By FOIA Research on

Gerhard Rex "Gary" Lauck (born May 12, 1953 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA) is an American neo-Nazi, anti-Semite and Holocaust denier, known as the founder and leader of the neo-Nazi NSDAP Aufbau- und Auslandsorganisation ("NSDAP Reconstruction and Foreign Organization," NSDAP/AO), an internationally connected neo-Nazi network and propaganda hub with seat in Lincoln, Nebraska. Since the 1970s, Lauck has been particularly devoted to forging ties between the U.S. and German neo-Nazi scene, notably through his collaboration with Germany's most notorious neo-Nazi at the time, Michael Kühnen (1955-1991).

For Lauck and his anti-Semitic comrades history is a never-ending race war in which Jews are the main enemy. In a documentary by Michael Schmidt Gary Lauck said reportedly the following:1

I have no objections to the Jewish people... but if they systematically are trying to exterminate my ways, I will defend my ways. If in defending my ways I have to annihilate a few of them, fine! And if it's a matter of either the last white man dying on this planet, and I have to kill the last Jew, it is bye, bye, Jew.

Early Years

Gary Lauck was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on May 12, 1953 to a German-American family. 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 a 1974 speech by Lauck held in Hamburg, he revealed the following about his early childhood3 :

My upbringing as a child was always German-national and völkisch. When I later became acquainted with the German national movement or National Socialism, I knew immediately that my upbringing and attitude were one hundred percent in accordance with it - despite huge distances, despite the lack of language, despite generations abroad, the German soul remained true to the German blood. Therein lies the tremendous power of the German nationality, feared like the plague by our opponents. This lack of language is and was certainly a great disadvantage. For, if you take away a people's language, you all too easily take away its culture and essence, and so this circumstance has also contributed to the downfall of foreign Germanism. But we have also had a great advantage: the bitter persecution for of our loyalty to Germanness and the German national sentiment has united us more firmly than ever!

1970s

In the early and mid-1970s, Lauck traveled several times to Germany to meet former members of the NSDAP, and to forge ties with the circles around Michael Kühnen (1955-1991), Germany's most famous neo-Nazi at the time, with whom he worked closely from the 1970s onward.4

In May 1972, during a visit to Germany, Lauck joined the neo-Nazi group Kampfgruppe Grossdeutschland.5 It was allegedly in Germany where Lauck founded the still existing neo-Nazi NSDAP Aufbau- und Auslandsorganisation ("NSDAP Reconstruction and Foreign Organization," NSDAP/AO) that year, which sees itself in the footsteps of the Nazi Party. As early as 1972 he had caught the attention of the German police for the possession of thousands of swastika stickers, however he managed to return to the U.S., where the NSDAP/AO established its headquarters, thus circumventing Germany's strict laws on Nazi revivalism.6

In 1973, Lauck became editor and publisher of the neo-Nazi journal NS-Kampfruf ("Nazi Battle Cry"),7 in which, among other things, assassination techniques have been detailed.8

Ever since, the NSDAP-AO has been printing and distributing Nazi propaganda worldwide, including reprints of Adolf Hitler's book Mein Kampf and the anti-Semitic propaganda film Der ewige Jude, forbidden in Germany. Besides Nazi literature, Lauck is known for shipping Nazi devotional objects worldwide via his websites, including Reich war flags, swastika flags, medals, decorations and uniform parts. In the early years, Lauck has been closely associated with Mark Weber (b. 1951), who since 1995 has been director of the California-based holocaust denial organization Institute for Historical Review.

Socialist Workers Party & R.J.G. Engineering

A 1995 dossier on Lauck by the Nebraska Public Radio reported9 :

According to corporate records on file with the Nebraska Secretary of State's office, in 1974 Lauck created the non-profit Socialist Workers Party using his German language name. The articles of incorporation state the group promotes the study of Germany by means of cooperation with other political organizations not created for propaganda purposes. State records on file reveal Lauck also controls a for-profit corporation, R.J.G. Engineering. Lauck is listed as a consultant. Both the non-profit Nazi party and the engineering firm share much in common. Both have Lauck, his mother, and a woman in Indiana listed as officers. Both list this home in south central Lincoln as their official business address.
[Lauck:] "The state of Nebraska recognizes us as a non-profit corporation. The federal government does not officially recognize us as tax-exempt. But we have to fill out the forms and we do everything totally legal which is..."
Lauck is extremely vague about the business or organizational links between his non-profit party and the engineering corporation. It's unclear just how he coordinates propaganda distribution with the small Nazi party cells spread throughout Europe.
[Lauck:] "Frankly, I don't know most of the time either 'cause if I don't have to know, I don't ask questions. We do our job. We get to a certain point, they don't ask us how did you get from point A to point B? And if they take it from point B to point C, we don't ask them well, how'd you do it, what's the names of the guys getting it? It's not necessary. It's a security risk."

In November 1974, Lauck appeared as a speaker on a NSDAP meeting in Hamburg, convened by the former Waffen-SS member and holocaust denier Thies Christopherson (1918-1997) and his Bauernschaft ("Peasantry"). Amon the attendees were also Wolf-Dieter Eckart with his "Circle of friends of the NSDAP (Freundeskreis der NSDAP) and the right-wing extremist Hans Joachim Neumann, sentenced, among other things, for gun theft, desecration of Jewish cemeteries, and arson of a left book store that year, but managed to escape to South Africa.10 A picture of the vent shows Thies Christopherson performing the Hitler salute together with other neo-Nazis. A week later, Lauck was detained and banned from Germany.11

In 1976, Lauck managed to illegally enter Germany, but was once more detained in Mainz. In July 1976, Lauck was sentenced to several months in prison, and after that returned to the U.S.

In 1978, he shot and wounded his brother Jerry after a political dispute.2 With the approval by German authorities, Lauck traveled to Germany in 1979, to appear as a defence witness for Michael Kühnen.7

In the 1980s, members of the NSDAP/AO were active in, among other things, Kühnen's "Intentional Community of the New Front" (Gesinnungsgemeinschaft der Neuen Front, GdNF) and the Committee for the Preparation of Adolf Hitler's 100th Birthday Celebration.12

Michael Kühnen (right) and Gary Lauck (left) interviewed by Michael Schmidt in the 1990s.

In addition to the founder Gary Lauck, members of the NSDAP-AO include(d) the neo-Nazis Gottfried Küssel,13 Mark Weber, Michael Kühnen, Christian Worch, Martyn Freling, Christian Malcoci and Michael Swierczek.12

1990s

In 1990, Lauck took part in a NSDAP meeting in Kollund, Denmark, hosted by Thies Christopherson. The same year 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.14 Also in 1990 he played a leading role in helping Kühnen, Gottfried Küssel and Christian Worch establish a network of GdNF cells across the former East Germany following German reunification.15

Subsequently he traveled to the new states in the former GDR, and once more in 1992, to hold meetings with members of the GdnF.

During the early days of the Yugoslav Wars (1991 to 2001) Lauck's journal New Order ran a series of articles in support of Croatia. They particularly expressed support for the Ustaše, Ante Pavelić's brutal militia that backed the Croatian Nazi puppet state, and the magazine was instrumental in recruiting neo-Nazi linked mercenaries to fight for the Croatian cause.16

In March 1995, Lauck was detained in Denmark while attending a neo-Nazi convention, and, based on an an international arrest warrant, deported to German authorities.17 In 1997, Gary Lauck was condemned in Germany to a four-year sentence for sedition and incitement to racial hatred, as well as dissemination of propaganda and symbols of unconstitutional organizations.18 During his trial, prosecutors stated that "for two decades the main supplier in Germany of Nazi and neo-Nazi literature, stickers, arm bands, banners and signs."17 On March 19, 1999, he was released from prison, after which he returned to the United States, first to Chicago, then back to Lincoln, Nebraska.19

2000s

There he continued his propaganda activities, disseminating neo-Nazi materials on the Internet. In the years to come, Lauck built up a network of neo-Nazi websites, and started to provide internet services for right-wing extremists (zensurfrei.com). Lauck registered countless forwarder addresses with names such as federalrepublicofgermany20 , kanzleramt.biz21 (Chancellery) "bundesinnenministerium.com" (Federal Ministry of the Interior) and "verfassungsschutz.org" (Germany's domestic intelligence service), names of German governmental entities. Those were then leading back to one of Lauck's main sites. However, starting in 2002, the German government intervened, and Lauck had to refrain from using official names,22 which does not prevent him from running websites with names from the Nazi era.

2020s

As of 2021, the website nsdap.info (formerly http://www.nazi-lauck-nsdapao.com), with an address pointing to a postbox in Lincoln, Nebraska, is still online. It still publishes the German-language NS-Kampfruf, its English equivalent The New Order, as well as less frequent editions in other languages. In the early 2000s, Lauck also ran an internet radio station called Nazi Radio Wolfsschanze, some of whose shows were moderated by Adolf Eichmann Jr., the son of the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.23 24

The Renegade Tribune offers a platform for all sorts of anti-Semites, White supremacists, and neo-Nazis who can register as authors and contribute articles.25 Furthermore, in 2021 a German-language portal, the Voelkischer Beobachter, emerged, named after the Nazi Party's main organ, which publishes racist and anti-Semitic news articles geared at a German audience.26

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