Chats Show Neo-Nazis Celebrated Blaze Bernstein Murder

An undated post from Woodward’s Facebook page. Image by Facebook

By Avichai Scher February 23, 2018

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 scher@forward.com 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.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO