Nazis On The Fritz

I remember many years ago, I sat on the grass outside Uprising Breads Bakery, which I managed. I was talking with our all women production shift. I had wanted to shift this bakery to a 24 hour schedule, resulting in their schedule starting at 5:00 a.m. instead of 8:00.

One young woman called me a Nazi for changing her hours of work.

I took a breath, and pointed out that calling me a Nazi was not only a ridiculous exaggeration of the situation, but changing the hours that we made scones was certainly not equivalent to the death of 6 million Jews.

A few years later, I was working at another company, and had a meeting with the Rabbi for our Kosher certification. The Rabbi mentioned that he and his wife had 5 kids. He added that she actually wanted even more than five.

I said 5 kids is a big family for these days. I was from a family of 7 myself.

The rabbi said she wants more kids.

How many more? I asked.

Six million.

Some numbers are beyond our comprehension. In 1609, the entire Muslim population of Spain (an estimated 300,000 Muslims) was given three days to leave Spanish territory or else be killed; this exodus is considered as the largest act of ethnic cleansing in European history.

I had found this information in a book called Blood and Faith, written by Matthew Carr. I had been searching for that title, as it is also the title of a blog written by the son of church friends, people who were friends of my parents.

I then wondered what Carr thought of the current situation in Gaza. He has a substack called Matt Carr’s Infernal Machine, where he wrote recently of the “nazifying” of Gaza. After the October 7th attack, Israel called Hamas Nazi’s. Soon other people were calling out Israel, saying they were acting like Nazis in their murder of over 19,000 Palestinians, over 10,000 of which were children. So who are the Nazi’s, beyond the original Nazis in Germany? Has this word Nazi lost its meaning?

In the same post, Carr noted,”on 8 April 1945, a German woman named Frau Wilde reportedly said to an American soldier: “When atrocity reaches a certain point, it no longer matters who initiated it, it only matters that it should stop.”

This quote begs the question how many people need to die before we call it a genocide?

• The French killed approximately 825,000 indigenous Algerians in their conquest of Algeria .

• The Ottoman Empire killed what may have been 1,000,000 Armenians from 1915 to 1923, during and after the First World War.

• What about the genocide of Canada’s indigenous people? How many died? Maybe not as many as some of these other holocausts. Stir, therrtÿyToo many.

• The US also has a history of genocide against their original population. Then there was slavery, and who forgets the hundred of thousands of people who died in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

  

The reason I first looked up the title Blood and Faith, was that it is the name of a blog written by a guy named Fritz, who is the first son of a family that were friends of our family back in the 60’s. His family and my family went to the same church in Aberdeen.

The father died of a heart attack, as he was found on a wharf. The ER crew took too long to get to him. Minutes count in heart attacks.

His wife went from being Episcopalian to becoming a Born-again evangelical. They had four children, and Fritz was the oldest. He was a very quiet kid, a few years younger than me. Our family spent a weekend at their place in Bremerton, Washington. We went to his sister’s wedding.

A few years back I discovered that Fritz wrote a blog called Blood and Faith, which is very different than the book that Matthew Carr wrote about Muslims in Spain. I was shocked to learn that Fritz’s new beliefs went way beyond Christian.

Fritz believes in the supremacy of what he calls the white European Master race. He mixes that in with a little Christian Nationalism, as he publishes and broadcasts his anti-Jewish, anti-black, anti- LGBTQ beliefs. You name it, Fritz is not only against them but feels that their very existence is justification for their eradication. To Fritz, the natural order is to make room for the ascendency of the White Euro Master race.

Fritz’s blog, ( he also has a podcast) contains posts where he espouse opinions like “Jews advance the genocide of the White Race. Christians, either side with what Jesus Christ said, or forsake Him utterly. No middle ground. Be serious or go home.“

Today if you google Fritz, the first posting that will come up is from Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, not a noted Liberal. Grassley is 90 years old, and president pro tempore emeritus of the United States Senate. He is the longest-serving Repuglican in U.S. Senate history.

What kind of guy is Chuck Grassley? In early 2017, Grassley sponsored legislation that expanded access to firearms by mentally disabled individuals, claiming that the previous ban against mentally ill individuals purchasing guns "mistreats disabled Americans"

Grassley is a supporter of Donald Trump. Many people are afraid these days that Trump may get back in power. Despite the many trials and charges, Trump continues to be very popular. Many people are afraid if he wins, he will be more authoritarian than before, and if elected, will refuse to leave office , even though US laws prevent anyone from running for more than two terms.

In July 2023 and again in October 2023, Grassley wrote letters to the US State Department asking why Fritz still works for the US State Department.

Yes, you heard me right. Fritz works for the US State Department.

The same Fritz, who said in 2020, “ Jesus Christ came to save the whole world from the Jews — the founders of the original Anti-Christ religion, they who are the seed of the Serpent, that brood of vipers. Fritz has worked for the State department since 2009. For those keeping score at home, that is 14 years. He has worked for the State department under the administrations of three Presidents-Obama, Trump and Biden.

For over two years, even far right Republicans, like Grassley, have written to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to have Fritz removed from his diplomatic position where he spent time working on special immigrant visas given to minority groups from Iraq and Afghanistan. It is against State Department policy for an employee to publicly voice opinions.

For some reason, the US State Department refuses to fire him.

The regulations on public discourse by State Department employees is extensive, but the key here is that

b. Content must not:

(5)  Promote a personal business or political point of view; or ….

So why has he been able to keep his job, given the nature of his views?

When I think back to those days, I don’t think of Fritz. We never hung out, except at church functions where his parents were social with my parents, and then only as a family.

It was shocking to learn that this childhood acquaintance was a public figure promoting such White Power invective. These views always existed in America, (and Canada as well. MacKenzie King anyone?)

But since the election of 2016, views like Fritz’s, which were in the shadows, dee underground, hidden from the public view. The age of Trump turned over those rocks, and look what crawled out. After the violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, these ”very fine people” came out of the woodwork. They brought their tiki torches and their hatred to the streets. The lid was off and the pot called the kettle Antifa, and boiled over.

The Trump quote about very fine people was in response to a reporter’s question, "Mr. President, are you putting what you’re calling the alt-left and white supremacists on the same moral plane?"

To which Trump relied,”Excuse me, excuse me. They didn’t put themselves — and you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides."

Trump went on to clarify, “You’re changing history. You’re changing culture. And you had people — and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists — because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists."

People with Dixie flags protesting the removal of a statue of General Robert E. Lee.

Unfortunately in public discourse, whole statements are never remembered. People only remember “ people that were very fine people. “ and the sad and needless death of a young women murdered intentionally by white nationalists in a car. So we have to wonder why the US State Department continues to protect Fritz. Are these views now mainstreamed?

Who kicked the Overton Window open in the middle of winter, never to be shut again?

Are the answers blown’ in the arctic cold Northern European wind?

Nazis are hiding under beds. They are growing up and living next to us. They once went to the same church. They might evening like same snickerdoodle recipe from the cookie cookbook we put together in 1967 to raise money for the church.

When we left the door open in the middle of winter, my Mother would always say , “Close the damned door. We’re not heating all of ( please insert the name of whatever town we were living in.)” when she felt the cold draft, she did what any good parent would do. She swore at her kids to close the damned door.

Nazis were no joke in the Sixties, and should not be a joke in 2023. No matter what we learned on Hogan’s Heroes. Their views are both repugnant and despicable. We must call them out, and show them the door.

Please note: I did not disclose Fritz’s last name out of respect for the rest of his family, who I can only hope are not as crazy as their eldest brother. Just google Fritz and the State department if you want more information. It’s out there. Just like the Nazis.