Wolves of Vinland

Wolves of Vinland is a Norse neopagan group based in the outskirts of Lynchburg, Virginia.[1] One of the group's founders, Matthias Waggener, has described the group as an "Odinic wolf-cult", while journalists associate the group with white supremacists and the alt-right.[2][3][4] In 2018, the Southern Poverty Law Center added the Wolves of Vinland to its list of hate groups, describing it as a "Neo-Volkisch hate group."[5]

The group raised $3000 on GoFundMe to purchase materials for a Viking-style longhall, and accepted donations from white nationalist organizations such as Counter Currents Publishing. Members of the group routinely post photos of ritual animal slaughter on Instagram. Prior to his resignation from the organization in late 2018, author Jack Donovan was an outspoken supporter of the Wolves, as is Kevin DeAnna, the founder of the now defunct Youth for Western Civilization.[3] The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated the Wolves of Vinland as a hate group for espousing white nationalist and racist beliefs, as well as using white nationalist symbolism such as the swastika and associating with the white supremacist think-tank National Policy Institute.[6] One member of the group, Maurice "Hjalti" Michaely, served two years in prison after being found guilty of attempted church arson against the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, a historic black church in Gainesville, Virginia. The fire did not injure anyone but did cause $1 million in damage. After his arrest, group members began wearing T-shirts that said "Free Hjalti".[3]

The group has been compared to Chuck Palahniuk's novel Fight Club and its film adaptation, and members have quoted the work as an influence, specifically the story's antihero Tyler Durden.[7][8] Members of the group have been associated with the white power music and black metal scenes in Baltimore, Maryland and elsewhere.[9]

See also
  • Ethnopluralism, a political model of ethnically segregated self-governing regions associated with Nouvelle Droite
  • National-anarchism, an anti-capitalist, anti-Marxist, and anti-statist ideology advocating for autonomous ethnically homogeneous tribal communes
  • Neotribalism, a theory that humans have been adapted to live in tribes by evolution and that the institutions of modernity temporarily disrupted this normative condition
  • Nouvelle Droite, school of political thought opposing Christianity and multiculturalism while supporting the autonomy of geographically separated ethnic groups
  • Richard B. Spencer, a white nationalist alt-right leader harshly critical of Ronald Reagan, capitalism, and Christianity
  • Varg Vikernes, black metal musician and advocate of Germanic neopaganism with blood and soil themes
  • Viking revival, a movement of interest and appreciation for Viking history and culture in the 18th and 19th centuries
  • Vinland – the area of coastal North America explored by Norse Vikings
  • Wotansvolk, an American white nationalist, neo-völkisch paganism prominent in prisons founded in the early 1990s

References
  1. Wallace, Eric (5 May 2015). "Eco Punks: The Wolves of Vinland Baddasses Dare You To Re-Wild Yourself". Blue Ridge Outdoors. Archived from the original on 19 November 2015.
  2. Perry, David (31 May 2017). "White supremacists love Vikings. But they've got history all wrong". Washington Post.
  3. Woodruff, Betsy (11 November 2015). "Inside Virginia's Church-Burning Werewolf White Supremacist Cult". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  4. Caldwell, Christopher (2 December 2016). "What the Alt-Right Really Means". The New York Times. Retrieved 12 November 2017.
  5. https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/neo-volkisch SPLC. "Neo-Volkisch". Online. Accessed 6 August 2018
  6. "Active Hate Groups In The United States In 2015".
  7. Rodríguez, Luis M. (9 December 2015). "Lobos de Vinland: el Club de la Lucha se hizo tribu pagana". Playground Magazine (in Spanish).
  8. Korfhage, Matthew (17 October 2017). "The Far Right's Strange Obsession with Portland Author Chuck Palahniuk". Willamette Week. Retrieved 12 November 2017.
  9. "Metal Band's Drummer's Longtime Associations With Hate Group Threaten its Future". Idavox. One People's Project. 22 June 2016. Retrieved 3 October 2016.

Further reading
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