Despite the fact that far-right, neo-Nazi, and neo-fascist groups in the United States have been steadily gaining power and influence since the 1950s, it wasn’t until the 116th Congress in 2020 that the FBI publicly acknowledged the far-right movement in the United States was a “national threat priority.” The same year, the United States State Department designated members of the Russian Imperial Movement as global terrorists, which, per the State Department, was “the first time in history the Department has designated a white supremacist terrorist group.” But these acknowledgments have done little to stunt the growth of the neo-Nazi movement within the U.S. In 2021, the Department of Defense acknowledged that neo-Nazis and white supremacists were recruiting among U.S. military personnel. In July 2022, Congress passed amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that ordered the government to investigate far-right activity in the military and the FBI, but in December 2022, the final version of the NDAA effectively wiped all the provisions relating to investigating domestic far-right extremism in the military. In 2022, the Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism found that white supremacist propaganda efforts roe from 4,876 events in 2021 to 6,751 in 2022, with incidents involving antisemitic propaganda alone doubling. Amid all this, the Atomwaffen Division is one group out of many that want to remake the world in its fascistic white supremacist image. This is the messed up truth of the international neo-Nazi network, Atomwaffen Division. Atomwaffen Division, also known as AWD, is a contemporary neo-Nazi and neo-fascist group that follows an accelerationist ideology. Accelerationism is a facet of white supremacism that posits that society should be actively demolished in order to rebuild a new one … based on fascism and white supremacy. As a result, Atomwaffen members actively advocate overthrowing the United States government and instigating a race war between people of color and white people. In “Hate Groups and Extremist Organizations in America,” Barry J. Balleck writes that Atomwaffen is described as “one of the most violent hate groups in the United States.” It is considered extreme and controversial even by those among the far-right. Atomwaffen takes much of its ideology from the writings of James Mason, an American neo-Nazi who wrote a collection of essays known as SIEGE. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Mason first tried to join the American Nazi Party at just 14 years old and he spent his entire life in various neo-Nazi and neo-fascist groups. At one point, he was even in correspondence with the Manson Family. In July 2020, Atomwaffen changed its name to the National Socialist Order (NSO). This was due to some dissolution within the organization as well as the arrests of its founding members. However, this change is little more than a rebranding of the same ideology.
via gunge: THE MESSED UP TRUTH OF INTERNATIONAL NEO-NAZI NETWORK, ATOMWAFFEN DIVISION
