A former teacher of James Alex Fields, Jr., the man accused of ramming a car into a group of protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Sunday said Fields had a “fascination with Nazism.”

“It was obvious that he had this fascination with Nazism and a big idolatry of Adolf Hitler,” Derek Weimer, who said he taught Fields history in high school, told the Washington Post on Sunday.

Weimer told the Washington Post that Fields conducted a research project into the Nazi military during World War II which he described as a “big lovefest for the German military and the Waffen-SS.”

“He had white supremacist views,” Weimer said. “He really believed in that stuff.”

Fields was charged with second-degree murder and other counts on Saturday after a car plowed into protesters at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville. A 32-year-old woman was killed in the car attack and dozens of people were injured.