Rockwell, an American conservative, was first politicised in the anti-communism and anti-racial integration movements before becoming anti-Jewish. In response to his opponents calling him a "Nazi", he theatrically appropriated the aesthetic elements of the NSDAP, to "own" the intended insult. In 1959, Rockwell founded the American Nazi Party and instructed his members to dress in imitation SA-style brown shirts, while flying the flag of the Third Reich. In contrast to Yockey, he was pro-American and cooperated with FBI requests, despite the party being targeted by COINTELPRO due to the mistaken belief that they were agents of Nasser's Egypt during a brief intelligence "brown scare".While the intelligence claims in regards to the Rockwell's American costume group proved unfounded, a number of actual German Nazis did relocate to the Middle East, some converted to Islam and changed their names; particularly Egypt and Syria. This includes Johann von Leers, Alois Brunner, Aribert Heim, Franz Stangl, Gerhard Mertins, Hans Eisele, Walter Rauff, Artur Schmitt and others. The father of Neo-Nazism, Otto Ernst Remer, also fled to Egypt, then Syria during the 1950s. Later leaders of American white nationalism came to politics through the ANP, including a teenage David Duke and William Luther Pierce of the National Alliance, although they soon distanced themselves from explicit self-identification with neo-Nazism.
Rockwell, an American conservative, was first politicised in the anti-communism and anti-racial integration movements before becoming anti-Jewish. In response to his opponents calling him a "Nazi", he theatrically appropriated the aesthetic elements of the NSDAP, to "own" the intended insult. In 1959, Rockwell founded the American Nazi Party and instructed his members to dress in imitation SA-style brown shirts, while flying the flag of the Third Reich. In contrast to Yockey he was pro-American and cooperated with FBI requests, despite the party being targeted by COINTELPRO due to the mistaken belief that they were agents of Nasser's Egypt during a brief intelligence "brown scare".While the intelligence claims in regards to the Rockwell's American costume group proved unfounded, a number of actual German Nazis did relocate to the Middle East, some converted to Islam and changed their names; particularly Egypt and Syria. This includes Johann von Leers, Alois Brunner, Aribert Heim, Franz Stangl, Gerhard Mertins, Hans Eisele, Walter Rauff, Artur Schmitt and others. The father of Neo-Nazism, Otto Ernst Remer, also fled to Egypt, then Syria during the 1950s. Later leaders of American white nationalism came to politics through the ANP, including a teenage David Duke and William Luther Pierce of the National Alliance, although they soon distanced themselves from explicit self-identification with neo-Nazism.