Be Careful Attributing Anything to AWD
By Jon Lewis & Alex Newhouse
Don’t be fooled—the use of the AWD name, logo, or flag isn’t enough to prove that original members are involved.
Atomwaffen Division (AWD) —one of the most notorious and violent neofascist accelerationist movements of the 21st century— was recently back in the news cycle for ties to a terrorist plot for the first time in two years. But one of the six individuals identified by the FBI as allegedly involved in a spate of January 2022 bomb threats targeting historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) across the country in January 2021 reportedly claimed affiliation with AWD– the reality is likely far more complex. While the tactical approach of the plot matches established AWD patterns, it is unclear whether the claimed association is legitimate or not: AWD has increasingly become a brand used by individuals and cells with no clear relationship to the original leaders. Instead, the claimed affiliation may indicate efforts by other accelerationists toward re-igniting the activity of a particularly violent neofascist network.
The neofascist accelerationist movement is extremely opaque and convoluted, and intentionally so. Its constantly-in-flux structure is a variation of “leaderless resistance,” and combined with its churn through brands, it is designed to be hard to follow and harder to enforce against. This means it is especially important to be precise when describing the actions of named neofascist groups. Due to its notoriety, Atomwaffen is arguably the best example of this challenge: its real purpose is not as a group itself, but as a focal point of accelerationist agitation and a potent tool for inspiring fear in the public. In February 2021, the Canadian government added Atomwaffen to its country’s terrorism list and Australia listed its successor National Socialist Order in February 2022, illustrating that the AWD brand continues to persevere and inspire ideologically similar individuals to engage in violent plots.
AWD was never a hierarchical organization, despite having a small cadre of original leadership, and its membership has overlapped to varying extents with other groups in the accelerationist movement. Moreover, since 2017, AWD membership has undergone an array of infighting, schisms, collapses, reshuffles, and re-emergences—and, concurrently, numerous transnational cells have adopted the brand without any meaningful structural link. As such, it is vital to treat any individual claim of affiliation with a healthy dose of skepticism and take into consideration the goals of the neofascist movement.
Since 2017, Atomwaffen Division the group has largely disappeared while Atomwaffen Division the brand has continued to survive. The original incarnation of Atomwaffen Division gained infamy largely as a result of criminal charges against members of the group for their involvement in at least five murders. Their rise was also marked by a terroristic promotion of over-the-top violent accelerationist imagery and large-scale plotts against minority groups and communities, journalists, and infrastructural targets.
The core membership of AWD’s first iteration from 2015-2017, resurrected from near obscurity neo-Nazi ideologue James Mason, popularizing “Siegism” as a tactical approach and aesthetic style within contemporary neo-fascist accelerationism. This version of AWD was by far the most organized, with its two co-founders implementing a hybrid structure composed of decentralized cells and a central leadership hierarchy. However, even during this period, the group showed signs of operating as something more nebulous than a discrete organization, foreshadowing its future development into a brand that could be adopted and disposed of. Deeply embedded in the Iron March accelerationist network, Atomwaffen Division was launched with help from members of other neofascist groups like the U.K.’s National Action. These individuals seemingly saw great potential in a brand such as AWD, which could be used as a lightning rod to promote a particularly violent form of neofascist action.
AWD’s leadership structure significantly eroded during its second main phase between 2017-2019. After one of the original founders allegedly murdered two AWD members and the other founder was convicted on explosives charges, Atomwaffen Division was targeted for infiltration and taken over by members of the Temple ov Blood, a radically violent “nexion” affiliated with the accelerationist Order of Nine Angles radicalization pathway. International cells seemingly aligned with the Temple ov Blood followed, including small groups in Russia, Germany, and Argentina openly organizing under the Atomwaffen name. While some of these cells still exist, the core American-focused Atomwaffen Division went defunct in 2019 following the arrest of several of the Temple ov Blood members on a variety of charges.
Following this leadership upheaval, members loyal to the original vision and founders publicly launched the National Socialist Order in 2020. This was an attempt to double down on the Siegist vision of the original group and establish distance from the AWD name that had become associated with Temple ov Blood. Operating primarily as a propaganda outlet, with seemingly few in-person activities, the NSO promotes a version of neofascist accelerationism that is antagonistic to O9A’s current of accelerationism. Membership details are largely unclear, although the SPLC recently identified the administrator of the NSO’s main website. Additionally, James Mason’s support of NSO is indicative of some attempt to claim continuity with the original group.
Since the collapse of the Temple ov Blood-run AWD and the emergence of the NSO as the proclaimed successor to the original group, the use of the AWD name and brand has waned. Until late 2021, it remained active primarily in non-American contexts; an Atomwaffen Division Argentina recruited on Telegram, while a new Atomwaffen Division Europe emerged in early 2021, seemingly composed of mostly adolescent members who likely had nothing to do with original AWD activities. However, in early November 2021, the AWD name was abruptly resurrected in the United States. Using a website apparently built and provided by NSO membership, an unidentified individual declared that Atomwaffen Division was restarting. This announcement was shared widely within neofascist circles, including in an enthusiastic post by Rinaldo Nazzaro, the founder and Russia-based leader of neofascist accelerationist network The Base. James Mason and the NSO quickly condemned this resurrection and took the new AWD’s website offline. But in January 2022, it emerged again on Telegram, showing videos claiming to be joint paramilitary training between AWD and The Base.
If the HBCU threat caller is indeed affiliated with some iteration of Atomwaffen Division, it is most likely with this last, newly formed grouping that likely has little to do with original AWD. The use of bomb and shooting threats to disrupt and cause panic among communities of marginalized individuals was, indeed, employed by the original group. In fact, between October 2018 and November 2019, Atomwaffen Division members John Cameron Denton and John William Kirby Kelley engaged in a conspiracy that “conducted multiple swatting events, targeting journalists, a Virginia university, a former U.S. Cabinet member, a historic African American church, an Islamic Center in Arlington, Texas, and members of various minority groups and communities across the United States.” Over the course of this conspiracy, the AWD members conducted swatting attacks on at least 134 different locations across the United States, including against the Alfred Street Baptist Church, which a conspirator admitted to choosing as a target because its congregation is predominantly African American. However, it is important to recognize that this is a common tactic among the neofascist community writ large—and invoking the name of AWD could help incite fear, regardless of the actual affiliation of the caller. This tactic has a long history within other terrorist milieus, too; some violent Islamist groups adopt names of defunct entities to capitalize on their legacies.
Due to the frequent reshuffling of Atomwaffen Division, it is thus likely that the group hasn’t returned so much as its influential brand is being exploited for recruitment purposes. It is also possible, for instance, that individuals aligned with movements like The Base are involved in attempts to resurrect the name to bring new life into his own flagging network. The Base has faced significant pressure from American law enforcement and has been designated by the British, Australian, and Canadian governments; as a result, it has diminished significantly from its 2019 zenith. According to reports and his own statements on Telegram, Nazzaro is trying to restart The Base recruitment and operations. The new Atomwaffen Division has also aligned itself with The Base’s own priorities: survivalism, wilderness training, and paramilitary camps. The eagerness with which individuals like Nazzaro promoted the new AWD directly contrasted with the NSO’s own statements, too. These indicators suggest that a faction of neofascist accelerationists may be attempting to revitalize The Base’s model of a decentralized survivalist network—and, in turn, The Base may be leveraging the AWD brand to bolster its own nascent resurrection.
Therefore, it is pivotal to use caution in allowing the HBCU threat caller or the banner activists to assume the name of Atomwaffen Division without careful interrogation in reporting and analysis. Failure to do so, despite the present absence of clear connections to older, organized iterations of AWD allows these individuals to appropriate over six years of Atomwaffen brand infamy unchallenged. It also allows would-be neofascist terrorists an unchecked, unchallenged signal boost to their nascent goals of revitalizing the AWD brand and deepens the emotional impact they aim to generate.