A Look into 25 Years of the American Nazi Party in Arlington, Virginia

On Aug. 25, 1967, in front of a laundromat at a nondescript neighborhood strip mall in the quiet Washington, D.C., suburb of Arlington, Va., American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell was gunned down. 

How the American Nazi Party came to be in Arlington and the circumstances behind Rockwell’s assassination was the subject of a grim but fascinating recent AARP Virginia Tuesday Explorers program, led by Arlington native and retired journalist Charlie Clark. 

Rockwell was born in 1918 in Bloomington, Ill., the son of vaudeville entertainers. After briefly attending Brown University, he joined the Navy and served as an officer in a non-combat capacity during World War II and the Korean War. 

A Nazi sympathizer and Holocaust denier, Rockwell and his wife, the niece of Iceland’s ambassador to the United States, spent their honeymoon visiting German sites associated with Adolph Hitler and reading Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.” 

In 1958, Rockwell formed the American Nazi Party, which he decided to establish in Arlington because of its proximity to the nation’s capital.  

The first headquarters, funded by wealthy Baltimore white supremist Harold Arrowsmith, was a house on Williamsburg Boulevard, “not far from my current house,” said Clark. The house was notorious for displaying a spotlight on a swastika.  

In 1959, Arlington’s Commonwealth’s Attorney raided the house, where they found pistols and anti-Jewish pamphlets. The party was charged with disorderly conduct.  

Membership in the party included about 30 local members, with about another 30 members in other parts of the country. They held talks and protests and picketed against prominent Jewish figures such as entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr., and Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.  

Following an attempt by Rockwell and the American Nazis to picket the premier of the film “Exodus,” singer-songwriter Bob Dylan penned a parody song, “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoia Blues.” 

In 1962, the Virginia General Assembly voted to condemn the party as an enemy of the state. This same year, Rockwell’s wife divorced him and returned to Iceland with their three children.  

Rockwell ran for governor of Virginia as an independent in 1965, finishing last among the four candidates on the ballot. 

The party headquarters next moved to a house on Randolph Street. Close to Washington-Liberty High School (then known as Washington-Lee), it drew the interest and curiosity of nearby students. Clark said there’s a story about a student who was forced into the house and interrogated by party members, no doubt a scary situation. 

Jack Hiller, a freelance photographer who worked for the Northern Virginia Sun newspaper, was allowed entry, and took photos in the house. Hiller described Rockwell as very ambitions, with plans to run for president in 1972. He also noted that Rockwell ate the best food. 

The property boasted signs that read, “White Man Help Smash Black Revolution” and “Trespassers Will be Prosecuted or Shot.” 

Clark noted there were several secret Jewish members of the party, presumably unknown to Rockwell. 

Except for the local Northern Virginia Sun, the press generally imposed an unofficial quarantine on the party’s activities. Rockwell was described as charismatic, with flashing eyes. Clark noted he was inured to rejection and liked to get reactions from people. 

The party was operating a printing press on the premises, and in 1965, the Internal Revenue Service confiscated the press for non-payment of taxes. 

The party next signed a lease, under false pretenses, on a new headquarters in Arlington’s Upton Hill neighborhood. This property, which has been torn down and is now the site of Upton Hill Regional Park, was known as “Hatemonger Hill,” and was notorious for its “stormtrooper” guards. 

During this period, author Alex Haley, who later wrote the epic novel “Roots,” interviewed Rockwell for Playboy magazine. In “Roots: The Next Generation,” the sequel to the television adaptation of the novel, Rockwell was portrayed by Marlon Brando. 

All was not smooth going among party members. One follower, John Patler, had a stormy relationship with Rockwell. Patler favored the establishment of the National Socialists White Party. 

On Aug. 25, 1967, Rockwell planned to use the EconoWash laundromat in the Dominion Hills Shopping Center, across the street from the party headquarters. He forgot his laundry soap and left to go back to retrieve it. Shortly afterward, Tom Blankeney, owner of the adjacent Tom’s Barber Shop, heard two shots fired. Blankeney looked out to see Rockwell slumped over dead, his laundry soap next to him. 

Blankeney took off after the shooter, stopping at a nearby house to call the police. The suspect, John Patler, was apprehended a half mile away with wet trousers. Patler’s Mauser pistol was recovered from nearby Four Mile Run. 

The Northern Virginia Sun, which had a Jewish editor, Herman J. Obermeyer, was the first publication to break the story, which subsequently became news around the world. Obermeyer said he was both “fascinated and embarrassed” by the American Nazi Party’s activities. 

As a military veteran, Rockwell was entitled to interment at Arlington National Cemetery, but the cemetery administrators refused to accept him. Instead, interment was planned for Culpeper National Cemetery, but that too was refused when party members wanted to display Nazi insignia during the ceremony. Rockwell’s ashes were later buried secretly in Wisconsin. 

Arlington’s Commonwealth’s Attorney sought the death penalty for Patler, but he was sentenced to 20 years in prison, which he appealed. He ended up serving just four years. In 1975, he changed his name to its original Greek spelling of Patsolos.  

As to why Patler shot Rockwell, Clark said that Patler was a disturbed individual who felt he couldn’t compete with Rockwell’s charisma. There was also speculation that Rockwell had sex with Patler’s wife. Patler, now Patsolos, has refused subsequent requests for interviews. 

Meanwhile, the American Nazi Party continued to be a presence in Arlington for several more years. They moved headquarters to another location on Franklin Street that now houses a coffee shop, where they remained until 1983. During the 2016 presidential election, there were rumors that Nazis working for Hillary Clinton operated out of this location, even though the party had long left Arlington. 

In 1971, the party applied for a permit to stage a White Pride Day at Arlington’s Yorktown High School. The permit was denied and contested in court. It was finally approved in 1983, and unsurprisingly, the incident drew anti-Nazi protests. 

In 1976, the American Nazi Party participated in a Bicentennial parade in Arlington. 

In 1983, the party moved to Wisconsin and changed its name to New Order. Its new leader was Harold Covington, who used the pseudonym “Winston Smith” (from George Orwell’s novel “1984”) for online posts, becoming one of the first neo-Nazi presences on the internet.  

During the 1950s and 1960s, said Clark, Arlington was a haven of relative tranquility, so the presence of the American Nazi Party was particularly upsetting, especially for residents who had lived through World War II. The party’s move to Wisconsin was the end of a tense and turbulent era. 

But there was a coda yet to come. 

Aug. 25, 2017, marked the 50th anniversary of Rockwell’s death. Following the violent Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville earlier that month, Clark was curious if present-day Nazis would commemorate Rockwell’s assassination. Merchants at the shopping center were tipped off to be on the alert. 

Sure enough, seven individuals, sporting a swastika flag and a wreath, showed up at the spot where Rockwell was shot down. A customer of Tom’s Barber Shop – which still exists – managed to snap a quick photo. 

Clark said these individuals were current members of New Order and it is extremely unlikely any were local residents. 

When residents of the Dominion Hills neighborhood heard about the incident, they took to Facebook for a flashmob callout held later that evening, waving signs saying, “Hate Has No Home in Dominion Hills.” 

This program is available on AARP Virginia’s YouTube channel. The Tuesday Explorers series continues through the end of April. For upcoming programs, visit AARP.org/TuesdayExplorers.