H. Keith Thompson
Encyclopedia
Harold Keith Thompson is a New York City
-based corporate executive and a figure within American
far right
circles. Thompson is a graduate of Yale University
.
when he campaigned against involvement as a member of the German American Bund and the America First Committee
. In this role, he came to the attention of Nazi Germany
and was appointed as a Special Agent of the Sicherheitsdienst
(SD) Overseas Intelligence Unit on July 27, 1941.
After the war, Thompson returned to Yale University
in 1946 and completed his studies before embarking on an expedition to Antarctica. This was as part of Operation Highjump
under the command of Rear Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd
. He would soon befriend Otto Skorzeny
and worked alongside him in setting up ODESSA
.
Alongside his political activities, Thompson also found work in public relations
and this remained his area of employment.
and in 1951 when he registered with the United States Department of Justice
as the American representative for the Socialist Reich Party
, a position he held until the group was banned in 1952. Around the same time, he also became involved with the National Renaissance Party. His political involvement brought him into contact with Francis Parker Yockey
while both men were campaigning for Remer's release from prison during the 1950s. Thompson and Yockey remained close allies until the latter's death in 1960.
Thompson definitely stated his position by writing an article entitled 'I Am an American Fascist' for Exposé magazine in 1954. In the article he praised the Third Reich and Adolf Hitler
and condemned the Nuremberg Trials
as 'vicious and vilely dishonorable'. As a result of this, he became linked to the International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics
and published a number of pamphlets on their behalf.
in an attempt to forge links with the Nasser
regime. More concrete links were established with Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
and Johann von Leers
as part of a wider policy of building up contact with the Islamic world.
. Independently wealthy, he has contributed to the campaigns of such right wing figures in the GOP as Jesse Helms
, Oliver North
and Pat Buchanan
. His monetary contributions to the party were such that he was awarded membership of their Presidential Legion of Merit as a result.
Thompson has largely disappeared from the scene in recent years due to his advancing age. In the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing
he re-emerged to initially welcome the attack although he has since revised his position and instead denounced it as a government act designed to destroy the reputation of the far right.
, Carol II of Romania
and Hans-Ulrich Rudel
). Alongside this he has since became a writer for Journal of Historical Review
, his articles including Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz: Last President of a United Germany. A subsequent book Dönitz at Nuremberg: A Re-Appraisal was also edited by Thompson. Thompson was in fact offered a position on the board of policy of the Liberty Lobby
, although he turned it down stating that he only wanted to take one loyalty oath in his life (to Hitler when he joined the SD).
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
-based corporate executive and a figure within American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
far right
Far right
Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...
circles. Thompson is a graduate of Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
.
Early life
Thompson began his political career before America's entry into World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
when he campaigned against involvement as a member of the German American Bund and the America First Committee
America First Committee
The America First Committee was the foremost non-interventionist pressure group against the American entry into World War II. Peaking at 800,000 members, it was likely the largest anti-war organization in American history. Started in 1940, it became defunct after the attack on Pearl Harbor in...
. In this role, he came to the attention of Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and was appointed as a Special Agent of the Sicherheitsdienst
Sicherheitsdienst
Sicherheitsdienst , full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS, or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. The organization was the first Nazi Party intelligence organization to be established and was often considered a "sister organization" with the...
(SD) Overseas Intelligence Unit on July 27, 1941.
After the war, Thompson returned to Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
in 1946 and completed his studies before embarking on an expedition to Antarctica. This was as part of Operation Highjump
Operation Highjump
Operation Highjump , officially titled The United States Navy Antarctic Developments Program, 1946-1947, was a United States Navy operation organized by RADM Richard E. Byrd Jr. USN, , Officer in Charge, Task Force 68, and led by RADM Richard H. Cruzen, USN, Commanding Officer, Task Force 68....
under the command of Rear Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd
Richard Evelyn Byrd
Rear Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd, Jr., USN was a naval officer who specialized in feats of exploration. He was a pioneering American aviator, polar explorer, and organizer of polar logistics...
. He would soon befriend Otto Skorzeny
Otto Skorzeny
Otto Skorzeny was an SS-Obersturmbannführer in the German Waffen-SS during World War II. After fighting on the Eastern Front, he was chosen as the field commander to carry out the rescue mission that freed the deposed Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from captivity...
and worked alongside him in setting up ODESSA
ODESSA
The ODESSA, from the German Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen, meaning “Organization of Former SS Members,” is believed to have been an international Nazi network set up toward the end of World War II by a group of SS officers...
.
Alongside his political activities, Thompson also found work in public relations
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
and this remained his area of employment.
Post-war activism
Thompson became a close ally of Otto Ernst RemerOtto Ernst Remer
Otto-Ernst Remer was a German Wehrmacht officer who played a decisive role in stopping the 1944 20 July Plot against Adolf Hitler. During the war he was wounded nine times in combat...
and in 1951 when he registered with the United States Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
as the American representative for the Socialist Reich Party
Socialist Reich Party
The Socialist Reich Party of Germany was a West German far-right political party founded in the aftermath of the World War II in 1949 as an openly Nazi orientated split-off from the national conservative German Right Party...
, a position he held until the group was banned in 1952. Around the same time, he also became involved with the National Renaissance Party. His political involvement brought him into contact with Francis Parker Yockey
Francis Parker Yockey
Francis Parker Yockey was an American political thinker and polemicist best known for his neo-Spenglerian book Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics, published under the pen name Ulick Varange in 1948. This 600-page book argues for a culture-based, totalitarian path for the...
while both men were campaigning for Remer's release from prison during the 1950s. Thompson and Yockey remained close allies until the latter's death in 1960.
Thompson definitely stated his position by writing an article entitled 'I Am an American Fascist' for Exposé magazine in 1954. In the article he praised the Third Reich and Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
and condemned the Nuremberg Trials
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
as 'vicious and vilely dishonorable'. As a result of this, he became linked to the International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics
International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics
The International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics was a prominent group in the promotion of eugenics and segregation, and the first publisher of Mankind Quarterly.-History:...
and published a number of pamphlets on their behalf.
International ties
Seeking to expand international contacts, Thompson visited CairoCairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
in an attempt to forge links with the Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein was the second President of Egypt from 1956 until his death. A colonel in the Egyptian army, Nasser led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 along with Muhammad Naguib, the first president, which overthrew the monarchy of Egypt and Sudan, and heralded a new period of...
regime. More concrete links were established with Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
Haj Mohammed Effendi Amin el-Husseini was a Palestinian Arab nationalist and Muslim leader in the British Mandate of Palestine. From as early as 1920, in order to secure the independence of Palestine as an Arab state he actively opposed Zionism, and was implicated as a leader of a violent riot...
and Johann von Leers
Johann von Leers
Dr. Johann von Leers, alias Omar Amin , was an Alter Kämpfer and an honorary Sturmbannführer in the Waffen SS in Nazi Germany, where he was also a professor known for his anti-Jewish polemics. He was one of the most important ideologues of the Third Reich, serving as a high-ranking propaganda...
as part of a wider policy of building up contact with the Islamic world.
Republican Party and recent work
Along with a number of right wing activists Thompson has also been involved on the fringes of the Republican PartyRepublican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
. Independently wealthy, he has contributed to the campaigns of such right wing figures in the GOP as Jesse Helms
Jesse Helms
Jesse Alexander Helms, Jr. was a five-term Republican United States Senator from North Carolina who served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1995 to 2001...
, Oliver North
Oliver North
Oliver Laurence North is a retired U.S. Marine Corps officer, political commentator, host of War Stories with Oliver North on Fox News Channel, a military historian, and a New York Times best-selling author....
and Pat Buchanan
Pat Buchanan
Patrick Joseph "Pat" Buchanan is an American paleoconservative political commentator, author, syndicated columnist, politician and broadcaster. Buchanan was a senior adviser to American Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, and was an original host on CNN's Crossfire. He sought...
. His monetary contributions to the party were such that he was awarded membership of their Presidential Legion of Merit as a result.
Thompson has largely disappeared from the scene in recent years due to his advancing age. In the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing
Oklahoma City bombing
The Oklahoma City bombing was a terrorist bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. It was the most destructive act of terrorism on American soil until the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Oklahoma blast claimed 168 lives, including 19...
he re-emerged to initially welcome the attack although he has since revised his position and instead denounced it as a government act designed to destroy the reputation of the far right.
Writing
Thompson's involvement in writing dated back to his early post-war years, whilst he also worked as a publisher and literary agent (where his clients have included Fulgencio BatistaFulgencio Batista
Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar was the United States-aligned Cuban President, dictator and military leader who served as the leader of Cuba from 1933 to 1944 and from 1952 to 1959, before being overthrown as a result of the Cuban Revolution....
, Carol II of Romania
Carol II of Romania
Carol II reigned as King of Romania from 8 June 1930 until 6 September 1940. Eldest son of Ferdinand, King of Romania, and his wife, Queen Marie, a daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second eldest son of Queen Victoria...
and Hans-Ulrich Rudel
Hans-Ulrich Rudel
Hans-Ulrich Rudel was a Stuka dive-bomber pilot during World War II and a member of the Nazi party. The most highly decorated German serviceman of the war, Rudel was one of only 27 military men to be awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds, and the only...
). Alongside this he has since became a writer for Journal of Historical Review
Journal of Historical Review
The Journal of Historical Review is a non-peer reviewed serial, periodical, or journal published by the Institute for Historical Review in Torrance, California. Its subject is primarily Holocaust denial...
, his articles including Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz: Last President of a United Germany. A subsequent book Dönitz at Nuremberg: A Re-Appraisal was also edited by Thompson. Thompson was in fact offered a position on the board of policy of the Liberty Lobby
Liberty Lobby
Liberty Lobby was an American political advocacy organization founded in 1958 that went bankrupt in 2001. It was founded by Willis Carto. In their own words,-Antisemitic world-view:...
, although he turned it down stating that he only wanted to take one loyalty oath in his life (to Hitler when he joined the SD).