Nazis and Neo-Nazis

The term “Nazis” is generally reserved for former members of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945 under the leadership of Adolf Hitler and oversaw the Holocaust. The Allies legally abolished the party at the end of World War II; only a handful of its original members are still alive. The most-wanted Nazis still sought by the Simon Weisenthal Center, the most prominent Nazi-hunting organization, are elderly ex-guards who served in concentration camps in eastern and central Europe.

Neo-Nazis idolize Nazi Germany and adopt its symbolism. Like their namesakes, neo-Nazis espouse a virulent hatred of Jews as well as non-whites, people with disabilities, and the LGBT community. George Lincoln Rockwell’s American Nazi Party was among the most prominent organizations to take root in the United States after World War II, but had little widespread appeal. Today, hate websites like Stormfront act as a decentralized hub for neo-Nazi ideas and discussion.

Ku Klux Klan

The first Klan was founded by ex-Confederate officers in the aftermath of the Civil War. During the Reconstruction era, Klan groups intimidated and murdered black freedmen and white Republicans who sought to build a functioning multiracial democracy in the South. President Ulysses Grant and the newly founded Justice Department successfully eradicated the Klan by the mid-1870s.

The Klan’s second iteration in the 1920s and 1930s functioned as a social fraternity of sorts dedicated to preserving white supremacy. In addition to its hostility towards black civil rights, this version also incorporated anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia. Those themes would carry over to the third and modern version of the Klan, which emerged as a response to the African American civil-rights movement’s success in the 1950s and 1960s. The contemporary Klan is more of a movement than a single organized group, ranging from militant factions that support violence to figures seeking mainstream reputability like David Duke.

Neo-Confederates

A largely regionalist ideology grounded in Confederate revivalism and nostalgia for the “Old South.” According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups nationwide, neo-Confederate ideology “incorporates advocacy of traditional gender roles, is hostile towards democracy, strongly opposes homosexuality, and exhibits an understanding of race that favors segregation and suggests white supremacy.”

What separates the neo-Confederate movement from other white supremacists is its historical narrative. A cornerstone of the ideology is the “Lost Cause” mythology of the Civil War, which portrays the South as a victim of Northern aggression against states’ rights. It also favors a hostile view toward Reconstruction-era reforms towards multiracial democracy, often relying upon the Dunning School of history that overemphasized Republican corruption and elided white Southern violence.