“I left Brown University to go fight Hitler. They told me he was out to conquer the world. But really happened, is I went out to help murder millions of my fellow white, Christian, anti-communist German Brothers, in order to save a criminal gang of atheist, murderous bolsheviks.”
-George Lincoln Rockwell https://blossom.primal.net/8e284cb720e0740e3468d216e2a702d294b37954c1b3ad4128567082a178243a.mp4
George Lincoln Rockwell's shift from WWII Navy veteran to neo-Nazi leader stemmed from a mix of personal frustrations, isolation, and immersion in antisemitic propaganda during the early 1950s. [1][2]
## Early Life and Military Service
Rockwell grew up in a vaudeville family, attended Brown University briefly for philosophy in 1938, but dropped out to join the Navy as a pilot, serving in both European and Pacific theaters during WWII and later in Korea. [1][3] Postwar, he pursued art at Pratt Institute, started an advertising business in Maine, married, and initially held mainstream conservative views focused on anti-communism. [1]
## Path to Radicalization
Financial struggles from business failures and a failing marriage in the early 1950s left Rockwell isolated, prompting him to read Adolf Hitler's *Mein Kampf* in 1951, which he called an "epiphany" that "bathed the gray world in clear light." [1][2] He followed with the forged antisemitic *Protocols of the Elders of Zion*, embracing conspiracy theories of a Jewish-Bolshevik plot behind communism and WWII, reframing his service as a betrayal of "white brothers." [1][4]
## Broader Influences
Influenced by McCarthyism's anti-communist fervor, Rockwell viewed Jews as orchestrating global threats and saw Nazis as true patriots; isolated Navy postings in Iceland amplified his exposure to such texts. [4][2] By 1959, this culminated in founding the American Nazi Party, blending Holocaust denial, white supremacy, and publicity stunts to spread his ideology. [1][4]
