Frank Collin

Francis Joseph "Frank" Collin (born November 3, 1944) formerly served as the leader of the National Socialist Party of America. In the late 1970s, its plan to march in the predominantly Jewish suburb of Skokie, Illinois resulted in a case that went to the United States Supreme Court. The court, in a major First Amendment decision National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie (1979), ruled that the party had a right to march and to display a swastika. Collin lost his position in the party when stories were publicized that his father was a Jewish Holocaust survivor.^[1]

Later he became an author under the pen name Frank Joseph, writing new age and "hyperdiffusionist" works supporting the hypothesis that Old World peoples migrated to North America and were most likely responsible for the development of its complex indigenous societies.

Early life

Collin was born and grew up in Chicago. He went to local schools.

National Socialist organizations and the Skokie march

As a young man in his 20s, Collin joined George Lincoln Rockwell's National Socialist White People's Party in the 1960s.^[1] He was the midwest coordinator.^[2] He broke with the NSWPP due to a disagreement with Rockwell's successor, Matt Koehl,^[1] who was elected as the party leader by popular vote after Rockwell's August 25, 1967 assassination, in part due to Collin's father, Max, stating that he was a Jewish Holocaust survivor and had changed his name from Max Cohen^[3] (or sometimes reported as Max Cohn).^[4] Frank Collin maintained that his father was not telling the truth.^[4]

In 1970, Collin set up another organization, the National Socialist Party of America, which drew other disaffected members of the NSWPP,^[1] as well as Michael Allen, Gary Lauck and Harold Covington.^[1] Covington helped buy a building for the group which they called Rockwell Hall,^[1] where Collin and some other members lived in a barracks in upper floor.^[4] Collin ran for alderman of Chicago in 1975 and pulled 16% of the vote.^[1]

The NSPA began holding anti-black demonstrations in Chicago's Marquette Park.^[5] The Chicago authorities became concerned about violence and passed an ordinance which required demonstrations to post large insurance bonds.^[5][6] Collin went to the ACLU and they filed a suit.^[6] While the case was proceeding without public notice, Collin attempted to contact other cities about holding demonstrations.^[6] Skokie, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, responded with a notice that the group would need to post a bond, similar to the recently enacted ordinance in Chicago.^[6] Collin's plan for his neo-nazi group to march uniformed through Skokie, which was heavily Jewish with a number of Holocaust survivors living there, drew public outrage and the media attention that Collin sought.^[1][5] The National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie case made its way to the Supreme Court of the United States, who issued a decision on June 14, 1977 that allowed the NSPA to march wearing uniforms with swastikas under the Constitutional protections of freedom of speech and assembly.^[7] However, instead of marching through Skokie, Collin and a handful of NSPA members decided instead to march through Chicago, where they were outnumbered and jeered by thousands of counter-protestors.^[1][8]

Downfall

Also in 1977, Koehl's NSWPP began a campaign in their paper White Power about Collin's father being Jewish,^[1] including publications of what they stated were Max's naturalization papers.^[1] Collin and the NSPA leadership continued to deny the claim and stated the images were fakes.^[1]

During this time, according to Jeffrey Kaplan, Covington found pictures in Collin's desk that linked Collin to pedophilia.^[9] In what Kaplan describes as a play for power in the organization, Covington and the other NSPA turned the evidence on the group's president, Collin, over to the police.^[9] After Collin was arrested, Covington took over leadership of the NSPA and moved the headquarters from Chicago to North Carolina.^[1] A 1980 article in the New York Times reported that"Frank Collin was expelled from the American Nazi Party for illicit intercourse with minors and the use of Nazi headquarters in Chicago for purposes of sodomy with children. The report indicates that the Nazis "tipped" the police who arrested Collin.^[10] Collin was convicted of child molestation^[9][11] and sentenced to seven years in prison.^[9]

Author

Upon his release from prison, Collin "reinvented himself as 'Frank Joseph,' a New Age writer and pagan worshiper."^[11] In 1987 he had a book published, The Destruction of Atlantis: Compelling Evidence of the Sudden Fall of the Legendary Civilization.

He wrote articles for Fate magazine, and was the editor of The Ancient American magazine.^[12] The Ancient American is a diffusionist-inspired magazine that focuses on what it says is evidence of ancient, pre-Columbian transoceanic contact between the Old World and North America.^[13]

Media portrayals

Collin has appeared as himself in several documentaries. The video Chicago Nazis documented the Skokie march. The History Channel special, Nazi America: A Secret History, included extensive footage of Collin.^[14] He was played by George Dzundza in the 1981 television film Skokie.

Books (as Frank Joseph)

• Atlantis in Wisconsin: New Revelations About the Lost Sunken City, 1995, ISBN 1-880090-12-0
• Edgar Cayce's Atlantis and Lemuria: The Lost Civilizations in the Light of Modern Discoveries, 2001, ISBN 0-87604-434-8
• Lost Pyramids of Rock Lake: Wisconsin's Sunken Civilization, 2002, ISBN 1-931942-01-3
• The Lost Treasure of King Juba: The Evidence of Africans in America before Columbus, 2003, ISBN 1-59143-006-2
• Synchronicity & You: Understanding the Role of Meaningful Coincidence in Your Life, 2003, ISBN 1-84333-102-0
• Last of the Red Devils: America's First Bomber Pilot, 2003, ISBN 1-880090-09-0
• The Destruction of Atlantis: Compelling Evidence of the Sudden Fall of the Legendary Civilization, 2004, ISBN 1-59143-019-4
• Survivors of Atlantis: Their Impact on World Culture, 2004, ISBN 1-59143-040-2
• The Atlantis Encyclopedia, 2005, ISBN 1-56414-795-9
• The Lost Civilization of Lemuria: The Rise and Fall of the Worlds Oldest Culture, 2006, ISBN 1-59143-060-7
• Opening the Ark of the Covenant: The Secret Power of the Ancients, The Knights Templar Connection, and the Search for the Holy Grail, 2007, ISBN 1-56414-903-X
• Atlantis and Other Lost Worlds, 2008, ISBN 1-84837-085-7
• Advanced Civilizations of Prehistoric America: The Lost Kingdoms of the Adena, Hopewell, Mississippians, and Anasazi, 2009, ISBN 1-59143-107-7
• Power of Coincidence: The Mysterious Role of Synchronicity in Shaping Our Lives, 2009, ISBN 1-84837-224-8
• Mussolini's War: Fascist Italy's Military Struggles from Africa and Western Europe to the Mediterranean and Soviet Union 1935–45, 2009, ISBN 978-1906033569
• Gods of the Runes: The Divine Shapers of Fate, 2010, ISBN 1-59143-116-6
• Atlantis and 2012: The Science of the Lost Civilization and the Prophecies of the Maya, 2010, ISBN 978-1-59143-112-1

Footnotes

See also

Burrows Cave