When police raided the Florida condo of neo-Nazi terrorists in 2018, the usual fascist swastikas and Nazi flags adorned the walls. However, an unusual banner hung in the living room of the Atomwaffen Division cell’s condo — the red-star flag of North Korea, which featured prominently in the home and was also an important part of this group’s iconography. 

As it turned out, Atomwaffen Division had also published an online poster conveying its support for Pyongyang during the heightened U.S.-North Korea tensions of 2017. The poster’s message declared, “We are with you Korea from the Belly of the Beast.” A Juche hammer-sickle-and brush logo featured next to a swastika.

American neo-Nazis are not the only group of its kind to embrace the DPRK. Despite its communist origins and Soviet tutelage, North Korea is increasingly seen as an ultra-nationalist model of racial purity for the global far right. A surprising number of German neo-Nazis, American neo-fascists and other white nationalists admire North Korea’s militarism and isolationist tendencies. 

This fascination with North Korea among white supremacist extremists highlights the complex and often contradictory nature of their ideological beliefs, as they embrace elements of a regime with a starkly different political system and history.

THE EMERGENCE OF WHITE JUCHE

The roots of the far-right’s intrigue with North Korea remain shrouded in mystery. 

In the 1990s, German neo-Nazi Michael Koth formed a pro-DPRK organization, anti-Imperialist Platform, that embraced North Korean ideology. North Korean state-run media regularly cited Koth and the Kim family regime invited him to visit the country in 2016.

In 2016, the DPRK’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) noted that Koth praised Kim Il Sung for “devoting his all to the happiness of the people all his life, adding that not only the Korean people but also the world progressive people are highly praising him as the founder of socialist Korea and the sun of humankind.” 

In the toxic milieu of the U.S. far-right movement, an Oregon-based white nationalist named John Paul Cupp, who was grappling with homelessness at the time, founded the Songun Politics Study Group USA in 2003 and undertook a journey to North Korea in 2006. The DPRK government depicted him as a notable political figure within the U.S.

As documented by Nate Thayer for NK News, a separate U.S. white nationalist entity known as the Rural People’s Party also expressed support for North Korea, adorning their headquarters — a mobile home located in rural South Carolina — with portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. 

These instances of far-right fascination with North Korea underscore the multifaceted nature of political extremism, as it reaches beyond conventional left-right boundaries and political norms. 

Meanwhile, within the online meme culture of the far right, the term “white Juche” emerged as a means for white nationalists to articulate their admiration for North Korea’s brand of self-reliance and anti-globalism. Amongst white nationalists, “white Juche” also symbolized a goal for a white ethno-state based on Pyongyang-style autarky and totalitarianism. 

Among elements of the U.S far right, there has been a notable appreciation for the perceived absence of Jewish influence in North Korea, often accompanied by applause for Pyongyang’s perceived disassociation from the “Jewish-led international banking system.” North Korea’s emphasis on racial homogeneity and anti-Western values resonated with U.S white supremacist extremists.

Moreover, Pyongyang’s firm opposition to the U.S.-led international order appealed to radical rightists. 

North Korea is “just another state fighting for national independence against U.S. imperialism,” one commenter on the neo-Nazi internet forum, Stormfront, explained back in 2004. “A state that has many bad elements nonetheless, but a state whose ‘danger’ for world peace is far, far smaller than the one posed by Jewmerica. If I were to characterize their system, I’d say it’s Social Nationalism.” 

This seemingly bizarre fascination with North Korea among contemporary neo-Nazis, driven by their staunch opposition to the “American Empire” and multi-racial democracy, highlights the revolutionary nuances in their racist-conspiratorial ideology and the distinct xenophobic allure that Pyongyang holds for certain far-right individuals.

THE CLEANEST STATE

In U.S. far-right circles, interest in North Korea seems to have developed after the 2011 publication of B.R Myers’ book “The Cleanest Race,” which argues that a belief in Koreans racial purity is a central part of North Korea’s state ideology. 

Matt Heimbach, a once notable figure in the U.S. far-right movement, said the book “definitely opened my eyes” to North Korean political culture. Heimbach authored a manifesto titled “White Juche,” which advocated for “white nationalism” and urged a departure from conventional conservative ideologies, eventually expressing his personal admiration for Adolf Hitler. 

In a 2017 interview with The Diplomat, Heimbach explained his support for the Kim family dictatorship. 

“As long as [North Koreans] can maintain their blood, it will maintain their identity as a people,” Heimbach said. “It’s pretty amazing if you actually look at what they’re trying to do [there].” 

Other far-right figures have also expressed admiration for the regime’s fascist-style efforts to preserve its identity. For example, Russian ultra-nationalist philosopher Alexander Dugin recently praised North Korea’s Juche idea in a Twitter post and admires Pyongyang’s hostility to Western liberalism.

North Korea’s far-right supporters often ignore the Marxist-Leninist traditions of the Korean Workers’ Party. Instead, they highlight the North Korean government’s commitment to national sovereignty and opposition to globalization. 

Many of these far-right figures adhere to Strasserism, a neo-fascist blend of pro-worker policies, xenophobia and socialist economics. They rarely mention the deep impoverishment of the North Korean economy, and if it is brought up, they put the blame on Western sanctions.

Despite North Korea’s Asian communist heritage, the regime will likely continue to be a model for radical illiberalism, autocracy and ethnocentrism. 

Vladimir Putin’s Russia, with its fervent anti-LGBTQ policies and hostility to Western influence, has long been a darling of the global far right. North Korea’s strengthened relationship with Moscow will only further the global far right’s fascination with the Kim family regime. 

The fact that this small Northeast Asian nation is allegedly refueling the Russian war machine with artillery may confirm in the minds of Russophile white nationalists that the DPRK is a stalwart of anti-Western militarism.

Edited by Bryan Betts