I am in the collectibles business, so when someone at my booth at a trade show says they are into Rockwell, I can always get laughs from other customers by asking "Norman or George Lincoln?" That alone testifies to the mark that George Lincoln Rockwell and his American Nazi Party, though small in numbers, left on modern American political history.
American Fuehrer purports to be the first biography of Rockwell written by someone who is not a Rockwell supporter and overall, it is a pretty good one. Though author Frederick J Simonelli goes to frequent pains to remind the reader that he finds Rockwell's views to be loathsome, he also is careful not to fall into the trap of constant name-calling that ensnares many other authors who write about the so-called racist right.
In this book, the reader learns about Rockwell's life before he became a Nazi and a racialist and in so learning can form his own theories about why Rockwell turned to Hitler for inspiration. One also learns about the difficulties Rockwell encountered using the image of Hitler and the symbolism of the Nazis as a recruiting tool so soon after we fought them in World War II. Unlike Hitler, Rockwell found it difficult to attract anything but the rabble to his cause. Competent organizers and administrators were few and far between. But one thing is clear, Rockwell thrived on nearly universal opprobrium.
I was only twelve years old when Rockwell was assassinated but remember seeing Nazis around in San Diego and the Nazi headquarters in El Monte later when I was a teenager. I saw their pamphlets, newspapers, and even the "Diary of Ann Fink" mentioned by the author that uniformed Nazis used to leave in public places. Reading these items gave a lot of teens the same frisson of anti-establishment glee they got when reading the ubiquitous LA Free Press or the Berkeley Barb. Few of them were motivated to anything beyond snickering at their sheer audacity. But reading American Fuehrer should motivate you to see George Lincoln Rockwell, The Fuehrer Who Never Was, not just as the bit player he was always destined to be but also as a man whose ideas had far greater influence beyond the grave than they ever had in his lifetime.
- Hardcover: 206 pages
- Publisher: University of Illinois Press; 1st edition (May 20, 1999)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0252022858
- ISBN-13: 978-0252022852
- Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
- Average Customer Review: 6 customer reviews
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Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#491,841 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1535 in Political Philosophy (Books)
- #2310 in Discrimination & Racism (Books)
- #2747 in United States History (Books)
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