Sam Woodward, the member of Atomwaffen Division who killed gay Jewish teen Blaze Bernstein
Last month, the murder of gay Jewish teen Blaze Bernstein at the hand of neo-Nazi Samuel Woodward made headlines. Investigative journalism non-profit ProPublica recently attained encrypted chat logs from Woodward’s extremist group, Atomwaffen Division.
Atomwaffen Division is a notorious white supremacist group that celebrates Hitler and Charles Manson. The murder of Bernstein was celebrated in these chats, of which ProPublica attained 250,000 messages from. The chats were from Discord, an online chat service targeted at the gaming community.
The chats
‘I love this,’ one member wrote upon hearing the news about Bernstein.
Another member described Woodward as a ‘one man gay Jew wrecking crew.’
‘What I really want to know is who leaked that shit about Sam to the media,’ a third member wrote.
At least one member wanted revenge on the person who revealed Woodward’s affiliation with the group.
‘Rats and traitors get the rope first,’ they said.
The group ‘Atomwaffen,’ which means ‘nuclear weapons’ in German, embraces ideologies from the Third Reich and often preaches hatred of minorities. They produce YouTube videos of their members firing weapons, burning the U.S. Constitution, and setting fire to the American flag. For the most part, their operation is cloaked in secrecy. They prohibit their members from talking to the media.
ProPublica reports that:
‘The group may have as many as 20 cells around the country, small groups of indeterminate size in Texas, Virginia, Washington, Nevada and elsewhere. Members armed with assault rifles and other guns have taken part in weapons training in various locations over the last two years, including last month in the Nevada desert near Death Valley.’
‘Members have discussed using explosives to cripple public water systems and destroy parts of the electrical power grid. One member even claimed to have obtained classified maps of the power grid in California.’
‘Throughout the chats, Atomwaffen members laud Timothy McVeigh, the former soldier who bombed the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168, including numerous children. Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof and Anders Breivik, the Norwegian extremist who massacred 77 people, also come in for praise.’
The murder of Blaze Bernstein
Woodward posted several messages to the chat the day after Bernstein’s murder, before he was arrested and charged. He told the group he was ‘truly grateful’ for their time together.
‘Sam did something stupid. Not that the f*ggot k*ke didn’t deserve to die. Just simply not worth a life in prison for,’ one member wrote, using an anti-Semitic slur.
Woodward pleaded not guilty to the murder of Bernstein. Law enforcement is looking into what role Atomwaffen Division played in the murder.
Organizations that monitor hate groups, such as Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), consider Atomwaffen Division a legitimate threat.
‘We haven’t seen anything like Atomwaffen in quite a while,’ Keegan Hankes of SPLC told ProPublica. ‘They should be taken seriously because they’re so extreme.’
Learn more about Atomwaffen Division and ProPublica’s investigation in the video below:
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