Gary Lauck

Gerhard Rex Lauck (born 1953) is an American neo-Nazi activist and publisher. Based in Lincoln, Nebraska, he is sometimes nicknamed the "Farm Belt Fuehrer" due to his rural origins.^[1]

Overview

Gary Lauck was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on May 12, 1953 to a German-American family.^[2] At age eleven, he moved to Lincoln, Nebraska with his family, his father becoming a professor of engineering at the University of Nebraska.^[2] Lauck skipped his senior year of high school and then attended the University of Nebraska for two years.^[2] By this point, he already held neo-Nazi beliefs. In 1978, he shot and wounded his brother Jerry after a political dispute.^[2] Eventually, Lauck moved to Chicago, where he would spend most of his adult life.^[2]

As leader of the NSDAP/AO he was in close contact with like-minded individuals and groups in Europe, notably Michael Kühnen with whom he worked closely from the 1970s.^[1] His contacts with the German neo-Nazi scene had begun in 1971 when as an 18-year-old Lauck had established the Auslandsorganisation (overseas organisation) of the National Socialist Combat Groups, a militant German neo-Nazi group that was quickly banned by the German government. Lauck's NSDAP/AO was established following this ban.^[3] A noted Germanophile, Lauck sported a toothbrush moustache and used the Nazi salute as his regular greeting, whilst even speaking with an affected German accent.^[1]

Although based in the USA, Lauck spent much of time as an activist in Europe, particularly during the early 1990s when the NSDAP/AO extended its network of contacts considerably. He produced large volumes of neo-Nazi literature in several languages and also dealt in computer discs detailing the building of bombs, both of which were distributed across a network of European contacts.^[1] In 1990 he ensured that the NSDAP/AO would link up with the Swedish neo-Nazi group Sveriges Nationella Forbund, which became instrumental in forming the "Nordic National Socialist Bloc" with like-minded activists in Norway.^[4] That same year he played a leading role in helping Kühnen, Gottfried Küssel and Christian Worch establish a network of Gesinnungsgemeinschaft der Neuen Front cells across the former East Germany following German reunification.^[5] Two years later the NSDAP/AO also concluded an agreement with the National Socialist Movement of Denmark, which up to that point had been a leading organisation within the rival World Union of National Socialists (WUNS). The change occurred after Povl Riis-Knudsen, a leading figure in WUNS, had been expelled from the Danish Nazi movement for marrying a Palestinian woman.^[4] During the early days of the Yugoslav Wars Lauck's journal New Order ran a series of articles in support of Croatia and in particular Ustaše and the magazine was instrumental in recruiting neo-Nazi linked mercenaries to fight for the Croatian cause.^[6]

Lauck was arrested in Denmark in 1995, leading to a far right campaign in the USA against plans to extradite him to Germany, where he was wanted for distributing neo-Nazi propaganda.^[7] Nevertheless, Lauck was deported to Hamburg where he was tried and found guilty of distributing neo-Nazi pamphlets. He was sentenced to four years imprisonment.^[8] He was released on March 19, 1999 and extradited back to the United States.^[9]

References