Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 2026, Vol. 49, No. 1, 4-24

https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2023.2195061

Siege: “Sheer Political Terror”

Bethan Johnsona and Matthew Feldmanb

a Belfer Center, Kennedy School, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

b Norwegian Studies Centre, University of York, York, North Yorkshire, England

Abstract

This article examines James Mason’s publication Siege, perhaps the most important text for neo-Nazis worldwide today. Taking a deep dive into the contents and various editions of this text, Johnson and Feldman treat Siege thematically, moving from vehement antisemitism and anti-black racism to Mason’s revolutionary doctrines and advocacy of terroristic violence. The form taken by the latter is self-directed (or ‘lone wolf’) terrorism, which Mason was the earliest to champion on amongst neo-Nazi militants. Some of Mason’s violent legacies are then traced to the plethora of neo-Nazi cells and movements to have emerged in recent years, demonstrating how Siege has been a catalyst for attempts to overthrow the ‘System’ of democracy in favor or a neo-Nazi ethno-state.

Article History

Accepted 5 January 2023

Contact Matthew Feldman matthew.feldman@york.ac.uk Mail iconNorwegian Studies Centre, University of York, York, North Yorkshire, England

© 2023 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.

“SIEGE is to be used as a cookbook and a guide,” declares publisher Ryan Schuster’s preface to the second edition (2003) of James Mason’s (in)famous collection of editorial texts, Siege.¹ As an anthology of editorials Mason originally published between August 1980 and June 1986, Siege has attained cult status within neo-Nazi circles in the last decade. In fact, Siege fulfilled its mission as set out by the author of Siege’s introduction, with mass appeal among neo-Nazis and many of its strictest followers. Among those who view Siege as the cornerstone of their praxis are the now proscribed terrorist groups Atomwaffen Division (AWD), Sonnenkrieg Division (SKD), and Feuerkrieg Division (FKD), and The Base; the bloodshed wrought by members of these groups and other, unaffiliated devotees to Siege has been considerable, making Siege a real and serious terrorist threat.² It is both his personal ties to members of these groups and the centrality of Siege to extreme right-wing terrorism that has led to James Mason being designated a terrorist entity unto himself by the Canadian government in June 2021.³ Perhaps the greatest testament to the influence of Siege, though, is that even amidst fallings out between Mason and various terrorist group leaders in 2022, the book remains today the most venerated postwar work among neo-Nazis; terrorists cannot give up on Siege.⁴ A focused investigation of the ideas found within Siege is thus key to grasping the nature and evolution of global, violent neo-Nazism. Through close reading, this article provides an analysis of the text’s core arguments, contextualizes its place within the neo-Nazi literary zeitgeist, and evaluates its relationship to modern neo-Nazi ideology and activism.

Studying Siege

Although the contents of Siege have been in circulation for some four decades, the territory of combined detailed, scholarly analysis and actionable intelligence recommendations, has proven to be relatively fallow. It was not until the last decade, and particularly in the last two years following the United Nation’s declaration concerning transnational right-wing terrorism, that most scholars and observers of radical right terrorism turned a serious eye toward Mason and his magnum opus.⁵ In fact, the increased utilization of Siege’s ideology and strategy by radical right terrorists mirrors the rise in writings on the work; this motivation, it may be argued, has skewed current understandings of the work, with observers favoring reactionary, short-term works that answer questions about why and how Siege has become influential, rather than more meticulous consideration of what Siege actually argues. It is this article’s contention that, in earnest, counter-terrorism public policy and scholarly contentions about Siege alike are best served by first establishing a focused, firm grasp of what the text itself advocates.

Prior to the last decade, two scholars distinguished themselves from the general context of Siege’s obscurity: Jeffery Kaplan and Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke. Central figures in scholarly analysis of the radical right, they began discussing Siege before or in tandem with Mason had even released its second edition. However, despite multiple publications on the topic in the first decades following Siege’s printing, it was only in the last half decade—as radical right terrorism has dramatically increased, to the point of eliciting a UN statement of concern—that the work has served as the basis of more sustained, scholarly consideration.

While Kaplan first refers to Siege only in the footnotes of his 1995 work “Right Wing Violence in America” for Terrorism and Political Violence, Mason would earn a somewhat more prominent place in Kaplan’s analysis for the same journal just two years later, in a study of “leaderless resistance.”⁶ Further to this point, Kaplan interviewed Mason, material that informed his ideas on the evolution of postwar National Socialism.⁷ Despite Mason featuring in Kaplan’s work, it is also critical not to misinterpret the role he played in such works, as they remain far more limited than that found in more recent texts. Kaplan discusses Mason in brief, often linking him to the 1980s developments in the National Socialist Liberation Front and citing Siege in the broadest of terms, encouraging readers to pick up the 1992 first edition to understand the ideology for themselves. Nevertheless, Kaplan’s even limited consideration of Siege proved a pivotal step in incorporating Mason into scholarly investigations of radical right violence—Kaplan’s work is heavily cited by early 2000s scholars when discussing Siege. Kaplan’s greatest contribution to the understanding of Siege may be seen, therefore, not in his close analysis of it, but rather his willingness to consistently place the work and its author within the genealogy of radical right violence and terrorism. As an influential scholar on the history of radical right terrorism, the inclusion of Mason allowed for Siege to eventually receive greater attention.

Goodrick-Clarke’s 2003 Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity provides the first extended analysis of Siege, building upon Kaplan’s efforts to trace the central players in the postwar American neo-Nazi scene. In his opening chapter, Goodrick-Clarke provides readers with a brief biography of Mason and a history of Siege as a publication, and notes such elements as the influence of Charles Manson on Mason’s thinking and the intense violence Siege promotes. He notes that, in anthology form, Siege “preached violence, racial strife and an all-out war against the hated ‘System’.”⁸ He also argues that Mason’s work with the earlier NSLF succeeded in making it ‘a forerunner of new militant American white supremacist movements committed to an armed struggle against the so-called Zionist Occupation Government (ZOG)’.⁹ The text further embeds Mason within the fabric of neo-Nazi thinking, highlighting how Mason’s efforts combined with those of Louis Beam and Michael Moynihan, and how they would be put into action by foot soldiers and ideologues in subsequent years.¹⁰

Thus, Kaplan’s works and Black Sun tentatively stated what present-day readers know through hindsight with regard to the necessity of including Mason in any attempt to trace the contemporary violent neo-Nazi movement. However, it also remains the case these authors failed to fully appreciate the centrality of Mason to neo-Nazism not only in the US, but worldwide. While they could not have predicted Mason’s phoenix-like return to the global neo-Nazi scene in the mid 2010s, nor the assistance twenty-first century technologies would play in the global dissemination of his beliefs, it nonetheless must be acknowledged that Kaplan and Goodrick-Clarke’s works serve as the foundation, rather than the zenith, of investigations of Siege.

Despite Goodrick-Clarke’s characterization of Mason as a vanguard in the neo-Nazi movement, Siege did not have much traction as a topic of policy analysis until more than a decade later. It was Mason’s coordination with AWD, and the subsequent violence of it and likeminded groups worldwide, that would place the text under greater public scrutiny. Too numerous to expound upon individually here, there are four general approaches to existing analyses of Siege and its aftermath. The first is an extremely abridged discussion of Siege as one of a slew of neo-Nazi texts, or in fleeting references Mason’s name. Second is that of a limited discussions of Siege as an influential text within the broader violent neo-Nazi movement.¹¹ Third is that which is most popular among advocacy groups and think tanks – generalized discussions of Siege in light of its role in inspiring accelerationism and terrorist groups, particularly Atomwaffen Division.¹² Writers in both policy institutes and long-form journalism alike have also analyzed Siege in attempts to unpack the ideologies and activities of specific Mason-inspired groups. This is true even of the recent International Center for Counter-Terrorism research paper published by the authors of this article, as its contextual analysis of Siege ultimately served to inform their protracted assessment of the real-world consequences of the text by devotees to such groups as AWD, SKD, FKD, and The Base.¹³ Finally, there have recently been a small number of articles, scholarly and journalistic in orientation, that have used Siege as a case study in evaluating the applicability of sociological and criminological theories, such as those about in-group/out-group dynamics, the role of identity in radical politics, and the translation of online recruitment to offline action.¹⁴ With each approach, observers largely refrain from close readings of Siege and Mason’s subsequent works, instead utilizing it as a helpful example of more expansive claims they seek to advance.

However, this article distinguishes itself by providing just such a sustained analysis to Mason’s magnum opus and its successors. Fundamental to its arguments is the idea that Mason generated a radicalizing text that has had continuing appeal due to his successful operationalization of certain rhetorical strategies and a critical partnership with an influential group at a turning-point in contemporary neo-Nazism. Thus, this article also has broader implications in a series of broader debates within a series of scholarly fields, most particularly those surrounding lone actor terrorism, online-offline violence, transnational radicalization, and extremist identity politics in the twenty-first century.

Anatomy of Hate

Arguably a contributing factor to the weight of Siege upon the contemporary neo-Nazi scene may be derived from the experiences of its author, which gave his beliefs gravitas and ideological heft. Born in 1952, James Mason had become a devoted neo-Nazi by the time he was aged 14, first joining the George Lincoln Rockwell-led American Nazi Party, and then the Joseph Tomassi-controlled National Socialist Liberation Front (NSLF). In Siege, Mason specifically references his memories collaborating with both these iconic figures in the postwar American neo-Nazi movement. Further, he claims that his experience within the movement informs his strategy for the future of neo-Nazism.

More than a mere foot-soldier, Mason served as the editor of the NSLF magazine also titled “Siege,” between August 1980 and June 1986. In this capacity he promoted a peculiar brand of American “esoteric Hitlerism,” though eventually his views (particularly his support for the leader of the Manson Family, Charles Manson) proved too radical even for most neo-Nazis in the 1980s, forcing “Siege” to fold.¹⁵ The anthology Siege is an anthology of these 217 pieces, amended only by additional prefaces and appendices meant to further the arguments Mason advanced in the 1980s. Six years after the original newsletter’s curtailment, it had found an audience among younger neo-Nazis via the publication of the 1992 Siege monograph, published by Storm Books. Since then, Siege has been updated another four times (2003, 2017, 2018 and 2021), as well as online revisions, with the two of the extended editions being printed by the popular IronMarch publications.

In fact, Mason had largely disappeared from the neo-Nazi scene between the former and publications of Siege, with the 2017 (digital) edition of the text officially announcing the return of Mason to the neo-Nazi scene. The later editions were, in fact, directly facilitated by Atomwaffen Division in March 2017, which connected with him in Denver, Colorado.¹⁶ As the online radical network IronMarch message explained:

One can hardly deny that IronMarch truly is the Forge of the 21st Century Fascist, as our track record of producing dedicated fanatics who go out and create movements of superior caliber, ones that stake their claim and force everyone to take notice, speaks for itself. The Atomwaffen Division stands out today as a testament to this fact [….] AWD had already proven that great things await them, as they have already, effectively, immortalized themselves in the history of our movement, by doing what nobody else even considered doing – they had found one of our Champions, that last living link to that generation of Heroes that had begun with George Lincoln Rockwell and represent our struggle in the United States, James Mason, alive and well. This is a monumental occasion the importance of which cannot be overstated or exaggerated. Not only had they established contact with a Living Legend, but they had proven themselves worthy [and…] impressed Mason enough for him to once again resume writing his SIEGE Newsletter, now in the form of an online blog.¹⁷

As the conclusion of this quotation indicates, Mason has repaid AWD’s support over the years, writing appendices in Siege that praise the group and glorifying its incarcerated members; joining AWD meetings and posing in pictures with members; recording videos bolstering their messages; and writing brief blog posts for an AWD-run website entitled Siege Culture. Thus, through AWD, Siege has directly been responsive to and responsible for changes in the contemporary neo-Nazi scene.

Siege’s publisher would change over the years, but in all collected editions of Siege between 1992 and 2021, the core texts remain the same: the editorials originally produced between August 1980 and June 1986 by James Mason. These editorials were originally published in the six-page newsletter, Siege, which functioned as the principal monthly publication for both the NSLF; and, from summer 1980, the Charles Manson-inspired Universal Order. That revolutionary neo-Nazism underwrites these circa 750-word texts is underscored by the nine section headings of Siege: “Revolution Through Armed Struggle” (46 chapters); “National Socialism” (9 chapters); “Conservatism and the Lost Movement” (20 chapters); “The System” (34 chapters); “Lone Wolves and Live Wires” (21 chapters); “Strength and Spirit” (27 chapters); “Leaders” (25 chapters); and “Universal Order” (35 chapters). Across these editorials Mason advances what Ryan Schuster’s aforementioned 2003 Preface calls “sheer political terror.”¹⁸

While the core of the text remains the articles Mason originally published between August 1980 and June 1986, Siege is far from a static document and its editions differ from one another in more than just layout and esthetics. For instance, in its first printing, the text stood at 434 pages, and by its fourth, released in September 2018, it had grown to 684 pages. The elongation of Siege is the result of the inclusion of numerous images, prefaces, and appendices, ranging from transcripts of speeches given by prominent neo-Nazis to propaganda posters, from old articles written in other neo-Nazi magazines to explications of the future of neo-Nazism in the age of AWD. As a genuine palimpsest by 2018, then, Siege has managed to stay relevant despite the core texts now dating some four decades back. Siege’s responsiveness to emerging trends in neo-Nazism, as well as its centrality to active neo-Nazis, grants analysts a unique identity with which to read the aims and acts of modern National Socialist militants.

Siege Revolution

Both then and now, Siege remains a thoroughly revolutionary document. For one, Siege acts as a literal and ideological chronicle of Mason’s move from political activism with the American Nazi Party to promoting terroristic violence. Mason went from a young member of the American Nazi Party and then the NSLF to denouncing all group membership and activism, alienated from the leaderships of both groups (not least due to the deaths of their respective founders) as well as many of their foot-soldiers. Importantly, Mason makes his own experiences into lessons that he repeats in Siege across the body of the text—with Mason writing in the first printing of the “Siege” newsletter in August 1980, “I’ve been with the Mass Strategists - started out there a long time ago - gone with the Armed Struggle, and back again with other Mass Strategists. Personally I must say that I strongly favor the Armed Struggle”.¹⁹ Also included are key speeches, such as this one from 1985, which was published in each edition of Siege:

In Commander Rockwell’s lifetime, it was not at all unreasonable to plan for the action of a spearhead movement to prompt the loyal elements within the established government to wake up and take things back away from the nation’s subverters. Since his death and in plain fact things have moved way beyond that stage. What this means to us as a Movement is that any kind of a fascist-style coup d’etat is completely out of the question as the basis for it just doesn’t exist.²⁰

Relatedly, Mason was an early advocate of the radical right “accelerationist” doctrine; that is, the idea that liberal democracies are doomed socio-political projects due to their embrace of concepts of equity, meritocracy, and inclusivity, and that individuals should engage in terrorism to accelerate this demise, triggering race wars that white communities (the supposed racial superiors) would win and establish non-democratic ethno-states. Although Mason did not employ the term “accelerationism,” he used similar terminology as early as 1984, writing: “the country isn’t going but has gone MAD; that the final END of society is accelerating; that the entire foundation itself is thoroughly corroded; and that there is no longer any place to go to hide (save maybe a tent in the North Woods)”²¹.

To this end, Siege was the first text to explicitly endorse “lone wolf” terrorism, which subsequent scholars have classified as solo actor or self-directed terrorism.²² Variously called “lone wolves,” “one man armies,” “lone eagles,” and “live wires” in Siege, Mason wrote about this form of terrorism as early as September 1980. In that edition, he favored discrete “acts of revolution, the sooner the better, the more the merrier. But these are all of a nature that they can and MUST be carried out by INDIVIDUALS,”²³ a strategy that he more explicitly and robustly promoted in the proceeding years. In valorizing these “Lone Wolves and Live Wires,” Siege even developed its own canon of saints and martyrs for the cause of revolutionary neo-Nazism.

Only by identifying these and other key aspects of the text can Siege’s veneration by today’s neo-Nazis make sense. The analysis below is aimed at explicating Siege’s most revolutionary ideas and appropriately situating them within the development of postwar neo-Nazism. If Siege is the wellspring of evolving neo-Nazi ideology and strategy – as many groups claim and as it appears to be – then it surely behooves observers to understand exactly what this book says.

Heroes and Villains

At its core, Siege is unrepentantly and unflinchingly racist, antisemitic, white supremacist, and anti-democratic. Over its several hundred pages, readers are on the receiving end of an extremely pessimistic narrative about the state of society and find themselves saturated in venom for individuals and ethnic groups white supremacists consider inferior. Much like Mein Kampf, the text features explications of Mason’s own radicalization and his hateful theories about the world. Not simply lauded for the method he promotes but also the motivations, how Mason articulates his beliefs warrants some evaluation here.

Siege touts itself as favoring a terroristic form of National Socialism, replete with ideas of racial hierarchies and totalitarian aspirations. Although he admits that Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party’s tactics could not succeed in the postwar world, Mason nonetheless also declares, “I’m a National Socialist first and foremost. Have been for over half of my life and will be for the rest of it.”²⁴ Put bluntly, Mason writes, “Just as the Aryan Race is the highest order of being yet produced by nature on this planet, so too is National Socialism the highest, most sophisticated, and advanced creed yet formulated by the White Man for his own betterment,”²⁵ and that “[t]here is nothing outside Revolutionary National Socialism to which we can owe any loyalty.”²⁶ As an outgrowth of this, Siege also reveres Hitler and the work of the Nazis, making such comments as “Adolf Hitler was and is the greatest personality in all of history, so he has had and will always have, by far, the largest meaning and impact in my life, in my every thought.”²⁷ Similarly, “Hitler was the LAST CHANCE for the revival of Western Civilization.”²⁸ By contrast, Mason claims “The enemy today is the U.S. Government itself and it is, by every standard of measure, the most evil thing that has ever existed on earth.”²⁹

Early in Siege, Mason advises readers that “ANY action taken against the Enemy, no holds barred, is a heroic deed.”³⁰ These enemies are legion. First and foremost are Jewish people. Mason employs classic antisemitic stereotypes and conspiracy theories. Most obviously, Siege argues that the Holocaust was a hoax – ”it was indeed a damnable shame that Hitler did not, in fact, kill at least six million Jews during the War” – and that Jewish people in the mainstream media are responsible for the suppression of evidence of its fabrication, a manipulation that extends beyond the media into other major institutions, extending to all levels of the government and the banking system.³¹ Siege also reinforces its Holocaust Denial in its defence of the Manson Family murders, highlighting alleged inconsistencies in the widely-accepted narrative and justifying violence against the pregnant Sharon Tate (“With regard to the eight-month-old fetus Tate was carrying, it was, after all, a Jew.”).³² “As with the facts disproving Nazi ‘gas chambers’ plus information on why Jews were concentrated, similar circumstances surrounding the Tate killings are tacitly suppressed,” Siege notes. “We are satisfied the right people got it in both cases and, if there is fault to be found, it is that the Second World War was lost and that Manson and some of his best people were apprehended and jailed.”³³

Again, mirroring Mein Kampf, Siege identifies Jewish people as the root of all evil, puppeteering the undoing of the white race through control of governments and major institutions. In 1980 Mason bemoaned how “the Jewish Enemy has won totally and outright. It’s no longer a contest in the United States,” before arguing for the need for a “REVOLUTION, a struggle to overthrow the Enemy.”³⁴ He has maintained this position throughout his writings, elsewhere stating:

Jews and the System know how to play these people like a violin. Commander Rockwell said that it was because of the high level of development of the abstract virtues or “advanced instincts” of charity, decency and fair play found exclusively among the best racial types within the White Race. The Jews have done an almost complete job of perverting these instincts into the Negro-worshipping mania that is everywhere today.³⁵

Further, Mason employs many classic antisemitic stereotypes to propound his conspiracy theories about the allegedly nefarious nature of Jewish people. “There is and always has been a Jewish Conspiracy ever since contact has existed between Jews and Europeans,” Mason claims, adding: “I will say that no professional revolutionary can hope to be real unless he is fully familiar with each aspect of the Jewish Question.”³⁶ Rather than rejecting or downplaying a grand “Jewish Conspiracy” as an obvious canard, Siege stokes antisemitic sentiment by reiterating some particularly noxious elements. Mason often references the ZOG conspiracy by name.³⁷ As the above quotations indicate, Mason utilizes a declinist narrative when talking about the state of U.S. politics (which is subsequently extrapolated onto all Western democracies), with evidence derived from the divisiveness of social justice movements related to identity politics; in his vision, the idea of Jewish masterminds finds new life in the late-century social upheavals around identity. Jewish people are likewise held responsible for the excesses of both socialism and capitalism, and readers are bombarded with statements about Jewish people allegedly exploiting non-Jews for profit.³⁸

While Mason’s antisemitic expressions focus on Jewish people purportedly infiltrating systems of power to exploit them, he also identifies other racial minorities as enemies. The most frequently discussed minority is that of black Americans, who he describes in an alternative, but still negative, light. Black Americans (as Mason wrote for an American audience), are consistently identified using racial slurs, and depicted as unintelligent, filthy, and violence-prone. Mason makes point about black professional athletes to reiterate this idea: “Is this then any case for racial equity or even Black superiority? Don’t make me gag!”³⁹ African-Americans are held responsible for the purported degeneration of traditional American values, even a threat to the fabric of the nation itself – that is to say, white American hegemony. Jews are depicted as manipulating black Americans in order to cause chaos, a theory that feeds the portrayals of both groups—calculating Jews and violent, riotous blacks. Dehumanised and vilified, black people are singled out as a “source of filth” and portrayed as among revolutionary neo-Nazism’s greatest enemies.⁴⁰

While less explicitly abused in Siege (perhaps a function of the times, as migration from Middle Eastern, Asian, and Latin American countries to the United States was not the topic of much media coverage, as is the case today), other non-Jewish persons of color are still considered to be “racially inferior.”⁴¹ In one section of Siege, all nonwhites are characterised as “expendable.”⁴² Correspondingly, interracial relationships are identified in an extremely negative light, echoing Nazi language about diluting racial or blood purity; Mason writes, “we still view the defiling and befouling of the Race as the worst possible corruption of Nature’s highest creation.”⁴³

Finally, as promoters or supporters of the idea of equity among citizens irrespective of race and a more general embrace of multiculturalism, politicians and those working for democratic states are identified as yet another enemy. “The only thing lower than n*****s and Jews is police that protect them,” originally a line uttered by Fred Cowan (a neo-Nazi sniper who killed five people in the 1970s), finds amplification in Siege, reflecting the text’s engagement with examples of postwar race-related murders that could act as violent inspiration.⁴⁴ They are portrayed as “live wires” putting into practice Mason’s view that “The Enemy is the Enemy and aliens are aliens. All politicians—high and low—are PIGS in a Pig System. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be there. From President to dogcatcher, they are all the same bureaucratic, sellout swine.”⁴⁵

Promoting more than just revolutionary ideas, Siege states its vision for a utopian future for which adherents should dream and for which they should struggle. With regard to the white race’s alleged enemies, Mason makes such claims as: “[Our aspirations go] way beyond the removal of Jews - it amounts to total revolution. […] A healthy state will expel - or kill - the Jew,”⁴⁶ and that there “will be no need for concentration camps of any kind, for not a single [‘race-mixing’] transgressor will survive long enough to make it to that kind of haven.”⁴⁷ The state enforcing such policies, meanwhile, would not only be a white ethno-state, but also a fascistic one as well, modeled after the Third Reich.

As this suggests, Siege rejects the liberal democratic order, multiculturalism, racial equality, and religious tolerance. Instead, it encourages its readers to embrace white supremacism and fascist political violence. These views are extreme in their own right; however, they are not what has distinguished Siege in the last decade. Rather, it is the seditious and violent tactics consistently celebrated in the book that earn Siege a preeminent place amongst the most notorious neo-Nazi groups of recent years.

Revolution 101: Total Drop Out and Total Attack

Faced with such foes and filled with such aspirations for white dominance, Siege is unwavering in its rejection of mainstream politics and its devotion to violent revolution as the means to reach such a utopia. “We call ourselves a LIBERATION FRONT and not a party because we hold no illusions about ever being able to realize anything concrete through parliamentary measures. […] They are the Establishment; we are the Revolution,” Mason wrote in early 1981.⁴⁸ Another text from the next year warns mainstream society in its observation that, “They really do not comprehend that WE ARE AT WAR WITH THIS SOCIETY and that it is them or us. We, as part of our revolutionary program, intend to blast to hell their filthy, scum-tainted System of profit values.”⁴⁹ Ultimately, Siege warns that “White Men will never rule their own lives and destinies again without a successful revolt, and no revolt can materialize without the intensive period of resistance - the basic preparatory stage of the Revolutionary Movement’s development.”⁵⁰

This revolution or war, it should be noted, is designed to have specific characteristics; namely, accelerationism. In aspiring to white-only or at the very least white-governed states (where nonwhite peoples are either enslaved or expelled), Siege promotes the need for race wars, viewing them as not only desirable, but inevitable. “What is happening, or beginning to happen, will be regarded as something that is a biological, historical and worldwide phenomenon. It’s keeping no set schedule. It’s something BIG. It is that very worldwide RACE WAR that George Lincoln Rockwell prophesied long ago.”⁵¹ Elsewhere, publishing a supporter’s characterization of society in “a general race war already in progress.”⁵² Siege envisions an intense war dividing communities along racial lines, with the victors being the white race due to their allegedly inherent superiority.

Siege bemoans how “[s]o far the trigger, or fuze [to revolution] hasn’t been found,” Mason provides fascists seeking to secure the survival of the white race two options in starting such race wars.⁵³ Siege articulates these choices as “total drop out” (or “total withdrawal”) and “total attack.” Fairly self-explanatory phrases, in the “total drop out” scenario, individuals attempt to entirely disengage from society, withdrawing from interactions with the state (paying taxes, voting, civic participation) and persons of color. Essentially, dropping out of society is an intensive process of isolation, done in the name of making the person unencumbered and able to live out their racialised thinking as purely as possible. The other option, as its name implies, entails political violence in furtherance of Siege’s revolutionary aims.

To date, the (all-too-limited) analysis of Siege has viewed this dichotomy as a choice between equals. Yet a closer reading of the text indicates that Mason subtly, but consistently, pushed toward the “total attack” path. For one, although at times he encourages readers to prepare themselves for a vague apocalyptic future through the reference to survivalist texts,⁵⁴ elsewhere Mason casts aspersions on survivalism. Siege even goes as far as criticizing survivalists for having overly-simplistic views of social problems: “The danger in survivalism lies in the fallacy of the hobbyist-escapist’s own, private dreamworld […] Phony, faddish ‘survivalism’ is nothing more than a hobby and hobbyism is nothing more than escapism.”⁵⁵ Even Mason’s “total drop out” speaks less to a long-term physical isolation than an initial need for introversion and self-reflection to ensure self-preservation: “Pull away, draw away from the march of doom. Keep to yourselves. Live by primal, animal laws […] Go forth in your daily life in anonymity in order to do what you have to do to sustain yourself.”⁵⁶ Yet stoical phrases like these are undercut by the much more consistently action-oriented nature of his reflections on how readers should approach their future. As Mason declares in the same article on survivalism: “There is a clear path to survival just as there is a clear path to victory. Both involve being in touch with reality and in taking action, in going FORWARD.”⁵⁷ Siege is peppered with lines like “action and only action gains results. The rest is hot air”; “If you seek to take refuge from an encroaching System, then you are like a fox on the run”;⁵⁸ and, “Things are slipping constantly, gradually…I don’t expect it change unless SOMEONE CHANGES IT!”⁵⁹ Perhaps the ultimate expression of this idea may be found in an article originally published in 1982: “We must know that we fight for Life, for Revolution, as a matter of COURSE and not as a matter of choice or of reaction to anything.”⁶⁰

In fact, what appears to be a bifurcated path might more accurately be described as two points along one path, with “drop out” ideally leading to action. Pieces from the early 1980s in Siege merely imply a period of “drop-out” as potentially allowing an individual to compose themselves and plan; by the final year of its original publication in the mid-80s, Mason is much more forthcoming about his position: “To ‘drop out’ of it and go on managing for yourself and for its destruction, QUIETLY, year after year, decade after decade, SUCCESSFULLY, UNMOLESTED…what a victory! And then to have gotten in your real jabs, to have drawn real blood besides. No one can ask more than that under these circumstances.”⁶¹ In a piece from the next year, Mason again articulates and advises this hybrid approach: “As I said earlier, if you’re thinking about going on the war path in the literal sense, you’d better take the time and planning to quietly drop underground first. Get yourself as comfortable and secure as you can and only then start taking your actions against the System.”⁶² In one of the final editions of his newsletter, Mason also advises “means that you should first drop out of sight, go underground, and stay that way for however long is required for you to learn to exist comfortably at it. At that point you can go ahead and do - and probably get away with - any damned thing you’d choose to pull.”⁶³ While Siege allows that, for certain individuals, the denial of support for and engagement with the state through dropping out of society may prove the totality of their contribution to the cause, it is nevertheless clear that Mason encourages readers to see the apparent quietism of “total drop out” as a preparatory part of violent radicalization.

Extreme Violence

A further elucidation of Siege’s far less equivocal “total attack” scenarios are illuminating as well. For four decades now the terroristic extremity of Siege’s call for violence distinguishes it from other neo-Nazi works. Mason’s monograph ultimately rejects peaceful or democratic activism and attempts to disabuse readers of the notion that there is a pathway to building a neo-Nazi paradise that is not blood-soaked. In doing so, Siege advocates for the use of essentially indiscriminate violence to advance such ends. At the same time, it places a strong emphasis upon fighting to the death, and of individuals engaging in violence with a kind of fatalism.⁶⁴ Even other neo-Nazis have noted the brutality of Mason’s message, with Ryan Schuster’s introductory remarks praising what he felt was Siege’s strategy: “Aim for the most menacing, and influential pigs; then dispatch them with methodical viciousness.”⁶⁵

This celebration of violence takes various forms. On the most literal level, as will be discussed in greater detail in a later section of this article, Siege features lengthy descriptions of real-world violent attacks against ethnic and religious minorities. In the text, Mason chronicles most acts of radical right political violence in the national news between 1980 and 1986. These are contemporaneous accounts of radical right terrorism, and are wholly celebrated by Mason. An example of this can be found in how Siege glorifies the deeds of Joseph Franklin, a white supremacist who killed more than a dozen people, mostly interracial couples, and seriously injured several more before he was arrested in 1980 (he was eventually executed by the state of Missouri in 2013)⁶⁶:

Our beloved and honored Comrade Joseph Franklin has had added to his already extensive list of credits - and by the Pig System itself - the deaths of several more racially mixed couples and the critical wounding of Larry Flynt. Sure, the crud still pours forth in the streets and in the press but Franklin was only one man. What if a dozen or more had followed his example?⁶⁷

What if there currently were three, or six, or a DOZEN other “Joseph Franklins” at work now all over the United States? What would the System do but go crazy? You must understand that this is something altogether NEW that they have never had to face.⁶⁸

As these quotations evidence, Siege justifies and praises the murder of its opponents, even those who might view themselves as wholly uninvolved; as Siege elsewhere argues, there are no innocents and noncombatants in the race war.⁶⁹ For Mason, the dream is one drenched in blood, a world wherein his supports “blow the heads off the powers that be.”⁷⁰ “The riots of the Sixties,” Siege prophesies, “barely scratched the surface in the amount of direct coordinated VIOLENCE and TERROR that’s going to be required to intimidate and melt the System. […] All you need is a zip gun and, most of all, the BALLS to use it.”⁷¹

Siege makes no efforts to obfuscate this promotion of violence. Elsewhere, Siege tells readers that “in order to kill an ‘ism’ you must kill the ‘ists’ .”⁷² Beyond even killing racial and religious minorities in order to achieve a white ethno-state, Mason reminds his readers that anyone who disagrees with this message is a potential enemy worthy of death. “You have to determine to do whatever is necessary in order to win,” Siege states, and “it matters not against whom, once they have demonstrated that it is conflict they want. Comrade, friend, family member […] it doesn’t matter.”⁷³ Of any hesitancy to kill white opponents, Mason says: “If you can’t close your heart to pity, if you couldn’t blast the head off of one or a thousand of these types, then you had better bow out right now.”⁷⁴

This unflinching approach to violence goes beyond hate crimes and one-off killings of supposed enemies. When Mason speaks about terrorism, this is not in any way hyperbolic – he recognizes and accepts that terrorism is the only viable means to achieve fascistic white ethno-states. Siege not only consistently reinforces this message, but it also justifies such actions on the grounds of necessity for the health and happiness of white peoples and because the present system of multiculturalism is itself comparable to terrorism. Similarly, all major institutions (again held by Mason to be under the thumb of Jews) are likewise so characterized, with Siege stating, “to the controlled media and softened brains of the masses, [this] is terrorism!”⁷⁵ Siege claims that the American government perpetrates terrorism through its anti-white policies, and contends: “Terrorism is a two-way street for, as Hitler stated, the only answer to terrorism is stronger terrorism.”⁷⁶

“Lone Wolves and Live Wires”

It is in the method of these terrorist attacks that Siege distinguishes itself. Siege’s most significant contribution to the evolution of modern neo-Nazi praxis, without doubt, is James Mason’s clear and consistent advocacy of self-directed violence. Whereas most of the deadly acts of religiously-inspired terrorism have featured attack planning and/or execution by multiple individuals (think of the 11 September 2001 attacks, the Christmas massacres in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2008, and the Mogadishu bombings on 14 October 2017), this is not the case among radical right terrorists. Instead, as Siege advises, attackers have been “lone wolves” with no official affiliation with a particular terrorist group or cell.

In fact, Siege appears to be the earliest radical right text to advocate this terrorist tactic – years before William Pierce’s Hunter or Louis Beam’s concept of “Leaderless Resistance.” Nevertheless, this theory on the preferred method for terrorism is often attributed to Beam’s “Leaderless Resistance.” Beam had published a brief article in The Seditionist in 1992 (first written in 1983) by this name, stressing that organizations and large cells were too easy to detect by well-trained federal forces. In the U.S. at least, there was a need to embrace “very small or even one man cells of resistance” as “a child of necessity.” Beam further explained, “Utilizing the Leaderless Resistance concept, all individuals and groups operate independently of each other, and never report to a central headquarters or single leader for direction or instruction, as would those who belong to a typical pyramid organization.”⁷⁷

As this suggests, there is an obvious overlap in concept and design between Mason’s “lone wolf” or “live wire” activities and what Beam articulated as a “leaderless resistance” activities. However, given that Mason was advancing “lone wolf” terrorist tactics in his monthly newsletter as early as 1980, years prior to Beam, it is likely that Beam was building directly upon Mason’s ideas in Siege. Undeniably, Beam’s essay inspired militants, especially in the 10–15 years after the end of the Cold War, who might not have read Mason (again, Siege fell out of fashion in this period). However, Beam’s concept appears to be an adaption of Mason’s approach, and this lineage gives Siege a more dangerous gravitas than previously acknowledged.

Although Mason had been affiliated with neo-Nazi organizations since his teenage years and originally wrote Siege in his capacity as an NSLF member, Siege strongly emphasizes the superiority of self-directed terrorism in pursuit of utopia. appear increasingly skeptical of the utility of group-based organizing. In fact, when sections of Siege are placed in chronological order (rather than the published thematic version), readers witness Mason’s growing disenchantment with group structures. Even in later editions of Siege, two which were published in coordination with AWD and promoted by the group, Mason does not flinch in arguing that those planning a “total attack” should do so alone. Instead of encouraging neo-Nazis to band together to orchestrate and perpetrate violence against enemies, Mason counsels, when planning attacks even “[t]wo participants is one too many.”⁷⁸

It is important to be clear what “lone wolf” terrorism entails, even if the term may seem familiar through use in the news in recent years. First of all, it is critical remember that, as the saying goes, no man is an island, and similarly no “lone wolf” is truly alone. Individuals who engage in self-directed terrorism still maintain connections with other members of society and are likely inspired by other extremists they read, listen to online, or meet. However, lone wolves engage in self-activating, logistically autonomous progress through the “terrorist cycle.” Lack of sustained external psychological input (as with dyads like the Tsarnaev brothers) or outside command and control (such as sleeper agents) separates them from other mass murderers. By contrast, lone wolves orchestrate and execute a particular attack entirely on their own, selecting and engaging in selection and surveillance of targets, preparing equipment, and perpetrating the assault. This autonomy is insisted upon repeatedly in Siege, which calls for “acts of revolution” from individual neo-Nazis, each operating as “a one-man army.”⁷⁹ Thus understood, the Siege-AWD connection makes sense; AWD provided individuals the ideology and strategic basis for terrorism, which lone wolves execute at their own discretion. As Siege explains: “For his choice of targets he needs little more than the daily newspaper for suggestions and tips galore. […] For his training the lone wolf needs only the U.S. military or any one of a hundred good manuals readily available through radical booksellers.”⁸⁰

Siege endorses lone wolf terrorism on myriad grounds, one of the most central its difficulty to disrupt. “The lone wolf cannot be detected, cannot be prevented, and seldom can be traced,” one section of Siege reads.⁸¹ Throughout the text, Siege highlights the dangers of group meetings, stating that collaboration leaves room for law enforcement detection and infiltration; for Siege, the risks of joint action outweigh the rewards. Beyond this, though, is the text’s promotion of the concept that lone wolf style attacks inspire a particular kind of fear in the general population, as they could be committed by any one person at any given time. Given this view, Siege envisions a world in which lone wolf terrorist attacks are carried out in quick succession:

Organization—as opposed to “organizations”—does not give the effect of a lot of “duplicates” ignoring each other and getting into each other’s way. It means to effect hands and feet, arms and legs, eyes and ears everywhere, simultaneously. Acting in one common cause and one common interest, in iron discipline, ultimately to lead to one organism with a common intelligence, instinct, voice, and, above all, a common WILL!⁸²

If self-directed attacks are executed within a short period of time, Siege contends, the public will begin to turn on authority figures who are unable to stop such attacks, and take up arms themselves in self-defense. With violence breaking out along racial lines, people would allegedly begin acting in fear toward ethnic “others,” eventually triggering an all-out race war that Siege believes is the only realistic political path for a genuine fascist revolution and victory. Only with epoch-changing violence, Mason holds, can a new whites-only nation (a racial utopia similar to that dreamed of during the Third Reich) be achieved.

Throughout, Siege has a clear message. It advocates for all those interested in living in accordance with the so-called natural order, disaffected by the status quo, or seeking to make lone wolf terrorism their purpose, to an all-consuming extent. As one article reads:

Wherever you may be at this moment, let the revolution be there also. Spread a little revolution wherever you go! Never gripe about the System; project the Revolution! Get the people around you thinking in terms of TOTALITY, and not in terms of inches and degrees. Point out the real Enemy and not just the noisy, obnoxious symptoms - tell everyone it is the System itself that must go! Convey the feeling that it will be good to have all true White Men and Women as Comrades-in-Arms in the Revolution!…Be a spark for revolution.⁸³

Radicalization and the Canon of Wolves

As the above quotation indicates, Siege goes beyond sterile aspirations for the future or detached calls to arms; over the course of its several hundred pages, it sets about convincing readers to become these “lone wolves.” Acknowledging this particular radicalizing aspect of the text is central to understanding why Siege has become essential reading for modern neo-Nazis. Beyond his negative portrayal of ethnic and religious minorities no less than state actors, Mason goes about galvanizing readers by presenting neo-Nazism as counter-cultural and empowering.

Desperate for members, postwar neo-Nazi groups have presented themselves as a sympathetic haven for those rejected by or unpopular in “normal” society; social outcasts are made to feel that they can finally find their place in the ranks of neo-Nazism. Observers of radicalism have long-recognised that a critical factor in the indoctrination of individuals is the reorientation of personal trauma.⁸⁴ Mason displays a near perfect execution of this technique, spread across Siege’s hundreds of pages.

Throughout, he addresses those feeling like social outcasts, telling them that their isolation is not their fault. Mason recasts those called “losers” and “loners” as people actually clever enough to see through the façade of “the System”: “To ‘not fit’ into this society can be a distinct badge of honor.”⁸⁵ Elsewhere in Siege, he reassures readers, “I am speaking of people who do not fit into THIS society because of what it IS and what THEY are. To be outside this society is a marked badge of honor.”⁸⁶ By appealing to ignored or disaffected individuals – assuring them that their isolation was not their fault so much as an example of ideological good judgement – Siege can have a radicalizing effect. First, Mason holds the promise of peer veneration for neo-Nazis engaging in lone wolf terrorism. Then, he tells those unappreciated by those around them that, in being a lone wolf, they have an opportunity for greatness and memorialization. In “defending their race” and fighting in the early stages of Mason’s long-predicted race war, these men become martyrs to the neo-Nazi cause: “The man of ill repute today must one day go on to emerge as the Hero that he is just as our entire Movement must emerge as the savior of an entire People.”⁸⁷

Mason illustrates this valorization in Siege itself, generating an extensive canon of earlier lone wolves, yet another innovation worth lingering over. The section “Lone Wolves and Live Wires” says little about the tactics of “lone wolf” terrorism (this can be found scattered throughout the various chapters), but is instead a sustained analysis of American “lone wolf” attackers, especially from the 1970s and early 1980s. To give a sense of the kinds of individuals who are included in Siege, among those celebrated by Mason are Charles Manson (leader of the Manson Family, which was responsible for the brutal killings of five people in order to start a race war); Bernard Goetz (who shot four black Americans on the New York City subway in 1984); Frank Spisak (whose neo-Nazism prompted him to kill three people at Cleveland State University in 1982); James Huberty (who killed 21 people and wounded 19 others in a shoot-out in San Ysidro in 1984); Fred Cowan (who shot and killed six people in New York in 1977); and Joseph Franklin (who killed many people, most of whom were interracial couples, in the 1970s). More than merely documenting the names and deeds of those Mason identifies as revolutionary right vigilantes, Siege presents these killers in a reverential tone. This can be observed in quotations such as this, originally published in a 1981 newsletter: “The revolutionary call is ‘Death to Big Brother!,’ and until that time the only ‘power’ exerted by our side will come from nowhere else but heroes like Fred Cowan, Joseph Franklin, the Men of Greensboro, the .22 Killer of Buffalo, etc.”⁸⁸ Mason also venerates Robert Jay Mathews (co-founder of The Order, a U.S. terror group in the 1880s, killed in a shoot-out with police in 1984), and claims that John Hinckley Jr (who tried to assassinate U.S. president Ronald Reagan in 1981) and the unidentified perpetrator of a string of poisonings added to Tylenol in the Chicago, Illinois area in 1982 were also motivated by fascist ideology.⁸⁹ Irrespective of the truth of the latter two attack motives, in chronicling and valorizing these men Mason is clearly seeking to establish a tradition of postwar American “lone wolves,” which he hopes succeeding neo-Nazi militants can emulate.

Impact of Siege and the Use of Its Tactics

Siege and its tactics have had an unmistakable impact on neo-Nazism in recent years, most particularly in the last decade. This is due not only to Mason’s republishing of Siege with new materials, but because of strategic alliances Mason made in recent years that have helped secure his status as neo-Nazi prophet and his ideas as a kind dark gospel.

As noted earlier in this article, Mason’s primary connection has been with Atomwaffen Division and the neo-Nazi website, Siege Kultur. These ties have developed over several years and seen the dramatic increase in both AWD membership and Siege’s readership. Publicly launched in April 2015, AWD made contact with Mason two years later in Denver, Colorado; since, he has been identified by nonprofit trackers of extremism such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League as an ideological leader for the group, before its official disbanding in March 2020.⁹⁰ The influence of Mason upon a new generation of neo-Nazis is furthered by the militant website Siege Kultur, which has published new writings by Mason from 2017. As its name suggests, Siege Kultur publishes content in keeping with the ideas first expressed in Siege–one iteration of the website even said: “Now, in the twenty first century, James Mason continues to write SIEGE articles for Siege Kultur.”⁹¹ Siege Kultur content clearly venerates Mason as a leading ideologue, and even after a falling out between members of AWD-linked group The American Futurist and Mason, radical right propaganda generally still aligns closely with the ideas in Siege.⁹²

Though this website riffs on the phrase, there is, in fact, a broader “Siege Culture,” the website representing just one node in a much larger network of neo-Nazis offline and online – embracing now defunct websites like Ironmarch and Fascist Forge to platforms like Telegram and other encrypted channels of communication. Inspired by Siege in increasing numbers, they are also scaling up their hate and violence to align with Mason’s ideology. While this article does not have the space to account for all of the various Siege-inspired groups and the scores of crimes their supporters have been accused or convicted of, the names of a few bear mentioning. Among the most prominent groups are several designated terror groups: Feuerkrieg Division (banned in the U.K. in 2020); Sonnenkrieg Division (banned in the U.K. in 2020 and in Australia in 2021); The Base (banned in the U.K. and Canada in 2021, and New Zealand in 2022).⁹³ All of these groups reference and praise Mason on social media and in visual propaganda.⁹⁴ FKD’s Telegram and Gab accounts, for instance, both explicitly demand that supporters read Siege; a sentiment echoed in an interview with an FKD spokesperson in early 2019.⁹⁵ While the Canadian authorities authenticated the claims of Siege inspiring FKD, it also identified the work as central to SKD thinking, whereas in-depth analysis conducted by researchers from the RESOLVE Network and the Counter Extremism Project likewise identify Siege as essential to the ideological foundations of The Base.⁹⁶ Even splinter groups, radical podcasts, online forums, and blog posts champion Siege as a necessary starting point for 21st-century neo-Nazism.

The manifestations of Siege’s praxis are global and growing. One metric may be that of designations, with more than half a dozen individuals and entities linked to Siege earning official proscription for terrorism in the last few years. Another is arrests—in the last several year alone, dozens of members of these groups have been questioned, charged, or convicted of terrorism-related offenses, as law enforcement have increased their scrutiny of neo-Nazi militants. News of foiled terror attacks in Europe and North America likewise confirm the proliferation and power of Siege. There are also the most tragic of metrics to judge: deaths. Atomwaffen Division members, for instance, have been linked to at least five murders, in addition to a serious of other serious criminal offenses.⁹⁷ More broadly, Siege’s hand may be seen in the growing use of “lone wolf” terrorist attacks by members of these groups and beyond, over the last decade – a period commensurate with Siege’s return to prominence on the neo-Nazi scene – inspired by a tradition of self-directed attacks that are rooted in Mason’s initial formulation and propagation of this tactic.

Conclusion

More than four decades ago, Mason displayed prescience in understanding that his ideology and its believers would be hard to defeat; “lone wolf” terrorists are hard to detect and de-radicalise before they attack. Even with increased pressure from law enforcement through terrorist designations and social media platforms de-platforming the work in an attempt to stifle its proliferation over the last three years, Siege has endured. Circumventing these efforts, devotees continue to find new means to keep the publication in circulation. This presents potential, significant long-term problems for numerous groups around the world. Schuster was likewise correct in identifying Siege as a “guide” for the modern neo-Nazi.⁹⁸ In the four decades since its original publication, Siege has led people down quite a dark and disturbed path, compelling them to view the world through dichotomies – whites (superior) or nonwhites (inferior); heroes and enemies; civilization or multiculturalism; racial purity or corruption; kill or be killed. Far from appearing outdated, continuing concerns among segments of the population about refugee and immigration crises, political correctness, globalization, economic instability and wealth inequality, have made this 1980s text’s concerns about changing, unstable socio-political climates feel timely to some militants. Coupled with the isolation and purposelessness some felt in the isolating conditions of COVID-19 lockdowns, an Assistant Commissioner of the U.K. Metropolitan Police Neil Basu’s characterization that the ‘perfect storm’ for radicalization appears accurate.⁹⁹ With an internal declinist narrative that allows white readers to pin their problems and worries on ‘others’, whilst also promising them respect and immortality if they become terrorists, Mason’s work may be sieging liberal democracies for decades to come.

Notes

1.

Ryan Schuster in James Mason, Siege, The Collected Writings of James Mason, 4th ed. (Unknown: Siege Publications, 2018), 34.

2.

Reuters Staff, “Who is U.S. Neo-Nazi group ‘The Base’?,” Reuters, 16 January 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-guns-rally-the-base-factbox/who-is-u-s-neo-nazi-group-the-base-idUSKBN1ZF2LU; Hatewatch Staff, “Atomwaffen and the SIEGE Parallax: How One Neo-Nazi’s Life’s Work is Fueling a Younger Generation,” Southern Poverty Law Center, 22 February 2018, https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/02/22/atomwaffen-and-siege-parallax-how-one-neo-nazi%E2%80%99s-life%E2%80%99s-work-fueling-younger-generation; Jason Wilson, “Prepping for a Race War: Documents Reveal Inner Workings of Neo-Nazi Group,” The Guardian, 25 January 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/25/inside-the-base-neo-nazi-terror-group; “The Base,” Counter Extremism Project, no date, https://www.counterextremism.com/supremacy/base.

3.

“Current listed entities,” Public Safety Canada, Government of Canada, 2021, https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/ntnl-scrt/cntr-trrrsm/lstd-ntts/crrnt-lstd-ntts-en.aspx#23.

4.

Bethan Johnson, “‘All My Heroes Are Dead’: The Untimely Demise of The American Futurist – James Mason Partnership,” Global Network on Extremism & Technology, 10 November 2022, https://gnet-research.org/2022/11/10/all-my-heroes-are-dead-the-untimely-demise-of-the-american-futurist-james-mason-partnership/.

5.

United Nations Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee, “Member States Concerned by the Growing and Increasingly Transnational Threat of Extreme Right-Wing Terrorism,” CTED Trends Alert, 2020, https://www.un.org/sc/ctc/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/CTED_Trends_Alert_Extreme_Right-Wing_Terrorism.pdf.

6.

Jeffrey Kaplan, “Right Wing Violence in North America,” Terrorism and Political Violence 7, no. 1 (1995): 44–95; Jeffrey Kaplan, “‘Leaderless resistance’,” Terrorism and Political Violence 9, no. 3 (1997): 80–95.

7.

A.C. Thompson, Ali Winston, and Jake Hanrahan, “Inside Atomwaffen As It Celebrates a Member for Allegedly Killing a Gay Jewish College Student,” ProPublica, 23 February 2018, https://www.propublica.org/article/atomwaffen-division-inside-white-hate-group.

8.

Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity (New York: New York University Press, 2003), 19.

9.

Ibid.

10.

See: Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun, 2003.

11.

Documenting Hate: New American Nazis, directed by Robert Rowley, A.C. Thompson, and Karim Hajj, Frontline, PBS, 2018, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/documenting-hate-new-american-nazis/transcript/.

12.

“James Mason,” Counter Extremism Project, no date, https://www.counterextremism.com/extremists/james-mason; “James Mason’s Siege: Ties to Extremism,” Counter Extremism Project, no date, https://www.counterextremism.com/sites/default/files/james-mason-siege-ties-to-extremists.pdf; “James Mason,” Southern Poverty Law Center, no date, https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/james-mason; “Atomwaffen Division,” Southern Poverty Law Center, no date, https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/atomwaffen-division.

13.

Bethan Johnson and Matthew Feldman, “Siege Culture After Siege: Anatomy of a Neo-Nazi Terrorist Doctrine,” International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (July 2021): i-25.

14.

Jacob Aasland Ravndal, “From Bombs to Books, and Back Again? Mapping Strategies of Right-Wing Revolutionary Resistance,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism (2021): 1–29; Benjamin Lee and Kim Knott, “Fascist Aspirants: Fascist Forge and Ideological Learning in the Extreme Right Online Milieu,” Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 14, no. 3 (2022): 216–40; Daniel Koehler, “Dying for the Cause? The Logic and Function of Ideologically Motivated Suicide, Martyrdom, and Self-Sacrifice Within the Contemporary Extreme Right,” Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 14, no. 2 (2022): 120–41; Stephane J. Baele, Lwys Brace, and Travis G. Coan, “Uncovering the Far-Right Online Ecosystem: An Analytical Framework and Research Agenda,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism (2020), doi: 10.1080/1057610X.2020.1862895; J. M. Berger, A Paler Shade of White: Identity & In-Group Critique in James Mason’s Siege (Washington, DC: Resolve Network, 2021), https://doi.org/10.37805/remve2021.1.

15.

J. Kaplan, “The Post-War Paths of Occult National Socialism: From Rockwell and Madole to Manson,” Patterns of Prejudice 35, no. 3 (2001): 41–67; Gustavo Guzmán, “Miguel Serrano’s Antisemitism and its Impact on the Twenty-First-Century Countercultural Rightists,” Analysis of Current Trends in Antisemitism – ACTA 40, no. 1 (2019), https://doi.org/10.1515/actap-2019-0001.

16.

Nate Thayer, “Secret Identities of U.S. Nazi Terror Group Revealed,” self-published, 06 December 2019, https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:GPpx56k_M3cJ:https://www.nate-thayer.com/secret-identities-of-u-s-nazi-terror-group-revealed/+&cd = 3&hl = en&ct = clnk&gl = uk&client = safari.

17.

Ironmarch, online forum, no date, http://archive.is/8Htn3#selection-1573.1-1589.1.

18.

Schuster in Mason, Siege, 4th edition, 17.

19.

Mason, Siege, The Collected Writings of James Mason, 40.

20.

James Mason, Siege, The Collected Writings of James Mason, 3rd ed. (Unknown: IronMarch.org Publication, 2017), 498.

21.

Ibid., 213.

22.

Matthew Feldman, “Comparative Lone Wolf Terrorism: Toward a Heuristic Definition,” Democracy and Security 9, no. 3 (2013): 270–86.

23.

Mason, Siege, 3rd ed., 109.

24.

Ibid., 186.

25.

Ibid., 131.

26.

Ibid., 62.

27.

Ibid., 429.

28.

Ibid., 394.

29.

Ibid., 38.

30.

Ibid., 75.

31.

Ibid., 461. See also: Ibid., 158–9; Ibid., 226–31; Ibid., 238–40; Ibid., 460; Ibid., 488–90.

32.

Ibid., 439.

33.

Ibid., 440–1.

34.

Ibid., 58.

35.

Ibid., 482.

36.

Ibid., 162.

37.

Ibid., 13; Ibid., 78.

38.

Ibid., 247.

39.

Ibid., 220.

40.

Ibid., 72.

41.

Chiponda Chimbelu, “Afro-Germans and Nazism,” Deutsche Welle, 10 January 2010, https://www.dw.com/en/the-fate-of-blacks-in-nazi-germany/a-5065360; “Afro-Germans During The Holocaust,” The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, no date, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/afro-germans-during-the-holocaust.

42.

Mason, Siege, 3rd ed., 305.

43.

Ibid., 214.

44.

Ibid., 272.

45.

Ibid., 187.

46.

Ibid., 61.

47.

Ibid., 100–1.

48.

Ibid., 51–2.

49.

Ibid., 324–5.

50.

Ibid., 70.

51.

Ibid., 284.

52.

Perry Warthan in James Mason, Siege, The Collected Writings of James Mason, 3rd ed. (Unknown: IronMarch.org Publication, 2017), 523.

53.

Mason, Siege, 3rd ed., 71.

54.

Ibid., 269–70.

55.

Ibid., 138; see also: Ibid., 87.

56.

Ibid., 503.

57.

Ibid., 139.

58.

Ibid., 72.

59.

Ibid., 87.

60.

Ibid., 247.

61.

Ibid., 516.

62.

Ibid., 142.

63.

Ibid., 126–7.

64.

Ibid., 53–4.

65.

Schuster in Mason, Siege, 3rd ed., 13.

66.

“Part 4: White Supremacist Joseph Franklin,” Federal Bureau of Investigation, 14 January 2014, https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/serial-killers-part-4.

67.

Mason, Siege, 3rd ed., 303.

68.

Ibid., 283–4.

69.

Ibid., 47.

70.

Ibid., 224.

71.

Ibid., 128.

72.

Ibid., 223.

73.

Ibid., 205.

74.

Ibid., 113.

75.

Ibid., 86.

76.

Ibid., 97.

77.

Louis Beam, ‘Leaderless Resistance,’ self-published, no date, http://www.louisbeam.com/leaderless.htm.

78.

Mason, Siege, 3rd ed., 75.

79.

Ibid., 109.

80.

Ibid., 97–8.

81.

Ibid.

82.

Ibid., 107–8.

83.

Ibid., 65.

84.

For instances see: Jason Burke, “The Myth of the ‘Lone Wolf’ Terrorist,” The Guardian, 20 March 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/mar/30/myth-lone-wolf-terrorist; J. M. Berger, “The Strategy of Violent White Supremacy Is Evolving,” The Atlantic, 07 August 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/the-new-strategy-of-violent-white-supremacy/595648/.

85.

Mason, Siege, 3rd ed., 338.

86.

Ibid., 339.

87.

Ibid., 415.

88.

Ibid., 158.

89.

See: Mason, Siege, 3rd ed.

90.

“Atomwaffen Division,” Anti-Defamation League, no date, https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/atomwaffen-division; “Atomwaffen Division,” Southern Poverty Law Center, no date.

91.

“James Mason,” Siege Kultur, no date, now dead link; “Worldview,” Siege Kultur, no date, now dead link.

92.

“James Mason,” Siege Kultur; “Worldview,” Siege Kultur; Johnson, “‘All My Heroes Are Dead’,” Global Network on Extremism & Technology.

93.

“Proscribed Terrorist Groups or Organisations,” UK Home Office, 2021, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/proscribed-terror-groups-or-organisations-2/proscribed-terrorist-groups-or-organisations-accessible-version; “Sonnenkrieg Division,” Australian National Security, no date, https://www.nationalsecurity.gov.au/Listedterroristorganisations/Pages/sonnenkrieg-division.aspx; “Statement of Case to Designate The Base as a Terrorist Entity,” New Zealand Police, 20 June 2022, https://www.police.govt.nz/sites/default/files/publications/statement-of-case-the-base-terrorist-entity-20-june-2022.pdf.

94.

“Atomwaffen Division,” Anti-Defamation League, no date, https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/atomwaffen-division; “Feuerkrieg Division (FKD),” Anti-Defamation League, no date, https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/feuerkrieg-division-fkd.

95.

Feuerkrieg Division **Official**, online forum, no date; Subcomandante X, “Feuerkrieg Division Member Talks About New Group on Far-Right,” Medium, 08 January 2019, https://medium.com/americanodyssey/feuerkrieg-division-member-talks-about-group-on-far-right-neo-nazi-podcast-314086068acf.

96.

“Current listed entities,” Public Safety Canada, Government of Canada, 2021; “The Base,” Counter Extremism Project, no date, https://www.counterextremism.com/supremacy/base; Berger, A Paler Shade of White (2021).

97.

Bethan Johnson, “‘Join or Else Die!’: Siege Culture and the Proliferation of Neo-Nazi Narratives Online,” Courage Against Hate (2021): 36–56.

98.

Schuster in Mason, Siege, 3rd ed., 34.

99.

Lizzie Dearden, “Counterterror police chief warns of ‘new and worrying trend’ of teenage neo-Nazis,” The Independent, 18 November 2020, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/terrorism-uk-neo-nazis-teenagers-arrests-b1724480.html.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes