Gary Lauck

Gerhard Rex Lauck (born May 12, 1953) is an American neo-Nazi activist and publisher. Based in Lincoln, Nebraska, he is sometimes nicknamed the "Farm Belt Fuehrer" due to his perceived rural origins.

Early life
Gary Lauck was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on May 12, 1953 to a German-American family. At age eleven, he moved to Lincoln, Nebraska with his family, his father becoming a professor of engineering at the University of Nebraska. Lauck skipped his senior year of high school and then attended the University of Nebraska for two years. By this point, he already held neo-Nazi beliefs.

Career as a Neo-Nazi
In 1978, he shot and wounded his brother Jerry after a political dispute. Eventually, Lauck moved to Chicago, where he would spend most of his adult life. Lauck has lived in Fairbury, Nebraska since 2009; prior to that, he lived in Lincoln, Nebraska.

As the leader of the NSDAP/AO, he kept in close contact with like-minded individuals and groups in Europe, one of them was Michael Kühnen, with whom he worked closely from the 1970s. His contact with leaders and members of the German neo-Nazi scene dates back to 1971, when as an 18-year-old, Lauck had established the Auslandsorganisation (overseas organisation) of the National Socialist Combat Groups, a militant German neo-Nazi group that was quickly banned by the West German government. Lauck's NSDAP/AO was established following this ban. A noted Germanophile, Lauck sported a toothbrush moustache and he also used the Nazi salute as his regular greeting. His speech impediment has frequently been confused with an affected German accent. Although he is based in the USA, Lauck spent much of his time as an activist in Europe, particularly during the early 1990s, when the NSDAP/AO considerably extended its network of contacts. He published large volumes of neo-Nazi literature in several languages and he also produced computer discs which contained detailed bomb building instructions, both of which were distributed by a network of European contacts. In 1990, he ensured that the NSDAP/AO would link up with the Swedish neo-Nazi group Sveriges Nationella Forbund, which became instrumental in forming the "Nordic National Socialist Bloc" with like-minded activists in Norway. That same year, he played a leading role in helping Kühnen, Gottfried Küssel and Christian Worch establish a network of Gesinnungsgemeinschaft der Neuen Front cells across the former East Germany following German reunification. Two years later, the NSDAP/AO also concluded an agreement with the National Socialist Movement of Denmark, which up to that point had been a leading organisation within the rival World Union of National Socialists (WUNS). The change occurred after Povl Riis-Knudsen, a leading figure in WUNS, had been expelled from the Danish Nazi movement for marrying a Palestinian woman. During the early days of the Yugoslav Wars, Lauck's journal New Order ran a series of articles in support of Croatia and they particularly expressed sympathy for the Ustaše and the magazine was instrumental in recruiting neo-Nazi linked mercenaries to fight for the Croatian cause.

Lauck was arrested in Denmark in 1995, leading to a far right campaign in the USA against plans to extradite him to Germany, where he was wanted for distributing neo-Nazi propaganda. Nevertheless, Lauck was deported to Hamburg where he was tried and found guilty of distributing neo-Nazi pamphlets. He was sentenced to four years in prison. He was released from prison on March 19, 1999, and deported back to the United States. Lauck runs Third Reich Books which continues to distribute Nazi paraphernalia online.