and in local news

[sabotabby]

Well, look at this! Someone went and killed Wolfgang Droege. And no, it wasn't me.

And here I was about to do an OMGWTF!-style post about stumbling upon newmarketpunkkk, which is entertaining because I know I must have babysat for some of these kids. And because the phrase "Newmarket punk scene" makes me giggle.

But the news about Droege is much more of a shocker. I wonder who did it...

Comments

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

tried to invade a fucking country?! fuck that nuts.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

That's actually fairly common when white supremacist regimes fall. After the U.S. Civil War, some Confederate fuck tried to take over Nicaragua.

[sabotabby]

I bet that went well.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

I think he was temporarily successful but shortly overthrown, but I'm not sure. I don't even know they guy's name (I should Google the details). My first exposure to this little bit of history was catching the tail end of a movie about it on cable in the late Eighties. It had a nice anachronistic ending in which U.S. choppers land in the Nicaraguan village square to airlift any American citizens out. The guy, who's still in Napoleonic garb, is refused because he renounced his U.S. citizenship. This was after he gave a drunken speech telling the Nicaraguans that Americans will never leave them alone. I need to find that too.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

Okay, my walking movie database coworker has informed me that it is a film called Walker starring Ed Harris in the title role and made by the same director as Repo Man. Now I really want to see it.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

And, hey! It's got Rene Auberjonois and Peter Boyle as well. Kick ass cast. The blurb goes "Before Rambo ... Before Oliver North ... Walker A true story."

[sabotabby]

I need to rent that. Maybe tonight.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

Here are two reviews. Contemporary film critics weren’t kind, but these cinephiles ride to Cox’s defense.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

Okay, my chronology’s is wrong. He did his exploits before the U.S. Civil War. I was confused because he was trying to create new slave states. Here is the long and the short of it.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

also: DUDES, you put KKK in AmeriKKKa, not punKKK!!!

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's even stupider than umlaut abuse.

... Um, is there an umlaut in "umlaut"?

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

no. :]

[sabotabby]

Well, since we're in KKKlanada, they ought to have called it NewmarKKKet. (Which is really appropriate if you've ever been there.)

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

Hahaha. I've been there once, but yeah, I've heard that people are REALLY bored there and will do really stupid things to alleviate their boredom.

[sabotabby]

Like start punkkk bands?

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

Well, I heard about white gangstahz beating up people, but that too I guess. :P

I'll say one thing though, I don't think the punk rock scene would exist without barren suburban land/mindscapes to get people to fuck shit up.

[rote.livejournal.com]

You know, an "anarchist" turned facist on my friends list who used to pollute my friends list had a Durruti icon. I get scared whenever I see yours.

[sabotabby]

Harumph. Durutti was killing fascists even before the Civil War. Your friend sounds like a moron.

[rote.livejournal.com]

He sucked. I became really wary of him when he started to say that women were inferior and getting into this really nationalist stuff. Anyhow, he sucks and has forever associated in my mind even the slightest expression of nationalism with fervant fascism. Maybe I should thank him for that.

[sabotabby]

Okay, now I want to know who he is.

[rote.livejournal.com]

It was anarquista/mferreira.

I don't remember too much other than his fascination with Italy and Spain and his hatred towards/objectification of women. I would also say that if he had any understanding of anarchist theory, he never really appreciated the spirit that is behind it. He was strange. His friends were all on The Phora (http://phora.org/). He got me to join but I left after I realized it was just Nazis and Stalinists.

P.S. Notice that you can search for members by 'race' and 'subrace'? Neat!

[bike4fish.livejournal.com]

The "who killed Wolfgang" article was unbelievably poorly written.

Members of the Toronto police emergency task force were called to the scene and spoke with the suspect over the phone before making an arrest.

Police would not immediately confirm the man's identity. But Global TV reported that the dead man had been identified as Droege.

The 55-year-old man was said to have associated with recently deported Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel.

Which was the suspect, and which was the dead man? Somehow I suspect this was an intra-Nazi squabble (the Globe and Mail story was better written, but not much more informative).

[sabotabby]

There's also some confusion regarding who shot who:

"Police arrested a man who barricaded himself in an apartment after the man was shot in the head."

Word on the street (and I haven't caught up with the latest round of articles) says it was a drug thing.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

New Toronto Star article.

[sabotabby]

No can read. :(

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

Registration is free, and for those that don't want to either put down fake details or bother with the registration process, there's www.bugmenot.com that provides free logins for most papers' websites' unpaid sections, and there are even Firefox and IE plugins which let you just right-click on the login field, and they're automagically filled with a login. They work most of the time. It's one of my favourite Firefox plugins.

That said...

Notorious white supremacist slain
Shot dead at his Scarborough home

ISABEL TEOTONIO, PETER EDWARDS AND NELIA RAPOSO
STAFF REPORTERS

Wolfgang Droege, considered the most notorious neo-Nazi organizer in Canadian history, was gunned down and left for dead in the hallway of his Scarborough apartment yesterday.

Sources who knew the former leader of Heritage Front said he drifted heavily into drug and cigarette smuggling over the past decade, although he was still considered a force in racist white politics.

Supt. Bob Clarke said yesterday afternoon it was too early to say if the slaying was politically motivated.

A suspect in his thirties was taken into custody after a tense one-hour standoff at Droege's apartment on North Dr., near Victoria Park Ave. and Gerrard St.

"I heard three pops and then I heard someone go down the stairs," said a neighbour, who wished to remain anonymous.

When she peered out into the hall, Droege was face-down and motionless, wearing underwear and a T-shirt, she said.

She said she also spotted two men, one hurrying back into Droege's apartment and the other running toward the exit.

Police did not release the name of the man taken into custody.

"Wolfgang Droege was probably the most significant neo-Nazi organizer in Canadian history," said Bernie Farber, chief executive officer of the Canadian Jewish Congress.

Although Droege, 55, could be charming, those who knew him considered him extremely dangerous; his criminal record included more than a half dozen convictions for offences, including assault and possession of dangerous weapons, dating back three decades.

Farber said he learned in the mid-1990s that he was on a "hit list" of figures targeted for execution in Canada by Droege and his associates.

"He came from the dark side and the dark side consumed him," Farber said.

Journalist Bill Dunphy of the Hamilton Spectator, who has written extensively on the white supremacist movement, said Droege spent much of the past decade trying to support himself, smuggling tobacco and drugs and stealing cars, after losing his job as a bailiff because of his violent politics.

Dunphy described Droege's apartment, where he lived alone, as "very sedate" and "ordinary looking," although it contained photos of himself and Heritage Front friends in a 1989 trip to Libya sponsored by Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi on the 20th anniversary of the coup that brought him to power.

Neighbours in his building could sometimes hear music by the Rolling Stones, Beatles and Led Zeppelin coming from his apartment, and he could sometimes be seen strolling in the Beach, wearing black T-shirts and sweatshirts with pictures of wolves on them.

"He was a guy who had charm," Dunphy said. "He had a self-effacing, almost humble, manner at times. He also had a crude side, as evidenced by his political beliefs, but he had the brains to know you only show that in certain company."

Born in Forchheim, Germany, to a family of enthusiastic Nazi supporters, Droege was rejected by the German military in 1967 and became a Canadian citizen in the early 1970s.

Heritage Front was an attempt to bring racist politics into the mainstream after Droege's involvement in ultra-extreme white supremacist politics, including Ku Klux Klan activity in British Columbia and Toronto, and the Nationalist Party and The Order in the United States.

He was involved in an attempt to overthrow the Caribbean island of Dominica in 1981. "His goal was to create a racist mindset," Farber said. "Trying to take over the island of Dominica to create a white state."

[continued...]

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

Droege was impressed by the efforts of Ku Klux Klan member David Duke to run for governor of Louisiana, and hoped to use Heritage Front to take racism into the Canadian political mainstream.

"He was saying, the way to go is politics," Dunphy said. "We can influence people and we don't get thrown in jail."

In 1992, Droege's links with those racist organizations led to his expulsion from Preston Manning's Reform party.

Younger Canadian racists treated him with respect, Dunphy said. "People would come to him for advice, like a don."

In latter years, Dunphy said, Droege was proud of the used brown Cadillac he used to smuggle cigarettes from Quebec.

Over the past year, he had been seen at deportation hearings leading to the expulsion of Holocaust-denier Ernst Zundel.

Police were called to the North Dr. apartment in a pleasant, middle-class neighbourhood at 2:52 p.m., after a report a man had been shot dead and another was barricaded on the second floor of the apartment building.

The suspected gunman placed a 911 call, demanding to speak with his brother. Clarke said after the two spoke by telephone, the suspect gave himself up.

During the standoff yesterday, nearby Blantyre Public School was locked down and the children kept inside.

"I think the principal handled it perfectly," said parent Sue Paull, who has two children, 9 and 13, in the school. "The kids were kept busy and calm. I think she did a splendid job."

Meanwhile, Hilary Bassett, who lives down the street, said, "This is absolutely ridiculous.

"I've been here my whole life, it's a very quiet neighbourhood."

Clarke would agree. "This is one of the quietest, nicest places in the division," he said.

An autopsy is scheduled for today.

Droege was in the news again last summer when Grant Bristow, the co-founder of Heritage Front who was revealed in 1994 as a paid informant for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, broke his long silence, saying he took the job because it "was the right thing to do."

Those who knew Droege say he also had dangerous associates in organized crime.

"Wolfgang Droege's life was characterized by criminality and violence and hatred and it's not surprising at all that somebody who would live by the sword would die by the sword," said Warren Kinsella, a Toronto-based lawyer and author of Web of Hate: Inside Canada's Far Right Network.

With files from Jim Wilkes