Reykjavík Grapevine - 22.05.2015, Page 30

30 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 6 — 2015LEMÚRINN
Lemúrinn is an Icelandic web magazine (it's also the Icelandic word for the native
primate of Madagascar). A winner of the 2012 Web Awards, Lemúrinn.is covers
all things strangeand interesting. Go check it out at www.lemurinn.is
After having served in the Pacific theatre
in WWII and being recalled to duty as a
Lieutenant Commander in the Korean
War, Rockwell was ordered to serve at
the base in Iceland in 1952. Families were
not allowed to stay with American service
personnel stationed there, so his wife and
three children remained in America. The
following year, while Rockwell was still in
Iceland, he and his wife divorced.
In Reykjavík, he met an Icelandic
woman, Þóra Hallgrímsson, and they got
married shortly thereafter, in October
1953. They honeymooned in the Alps and
visited Berchtesgaden in Germany, where
Adolf Hitler had his famous retreat. They
later moved to the US, where Rockwell
started his political career, but the
marriage lasted only a few years.
Rockwell founded the American
Nazi Party in 1959. He made speeches
in which he openly stated his admiration
for Hitler. Although his party had few
members and supporters, he repeatedly
made headlines because of his fanatical
and hateful views and childish ways.
Amazingly, though, he polled 5,730 votes
when he ran for Governor of Virginia in
1965.
In a 1966 interview with Playboy, he
said: "I don't believe for one minute that
any 6,000,000 Jews were exterminated
by Hitler. It never happened." He thought
communists and “queers” were taking
over America and he was the only man to
save the country. How was he going to do
that? "Well, I haven't done it yet but one
of my ambitions is to rent me a plane and
skywrite a big smoke swastika and fly over
New York City—on Hitler's birthday. That
sort of thing." The interviewer was the
writer Alex Haley, who would later write
the bestselling novel ‘Roots: The Saga of
an American Family’ about slavery and
racial violence in America. Rockwell was
played by Marlon Brando in an episode
of the accompanying TV series ‘Roots',
which became one of the most watched
series in television history.
After years of propagating his
extremist Nazi politics, making very
few steps towards his goal of a leading
the United States into an era of "racial
purity," Rockwell was murdered by a
former member of his party while leaving
a shopping center in Arlington, Virginia in
August, 1967.
In his autobiography ‘This Time the
World’ (1960), Rockwell writes about his
years in Iceland:
When we got to Norfolk, I walked into the
Navy assignment office while the wife and
kids waited outside in the car to learn our
"fate." Where would my next duty be? My
"sentence" sounded "fatal": ICELAND!!!
I had hardly heard of the place. I
imagined, like most people, that it was a land
of polar bears, ice and esquimaux. Worst of
all, I knew it would be an impossible strain
on our already creaking marriage. Families
were not then permitted in Iceland, and the
minimum "sentence" to this outpost was
ONE YEAR!
When I arrived, I found the base at
Keflavik (pronounced "kep-la-veek," in
spite of the "f") a little more civilized and
a little less icy than I had imagined, but not
much. There are a few
dozen stunted trees in
the whole of Iceland,
but none within thirty
miles of the huge and
utterly barren US air
base. The Gulf Stream
runs around one end
of the island, and the
icy, arctic currents
sweep around the
other, so that the
extreme difference in
temperatures regularly
produces winds of over a hundred miles
an hour. And these gales roar across the
volcanic ash and bare ground of Keflavík
out of the Atlantic Ocean, unopposed.
I was detailed as Executive Officer
of a Fleet Aircraft Service Squadron with
patrol bombers. Our working Squadron
area consisted of a few Quonset huts and
the rudest possible facilities. We had only
half of an old World War II hangar, crammed
with old jeeps and trucks, to work on our
planes. So the men had to work and live in
the bitter arctic weather much of the time.
It is dark almost all winter, and the
effect of the wild wind, the sweeping,
stinging, freezing rain and the eternal
darkness is infinitely depressing. It is not
cold (actually warmer on the average than
Norfolk, because of the Gulf Stream) but
the duty up there at Keflavik is as close to a
prison sentence as you can get outside the
walls.
There were "consolations," however.
Liquor was unbelievably cheap—a dollar or
two for quarts of the best stuff—and women
were something else
altogether. They were,
and are, beautiful!
They are the purest of
Nordics, with perfect,
handsome faces, lovely
figures, and charming
dispositions. The social
customs of Iceland are
particularly entrancing
to visiting males in this
respect, as sex is not the
sternly regulated affair it
is everywhere else. The
attitude in Iceland is pretty much that sex is
like hunger or thirst. When you are hungry
you eat. When you are thirsty, you drink—
and when you feel like sex in Iceland, you
satisfy this need too.
There were few "unavailable" girls at
the airport. Most of them worked for the
administration one way or the other. But
none of them ever realized that they could
make money other ways. They were having
too much fun being generous.
In fact, unbelievable as it may be, one
of my officers almost got murdered by a
very pretty little girl, for kicking her out of
his bed.
She had spent long hours with him
before she was turned out into the snow, so
he could get some rest for a morning hop.
She did not like being sent away. So she
went and "borrowed" a .45 from a sergeant,
whom she "knew," in another barracks,
stuck it in the window of the Lieutenant's
room and started shooting. He and the
other two officers in the hut scrambled
madly, first to get out of the way, and then to
catch and disarm her. The squadron dentist
(a Jew, by the way) hid in the closet during
this "firefight"—and the boys had endless
fun afterwards at the Jew's expense—not
without justice.
"Parties" at the base were more like
orgies, with all the free liquor, and the even
"freer" girls. I am sorry to say that many of
our top, most senior officers, succumbed
to the enormous temptations of all this,
and conducted themselves in the most
disgraceful and un-officer like manner. The
whole atmosphere at Keflavik International
Airport was evil and unwholesome,
depressing and disgusting.
I became interested in the culture and
history of Iceland, and particularly the racial
purity of the Icelandic people.
In Reykjavik, I now began to enjoy
myself conversing with the Icelanders. Even
the most Anti-American were impressed
with an American "Ami" Commander
who could take the trouble to learn their
language—the language of the ancient
Vikings, spoken by less than two hundred
thousand people in the world today.
But that was not my only reward.
I learned wonderful things about our
ancient Nordic heritage from our mighty,
bear-skin-clad ancestors of the far north.
I learned, for instance that the Icelandic
word for a German is "Thodthverdthur"—
which means "People's defenders"—the
tribal memory of the times when it was
the Germans alone who stood between
the European White man, and the
savage hordes of Genghis Khan for many
centuries! (As they stand now between us
and the same savage hordes. )
American soldier George Lincoln Rockwell was one of
thousands of people deployed to the US military base in
Keflavík, Iceland during the Cold War. His moderately suc-
cessful career in the military did not make him a famous
figure. However, he would make headlines when he moved
back to the US some years later as the self-titled Ameri-
can "Führer" and founder of the American Nazi Party.
Words
Lemúrinn
Photo
Provided by Lemúrinn
An American
Nazi In Iceland
"There were few "un-
available" girls at the
airport. Most of them
worked for the admin-
istration one way or
the other. But none
of them ever realized
that they could make
money other ways.
They were having
too much fun being
generous."
ARTISAN BAKERY
& COFFEE HOUSE
OPEN EVERYDAY 6.30 - 21.00
LAUGAVEGUR 36 · 101 REYKJAVIK