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Matthew Heimbach

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Matthew Heimbach
Heimbach in 2015
Born
Matthew Warren Heimbach

(1991-04-08) April 8, 1991 (age 33)
Poolesville, Maryland, U.S.
EducationTowson University
Known for
White Student Union

Matthew Warren Heimbach (born April 8, 1991) is an American white supremacist and neo-Nazi. He has attempted to form alliances between several far-right extremist groups.[1]

In May 2013, Heimbach and Matthew Parrott founded the Traditionalist Youth Network, which later morphed into the Traditionalist Worker Party (TWP), which ceased operation in March 2018. In 2018, Heimbach briefly served as community outreach director for the National Socialist Movement (NSM).[2] In early 2020, Heimbach and Parrott once again began collaborating on projects such as the Global Minority Initiative, a "prisoner aid organization",[3] and they publicly discussed a relaunching of the Traditionalist Worker Party.[4]

On March 13, 2018, Heimbach was arrested in Paoli, Indiana, on charges of domestic battery arising from a domestic dispute. Before his arrest, Heimbach had assembled a community of neo-Nazis and anti-Jewish conspiracy theorists in a Paoli, Indiana trailer park.[5] Heimbach was considered the leader of this community, and he had received media attention for his role in this regard, but he lost credibility following his arrest in 2018.[5]

Heimbach is a defendant in the Sines v. Kessler lawsuit which was filed by Integrity First for America, the lawsuit claims that he and other organizers of the 2017 Unite the Right white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, "planned and promoted violence against [a] protected group."[6][7]

In 2016, in response to his racist beliefs and his violent actions, Heimbach was excommunicated from the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Early life, education, and family

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Heimbach was born in Poolesville, Maryland.[8] Heimbach's parents, Karl and Margaret Heimbach, are public school teachers whose political affiliation he describes as Mitt Romney-style Republicans. Heimbach says his views on race and immigration were formed early on by the writings of Pat Buchanan, especially his book The Death of the West, and particularly Buchanan's paleoconservative writing in American Renaissance. As early as his entrance to college, Towson University, he had begun to take in the writings of Jared Taylor, a self-described "race realist".[8]

Heimbach met his former wife Brooke at an American Renaissance conference.[8][9]

Ideology

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The Southern Poverty Law Center has commented that Heimbach is "considered by many to be the face of a new generation of white nationalists."[10] According to the Counter Extremism Project, "Heimbach's platform is based around the idea that the white race has been disadvantaged because of globalism and multiculturalism, which he has largely blamed on a global Jewish conspiracy. Heimbach claims that white unity is necessary because the Jews hate all white people equally."[11] To promote his anti-Semitism, Heimbach publicly supported terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad writing that there should be "a unity between those who struggle against the Zionist State and International Jewry here in the West and those on the streets of Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon. We face the exact same enemy, one who doesn't care if they kill our women, children, and elderly. We are facing a truly Satanic enemy."[12]

Heimbach has forged ties with nationalist groups from other countries, like Greece's far-right nationalist party Golden Dawn.[8] As the leader of the Traditionalist Worker Party, Heimbach visited European far-right organizations in Germany, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Romania, and Russia. The Russian Imperial Movement, an organization that was declared a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States Department of State in 2020,[13] had extensive ties with Heimbach. Meetings between the Russian Imperial Movement and the Traditionalist Worker Party were called "the first time that we had a meeting on the U.S. soil of the American white nationalists and then the members of the Russian far right nationalist community." The United Kingdom government banned Heimbach from entering the country in October 2015 because his extremist rhetoric could incite violence.[11][14] Heimbach has also voiced support for the North Korean government.[15]

Heimbach called for the dissolution of the United States of America under the pretense of supporting self-determination for different ethnic and religious communities, going so far as to declare "Death to America."[16] He stated that Americans should "stop fighting a culture war. Just declare both sides victors, and in your respective region, do what you think is best."[17]

In 2014, Heimbach was photographed at a SlutWalk protest brandishing an Orthodox cross as a weapon against anti-racist protestors.[18][19] In 2016, Heimbach was formally received into the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. Following online circulation of the photos, Heimbach was excommunicated from the Church several weeks later.[18][20] Following his excommunication, Heimbach received communion from a sympathetic noncanonical Romanian church.[18]

Avowed anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism differentiated Heimbach and the Traditionalist Worker Party from many other American far-right groups. Heimbach stated that "For us, to be truly anti-capitalist is to be a nationalist. Nationalism is a bulwark against capitalist exploitation and globalism."[21] Heimbach identified at the time as a Strasserist.[22]

In April 2020, Heimbach published an open letter saying he was "pulling back" from the white nationalist movement. He has since clarified that his beliefs have not moderated, and has launched a website to fundraise for White nationalist and “National Socialist” prisoners.[23][24] In July 2021, Heimbach announced his intention to reform the Traditionalist Worker Party along National Bolshevik lines.[25]

As of 2023 he is a member of a group known as the Patriotic Socialist Front. Heimbach and the Patriotic Socialist Front appeared during the Rage Against the War Machine rally with a Soviet flag.[26][27]

Far-right involvement

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The Traditionalist Youth Network (TYN) was established in May 2013 by Matthew Heimbach with Matt Parrott as an offshoot of a "White Student Union" which was active on the Towson University campus.[28]

In January 2015, the TYN established the Traditionalist Worker Party (TWP) as its political party prior to the 2016 elections, and a small group of candidates from the far-right ran under its banner.[29] The party stated that it stood against "economic exploitation, federal tyranny, and anti-Christian degeneracy".[29] The Traditionalist Worker Party promoted itself as being a working-class and "left-leaning" neo-Nazi organization more akin to the original Sturmabteilung than more common far-right ideological beliefs of most post-war white supremacists. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist groups, designated the Traditionalist Worker Party as a hate group. The group went dormant in March 2018 following Heimbach's arrest but has begun a relaunch as of July 2021.[1][5]

Following the model of other white supremacists such as George Lincoln Rockwell and Richard B. Spencer,[30] Heimbach organized speaking engagements at American universities,[31] causing mass protests by both students[32] and community members. Heimbach is alleged to have met with Republican Party strategists and operatives in January 2017 during the inauguration of Donald Trump.[33]

On January 8, 2021, Chicago's NPR radio station WBEZ reported that Heimbach had participated in an attempted coup at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. The caption to WBEZ's photo of insurrectionists confronting U.S. Capitol Police outside the Senate chamber identified "Neo-Nazi Matthew Heimbach (second from left wearing a blue mask)."[34] However, WBEZ later amended its story with an editor's note including Heimbach's denial and his assertion that he was in Tennessee with his family on January 6. In its update, WBEZ removed Heimbach's name from their photo caption.[35] Also on January 8, Fox News identified Heimbach as having been "captured posing for photographs" during the January 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol.[36] Fox News subsequently deleted that story[37] and ran another by the same reporter, stating that "social media posts" had suggested Heimbach "took part in Wednesday's storming of the U.S. Capitol," but not mentioning Fox's own, withdrawn article to that effect.[38] On January 8, Mashable reported that "there is no proof that Heimbach was at the Capitol" on January 6.[39] Brian McCreary, a resident of Massachusetts, was arrested in February 2021 for his participation in the January 6th protest and was identified by police as the individual who had previously been mistaken for Heimbach.[40]

Lawsuits and criminal convictions

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In July 2017, Heimbach pleaded guilty to second-degree disorderly conduct for an incident when he repeatedly pushed an anti-Trump protester at a Donald Trump campaign rally in Louisville, Kentucky.[41] He received a suspended prison sentence, a fine, and an order to attend anger management classes.[42] In 2018, Heimbach was sentenced to 38 days in the Louisville jail for violating the terms of his probation.[42][41]

Sines v. Kessler lawsuit

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See also: Sines v. Kessler

In October 2017, Heimbach was listed as a defendant in Sines v. Kessler, the federal civil lawsuit against various organizers, promoters, and participants of the 2017 Unite the Right rally. The trial began on October 25, 2021, and the jury reached a verdict on November 23.[43][44] Heimbach and all other defendants were found liable for civil conspiracy under Virginia state law, and ordered to pay $500,000 in punitive damages. The jury were deadlocked on the two other claims pertaining to Heimbach, which argued he and other defendants had engaged in a federal conspiracy to commit racially-motivated violence.[45]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Days after guilty plea, Matthew Heimbach re-emerges in new alliance with National Socialist Movement". Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on May 15, 2020. Retrieved July 20, 2019.
  2. ^ "Neo-Nazi group's new leader is a black man who vows to dissolve it". NBC News. Associated Press. February 28, 2019. Retrieved January 7, 2021.
  3. ^ Hay, Mark (March 13, 2021). "The Twisted Group Focused on Making Nazis Comfy in Prison". The Daily Beast. Retrieved July 13, 2021.
  4. ^ Radio Free Indiana - 2021-01-08, retrieved July 13, 2021
  5. ^ a b c Michel, Casey (May 16, 2018). "Following affair with mother-in-law, white supremacist heads to jail". ThinkProgress.org. ThinkProgress. Archived from the original on March 2, 2020. Retrieved May 16, 2018.
  6. ^ Progress, Tyler Hammel The (Charlottesville) Daily (July 15, 2019). "Defendant files another motion to be dismissed from rally lawsuit". Roanoke Times. Archived from the original on July 21, 2019. Retrieved July 21, 2019.
  7. ^ Eligon, John (April 4, 2020). "He Says His Nazi Days Are Over. Do You Believe Him?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 11, 2020. Retrieved April 4, 2020.
  8. ^ a b c d "The Neo-Nazi Has No Clothes: In Search Of Matt Heimbach's Bogus 'White Ethnostate'". HuffPost. February 2, 2018. Archived from the original on April 20, 2020. Retrieved July 21, 2019.
  9. ^ "After family fiasco, TWP's Matthew Heimbach may spend summer in jail". Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on April 13, 2020. Retrieved July 21, 2019.
  10. ^ "Matthew Heimbach". Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on April 14, 2020. Retrieved March 22, 2020.
  11. ^ a b "Matthew Heimbach". Counter Extremism Project. October 30, 2018. Archived from the original on December 29, 2019. Retrieved July 21, 2019.
  12. ^ "Matthew Heimbach Marks Return With Vicious Anti-Semitic Essay". Anti-Defamation League. Archived from the original on July 13, 2021. Retrieved July 13, 2021.
  13. ^ Donati, Jessica (April 6, 2020). "U.S. Labels Russian White Supremacist Group as Global Terrorist". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved July 13, 2021.
  14. ^ Elgot, Jessica (November 4, 2015). "Theresa May bans US segregationist from UK for 'neo-Nazi' remarks". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on April 26, 2020. Retrieved July 21, 2019.
  15. ^ "Alt-Reich: North Korea and the Far Right". thediplomat.com. Retrieved July 28, 2024.
  16. ^ "Heimbach Flusters Movement Elite With Calls For 'Death To America'". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved July 13, 2021.
  17. ^ "I had lunch with a right-wing white nationalist group. Here's what I learned". Los Angeles Times. July 24, 2016. Retrieved July 13, 2021.
  18. ^ a b c Kelaidis, Katherine (November 30, 2016). "How Orthodox Christianity Became the Spiritual Home of White Nationalism". Religion Dispatches. Archived from the original on November 8, 2020. Retrieved December 1, 2020.
  19. ^ Phillips, Jon (Winter 2014). "East of Eden". Intelligence Report. Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved July 24, 2021.
  20. ^ Kelaidis, Katherine (August 18, 2017). "White Supremacy and Orthodox Christianity". Orthodox Christian Laity. Archived from the original on January 7, 2021. Retrieved December 1, 2020.
  21. ^ Bavis, Lauren. "White nationalist group seeks to form separate community in Paoli". The Hoosier Times. Archived from the original on November 18, 2020. Retrieved July 13, 2021.
  22. ^ Fischer, Ford. "Matthew Heimbach Expelled From National Socialist Movement, Source Says". Archived from the original on November 10, 2019. Retrieved July 28, 2019.
  23. ^ Burley, Shane (May 11, 2022). "Can You Ever Trust a Former White Nationalist?". Political Research Associates. Archived from the original on January 6, 2021. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
  24. ^ Kelly, Megan; Decook, J. (April 2022). "Not So Reformed". Political Research Associates. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
  25. ^ Greenblatt, Mark; Knapp, Lauren (July 20, 2021). "Extremist Heimbach To Relaunch Hate Group, Says He Supports Violence". Newsy.
  26. ^ Fischer, Ford (February 20, 2023). "Matthew Heimbach shows up at "Rage Against the War Machine" rally in DC with Soviet Flag". Youtube. Retrieved December 22, 2023.
  27. ^ "Neo-Nazis Who Organized Deadly 'Unite the Right' Rally Claim They're In "Communication" with 'Anti-War' Protest Leaders in DC". It's Going Down. February 19, 2023. Retrieved June 26, 2023.
  28. ^ Traditionalist Youth Network Archived January 19, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, Anti-Defamation League (February 7, 2014).
  29. ^ a b Keegan Hankes, Meet the New Wave of Extremists Gearing Up for the 2016 Elections Archived July 21, 2019, at the Wayback Machine, Southern Poverty Law Center (October 19, 2015).
  30. ^ "Richard Spencer speech at Florida campus sparks mass protest". BBC News. October 20, 2017. Retrieved July 13, 2021.
  31. ^ Crocker, Rachel Ohm and Brittany. "White nationalist talk at UT draws about 45 and 250 protesters for peaceful event". Knoxville News Sentinel. Retrieved July 13, 2021.
  32. ^ "Department of Sociology | The University of Tennessee, Knoxville". sociology.utk.edu. Retrieved July 13, 2021.[permanent dead link]
  33. ^ Tenold, Vegas (January 23, 2017). "When the White Nationalists Came to Washington". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved July 13, 2021.
  34. ^ Yousef, Odette (January 8, 2021). "The Bizarre Outfits At The Capitol Weren't Just Costumes. They Were A Message". WBEZ. Archived from the original on January 9, 2021. Retrieved January 9, 2021.
  35. ^ Yousef, Odette (January 8, 2021). "The Bizarre Outfits At The Capitol Weren't Just Costumes. They Were A Message". WBEZ. Archived from the original on January 10, 2021. Retrieved January 9, 2021.
  36. ^ Musto, Julia (January 8, 2021). "Indiana white nationalist at Capitol riot identified in photos". Fox News. Archived from the original on January 8, 2021. Retrieved January 9, 2021.
  37. ^ Musto, Julia (January 8, 2021). "Indiana white nationalist at Capitol riot identified in photos". Fox News. Retrieved January 8, 2021.
  38. ^ Musto, Julia (January 8, 2021). "Man decries social-media posts linking him to Capitol protests". Fox News. Retrieved January 9, 2021.
  39. ^ Binder, Matt (January 8, 2021). "Internet sleuths misidentified some of the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol". Mashable. Retrieved January 9, 2021.
  40. ^ "Man In Blue Mask Arrested In Capitol Coup Attempt Is Not Man WBEZ Previously Id'd". WBEZ Chicago. February 13, 2021. Retrieved July 13, 2021.
  41. ^ a b "White nationalist who shoved woman at Trump rally released from jail". The Courier-Journal. Archived from the original on January 7, 2021. Retrieved July 23, 2019.
  42. ^ a b "What we know about Matthew Heimbach, Indiana white nationalist who helped promote Charlottesville". Indianapolis Star. Archived from the original on April 8, 2020. Retrieved July 21, 2019.
  43. ^ Lavoie, Denise (October 25, 2021). "'Unite the Right' rally's planners accused in civil trial". AP News. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  44. ^ Paul, Deanna (November 23, 2021). "Charlottesville Trial Verdict: Jury Finds Prominent White Supremacist Leaders Liable". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved November 23, 2021.
  45. ^ Weill, Kelly (November 23, 2021). "'Unite the Right' Trial Ends With White Supremacists Paying Millions for Violence". The Daily Beast. Retrieved November 23, 2021.
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