The Michigan cell of The Base, a secretive Neo-Nazi organization, conducted paramilitary training exercises on a farm in Bad Axe. Some later appeared in propaganda videos. Dressed in skull masks, fatigues and tactical vests, four men squeezed the triggers of their assault-style weapons and opened fire as a fifth man hoisted a Nazi flag behind them. Filmed on a remote property in rural Michigan, the exercise that ended in a Hitler salute was featured in a 2020 video designed to help recruit members to The Base, a racist, militant and secretive neo-Nazi organization whose members trained for what they believed to be a coming race war. The propaganda video was posted to social media by Justen Watkins, then 25. The former metro Detroiter had joined The Base a year earlier and quickly assumed a prominent role in the Michigan cell of the national organization.
Watkins was driven by “facism and adherence to the natural order — the way things are supposed to be,” he told leaders in a 2019 interview as he sought membership in The Base, according to a recording obtained by an Australian anti-fascist research organization called The White Rose Society and reviewed by Bridge Michigan. The self-described “adrenaline junkie” bodybuilder had big ambitions: He wanted to use an elderly relative’s money to create a white nationalist compound in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with no Jewish, Black or gay people.
via bridgemi: Jesus Hitler, an ‘adrenaline junkie’ and the plot to train Michigan neo-Nazis