BLOOD AND SOIL

Words by Carrie Stetler | Images by Akintola Hanif

When Lt. Jason Hiecke used to wear his National Socialist Movement uniform in public, most people didn’t notice the swastika. “They usually think I’m in the military,’’ explained Hiecke, who wore the uniform for a HYCIDE photo shoot when we met him at a Burger King near Princeton in July. Uniforms are important to the NSM—they’re facists, after all—and the party’s website gives detailed instructions on keeping them neat: “Crisp uniforms are a part of learning and discipline in the military. They help teach our members to always look professional.’’

Because Hiecke frequently gets death threats, he asked to do the HYCIDE interview in a public place, far from his South Jersey home. Hiecke is an arborist, a single dad, an ex-drug addict and a former-neo-Nazi. This month, after his interview with HYCIDE, he stepped down from the National Socialist Movement to found his own separatist white community, where a group of likeminded Caucasians will live together in a self-sustaining colony (“not a compound,’’ he emphasizes.) But he still subscribes to the NSM’s core beliefs.

The National Socialist Movement was founded in 1919 and later led by Adolf Hitler. After World War II, it was banned in Germany but continues to exist in other nations, from Croatia to Japan (where “pure blood’’ Japanese tout their supremacy). The modern-day NSM philosophy hasn’t changed much since Hitler was boss. Its goal is to create an ideal nation where “only those of pure White blood” can be citizens. Jews (the NSM denies the Holocaust occurred) and queer people aren’t welcome either. In the NSM’s straight white gentile utopia, only “citizens of the state’’ would be allowed to vote and non-white immigrants would be deported “either peaceably or by force.’’

“History shows... the White Race to be the most advanced on earth,’’ the NSM website proclaims. “For centuries people knew this simply by observation, before their natural thinking was distorted...’’ Although the NSM website reasons, “If you love your race, you must protect them from what will destroy them. Hating what will destroy them is natural and good,’’ Hiecke insists he isn’t spreading hate.

During his meeting with HYCIDE, he was calm and polite. Much of what Hiecke said sounded like the standard rhetoric of any right-wing conservative: Homosexuality destroys family values; Welfare recipients should submit to drug testing; Affirmative action violates the rights of white people. In fact, the NSM is trying to appeal to right-wingers by playing on anti-immigrant sentiment. During our interview, Hiecke also shared his views on “race-mixing,’’ establishing an NSM nation state, and recruiting new party members.

Carrie. Stetler: Why do you advocate racial purity?

Jason Hiecke: I don’t believe people should be mixing races. If we mix, then everyone would be a tan or a brown color and everyone’s going to be equal and there would be no sense of heritage. It causes problems: health issues, transplant rejections. It’s caused some friction for me. My ex-girlfriend has a sister that has a half-breed kid and I didn’t appreciate it and I certainly didn’t want to be around him. People are more concerned about the pure blood of their dogs than they are about their family members. If you look into genetics, you can’t breed another race out of your system. We’ve had one person who found out they had Jewish in their bloodline and they left the party. But if you’re going to join an organization like this, you’re going to look into that pretty thoroughly.

CS: Spokesmen for the National Socialist Movement say it isn’t racist. How do you explain that?

JH: People think the NSM is about hating everyone except White people and you just want to execute everybody. I’m not the type of person that wants to see everyone eliminated. I’m a separatist. A racist is someone who hates people based on their race. You don’t have to be non-White for me not to like you. In my lifetime, I’ve come across a number of good people who aren’t White, but we don’t hang out after work. When you talk about being a White National Socialist, you want whatever is best for the race. We’re no different than the New Black Panthers. They want what’s best for their citizens and their race.

CS: Most people think Nazis are evil incarnate. How is your movement ever going to change that perception?

JH: A lot of people are set off by the swastika. At first, I didn’t care for joining a party that has a swastika logo because of people’s associations. If you took the swastika away, our party membership would jump dramatically. But if you changed it based on popular belief, you’re changing the party itself. We’re about standing up for what we believe in. A lot of people have these beliefs and they just don’t know where to associate them.

CS: How does your membership in the NSM affect your relationships with others?

JH: Most of us in the leadership positions can separate our beliefs from our every day life. We’re National Socialists, but you have White supremacists who belong to street gangs and wear swastikas, and all they want to do is beat up minorities. That’s not what we are. I don’t talk about my beliefs at work. But everyone knows what I’m about. The company is not a completely White workplace. We have Mexicans and other people that work there and I get along with them fine.

CS: Last summer, Jeff Hall, the Southwestern regional NSM leader, was shot by his ten-year-old son, which focused attention on party members’ family lives. Are you raising your daughter to be a future NSM member?

JH: I’ve raised my child in a very loving and caring home. There’s no violence. We discuss love for our country, our race, and our citizens. We talk about respecting everyone and being kind to everybody. She’s not involved in the organization. I don’t want her to have problems because of my beliefs. That’s something I feel she should make her own decisions about when she’s older. We want our children to be safe. We want them to have the best education. But they are being forced to believe everyone is equal. Everyone is good. You should be able to get along with everybody. They’re basically dumbing down our children. Look at affirmative action, that is discrimination on the highest level against an intelligent White person. You can’t get no worse than that.

CS: How does the NSM recruit members?

JH: We have meet and greets. We do a lot of literature handouts. We go out to malls, any public place. We put them under drivers' windshields. Sometimes I give people my business card. Some people get agitated—I’ve had death threats. But some people are receptive. I get the best response when I approach someone who's having a hard time understanding someone who speaks another language. One of the biggest complaints I hear is, why can’t people speak English? A lot of white people are seeing what has happened over the past 40 years and realizing that something needs to be done, whether it’s a separation of the races or something else. You talk to people and you see how afraid they are, but they’re afraid to speak out.

CS: If the NSM was to get its own nation, how do you think that would happen?

JH: I think it will happen because of a collapse of the USA or another civil war based on race and beliefs. This would most likely separate the Nation into several smaller Nations. There have been studies about this and it shows the USA breaking into anywhere from four to eight smaller countries. It would be nice if that was to happen peaceably. But I don’t see it going down like that.