Why I Don’t Identify as a National Socialist

Andrew Anglin
Daily Stormer
August 5, 2017

On Tuesday, I published a satirical article mocking feminists who claim that National Socialism was feminist and that it was based off of pre-Christian Germanic paganism. Early Wednesday morning, someone claiming to be a TRUE NATIONAL SOCIALIST and going by the name of Wolfhelm Odinrider emailed me an article, telling me I had to publish it to “set the record straight.” I did that.

The first one had caused such emotional duress that I decided to go two for two. Not to reveal too much about he inner workings of my mind, but generally, when an article hits a nerve and causes drama, my instinct is to always push that point as hard as I can. Because my belief is that we need to be able to talk and joke about everything – that this is strength. So triggering people is like a physical therapy process.

“Nazi Feminists” male and female are still triggerable, but it turns out they are especially sensitive to having the foundations of their goofy ideology viciously mocked. Presumably, they know how dumb the whole thing is.

Beyond that, the articles also attacked more generally people who don’t view what we are engaged in as a political movement with real end goals. Instead they view it as fashion, or as a hobby, a game they are playing. It’s something that makes them feel special and important and different. It’s very similar to the way people, when I was in high school, dressed up in “gothic” clothing and listened to Marilyn Manson and acted like they were both different and superior to everyone else, when in actual fact they were just unattractive and/or socially awkward.

And hey, if it triggered people who didn’t understand all of that, then I don’t care and in fact think it is positive as well.

This whiny “how dare you??” stuff that goes on on the internet in right-wing circles has to end. It is too gay, and it represents a very serious type of personal weakness, which we need to be cleansed of. It needs to be made clear that it is not acceptable for people on the right to run around like sissies screaming about how someone hurt their feelings.

I do understand, however, that some of this is esoteric, which led to the confusion of innocent readers, which is why I’m explaining it here now.

This is all stuff we need to work through as a movement, because the people playing games are not helping the movement. In fact, if we continue to take them seriously, we risk allowing this whole thing to turn into a massive joke, as sadly happened to the old White Nationalist movement.

Why I Don’t Call Myself a “National Socialist”

As the satire was focused on edgy people who refer to themselves as “true National Socialists,” I think it would be worthwhile for me to explain why I don’t refer to myself that way.

Please note – and there is nuance here, so you’re going to have to work with me – that I am going to explain why I don’t refer to myself as NS in a political context. That is different than an ideological or philosophical context. In a philosophical context, I might consider myself as a National Socialist, but would probably be more likely to use the term “Esoteric Hitlerist.” But I would use that for myself as a person, which is only slightly relevant to the work I do on this site.

I have clearly defined goals, and everything that I do is to forward these goals. Some things work and some things do not, but I reevaluate and reflect constantly on what is working and what isn’t based on data.

On this site I would consider myself a troll, a political commentator and a journalist. I align politically with the Alt-Right movement, as it is a vehicle for me to accomplish my goals. My goals revolve around evangelizing for a certain way of thinking, which is pro-White, pro-patriarchy and pro-tradition. The most efficient way that I have found to promote these ideals is by attacking – often through mockery – everything that is in opposition to these ideals.

Note that the imagery of the NSDAP is something different than the political system, in that it is iconic and it seems to speak to a deep part of White Men’s souls. I believed that this imagery is both inspiring and triggering, and my testing data has backed up this belief, so I have continued to rely on it heavily.

I will just go ahead and list the basic reasons why I choose not to use the term “National Socialist” to define my political ideology, all of which relate to the terms lack of utility.

1.) Respect

National Socialism is an historical institution that was run by Adolf Hitler and which no longer exists.

I feel that appropriating that term to refer to myself or a movement that I am a member of would degrade the term and the history associated with it.

I think it is difficult for others to respect something which is clearly not in line with the historical nature of National Socialism – they were not meming frogs and mocking women and blacks in an absurd, comical fashion, and instead took a much more serious tone – and yet calls itself that. I do not think the culture that we live in is one where a movement which takes itself very serious can possibly thrive, so I shouldn’t take on a label of an historical movement that existed in a different time period, when that was an efficient way of marketing ideas.

2.) Historical Context

In a very practical sense, the term is not useful given the modern definition of the word “socialism.” That word is currently associated with a whole lot of baggage, almost all of it negative, and absolutely all of it leftist, and trying to work against modern language, rather than using modern language, is clearly a silly waste of time.

Hitler himself said that he chose the word “Socialism” because of how popular it was at the time. He then redefined the word to mean what he wanted it to mean.

The only reason I can think of to try and force meme “socialism” as a term that means what it meant during the Third Reich would be pure edginess. Or perhaps non-utilitarian devotion to an ideal, for which you are willing to sacrifice efficiency.

I am entirely opposed to edginess for the sake of edginess, and instead embrace utilitarian solutions to real problems. By trying to redefine a word, you are creating for yourself yet another challenge. We have enough challenges already.

3.) Freshness

Publicly aligning ourselves to an old and extinct political movement is not forward thinking, and it isn’t fresh. If we had a Hitler clone, he would be against the idea of trying to reboot a dead political movement.

Obviously, most or all of what Hitler and his companions said I agree with, and I believe that any new political system should draw from the knowledge and experience of that era. However, that in no way implies a need to use the name.

Hitler drew on historical influences in forming his own system, and we need to approach our own struggle in the same way.

4.) Hitler is Dead

National Socialism was Hitler’s personal project. He died before it was completed. There was never a fully coherent political doctrine which can just be implemented.

People seem to have an idea this was all a lot smoother than it actually was. Hitler only ruled for 6 years before the war started, and there was never a stable political structure.

For instance, the Reichstag – the German parliament – existed throughout his 12 year reign. He simply acted with executive authority given a state of emergency, after the Reichstag building was burned down by a communist and he passed the Enabling Act, in march of 1933 – two months after he was installed as Chancellor.

Mein Kampf is not a political doctrine so much as a book of philosophy. And National Socialism was also much more of a philosophy than a political doctrine. Hitler’s power grab was through divine providence, but in real terms it was through the man exploiting opportunities in a very practical manner.

I think he would have worked NS into a system that could have been repeated and implemented as a political system, if he’d been given the time, but that just didn’t ever happen. Instead, it functioned as a security state military dictatorship ruling over a rejected “socialist republic,” through the force of Hitler’s charisma, will and vision.

This isn’t something that you can just set up as a governmental system, in the way that the US unpacks “democracy” across the planet, or the way Spain set up colonial governments, or the way Europeans set up monarchies, or the way Moslems set up a caliphate.

“National Socialism” as a political system included a lot of duct tape.

5.) Succession

The most glaring problem that was not solved under Hitler was the problem of succession. And that is very, very important for any authoritarian political system.

NS was a Hitler personality cult, when it comes right down to it, and if we imagine a universe where the war never happened, he still had serious health problems and would not have made it to 65.

I have no idea what would have happened in that situation. I assume he would have worked it out where power was transferred to more than one person. Having the kind of power that Hitler had in the hands of one person who was not Hitler would not have been something that Hitler would have felt comfortable with. Maybe he could have handpicked a successor (he sort of did with Rudolph Hess), but then to allow Hess to pick a successor, for his successor to pick a successor, and so on and so forth through generations would be seen as nonviable. It takes a very special type of man to efficiently wield that kind of power. Not even kings had that level of power during the feudal age; there were checks and balances.

This is All Known

Anyone who understands the way politics work and knows the history of the Third Reich at all knows what I have just said is true.

Again – this does bear repeating – there is a philosophy about what a state should be in a moral, social and ideological sense that is called “National Socialism” which exists and which I believe should be consulted. If people want to label themselves National Socialists in the philosophical sense, then I see no problem with that.

What I have a problem with is talking about how we “need a National Socialist country” – because I don’t know what that means and I don’t think anyone saying it does either, unless they’re talking about cloning Hitler and putting him in charge of America (which I would support, for the record).

All of this leads me to my point: these people claiming we “need a National Socialist state” are either severely uninformed and confused or are purposefully trying to create confusion.

LARPer Among Us

I actually want a revolution. That is my goal. I don’t have any other goals.

It should be understood, however, that there are people who are attaching themselves onto our political movement – either directly or in the periphery – who do not have the goal of revolution. They have goals which are entirely personal, mainly revolving around making themselves feel important and snowflake special.

“LARP” stands for “Live Action Role Playing.” It is a reference to people who played Dungeons and Dragons in real life. They would dress up like fantasy characters and walk around. It was a big thing in the 70s, and people still engage in it now. Or so I’ve been told.

This metaphor applies to those who want to use this movement for personal reasons, rather than the goal of actual political and social revolution.

That is the kind of people I see running around talking about “True National Socialism.”

These people will disingenuously claim that the Alt-Right is not hardcore enough for them, that they are the most hardcore in the world and they would never lower themselves to being a part of a popular movement.

Instead, they want to spend their time attacking people who are having real success at changing the narrative by claiming that those people are not hardcore enough.

And it is all completely disingenuous. They will continually make claims like “the Alt-Right accepts homosexuals.” If pressed to give examples, they will say MILO, who was the opposite of the Alt-Right – he was an enemy of the movement who came in and tried to destroy it by stealing our brand and making it a vehicle for his own edgy fame-mongering.

Most of these people are also feminists, male or female. This is to be expected, as using the space of men who are trying to throw a revolution to do a role-playing game and try to leech off of our energy in order to propel their own self image is a very feminine activity.

That is where the whole “pagan” thing intersects with all of this. There is a 1500 year history of Christian civilization, and that ties back to Ancient Rome and Greece before that, and none of them had feminism.

However, modern new age writers and the TV show “Vikings” have created a fantasy surrounding Germanic paganism: that somehow these were cultures where women were equal to men.

This obviously isn’t true, but new age writers have engaged in a complex manipulation of history in order to create things like “shield maidens” and the idea that men consulted women on political matters and even war.

They then tie that back to National Socialism, claiming that this was a pagan system, even while Hitler was a practicing catholic and the majority of party members were Christians.

It is fair enough to say that many in he Party were non-Christian, but I don’t think a single one was anything close to the neo-pagan ideas which are now being spread on the internet, which is some kind of literal resurrection of pre-civilized ancestor worship.

Alfred Rosenberg, by far the most vocal non-Christian in the party, was not a “pagan” but instead wanted to create an entirely new religion, which he described as “A religion of blood.” You can read about this in his book “The Myth of the 20th Century.”

This is very interesting, but I do not feel that it is at this time useful politically.

The other prominent non-Christian, Heinrich Himmler, created a doctrine that did indeed rely on elements of Germanic paganism, but his goal was to create a special occult doctrine for the SS, modeled after the Society of Jesus. It didn’t ever actually happen. This, also, has no utility right now for us where we are.

The more general party link was the Thule society, which like Himmler’s cult was an occult doctrine, rather than an actual attempt at neo-paganism, which used Germanic paganism as a template for the esoteric theology.

Hitler himself rejected the Thule society, viewing the pagan aspects as politically useless in Christian Germany and also was uninterested for equally practical reasons in the exultation of the individual that they and all other occult systems tend to obsess over.

All of this is to say that the “paganism” of the Third Reich is exaggerated and perhaps virtually non-existent (the real non-Christian doctrines being those of Rosenberg), and is simply being used by the LARPers as a way to attach feminism to National Socialism.

So as not to trigger anyone unnecessarily in an essay where my goal is to try and speak clearly rather than to prod, I personally do not have any use for trying to resurrect a dead religion, but I’m not especially bothered if someone feels compelled to do that. My view currently is that politics need to remain totally separate from religion, and that this should be strictly enforced.

I should give the same caveat for people who do choose to identify as National Socialist in a political sense, but do not fit the definitions I’ve laid out here. In particular, European political parties in countries that have an actual history attached to the movement may think it makes sense to use this term. These countries also have a different relationship with the term “socialism” than we do in America. So I am fine with that, and don’t want them to feel like I’ve targeted them with this biting satire.

The Future

We will be making political parties. Or perhaps we will be taking over existing ones.

The future that we want is one which looks very much like the future that was envisioned by Adolf Hitler. However, we need to come at this from a practical angle. That is to say, we need to figure out what the most efficient way to accomplish our goals is, and do that, rather than do some kind of weird thing where we try to signal how hardcore we are to others on the internet. The latter is baby nonsense, which has no place in a serious political movement.

I care about results, period. I don’t care about being edgy for the sake of edginess and I don’t care about signaling how hardcore I am.

Hitler himself wrote this in Mein Kampf:

What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and reproduction of our race and our people, the sustenance of our children and the purity of our blood, the freedom and independence of the fatherland, so that our people may mature for the fulfillment of the mission allotted it by the creator of the universe. Every thought and every idea, every doctrine and all knowledge, must serve this purpose. And everything must be examined from this point of view and used or rejected according to its utility.

There are people who do not want to reject things based on their lack of utility, for whatever reason. They may be because they are playing a game, or they may simply genuinely believe that “principles” are more important than getting things done. I don’t know, or care, and it is really none of my business. I simply want nothing to do with that type of thinking.

There are many things which have no utility.

Some examples:

1. Trying to force meme various religious ideologies. This has been a disaster, from the start. Whether it is some version of Christianity, neo-paganism or some other doctrine, it is now clear that none of these things have been productive or useful to the cause. People should be allowed to hold whatever religious views they wish, but this political movement is not the place to promote them, or to try and force them on others.
2. Talking about how hardcore you are, trying to prove how hardcore you are, making being hardcore (rhetorically) a virtue. This turns off normal people and even turns me off. It is try-hardy and uncool. Talking constantly about “degeneracy” and “race-mixers” and engaging in bridge club type old lady gossip creates a climate of bitterness and obsession, and this projects not only a lack of a fun atmosphere that people want to be a part of, but also unseriousness. We know what we believe as far as what the world should look like, I think we all agree on it, and we advocate for that. We should not be caught up in virtue signaling.
3. Attempting to force-meme elements of 1920s revolutionary groups in a modern setting. In particular, I see no reason whatsoever to talk about “workers” or “capitalism” or “socialism” or economics at all for that matter, as these are not issues that our target audience presently feels any connection to. The economic issues of the modern era are in fact social issues, given the developments which have been made in the last decades with regards to mechanisms of production. The issues that our target audience deals with now are under-employment and unemployment, while living on state handouts, which leads to a lack of meaning in men’s lives. More than that, perhaps, men struggle with women. They want to have families, and that is being denied them. Moreover, men have a need to possess power or be in its proximity by being a part of a system that is powerful. These are real issues that our target audience deals with in their everyday lives, and these are the issues we should be focusing on.
4. Attacking our own people. This is, to me, completely insane, and it is something that should be straightforward for everyone. We have an open market here on the internet, where people can produce as much as they are able to produce, at as high of a quality as they are able to manage. If someone does not like what someone else is doing, they can state their reasons for that in a polite fashion, if they believe it is necessary, or they can simply work on their own projects. What I see is a lot of people who are incapable of producing anything of value, who instead attack others in order to bring attention to themselves. This is horrible. Because these people will always exist – I have a feeling that most of them are being (((managed))) – we should be able to establish a rule that they should be ignored, rather than engaged.
5. Involving women on any level, at all, on the political side of the movement. We have had zero success with this. It has been tried. All women have done has cause problems. And no, it doesn’t “bring people into the movement.” No matter how hot a girl is, no man with even a little bit of masculinity or self-respect is going to be swayed in his political or ideological convictions by a woman. What does work is being sexy, and attracting women. Creating a movement that women are attracted to, so you have groupies. That is good. Bringing women in as speakers, writers, podcasters, whatever, simply makes us look like a joke and causes endless drama.

There are many other examples of things that have been tried which have been proven to have no utility but which people continue to try and push anyway. I think this needs to stop. Soon, I am going to write up a history of previous White Nationalist movements, where many different things were tried, and most of them did not work. I think we need to look hard at that, and learn from it.

Overall, the way forward is simply to do what works and to not do what doesn’t work.

The satirical pieces I published were intended to highlight the absurdity of some of those people who insist on pushing things that we know do not work.

It is time that we stopped taking these people seriously, and stopped trying to engage them at all. It isn’t helping, and it won’t help. With the internet, people are able to demonstrate their utility. We need to work with people who have demonstrated their utility and who are bringing something to the table. If they are not bringing anything to the table, even if they are nice people, we need to let them go and do their own thing.

We do not have time to play games.

We are in a war.

And it is a war that I intend to win.

Hail Victory.