When Orange County, Calif., authorities found the body of a 19-year-old buried in a shallow grave, investigators soon connected the killing to Samuel Woodward, a former high school classmate of the victim. Upon further investigation, information surfaced that the suspect is connected with Atomwaffen, an organization of avowed fascists who worship Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson and—of course—racism.
On Jan. 2, University of Pennsylvania student Blaze Bernstein, who was Jewish and an out gay man, disappeared while he was visiting his Lake Forest, Calif., home for winter break. After an exhaustive search, police found Bernstein’s body in a nearby park covered with loose leaves and dirt.
The teen had been stabbed at least 20 times, according to the Washington Post. The investigation quickly focused on Woodward, who was communicating with Bernstein on Snapchat the night of the disappearance, and authorities eventually found DNA evidence connecting Woodward with the killing.
Pro Publica has revealed that Woodward is an avowed Nazi and a member of one of the most unrepentantly racist organizations in the country—Atomwaffen, which means “atomic weapon.” According to friends of Woodward and former members of the group, the organization is an armed fascist group dedicated to the overthrow of the U.S. government through the use of terrorism and guerrilla tactics.
According to the report, Woodward joined Atomwaffen in early 2016 and trained with the group during a three-day camp in Texas to learn about the use of firearms, hand-to-hand combat, survival skills and—one would presume—the secret Nazi handshake. (Which, I would wager, is how Donald Trump begins every Cabinet meeting.) Woodward eventually recruited members in California.
Atomwaffen was reportedly inspired by James Mason, who left the American Nazi Party in the 1970s, complaining that it was too moderate, to start the Universal Order Movement under the advice of Manson, because ... who better to take advice from than a mass murderer who has a swastika carved in his forehead? That shows commitment if nothing else. It makes my Black Lives Matter T-shirt feel very inadequate.
Mason’s writings are required reading for the group, which is slightly concerned about the “Jewish oligarchies and the globalist bankers” that have caused the “cultural and racial displacement of the white race,” according to Atomwaffen’s website. (Of course I’m not providing you with a link. Google it yourself if you’re so curious.)
Atomwaffen says it is only for radicals and has no time for “keyboard warriors.” Yes, it says this on the website. If you’re thinking that makes no sense, maybe you are forgetting that none of this makes any sense! They’re motherfucking Nazis who hang out in the woods and think they’re going to overthrow the government because white people are being oppressed!
If the name “Atomwaffen” sounds familiar to you, it might be because it sounds like some bomb-ass waffles, or it may be because you heard the name in the case of 18-year-old Brandon Russell, whom authorities questioned when two of his fellow Nazi roommates were murdered. During the investigation, officers found that Russell possessed explosive material, a framed photograph of Timothy McVeigh and a copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Russell told authorities that he had started his own group called—you guessed it—Atomwaffen.
Another teenage member of the group allegedly killed his girlfriend’s parents in Virginia after the parents found Nicholas Giampa in the room with their teenage daughter. Buckley Kuhn-Fricker, 43, and her husband, Scott Fricker, 48, were killed at their home in Reston in December after the husband and wife forbade their child to date the Hitler Youth wannabe when they found social media posts of their daughter’s 17-year-old boyfriend praising Hitler and calling for a white revolution.
The alleged murder occurred only weeks after Giampa gave the family free lawn service. Some might say the boy raised the family’s ire by mowing a 40-foot swastika in their front lawn. Those people are so ungrateful.
Giampa’s social media was littered with references to Atomwaffen, including pictures of Hitler and Giampa’s efforts to convince his mother to buy a copy of Mason’s book, The Siege.
The group’s website says that they were formed in 2013 as a revolutionary nationalist organization centered on the fascist lifestyle.
All of this raises three interesting, and maybe unrelated, questions:
- Why do white supremacists like the woods so much? And how the hell are they going to start a race war in the woods? This might sound racist, but the least likely place to find blacks and Jewish people is in the wilderness. The Atomwaffen site talks about meeting in “the woods” a lot, which leads me to believe that this whole racist, anti-Semitic front may be a cover for kinky, undercover sex meetups (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
- Why is it so hard for white people to dig graves? Their victims are always found in a “shallow grave.” Maybe the white man isn’t being oppressed after all. If you’re too lazy to dig an appropriate post-slaughter grave, it’s not our fault. Of course, they probably blame it on the Jews’ control of the shovel industry.
- What’s up with the waffle recipe?