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Nazi Germany and on the flag of the German 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division. The SS lightning bolts were incorporated on SS uniforms to signify Siegrune, or Victory. The Stahlhelm helmet was used by the German military during the Third Reich, and became so closely associated with the German soldiers fighting for the Nazis that the post-­war German government stopped using it. The Iron Cross was a German military medal first used in the nineteenth century; during the Third Reich, the Nazi regime added a swastika to the traditional medal. As with the Stahlhelm helmet, given its close association with Nazism, the post–World War II German government discontinued its use. (Ironically, many Jews received the Iron Cross for their service to the Kaiser’s regime during World War I. Some assumed that this would protect them from Nazi antisemitic actions. Sadly, it did not.) The official NSM uniform includes a cloth Iron Cross badge with a swastika at the centre. This preponderance of Nazi-­related symbols is indicative of the deep-­seated ideological adherence of these groups to the Third Reich’s worldview. As some of these individuals and groups “clean up” their acts and try to make themselves more acceptable to mainstream audiences, they increasingly rely on those symbols that are only obliquely identified with Nazism. However, though the outer accoutrements might change, the inner ideology remains the same. Charlottesville, 2017 In the summer of 2017, a significant event took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, home to the University of Virginia. For the first time in American history, the far right organised a march and a rally that would bring together all the various organisations, leaders, media 62 the jewish quarterly
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outlets and others associated with it. In other words, this was not an event sponsored by one group to which others were invited. It was an attempt to bring together all these groups with their shared ideologies of racism, antisemitism and Christian nationalism and make them a potent political force. During the weekend of 11–12 August, the white supremacists who gathered in Charlottesville repeatedly expressed their admiration for Hitler. (Instead of naming Hitler, because this will get them booted from social media sites, they use the number “88”: “H” being the eighth letter in the alphabet, “88” refers to “HH”, or “Heil Hitler”.) One organiser said that if he met Hitler today, he would tell him: “Thank you for your sacrifice, and I hope we have honored you in some small way by carrying on the fight.” Another carried a banner declaring that “Hitler did nothing wrong”. The swastika was evident at Charlottesville, but with a twist. Some groups at the gathering displayed the “national flag of Kekistan”, which mimics a Nazi swastika flag. In it, the alt-­right “Kek” slogan replaces the swastika in the centre, and the red is replaced by green. This flag was also present at the January 6th insurrection. Another symbol visible at Charlottesville was tiki torches. The use of fire, and torches specifically, has long been prominent in the history of white supremacy. As Edna Friedberg, a historian at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, noted, “The Nazis were masters of propaganda who regularly used torchlight spectacles to create drama and show force …Hitler himself made repeated references to torches as symbols of national and racial revolution in his book Mein Kampf. ”  Writing about Charlottesville, she concluded: “The torches carried during a nighttime march in a university town … deliberately echo the smoke of these earlier, racist, and murderous eras.” white insurrections 63

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Nazi Germany and on the flag of the German 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division. The SS lightning bolts were incorporated on SS uniforms to signify Siegrune, or Victory. The Stahlhelm helmet was used by the German military during the Third Reich, and became so closely associated with the German soldiers fighting for the Nazis that the post-­war German government stopped using it. The Iron Cross was a German military medal first used in the nineteenth century; during the Third Reich, the Nazi regime added a swastika to the traditional medal. As with the Stahlhelm helmet, given its close association with Nazism, the post–World War II German government discontinued its use. (Ironically, many Jews received the Iron Cross for their service to the Kaiser’s regime during World War I. Some assumed that this would protect them from Nazi antisemitic actions. Sadly, it did not.) The official NSM uniform includes a cloth Iron Cross badge with a swastika at the centre.

This preponderance of Nazi-­related symbols is indicative of the deep-­seated ideological adherence of these groups to the Third Reich’s worldview. As some of these individuals and groups “clean up” their acts and try to make themselves more acceptable to mainstream audiences, they increasingly rely on those symbols that are only obliquely identified with Nazism. However, though the outer accoutrements might change, the inner ideology remains the same.

Charlottesville, 2017 In the summer of 2017, a significant event took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, home to the University of Virginia. For the first time in American history, the far right organised a march and a rally that would bring together all the various organisations, leaders, media

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