Chats Show Neo-Nazis Celebrated Blaze Bernstein Murder
An undated post from Woodward’s Facebook page. Image by Facebook
The man accused of murdering Blaze Bernstein exchanged racist and anti-Semitic messages with members of a neo-Nazi militia group, according to a new report from ProPublica..
ProPublica obtained 250,000 encrypted messages sent over Discord, an online chat service, from Atomwaffen Division, a neo-Nazi extremist group.
The messages reveal the group celebrating the January stabbing murder of Bernstein in January,), allegedly by Sam Woodward, an Atomwaffen member who had received military training from the group.
One referred to Woodward, a high school classmate of Bernstein, as a “one man gay Jew wrecking crew,” and another one saying of the killing, “I love this.”
Woodward attended training outside San Antonio, Texas including firearms, survival and weapons instruction. Propaganda videos reveal that other training sessions included members shouting, “gas the kikes, race war now!”
Woodward’s messages in the chat service were sometimes benign things like video games, TV shows, and not having a girlfriend, but also included angry messages about “mongrels and jews” and gays.
In the days after Bernstein’s death however, the tone of his messages changed.
“hey everyone,” he wrote. “i just wanted to let you all know i love you so much.”
Contact Avichai Scher at [email protected] or on Twitter, @avi_scher
Contact Avichai Scher at [email protected] or on Twitter, @avi_scher
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
