Süss the Jew") which had been pirated by the group. An article in the Los Angeles-based Heritage and S.W. Jewish Press, titled "'Gay Nazis Peddling Vile 'Jud Suss' Film", named Veh and the National Socialist League. "We are most familiar with Mr. Veh (which is an alias, incidentally) and his notorious operations," said legitimate film distributor, David Calbert Smith III.[10]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Kaplan, Jeffrey (2000). Encyclopedia of White Power: A Sourcebook of the Radical Right. p. 316. ISBN 978-0-7425-0340-3.
  2. ↑ ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, National Socialist League Collection, Folder 6
  3. ↑ Newton, Michael (2007). The Ku Klux Klan: History, Organization, Language, Influence and Activities of America's Most Notorious Secret Society. p. 182. ISBN 978-0-7864-2787-1.
  4. ↑ ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, National Socialist League Collection, Folder 1
  5. ↑ Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report, Fall 2000
  6. ↑ Kaplan, Jeffrey. "Russell Veh." Encyclopedia of White Power: a Sourcebook on the Radical Racist Right, Altamira Press, 2000, pp. 317–317.
  7. ↑ Mullins, Wayman C. "National Socialist League." Terrorist Organizations in the United States: an Analysis of Issues, Organizations, Tactics, and Responses, CC Thomas, 1988, pp. 94–94.
  8. ↑ Back issues of the Bay Area Reporter, available at the Main Library of the San Francisco Public Library, located at 100 Larkin St.
  9. ↑ Fritscher, Jack, and Mark Hemry. "Drummer 19: Astrologic Capricorn." Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer: a Memoir of the Sex, Art, Salon, Pop Culture War, and Gay History of Drummer Magazine, the Titanic 1970s to 1999, vol. 1, Palm Drive Pub., 2008, pp. 405–405.
  10. ↑ Heritage and S.W. Jewish Press, September 16, 1983
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