GORDON KAHL’S

CULT OF RACIAL PURITY

JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

 eBook edition

Copyright © 2013 by John August Schumacher

All rights reserved

Published in the United States of America

 FORWARD
The year 2013 marks the 30th anniversary of an event that for a
time launched a small farming community in North Dakota onto
the national stage. The place was Medina, ND, and the figure at
the center of the story was Gordon Kahl, a farmer by trade and
anti-government activist by disposition. A veteran of World War
II, Kahl had come to hate the government he once had served, and
especially the Internal Revenue Service—its most feared and
fearsome civilian agency.
The fact that Kahl was about more than rhetoric would become
clear on a February afternoon in 1983. What follows is an
expansion of a research paper originally written for my senior
history seminar at Concordia College (Moorhead, MN).
 –1–
SHOOTOUT
On Sunday, February 13, 1983, a group of U.S. Marshals and
other law enforcement established a roadblock on a rural highway
outside Medina, North Dakota. Dispatched from the field office in
Fargo, the Marshalls had come to serve an arrest warrant on
Gordon Wendell Kahl, a tax evader. Kahl was hardly a household
name, nor was Medina (yet) on the national news map. Located 30
miles west of Jamestown, it was one of myriad farming
communities. Hard red spring wheat is a major cash crop in North
Dakota, but what was to set Medina apart was its other product: an
anti-Semitic, anti-government radical who believed that the United
States government was controlled by Jews who would stop at
nothing to silence him and others like him.
Despite Kahl’s beliefs, however, he was hardly a high-profile
target for law enforcement prior to this time. In fact, Kahl’s case
had been selectively ignored for years, even after he brazenly sent
IRS officials with an explanation of why he would no longer be
paying federal income taxes. But Kahl went well beyond refusing
to pay his own taxes. In 1974, he appeared on a television program
to encourage others to do the same. Threatened with prosecution,
Kahl responded with a veritable “make my day” and added that he
would personally kill any law enforcement officer who tried to
arrest him.
 JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

As Kahl, his son, Yorie, and friend Scott Faul drove on the rural
highway that fateful day, U.S. Marshalls were waiting. Their hope
was for a peaceful surrender, but Kahl’s threat had not been made
in vain. The shootout that ensued left two officers dead and
several others, including Yorie, wounded. Subsequently convicted
for his part in the incident, he is currently serving a life sentence.1
His father, meanwhile, was now a fugitive.
Three days later, Gordon Kahl’s wife, Joan, appeared at a news
conference to plead with her husband to turn himself in. His
belated response came in the form of a sixteen-page letter bearing a
Texas postmark. In it, Kahl offered his version of the shootout,
arguing that it was the government’s attempt to execute him:

I, Gordon Kahl, a Christian patriot, and in consideration

of the events which have taken place within the last few hrs,
and knowing to what lengths the enemies of Christ (who I
consider my enemies) will go to separate my spirit from it’s
[sic] body, wish to put down on paper a record of the events
which have just taken place, so that the world will know
what happened.
I feel that the awesome power which will be unleashed
to silence forever my testimony, will, if not checked by the
power of my God, who is the God of Abraham, and Isaac
and Jacob, will cut short my time to leave these happenings
therefore … While urgency, or human weakness, tells me to
run, my spirit goes write, so this I am going to do. And if
my God continues to protect me, I shall write first, and flee
from the hands of my enemies later.2

Kahl went on to explain that the meeting he attended the day of

the shooting was about how to “implement the proceedings of the

1
At this writing, Yorie Von Kahl (Register #04565-059) is incarcerated
at the United States Penitentiary (USP) in Terre Haute, Indiana. His
scheduled release date is February 12, 2023.
See http://www.bop.gov/iloc2/LocateInmate.jsp.
2
James Corcoran, “Details of alleged Kahl letter revealed,” (Fargo,
ND) Forum. 8 March 1983, pp. A-1, A-3.

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 GORDON KAHL’S CULT OF RACIAL PURITY

Third Continental Congress,” which would move to

restore the power and prestige of the U.S. Constitution …

and put our nation back under Christian Common Law,
which is another way of saying God’s law, as laid down by
the inspiration of God, through his prophets and preserved
for us in the Scriptures…3

As might be expected, Kahl blamed the U.S. marshals for the

shootout. Previous encounters had ended peacefully, he wrote, so
as “to cause us to lower our guard.” In other words, the fact that
earlier arrest attempts had not ended in violence was proof that the
government was trying to wear him down. For some time, Kahl
had been predicting that the government he so loathed was out to
get him. The U.S. Marshals had been sent not to arrest him, but to
silence him; they were nothing more than hit men doing the bidding
of their Jewish-Communist bosses.
Despite all this, Kahl assumed full responsibility for the dead
and wounded law officers, even while he praised Yorie and Scott
Faul for displaying “the qualities of first rate soldiers of Jesus
Christ.” The second half of the letter described what Kahl saw as a
battle between good and evil, between the Christian patriots and
agents of the Satanic Jewish conspiracy which threatened to destroy
the Christianity and the white race forever:

I would have liked nothing other [than] to be left alone, so

I could enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,
which our forefathers willed to us. This was not to be,
after I discovered that our nation had fallen into the hands
of an alien people [Jews], who are referred to as a nation
within the other nations. As one of our founding fathers
stated, “they are vampires, and vampires cannot live on
vampires, they must live on Christians.”4

3
Ibid
4
Corcoran, “Details of alleged Kahl letter revealed.”

3
 JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

The quote from ‘one of our founding fathers’ is a reference to

the so-called Franklin Prophecy, a speech purportedly delivered by
Benjamin Franklin at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, in
which Franklin called for Jews to be denied citizenship under the
United States Constitution. No record of this or a similar speech is
extant, but Charles Pinckney, delegate from South Carolina, is said
to have been present for its delivery and to have recorded it in his
diary. However, the first publication of the speech is traced not to
the time of Franklin or Pinckney, but over a century later. In 1934,
William Dudley Pelley (later convicted of sedition and sentence to
15 years in prison) included the speech in his Liberation.
The Pinckney diary is said to be archived at Franklin Institute in
Philadelphia, PA—a claim the Institute flatly denies. But the
legend of the Franklin Prophecy lives on nonetheless. Distributed
by chain mailers and pamphleteers in decades past, it is now the
fare of racists and conspiracy-minded websites. Scholars of the
period have declared the Prophecy and the backstory supporting it
to be a fraud, insisting that the sentiments expressed are contrary to
Franklin’s known ideals. Historian Charles A. Beard added to this
denial by pointing out that the speech includes language that is
anachronistic to Franklin’s time, reflecting an early 20th century
rather than late 18th century origin.
Kahl contended that the “enemies of Christ” had written “their
Jewish-Communist manifesto” into the laws of the United States
and thrown “our Constitution and our Christian Common Law
into the garbage can.” Invaders had infiltrated all levels of the
government and taken control of law enforcement, courts and the
legislative branch. According to Kahl, the Jews have two objectives
in the plot to rule the world: destroy the Christian faith, and
destroy the white race. Neither of these objectives can stand alone;
rather, they stand or fall together.
As for the nature of the battle itself—the “struggle to the death
between the people of the Kingdom of God, and the Kingdom of
Satan”— Kahl contended that it was comparable to the biblical
struggle between Jacob and Esau. Although he does not elaborate
on his meaning in this statement, I am willing to speculate that
given the tradition of the Christian Identity ideas which he held,

4
 GORDON KAHL’S CULT OF RACIAL PURITY

Kahl was thinking of the struggle between those claiming to be the

“Chosen People of God” (the Jews) and those who really are the
“People of God” (the white, Nordic descendants of Abraham).
While this remains speculative, I think it is well in keeping with the
content and tone of the letter.
In closing, Kahl claimed that God had proclaimed a “great
shaking in the land of Israel.” He further encouraged his fellow
“Christian patriots” to “buy a Sword, if you don’t already have one,
and bring his enemies before him and slay them.” He also impelled
those “who were engaged in the ambush and attack on us” to be
happy that they now have a chance “to remove your support from
the anti-Christs who rule our nation.” Clearly, Kahl hoped that the
law enforcement officers who had survived the shooting would see
the error of their ways and join him in the fight against ZOG
(Zionist Occupation Government).
The shooting at Medina made national headlines, and authorities
feared this would spark off a resurgence of right-wing violence.
While this did occur to some degree—several activists against
racism, police officers and innocent citizens were killed in ensuing
months and several other true believers died in defense of their
cause—the violence was not nearly as widespread as had been
feared. Meanwhile, the manhunt for Gordon Kahl continued, even
while prosecutors prepared charges against the others involved.
Finally, a breakthrough was made. A woman named Karen
Russell Robertson provided the FBI with the location of Gordon
Kahl’s hideout: he was staying with her father at their Arkansas
home! Federal officials marshaled their forces. It was time for
another confrontation. Unfortunately, while the government
would finally get their man, it came with further bloodshed and
destruction. Lawrence County, Arkansas, sheriff Gene Matthews,
stormed the house, hoping to catch Kahl off guard. Instead, he
came face-to-face with the suspect; both men died as a result of the
encounter, with each shooting the other at point-blank range inside
the Ginter home.
When other officers heard that Matthews had been killed, they
stormed the building as well, letting loose a barrage of gun fire and
tear gas canisters. Soon, the house was blazing ball of fire; in the

5
 JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

smoldering debris a charred body was found; an autopsy identified

it as that of Gordon Kahl. With Kahl now dead, the case was
closed, and a chapter of history was over. Or was it? How many
others remained, planning and training for their own encounter
with the law? More importantly, what inspired the paranoid
worldview that drove Gordon Kahl to such ends?
Gordon Wendell Kahl was born on January 8, 1920, the oldest
of five children born to a family that homesteaded near Heaton,
North Dakota, in 1906.5 From an early age, Kahl’s father taught
him a worldview steeped in racial awareness: Blacks and Whites, as
well as Jews and Christians, should have no contact of any kind.
Rejected were “liberal” views, held by many of the churches, that
promoted social and interracial justice.
As a young man, Gordon Kahl watched a European conflict
grown into a global war. In the wake of the December 7, 1941,
bombing of Pearl Harbor, Kahl joined the Army Air Corps and
became a gunner on a B-25 bomber. He was an excellent shot,
credited with shooting down ten enemy aircraft, and recipient of
various medals and commendations, including two Purple Hearts.
On January 6, 1945, Gordon Kahl married Joan, his sweetheart of
the past four years, before returning to active duty.
Though a loyal and patriotic American, Kahl’s views about the
government were being questioned during this time. So-called
“barracks talk” included conspiracy theories about the true causes
for the war. International bankers and Zionist businessmen were
said to be profiting from the manufacture and sale of war materiel.
Even the President was involved. Acting on orders from Jewish
war-mongers, Roosevelt’s foreign policy put Japan into a position
where it had no choice but to attack the United States. Worse still,
the President willingly allowed them to do so, knowing that outcry

5
The following background information is derived from James
Corcaran, Bitter Harvest: Gordon Kahl and the Posse Comitatus: Murder in the
Heartland, (New York: Viking Penguin Books, USA, Inc., 1990), 43-68.
See also
http://www.nebraskastudies.org/1000/frameset_reset.html?http://w
ww.nebraskastudies.org/1000/stories/1001_0115.html.

6
 GORDON KAHL’S CULT OF RACIAL PURITY

would rally the American public into support for the war effort.
Reinforcing such talk was Kahl’s reading list, which included The
International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem, a series of articles
published in the Dearborne Independent in 1920. The Independent was a
small newspaper owned by automobile mogul Henry Ford and
used to espouse his political views.. The International Jew,
meanwhile, was an English translation of The Protocols of the Learned
Elders of Zion, published in Russia in 1905. More on the Protocols
and their influence on Kahl’s worldview will be said below.
Kahl was discharged from active service in September of 1945,
and immediately returned with his wife to Heaton, ND. Soon
thereafter, he enrolled in the North Dakota Agricultural College
(now North Dakota State University), but quit after a clash with an
English professor, whom he claimed was a Communist.
Soon, Kahl began a migrant-worker style of living, helping to
work his father’s small plot of land during the growing season, and
traveling to California to find work as a mechanic during the winter
months. It was during one of these trips that Gordon was
introduced to the ideas of Christian Identity theology, which would
become part of his central belief system. Supplementing his Bible
readings with such anti-Semitic works as Sheldon Emry’s Billions for
the Bankers, Debts for the People, Kahl soon came to agree with his
father and with Senator Joseph McCarthy in their belief that
Communists were infiltrating the U.S. government at all levels.
Thoroughly disgusted with the “liberal” Congregational Church,
Kahl and wife Joan joined the Mormon church, which held a firmly
anti-Communist stance. However, Gordon soon came to believe
that the Mormon religious ceremonies were simply copies of the
Bavarian Illuminati and the Masons, whom he believed were
“pawns of the Jews and children of Satan.” According to
Corcoran, the Illuminati was formed in Bavaria, Germany, in 1776,
with the intention of replacing “religion and superstition” with
dependence upon reason and philosophy. The group was outlawed
by authorities and ordered disbanded ten years after its formation,
but far-rightists contend the group’s members simply infiltrated the
Masons to continue their “un-Godly work.” As proof, Gordon
Kahl would later point to the back of the one-dollar bill, where he

7
 JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

believed the symbol of the pyramid with an eye at the top was a
symbol representing the Illuminati slogan, “Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity,” and was therefore proof that the Jews, by controlling
the Illuminati and the Masons, were now in control of the U.S.
monetary system.6
Kahl next joined forces with the John Birch Society, but soon
rejected them as well, thinking that their ideas were not close
enough to his own. Finally, Gordon joined the North Dakota
Constitutional party, established by Dr. Clarence Martin of Medina.
(This same Dr. Martin would later treat Yorie Kahl after the
shooting.) The summer after the assassination of President John F.
Kennedy, Gordon attended a meeting of the Constitutional party in
Fessenden, ND. Here Gordon heard about the Jewish-led
conspiracies to take over the government, how the illegal income
tax was really the second plank of the Communist Manifesto, how the
Internal Revenue Service was a private corporation controlled by
Jewish bankers, how these bankers were intent on destroying
Christianity and the white race, and how President Kennedy had
been killed because he had learned of the plot and planned to
expose it to the American public.
Aside from his political and ideological beliefs, Gordon Kahl
was a devoted family man, strongly committed to his wife and
children, particularly his son, Yorie, who believed his father’s every
word. Yorie was so indoctrinated in these ideas that Corcoran
reports Yorie’s high school teacher becoming very angry with him
in class, as he blathered on about Jewish-Masonic conspiracies to
take over the world. After an incident in which his high school
civics teacher disputed this world-view, Yorie quit school to join
his father in the oil fields of Texas, continuing to hold sacred every
word that fell from Gordon’s lips. “The voice was pitched a bit
higher and was less assured,” Corcoran writes, “but the words were
Yorie’s.”7 After his conviction for murder, Yorie would write a
letter to United States Senator Quentin Burdick (D-ND),
explaining how the Jews had taken over the country and asking for

6
Corcoran, 49-50.
7
Corcoran, 65.

8
 GORDON KAHL’S CULT OF RACIAL PURITY

Burdick’s help in the fight. The ideas in this letter are identical to
those expressed by his father, and replete with the hatred and
bigotry that Gordon Kahl held firmly.
Despite his views, Gordon Kahl was reputed to be very
personable. He had a reputation for being a quiet man with a
strong sense of loyalty to family and friends and a knack for fixing
machinery. He didn’t smoke, drink or curse, and was good with
children (he and Joan raised five children during their thirty-eight-
years marriage). At sixty-three years old, he was five-feet seven
inches tall, 160 pounds; his receding hair was gray and cut short,
and he looked like a typical grandfather figure, a role he filled five
times over. People close to him (family, friends, neighbors) seemed
to look past the political and religious ideas to see Gordon as an
honest, hard-working, simple man. He was a good neighbor and a
good friend, and was always willing to talk, provided you avoided
certain “taboo” subjects (religion and politics) which were seen as
private. Some even saw Gordon as a war hero who had fought
hard for the right to express political views, no matter what they
were. No one, I suspect, saw him as a killer.
What people did not see was the fire that burned inside of
Gordon Kahl, a fire which reached to the very fiber of his being.
Gordon strongly believed that the Jews were attempting a world
take-over, and he was prepared to fight and die for these ideas,
much as (he would say) the early Christians were martyred for their
beliefs. Gordon saw himself as a “Christian patriot,” a modern-day
Crusader fighting for the survival of his country, his religion and
his race. Nothing was going to stop Kahl in this regard, not law
enforcement (the “agents of Satan”), not anyone. As I shall show,
it was these beliefs—some call them “fanatical,” some call them
“righteous”—which led Gordon Kahl in making decisions
throughout his life, and which culminated in conflict with U.S.
federal marshals on a lonely stretch of North Dakota highway.

9
 –2–
THE SEED IS SOWN

THE “TRUE BELIEVER”

Gordon Kahl was a “true believer.” The phrase is adopted
from Eric Hoffer, who in his book, The True Believer, discusses the
phenomenon of the fanatic. A fanatic is a person who joins a cause
and is absolutely committed to that cause, willing even to sacrifice his
or her life. The fanatic operates within a mass movement, which
attempts to instill into its followers “a facility for united action and
self-sacrifice” by “stripping each human entity of its distinctness
and autonomy.” The fanatic is but one small part of a much larger
whole, leaving each individual member with little or no control of
his or her own actions. The end result, says Hoffer, is a
“homogeneous plastic mass” that can be shaped and reshaped as
needed.

[It] goes without saying that the fanatic is convinced that

the cause he holds on to is monolithic and eternal—a rock
of ages … The fanatic is not really a stickler to principle.
He [or she] embraces a cause not primarily because of its

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 GORDON KAHL’S CULT OF RACIAL PURITY

justness and holiness but because of his [or her] desperate

need for something to hold on to.8

As for a “unifying agent” with which to bring all of these people

together toward a common cause, Hoffer suggests that hatred is
the “most accessible and comprehensive of all unifying agents.”
Mass movements may grow and spread without belief in a god (i.e.,
force or being understood to be good), but they can never survive
without an adequate or appropriate devil or enemy. Hatred, says
Hoffer, is capable of uniting even the most heterogeneous elements
into a force for a common cause.9
As I shall show, Gordon Kahl’s “cult of racial purity” was such
a movement, with one notable exception: the Posse Comitatus is
not a nationally organize group, but rather a network of small
groups of those who share similar ideology. It is also important to
remember that not all Posse members believe the anti-Semitic
rhetoric put forth by Gordon Kahl and others like him.
Gordon Kahl’s world-view was based upon anti-Semitism and
an insistence that Jews, aided by Communists, Masons and
international bankers, were trying to take over the world. This
belief was central to every decision he made in his life, and once a
decision was made, there was no changing Kahl’s mind. Gordon
Kahl the man was deeply committed to his family and friends;
Gordon Kahl the “true believer” was committed to a particular
interpretation of Christianity and the Bible, and was prepared to die
for those beliefs if necessary. The two are not separable (as I seem
to indicate here), but it is helpful to see how they complement and
contrast each other.
For Kahl, being a member of the Posse Comitatus was not
merely a way to protest the illegal income tax and government
corruption; it enabled him to be a part of the “chosen few” who
would fight against the Jews in the final Battle of Armageddon.
Almost the entirety of Kahl’s life—from his earlier life in the

8
Eric Hoffer, The True Believer, A Mentor Book, (New York: Published
by the New American Library of World Literature, Inc., 1958), 80.
9
Hoffer, 86.

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 JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

military during World War II until his death—had been devoted to

this struggle, which he saw as nothing short of a battle between
good and evil: a fight for the survival of his religion and his race
(these are not separable, either). While Hoffer’s definition fails at
this point, since Kahl did not rely wholly upon others in this
struggle10, he did join the Posse and other groups in order to be
with others who shared his beliefs.
Certainly, Gordon Kahl considered his “mission” to be a “rock
of ages” (Hoffer’s term). Kahl contended that the Jews have been
conspiring to take over the world for most, if not all, of history, but
have only recently been able to fulfill their plans. Kahl also
believed (coming from his background in British Israelism) that
God had cursed the “Jews” (or those who claimed that status) long
ago. These were not the “Chosen People of God,” but a racial
mutation which ran against God’s will.
“Salvation” in Kahl’s cult of racial purity was achieved by
maintaining the purity of the white race against the onslaught of the
“sub-races” which threaten to destroy white Christianity forever; it
is commonly held that these “enemies of Christ” will be obliterated
in the apocalyptic battle to come. By contrast, “damnation” would
occur in the case the Jews were to win, an event which Kahl and
his supporters could not allow to happen.

HISTORY OF THE POSSE COMITATUS

The Posse Comitatus movement was founded in 1969 by Henry
Lamont Beach. Beach was a one-time member of the Silver Shirts,
the American fascist organization formed in the wake of Hitler’s
rise to power in the 1930s. The name Silver Shirts was inspired by
the Sturmabteilung (SA), Hitler’s “stormtroopers” or Brownshirts.11
The term posse comitatus is Latin for “power of the county.” Its

10
Hoffer seems to suggest that a “true believer” is unable to act alone,
but must always be part of the larger whole. Gordon Kahl did both, and
thus, Hoffer’s definition must be amended at this point.
11
In Italy, Mussolini’s followers were called Blackshirts.

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 GORDON KAHL’S CULT OF RACIAL PURITY

roots go back to English law: ordinary citizens could be called

upon to assist the sheriff in the pursuit of criminals. In later usage,
law enforcement officials in the American West would raise a posse
of deputized citizens to help pursue criminals. (Vigilante justice
was sometimes meted out by posse groups who lacked such lawful
authority.) Finally, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 established a
distinction between the military and civilian law enforcement:

From and after the passage of this act it shall not be lawful
to employ any part of the Army of the United States, as a
posse comitatus, or otherwise, for the purpose of
executing the laws, except in such cases and under such
circumstances as such employment of said force may be
expressly authorized by the Constitution or by act of
Congress…12

With this as background, we return to Henry Beach’s Posse

Comitatus movement. In keeping with the Latin phrase, Beach
recognized no form of government higher than the county level
and no law enforcement officer beyond the county sheriff. This
meant that state police, as well as all federal agencies (e.g., the FBI
or U.S. Marshalls) were illegitimate and illegal, as were the laws they
sought to enforce. Among those illegal laws was the 1913 Owen-
Glass Act, also called the Currency Bill or Federal Reserve Act.
Signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on December 23,
1913, the new law created a system of regional Reserve Banks that
were to be overseen by the Federal Reserve Board. By controlling
the nation’s money supply, the intention was to institute various
banking reforms. An earlier President, Andrew Jackson, had
famously waged war against the Second Bank of the United States
in the 1830s.
Beach and his followers were similarly concerned about the
power of bankers, whom they saw as the enemy of the common
working man, and especially the farmer. These beliefs came to the
forefront during the 1970s, when the farm crisis caused thousands

12
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/baker1.html

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 JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

of family farms to fall into financial ruin. Mixing a classic rich-vs.-

poor mindset with a racial and conspiratorial worldview, Posse
leaders taught that the banks were controlled by Jews. In fact, the
Jews were in control of much of the world, from governments to
financial institutions to fraternal groups such as the Freemasons.

The Jew-run banks and federal loan agencies are working

hand-in-hand, foreclosing on thousands of farms right now
in America. They are in essence, nationalizing farms for the
Jews, as the farmer becomes a tenant slave on the land he
once owned. … The farmers must prepare to defend their
families and land with their lives, or surrender it all.13

A LIE SO OFT-REPEATED
Josef Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda in Hitler’s Nazi
regime, is credited with stating: “If you repeat a lie often enough, it
becomes the truth.” There has been no greater lie in the history of
propaganda against the Jews than the Protocols of the Learned Elders of
Zion. Discredited in the West (at least outside the racist subculture
that continues to republish and propagate its content as truth), the
Protocols have been translated into myriad languages and are widely-
disseminated in Islamic countries, especially the Middle East, where
it helps to bolster the radical Jihadist worldview that sees a Jew
behind everything that is bad in the world. Especially powerful is
the degree to which the Protocols is used in the conflict between
Israel and the Palestinians.
The Protocols purport to be meeting notes from the gathering of
a clandestine body called the Elders of Zion, the Jewish overlords
who control the financial and political systems of the world. First
published in Russia in 1905, the Protocols were the product of Sergei
Nilus, who claimed to have received it from an unnamed friend.
Since translated into many languages and published and distributed

13
James Wickstrom, The American Farmer: 20th Century Slaves.
Published by James Wickstrom, n.p., n.d.

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 GORDON KAHL’S CULT OF RACIAL PURITY

to this day, the Protocols have been a heralded by proponents as

proof of a world conspiracy and denounced by opponents as a
pernicious example of anti-Semitism.
In 1920, the Dearborn Independent, a Detroit newspaper owned by
automobile mogul Henry Ford, Sr., published a series of articles
based on the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. These were later
republished in four paperback volumes, collectively known as The
Interational Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem.14 The text, now in the
public domain, is available online,15 as well as in scanned format.16
Ford later issued a public statement (ostensibly, an apology),
though his motivations have been questioned. Ford had become
embroiled in several lawsuits, at least one of which was filed by a
man of Jewish heritage whom Ford had claimed was an agent for
the international conspiracy and had told him the story that was
published in the Dearborn Independent!17 Ford’s private diary also
shows that his anti-Semitic opinions were not changed after the
“apology” statement had been issued.18 Those of like mind were
not inclined to change their views, either, and the the Protocols
continued to be fodder for “true believers” (such as Gordon Kahl
was becoming) who cited it as evidence for their conspiratorial
worldviews.
The truth about the Protocols was also known at this time, and
was far from hidden from the public at large. In 1920, American
journalist Herman Bernstein published The History of a Lie, in which
he traced the germ of what became the Protocols to purported
English writer “Sir John Retcliffe.” Retcliffe, it turned out, was the
pseudonym of a German novelist named Herman Goedsche,

14
http://archive.adl.org/special_reports/ij/dearborn_independant.asp
15
Online: http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/intern_jew.htm
16
Scans of the reprint volumes (1920-22) are in The Internet Archive:
Vol 1: http://www.archive.org/details/internationaljew01dear
Vol 2: http://archive.org/details/jewishactivities00dearuoft
Vol 3: http://www.archive.org/details/jewishinfluences03dearuoft
Vol 4: http://www.archive.org/details/aspectsofjewishp04dearuoft
17
[citation]
18
[citation]

15
 JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

whose rabidly anti-Semitic reputation preceded him.19

That same year, the London Times published “conclusive proof
that the document [the Protocols] is in the main a clumsy plagiarism”
of a work written several decades earlier.20 Bearing the title Dialogue
aux Enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu,21 the book in question was
the product of Maurice Joly, a French political satirist. But Joly’s
Dialogue was not aimed at Jews; his beef was with Napoleon III,
nephew of the famous general, who was elected president of the
Second Republic and later made emperor of France. Joly’s book
was published in Geneva (1864) and subsequently in Brussels
(1865), but was seized and banned. Joly thereafter spent time in
prison for daring to author it.
Thus we see that two authors, separated by thousands of miles
and themselves each many thousands of miles from the source of
the infamous Protocols, had discovered that it was nothing more
than a forgery by agents of the Czar’s secret police force in pre-
revolution Russia. Subsequent research would show that the Joly
text was known to Goedsche, who used it to produce the anti-
Semitic work (the Protocols) that were then passed off as meeting
minutes of the shadowy overlords whose purpose in life was to
secretly control the world.
That this notion sounds preposterous on its face is, we might
say, indicative of a sane mind. But to those who believe, it is a
story that must be told and retold, even while they wage an uphill
battle against those who (by their own belief system) wield power
that only increases with time. Such were the teachings that Gordon
Kahl’s now adopted as absolute truth, teachings that were to drive
him first to a form of civil disobedience and finally to murder.

19
Herman Bernstein, The History of a Lie, (New York: J. S. Ogilvie
Publishing Company, 1921), 17-18.
20
Philip Graves, “Jewish World Plot: An Exposure,” London Times,
(August 16-18, 1921). Scanned pages and transcript retrieved from
http://emperors-clothes.com/antisem/graves-text.htm, March 2, 2013.
21
That is, A Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesque

16
 GORDON KAHL’S CULT OF RACIAL PURITY

BRITISH ISRAELISM
AND CHRISTIAN IDENTITY
The idea of a world conspiracy is only part of the ideology held
by white supremacists such as Gordon Kahl. Whatever else can be
said about this idea, it is a political and prejudicial (racist) notion at
its core. Often accompanying this is a religious worldview that
molds Christian language into a Whites-Only understanding of the
Bible, salvation history, and the (impending) End of Days. That
worldview is Christian Identity, the roots of which extend back to
the 19th century movement known as British Israelism.22
British Israelism took root in the social-Darwinism of figures
such as Charles Gobineau, who first conceived of scientific racism,
the idea that some races are naturally stronger and healthier than
others. The pseudo-science of eugenics gave credence to calls for an
increase among healthy races and a decrease of unhealthy ones, the
policy to be implemented by sterilization and other techniques of
population control. Eugenics was originally concerned with so-
called “undesirables” such as the mentally or physically infirm, but
the leap from “infirmity” as defined by physiological attributes to
one defined in ethnic or racial terms was not difficult to make.
With this came a view of Europe as composed of different
races—Nordic, Celtic, Mediterranean and Alpine—and a new
desire to study their “racial history.” This “racial history” which
would lead eventually into the Christian Identity movement.
British Israelism argued that Abraham had in fact been Nordic,
one of many Nordics who had inhabited Mesopotamia during
ancient times. Accordingly, the religion of Abraham was an
“Aryan” religion, as W.H. Fasken wrote in his booklet, Israel’s Racial
Origin and Migration:

22
The following summary of British Israelism and Christian Identity is
taken from Leonard Zeskind’s The “Christian Identity” Movement: A
Theological Justification for Racist and Anti-Semitic Violence, (Published by the
Division of Church and Society of the National Council of the Churches
of Christ in the USA, 1986), 11-21.

17
 JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

Are there not strong Aryan elements in the Hebrew

religion? The Covenant-keeping God, the legislative idea,
the strong paternalistic aspect of the Deity, as against the
mother-worship of the typical Semite, are all indications of
Aryan influence and thought.23

The intent of this “science” was, of course, to erase any doubt

that the Christian tradition to which these men professed had
nothing to do with the Jewish religion of old or modern times.
Rather, the Jews were liars in their insistence that they (and not the
Aryan Nordics) were the true “Chosen People of God.”
The crux of the argument lies in their reading of the Biblical
account of the split of Israel into the Northern and Southern
Kingdoms, which occurred after King Solomon’s reign. The
northern kingdom, made up of ten of the twelve tribes descended
from Jacob, was soon over-run by the Assyrians, and its people
carried off to other lands. While the northern kingdom was now
“lost,” the southern kingdom was conquered and carried off to
Babylon, still managing to maintain their culture and religious
beliefs. These facts are fairly certain, and many scholars
corroborate their accuracy.
This, however, is where the British Israelism broke with
scholars, as they maintained that they had found the “lost” tribes;
they (the Aryans) were the lost tribes. Not only had the lost tribes
managed to stay relatively intact, but through a subsequent series of
migrations, these peoples of Israel had moved across Asia Minor
and into Europe, eventually settling in the Scandinavian countries
and British Isles.
Thus, the British Israelists had established their claim to the
ancestry of Israel through “racial history.” However, they did not
stop there. Even more important to their case were the
implications of their beliefs, as this new-found knowledge of the
“identity” of the Lost Tribes became the key to understanding

23
W.H. Fasken, Israel’s Racial Origin and Migrations. (Published by New
Christian Crusade Church, n.p., n.d.), 31.

18
 GORDON KAHL’S CULT OF RACIAL PURITY

Biblical prophesy and current events. As Fasken put it:

God recognized individual and racial traits when he selected

Abraham and his seed…Such blessings…surely place the
people involved above all the other races upon the earth
and they are promised to no other race except Israel…The
fact that the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic peoples excel all other
races in the desire to establish justice in righteousness must
be accepted by all…24

As for the Jews, who claimed that they were the People of God,
“racial history” had proven that

[the] characteristics of the racial type we recognize as that

of the Jews today were the result of intermarriages in the
days of Ezra and Nehemiah. At that time a mutation of
the blood stream occurred…[which was a]…defection
from God’s will…25

California Klansman Wesley Swift adapted the teachings of

British Israelism to the United States racial movement, thus
creating the ideology known as Christian Identity. In 1946, Swift
founded the Church of Jesus Christ, Christian, and aided in the
creation of other organizations, such as the Christian Defense
League, first started by Bill Gale in Los Angeles in the early 1960s.
Gale had been an early convert to Swift’s church, before going
on to begin his own group near Mariposa, California, where he
published a regular newsletter, Identity, and helped to build the
Posse Comitatus throughout the 1970s. By 1982, Gale had joined
forces with Posse leader James Wickstrom, and they began to
broadcast their message via KTTL-FM in Dodge City, Kansas.26

24
“Thy Servant People,” (Destiny Publishers, n.p., 1946), 5-7.
25
Destiny [newletter], (Second quarter, 1969): 196.
26
It was this same radio station, KTTL-FM of Dodge City, which
aired the Sheldon Emry program “America’s Promise,” on which Gale
urged supporters to “start making dossiers, names, addresses, phone

19
 JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

Meanwhile, Swift’s church in Lancaster, California, was inherited by

Richard Butler, who later moved to Idaho to establish the Aryan
Nations.
When Gordon Kahl joined the Posse Comitatus in 1973, he
inherited this history and ideology, stretching from its early
foundations in British Israelism to its modern form in Christian
Identity. It was no accident that Kahl chose to affiliate himself
with the Posse; this group provided a mixture of the Constitutional
Party’s aspirations for government change with Christian Identity
teachings and biblical interpretations, ideas with Kahl already held
as true and certain.
By 1974, Kahl had been named the state coordinator for the
Posse in Texas, and by 1976, he was ready to take his “racial
gospel” to a larger audience. He and five fellow Posse members
appeared on a half-hour television program in Texas, exhorting
others to join them in the tax protest movement:

All a Christian had to know is that the income tax is the

second plank of the Communist Manifesto. You can’t
support Satan and call yourself a Christian. When you
become a Christian, you put yourself on the opposite side
of the government.27

On June 22, 1977, Gordon Kahl was convicted of willfully

failing to file federal income tax returns, following the contentions
that to do otherwise would be to “finance the work of Satan.”
Sentenced to one year in jail and placed on five years’ probation,
Kahl was ordered to disassociate himself from the Posse or any
other groups whose teachings or ideas may influence him not to
pay his income tax. Kahl was also given a psychiatric examination,
which found him to be “religiously fanatical” with “schizophrenic
characteristics, but not psychotic.”28

numbers, car license numbers, on every damn Jew rabbi in this land…”
(Corcoran, Bitter Harvest, 31).
27
Corcoran, 53.
28
Corcoran, 55.

20
 GORDON KAHL’S CULT OF RACIAL PURITY

Still, he was undaunted by these recent encounters with the

government he so hated. Rather than back down, Kahl seemed
invigorated by the chance to prove himself right (and the
government wrong) on every available opportunity. Unfortunately
for Gordon, the government saw things differently. In 1978, an
appeals court upheld the conviction; Gordon entered the prison
camp at Leavenworth on January 2, 1979, where he would serve
eight months and four days of his one-year sentence.
Shortly following his release from prison, Gordon heard that his
friend, William W. Rhinehart, had died of a heart attack in a federal
prison in Arizona. Rhinehart, a fellow Posse member, had been
one of the friends who had joined Kahl on the Texas television
program in 1979; Rhinehart had also been tried on the same tax
charges as Gordon. Gordon also heard that despite repeated pleas
from other prisoners, Rhinehart was never given the prompt
medical treatment which may have saved his life. Learning this,
Kahl was convinced that the government had given Rhinehart a
heart attack-inducing drug in an attempt to “silence” him, and he
became convinced that a similar fate awaited him if he should ever
again serve time in prison:

I am satisfied that they [the government] consider me

enough of an enemy that if I ever went back to prison, I
would never come out alive. I can give up my religion or I
can stand and fight. I don’t see any other alternative.”29

In August of 1980, Gordon received a summons to appear

before a federal judge in Texas and provide reasons for why he
once again had not paid his federal income taxes, an action which
was in violation of his probation. Although this summons was
later set aside, Gordon saw it as yet another attempt to silence him;
he also discontinued signing his monthly probation reports, an
action which was also required under the terms of his probation.
In November, the IRS placed a lien against eighty acres of
Gordon Kahl’s land, to be removed only if he paid the back taxes

29
Corcoran, 57.

21
 JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

(which had risen from an initial $7,074 to almost $35,000) he owed;

failure to do so would result in seizure of the land by the
government. Joan, Gordon’s wife, begged him to accept the help
of friends and family to pay the taxes, but he refused to give in.
The land was his, he said, no matter what the IRS said to the
contrary.
As threatened, the IRS seized the land shortly after the first of
the year; it would be auctioned later to recover part of its money.
In the meantime, a federal warrant was received on March 31, 1981
at the U.S. marshal’s office in Fargo, ND, ordering the arrest of
Gordon Kahl for violation of probation.

22
 –4–
THE GOSPEL
ACCORDING TO GORDON KAHL
It was Sunday, February 13, 1983. Kahl’s 1970, brown, two-
tone station wagon was parked in front of the Medina clinic
(commonly known as “Doc Martin’s” clinic). Inside, Kahl was
attending a meeting to discuss the formation of a Continental
Township, which, according to Len Martin,30 would prepare the
community for the bank failure, government collapse and threat of
“outside invaders” believed to be fast approaching.
Medina lies in a small valley just off Interstate 94, about 125
miles west of Fargo, ND. Aside from a sign bearing a pelican,
announcing the town’s presence to passers-by, there is little to
distinguish Medina from the other small towns of North Dakota.
It is a small town, with a small-town feeling, and everyone basically

30
Len Martin, no relation to Dr. Martin, was schoolmaster of a small
Christian alternative school in Ashley, ND. Martin also served as the
“scribe” for the group and like Gordon Kahl, actively supported the
Posse and Christian Identity cause. The school was later closed by the
state of North Dakota because it was not accredited, but Martin
continued to work for an alternative to the “anti-Christian” education he
said was being taught in public schools.

23
 JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

knows everyone else. Medina had gained national attention only

once before: in 1949, when the pronunciation of “Medina” was
changed from mah-DI-na to mah-DEE-na, in following with the way
judge Harold R. Medina pronounced his name. The Medina city
council enacted the change after the trial of eleven communists in
New York, over which Judge Medina had presided.
The group gathered at the clinic was the regular crowd, and had
come from all parts of the state. These members, who met
regularly either here in Medina or in Ashley (in southeastern North
Dakota, near the South Dakota border), were trying to work out
plans for a Constitutional Township which would provide a stable
government in case the federal government and court system
collapsed, an event this group had been predicting for some time.
Dr. Clarence Martin, the physician who owned the local clinic,
had also wished to speak to Kahl. He hoped to convince Kahl not
to support an initiated plank in the Township charter which
forbade Blacks and Jews from membership. But Kahl was
unconvinced. His Bible taught that Blacks were the “children of
Satan,” and that, as Reverend Richard G. Butler (founder of the
Aryan Nations and pastor for the Church of Jesus Christ,
Christian) preached, “a man’s race was his nation.” Butler also
taught that any contact with “inferior individuals” would lead to
“pollution” of the white race.
When the meeting commenced, Dr. Martin wasted no time.
Getting to the heart of the matter, he asked for a show of hands of
those who were racist. Gordon, Yorie and Scott Faul raised their
hands. Dr. Martin was furious. Blacks and Jews should not be
excluded from the new Township, he said. The Bible said all
people were equal. He also reminded those present that any
decisions made today would have to be justified to God when Jesus
Christ returned at the arrival of the millennium to begin his
thousand-year reign on earth.
True to his character, Gordon refused to back down, countering
Martin’s pleas with an emphatic message of his own: God, who
had first created the races, also commanded that they remain
separate. In fact, Kahl argued, the very definition of “nation” is
race. Being a Christian meant not associating oneself with Negroes

24
 GORDON KAHL’S CULT OF RACIAL PURITY

or Jews; they were the enemy. After more intense argument,

Gordon stormed out of the room, followed by Yorie (Gordon’s
son) and Gordon’s wife, Joan. Dr. Martin had pushed him too far,
and it was time to leave.
Quite apart from the “liberal” ideas of Dr. Martin were those of
Len Martin, Kahl’s friend and ideological counterpart who wrote
several booklets about the shooting and related topics. While
Corcoran gives no indication as to Len Martin’s position in this
particular dispute, Martin’s booklets and pamphlets are filled with
anti-Semitic and Identity-based ideology. From this, I think it is
fair to assume that he would have sided with Gordon, and against
Dr. Martin’s objections.
For our purposes, however, Len Martin plays a much more
important role. Prior to the shooting, Len Martin had been
conducting a series of interviews with Kahl, discussing various
aspects of Kahl’s life and beliefs. These ideas are now found in a
transcript by Martin entitled Why “They” Wanted to Get Gordon Kahl.
Kahl’s conspiracy theory draws upon a variety of sources, held
together by a conspiracy theory in which the Jews are at the heart
of an international plot to take over the world. These discussions
also demonstrate that Kahl truly believed these things to be true; he
did not profess them simply to gain fame or attention, but rather
saw himself as a crusader against these “evil forces.” When Kahl
referred to himself as a “white Christian patriot,” it was not meant
as a figure of speech.
Kahl began the discussion by explaining how devious and clever
the Jews are, but admitted that he didn’t understand the “true
nature” of the Jews until he entered the military. One thing he did
learn was that “you could hardly get them [Jews] to fight,” and that
they would take all of the non-combative jobs: quartermaster,
supply or medical team, “anything not dangerous.” This,
contended Kahl, is also “where most of them were hiding out until
the war was over.”31
Most startling are Kahl’s allegations about a supposed

31
Len Martin, Why “They” Wanted to Get Gordon Kahl, (Moorhead, MN:
Constitutional Law Center), copyright pending, 5.

25
 JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

connection between the Jews and Adolf Hitler, in which Hitler was
“hired” by the Jews to “see that Germany was destroyed.” Kahl
was convinced that Hitler was working for the Jews throughout
World War II, and that his intention was never to win the war. To
support his claims, Kahl pointed to Hitler’s actions at Dunkirk,
saying that Hitler could have easily destroyed Britain, but chose not
to. Rather, Hitler wanted to make peace with the British in order
to attack Russia. But Hitler had a problem: while he wanted very
much to destroy “Jewish Communism,” he was also working for the
Jews, who anxiously awaited the economic and social collapse of
Germany.
Furthermore, said Kahl, Hitler used his power in order to bring
about the defeat of the German army at every possible chance.
When Rommel was in Africa, for example, Hitler sent him on the
offensive, promising supplies and precious war materiel which
never arrived. But to truly understand Hitler’s circumstances, said
Kahl, one must study the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia,
which he claimed was started and financed by Jewish International
Bankers. With this Jewish-Banker backing, Trotsky (the “Jewish
revolutionary”) was smuggled into Russia to engineer the Jewish
takeover of Russia and the establishment of a Communist
government.32 Now, with Russia in Jewish-Banker hands, the only
remaining problem was Germany: “the only power that stood in
the way of conquering Europe.”33
In Germany, meanwhile, the Rothschilds (a prestigious British
banking family, whom Kahl contended was in control of the
German money system) arranged for the issue of unsecured paper
money, meant to weaken the German economy. When the
German economy finally collapsed, the stage was set for a “savior”
to lead the German people out of their hardships; this is where
“smooth talking Hitler” entered the picture. Backed by Jewish
bankers, Hitler took power and began a buildup of the “German
war machine”; when all was ready, Hitler started the second world

32
It is interesting to note here that nowhere in his discussion of the
Russian Revolution does Kahl mention Vladimir Lenin.
33
Martin, 7.

26
 GORDON KAHL’S CULT OF RACIAL PURITY

war, all according to his Jewish bosses’ orders.

War is simply another way through which the Jews extend their
power and control of the world, said Kahl. It is well known that
the Jews own many of the industries which produce war materiel.
Added to this are the Jewish bankers, who charge high interest on
loans made to the governments fighting in the war, loans which are
used to buy guns, supplies, etc., bought from Jew-owned industries.
It is this vicious cycle which makes

[us] stupid non-Jews and the lowly Jews … pay back this
borrowed money to the Jewish bankers, and it is we [sic]
Christians and other non-Jews who are maneuvered into
killing each other in these planned wars.34

The Jews also use these “planned wars” to further extend their
grip over the world political systems. World War I, Kahl
contended, allowed the Jews to establish Communism in Russia.
During and after the second world war, this was spread to other
countries in Eastern Europe. But in order to get the United States
into the war, the Jews “arranged” for strained relations between the
U.S. and Japan, strains which eventually led to the attack on Pearl
Harbor. In addition,

it is now becoming generally known that President

Roosevelt (Franklin D.) forced Japan into attacking us in
order to give Roosevelt a reason for going to war against
the rest of the Axis—Italy and Germany… In America,
President Roosevelt was the puppet of the Jews, and in
Germany, it was Hitler. The Jews financed Hitler but
wouldn’t let him win the war.35

As for the “alleged” Nazi Holocaust which supposedly killed

over six million Jews, Kahl’s contended that this was a Jewish
fabrication designed to raise sympathy and support for the Zionist
goal of an independent state of Israel. Citing statistics from the
34
Martin, 8.
35
Martin, 9.

27
 JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

1950 world almanac, Kahl also claimed that between 1930-1950,

the Jewish elites secretly moved 5.5 million of their own from
Europe to America; the Jew-run American government then
granted them immediate citizenship and a change of legal name.
The infamous concentration camps were merely “work camps.”
Kahl further claimed to have been told by a “high ranking Jew”
that Jews were actually in charge of the camps:

This Jew had been in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

and had heard that there had been NO extermination
camps, NO gas chambers and NO incinerators. He had
compared how many Jews there had been in Germany and
how many were supposed to have been killed and he said
the figures just didn’t add up.36

This same “source” also said that about 15,000 Jews were
executed because they “had been found guilty of spying or
espionage.” In addition, about 50,000 inmates of the work camps
starved to death or died from disease, and Kahl insisted that there
was “plenty of other evidence uncovered by historians” which
“tends to prove” that the Holocaust never happened.37 In short,
the Holocaust is a Jewish-created fable which is spread by the
Jewish-controlled media to gain sympathy and acceptance from
non-Jews (“goyim”). The Holocaust never actually occurred, Hitler
never planned exterminate the Jewish race, and Kahl was convinced
that this, like everything else, was simply part of the world take-
over conspiracy.
Kahl also insisted that Jewish-led Communists had planned a
“Russian-type revolution here in the United States during [the]
depression era.” President Roosevelt was scheduled to give a
speech on the day in question, during which time he would speak a
code word which would signal the beginning of the revolt. The
plan was never enacted, however, because the Jews feared that if
the revolution here in America failed, it might threaten the

36
Martin, 10; emphases in original.
37
Martin, 10.

28
 GORDON KAHL’S CULT OF RACIAL PURITY

revolution in Russia, which “Roosevelt and his bunch of Jews

[were] backing.” Immediately after this, said Kahl, Jews who
owned stores in “every little town in North Dakota” were pulled
out in one night, fearing that they would “get caught out here
among these Germans in North Dakota when that revolution took
place.”38
In fact, said Kahl, a revolution was no longer necessary
following Roosevelt’s “mass of ‘New Deal’ government aid
programs [which] started the United States down the road to
Socialism/Communism.” and have led to the “weakening of the
economic and moral strength of our country.”39 Added to this are
the Zionist-oriented Jews who have successful “wormed” their way
into powerful government positions of influence, and the Jewish
International Bankers who have taken control of the country’s
money system.
As mentioned above, Kahl contended that Jewish immigrants
after 1945 received instant citizenship and changes of name. These
Jews have now joined churches, he said, and pretend to be
Christians while continuing all the while to work for
the aims of Zionism, which is one-world government under
Jewish control. These phantom Jews do everything that is
necessary to stay in good standing in the church which they have
joined, but they always see that the Jews are played up in a
favorable light.40
Kahl also told how the CIA is controlled by the Rockefellers,
who are not American, but German—the Roggenfelds. He also
revealed how money-hungry “so-called Christians” are really
Masons who are “willing to sell their souls for money.”
Communism and Masonry are only front organizations, created
and run by the Jews.41 The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion tell

38
Martin, 12.
39
Martin, 12.
40
Martin, 14.
41
Here, Kahl seemed to indicate that the Jews had created the Masons
from the start. In contrast, other literature I read portrayed the Masons

29
 JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

how these Masonic lodges were to be spread all over the world to
do work as “front men” for the Jews. In summary, Kahl stated, “A
Jew is born a Jew and a Mason is an artificially-created Jew.”42
According to Kahl, Masonic lodges use blackmail to “recruit”
new members. Prostitutes are hired to seduce victims, who are led
to a motel room where they are photographed; these photos are
then used to blackmail the men into joining the Masons. When
such evidence is not available, the Jews simply fabricate it.43 The
Elks, Eagles, Lions, Moose, Rotary, Kiwanis and others are what
Kahl calls “sub-Masonry,” since they appear to be good on the
surface, but almost always have Mason leaders. Kahl also said that
the “rank and file” of these organizations often do not know the
truth of what is happening.
Every Communist that Senator Joseph McCarthy was
investigating during the 1960s was a Mason. But there was a
problem: McCarthy’s own staff was over-run with Jews.44
According to Kahl, McCarthy was operating under the assumption
that Jews were God’s Chosen People, a fact that Kahl emphatically
refuted. Soon enough, Jews found his “snooping” too dangerous
to allow any longer, and he was killed.
Kahl emphatically dismissed the idea that the Jews are the
Chosen People of God. The Jews are not one people, said Kahl,
but two separate peoples: the Shephardic and Ashkenazi Jews. The
Shephardic Jews are natives of the Middle East (British Israelism
would say these are the descendants of the Southern Kingdom of
Judah), while the Ashkenazi Jews came out of Eastern Europe and

as an independent organization which was subsequently hired by or

infiltrated by the Jews; the Masons then did Jewish “dirty work.”
42
Martin, 16.
43
Kahl claimed this information on the Masons’ blackmail scheme was
given to him by a Mr. Ben Friedman, a Jew who broke away from the
Masons and became a Christian in order to expose these “schemes.”
44
These same ideas concerning Senator McCarthy were expressed by
James Wickstrom in an interview for the KTHI television special, We the
People...Posse Comitatus, 1 VHS videocassette, 24 min., ([Fargo, ND]:
KTHI-TV, 1983).

30
 GORDON KAHL’S CULT OF RACIAL PURITY

are not really Jewish at all. An Eastern European tribe called the
“Khazars” chose Judaism as their religion at some unspecified
point in history; the Ashkenazi Jews are the descendants of this
group, according to Kahl.
It was the Ashkenazi Jews who, in the middle and late 1800s,
began the “political, atheistic movement” known as Zionism.
These Jews also started Communism, and presently lead the
“Communist/Socialist” state of Israel45; in recent years, they have
also succeeded in taking control of the United States. But since
these Jews are not really “Jews,” they have no claim to the title
“God’s Chosen People.”46 Rather, Kahl quoted from the Bible:

I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou

art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they
are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.47

Fearing the rising power of the Masons, the Catholic Church (at
some unspecified time) created the Knights of Columbus as an
army which would destroy the Masons forever. However, due to
the Jewish infiltration of Roman Catholic and other churches, this
plan was never carried out. Kahl also claimed that after the year
1000 (he does not explain the significance of this particular date),

45
One resource associated with the anti-Semitism subculture is Jack
Bernstein, described as a Jew who became a Christian after spending
several years in “racist, Marxist Israel.” In his book, My Farewell to Israel,
The Thorn in the Mideast, Bernstein claimed that Israel is a Communist
police state, where prostitutes run rampant and the Jewish world take-
over is planned and plotted. Bernstein’s writings are popular among both
white supremacists and leftists organizations, both of whom decry the
Zionist foundations of the modern state of Israel. Radical websites also
contend that Bernstein was the victim of an assassination plot by Mossad
for daring to express and publish his views publicly.
46
It should be kept in mind that the definitive characteristic for Jews
and non-Jews in Kahl’s ideological system is a racial, rather than religious,
identification.
47
Revelation 2:9, quoted from The Holy Bible (King James Version), (New
York: Oxford University Press), 1945.

31
 JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

the Roman Catholic Church began referring to Masonry as “Judeo-

Masonry,” since “for all practical purposes Masonry is second class
Jewry.”48
Apart from the racial division, there is another split among the
Jews, this time between the “elite Jews” (the Banker masterminds
of the world conspiracy plot) and the “lower Jews,” who know
nothing of the plot. According to Kahl, 96 underground cities
have been built to protect Jews in case of a war. One of these is
meant only for the Jews who “own” the Federal Reserve. As Kahl
explained, these Jews will be given advanced warning if

their Communist front decides to bomb any part of the

United States…At that time, these Jews will go into
these underground cities and stay there until it is all over.
Then, they will come out and finish the job of taking
total control of our country.49

However, warns Kahl, these shelters are meant only for the
“elite Jews”; the rich Jews don’t care about their fellow Jews, or
about the Masons. These “lower Jews” and Masons are simply
“tools to be used … to help them achieve their goal of world
domination.” Many “lower Jews” do not like what the elites are
doing, but support them in order to get better jobs. Also, many
non-Jewish “goyum”50 are willing to “sell their souls” in order to
gain special favors from the elites.
As for the “invisible government” which the Jews have
established, Kahl recalled that

an old Jew in Texas told me that there is a complete world-

wide kingdom or government made up of Jews. It’s an
invisible government…made up of the upper-most of the
elite Jews. To belong to this top group, a Jew family had to

48
Len Martin, Why “They” Wanted to Get Gordon Kahl, 21.
49
Martin, 22.
50
Kahl claimed that “goyum” was a Jewish word for “human cattle.”

32
 GORDON KAHL’S CULT OF RACIAL PURITY

be at least three generations of absolute[ly] faithful workers

for the Jewish goals.51

The Jewish-controlled world was originally sub-divided into the

Eastern and Western World; Kahl also claimed that the Western
World was controlled from Brasilia, Brazil, by Emmanuel
Goldenweiser. Kahl’s Texas source also believed the world had
been split again. “It was shortly after this,” Kahl remembered,
“that we started hearing the term ‘Third World’ for the first time.”
The Jewish plot is kept secret through an “effective
psychological program” in which the Jews “play upon” the “poor,
persecuted Jew” image while at the same time labeling anyone who
speaks out against their actions as anti-Semitic. Jews control the
news media, many of the major businesses, the amusement industry
and the national banking institutions. Playing upon the “poor Jew”
image, they “arrange” for continual turmoil between Christians and
other non-Jews, even to the point of pitting Christians against
other Christians. According to Kahl, the “old Jew in Texas” was
named Rex Rogers, and claimed to know personally “practically
every big-shot Communist leader in the world.” Most of these
were from the United States, Rogers said.
Kahl then went on to explain that when the Jew-run law
enforcement and courts learned his extensive research and threats
to expose their plot, they chose to prosecute him as an example to
others. He also claimed that Jews had infiltrated Muslim countries
and were stirring up “further acts of war in the Middle East.” And
with fifteen million dollars going each day toward Israel’s “war
machine,” Kahl continued,

the Zionists who run Israel are looking for some excuse to
continue their acts of aggression against the Arabs…If a
major war breaks out in the Middle East and the United
States gets involved, you can be sure that the Zionist Jews,
who control our government, will have planned it.52

51
Martin, 23.
52
Martin, 28.

33
 JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

In the “prologue” to this booklet, Martin wrote:

It was at this point in our discussions that the U.S.

Marshals at Medina, N.D. attempted to “quiet” Gordon
Kahl permanently … Gordon Kahl is no longer wanted by
his tormentors. The finally got him…
Physically, Gordon Kahl has been silenced, but his spirit
goes on. The task of exposing the Satanic anti-God, anti-
family, anti-American forces at work in our country will be
carried on in his memory.”53

As I have shown above, Gordon Kahl’s “gospel” was based

solely on racial identity: the white peoples of the world are the true
“Chosen People of God,” not the Jews. In fact, the Jews are not
even a single people, but two different peoples. With this in mind,
how can anyone claim that the Jews are the Chosen People?
Salvation in this “cult of racial purity” is accomplished through
the preservation of racial purity and racial identity. Nowhere is
there any mention of beliefs about Christ’s death and resurrection,
or love for all people, which I believe the Gospels teach.
Everything in Kahl’s “Christian” theology is centered in an
apocalyptic-style struggle between the “true believers” and the
“enemies of Christ.” The sole purpose of Christ as Messiah is to
establish white Christian republic on earth, but not before these
“Christian patriots” have wiped all remains of their Jewish-
Communist enemy from the face of earth.

53
Martin, 29.

34
 FRIENDS AND FOES
When she met with the FBI, Karen Robertson told them that
Gordon Kahl was in contact with two associates, Leonard Ginter
and Ed Udey, about using their connections with the CSA54 to
obtain weapons and ammunition.
Leonard Ginter had been a member of the Posse while living in
Wisconsin. After moving to Arkansas, he joined the Association
for Constitutional Enforcement, a group similar to the Posse in tax
protest ideology and Identity teaching, where he met Gordon Kahl
for the first time. Ginter considered Kahl a true patriot and true
Christian, and promised to provide whatever was needed to help in
the fight against the government.
It was also not surprising that they had ties to the CSA. Earlier
in his “crusade” against the Jewish-Communist conspiracy, Kahl
had traveled to the CSA encampment in Mountain Home,
Arkansas, where a private army was being trained in preparation for
the final Battle of Armageddon, which would be followed by
Christ’s return to earth. A small group of farmers, truckers,
machine workers and others, these paramilitary patriots had
stockpiled food, water, and weapons in a secured compound while
work was completed on a “safe haven” which would protect them

54
“Covenant, Sword and Arm of the Lord”—a paramilitary arm of the
Identity movement that believed the world had already entered the time
of Tribulation as described in the book of Revelation. They had been
chosen by God to lead the battle against the “Jewish-led anti-Christ
forces that repeated violated God’s law” (Corcoran, 238).

35
 JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

from the nuclear Armageddon they believed was coming.

The weapons were never delivered. Aerial surveillance verified
that Kahl was staying at Ginter’s home, and the government had to
act before Kahl could enlist the help of CSA members. If he
succeeded in fortifying himself in the CSA bunker, arresting him
quietly would be out of the question. The time had come to act.
FBI agents, federal marshals, state troopers and local law
enforcement were assembled with SWAT team reinforcement,
arriving in small groups of two or three so as not to raise suspicion.
But it didn’t matter, Leonard Ginter had already figured out what
was happening: “they” were coming for Gordon Kahl. This was
small-town America, a wooded, sparsely-populated area of
Arkansas where everyone knew everyone else. It didn’t take a
genius to see that something was about to happen; Leonard had
spotted dozens of unfamiliar vehicles in town, vehicles which
looked like police cars. The “agents of Satan” were making their
move.

36
 –5–
BROKEN SILENCE
Outside the clinic, Stutsman County deputy sheriff Bradley
Kapp sat in his 1982 green Ford pickup, where for over two hours,
he had watched the clinic for any signs of Gordon Kahl. Earlier
that day, he had made a pass of the clinic and spotted a car which
he believed was Gordon Kahl’s. Kapp then called state radio to see
if the warrant for Gordon’s arrest was still outstanding; it was, and
three U.S. marshals were en-route to Medina to make the arrest.
David Broer (another of Kahl’s friends) had spotted Kapp’s
truck when he walked outside; he now returned to the meeting
room to inform the others. Following several moments of debate,
it was decided that Gordon and Yorie would exchange coats; that
should confuse the police and allow them some extra time to
escape. Gordon also accepted Len Martin’s brown stocking cap,
and the group left the clinic in two vehicles: Gordon rode in David
Broer’s AMC Hornet, while Yorie, Joan and Scott Faul and Vernon
Wegner rode in Gordon’s station wagon. They headed north, away
from town.
Within minutes, however, Gordon found himself looking
through the sites of his mini-14 as several officers trained their own
weapons on him, Yorie and the rest of the group. A road block
had been set up on the highway just north of town; it was hoped
that Gordon would come peacefully, and that no one would get

37
 JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

hurt. However, the marshals were taking no chances. Drop your

weapons, Kahl was told, or you’re a dead man.
Put down your weapons and back off, came the reply; Kahl was
not about to back down. These were agents of Satan, his sworn
enemies, and they could not be bargained with. All Gordon could
hope to do was protect himself and his friends from this assault;
there was no turning back now.
A shot rang out. Deputy marshal Robert Cheshire was hit.
Slowly, he slumped into the back of the marshal service’s Dodge
Ram Charger. Bradley Kapp, standing near Cheshire, returned fire,
hitting Yorie Kahl square in the abdomen. But now it was
Gordon’s turn; training his rifle on the Charger, he opened fire on
Kapp. One of the bullets hit the windshield, sending glass
fragments flying everywhere. One of the fragments cut deeply into
Kapp’s forehead as he ducked behind the passenger door. The
shooting continued, and Kapp finally retreated to the ditch.
Looking down, he saw he too had been shot: his trigger finger had
been blown cleanly off.
Finished with Kapp, Gordon turned his attention to the other
officers. He fired several more times, hitting Steve Schnabel in the
leg; another shot hit U.S. marshal Kenneth Muir in the chest, and
he dropped to the ground. When the shooting was over, Gordon
walked to the edge of the road, passing Ken Muir, who lay dead
from Kahl’s single shot. Taking Schnabel’s service revolver,
Gordon walked to the police cruiser and drove toward the
driveway of a nearby farm55, where Scott Faul was tending to
Yorie’s gunshot wound. Only the .45 caliber pistol he carried in a
shoulder holster had stopped the bullet Kenneth Muir had fired;
without the pistol’s handle to stop the bullet, it would have hit
Yorie in the heart.
Gordon was told that Yorie was “all right,” a half-truth made by
Faul, who was trying his best to keep Joan as calm as possible. At
this point, Scott also noticed Bradley Kapp running up the hill

55
Susan and Wayne Reardon, who lived in the farmhouse just off the
highway from where the shooting occurred, were eyewitnesses to the
entire incident.

38
 GORDON KAHL’S CULT OF RACIAL PURITY

toward the ambulance which had accompanied the marshals.

Twice, Gordon and Scott raised their rifles, but did not fire.
Instead, Gordon walked toward the Ram Charger, where Cheshire
lay immobilized from a bullet (possibly fired by Scott Faul, who
had fired seven times at the Ram Charger) which had penetrated
his bullet-proof vest. This wound, according to a physician who
testified at the trial, would have been sufficient to kill Cheshire, had
he not received medical treatment. However, this was not to be his
cause of death.
Gordon looked at Cheshire, who sat helplessly inside the
Charger, his rifle on the seat, his body limp from loss of blood.
Raising the mini-14, Gordon fired twice, point-blank to Cheshire’s
head. At the trial, the jury would be shown medical examiner’s
photos of Cheshire’s body; half of his head had been blown off by
Gordon’s rifle shots. The enemy was dead; Satan’s agents had lost
this battle.
Returning to the driveway, Gordon helped Scott carry Yorie to
the police cruiser; Scott got behind the wheel and headed for Doc
Martin’s clinic. Gordon got into the station wagon, where Joan sat
almost hysterically in the passenger seat. Followed by Broer and
Wegner (who drove the Hornet), they too headed for Medina;
David Broer had escaped into the woods lining the highway, and
was being pursued by another officer, deputy marshal Carl
Wiggleworth. At the top of the hill, Graf waved Schnabel’s car
(now carrying Yorie and Scott) through the roadblock; the station
wagon and Hornet soon followed. Bringing up the rear was the
ambulance carrying Bradley Kapp.
Arriving at the clinic several minutes later, Yorie was prepared
for immediate surgery. Bradley Kapp sat in the hallway, ten feet
from where Yorie lay screaming in pain, despite the painkiller
administered by Dr. Martin. Through the doorway to the clinic
appeared Gordon Kahl, a rifle in each hand and a smile on his face.
Walking over to Kapp, Gordon said nothing.
“We could have talked this over instead of shooting,” Kapp told
him. Gordon offered no reply; turning, he walked into the
operating room, where Dora Martin (Doc Martin’s wife) stood up
to her elbows in Yorie’s blood. Seeing the weapons, she ordered

39
 JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

Gordon out of the room.

Gordon then went outside, where he and Scott Faul loaded the
police cruiser with the weapons taken from Kahl’s station wagon,
and headed out into the cold, foggy night air. Faul would later be
dropped off near his farm, and eventually turn himself in to police,
but the hunt for Gordon Kahl had just begun.

40
 –6–
AFTERMATH
Gordon Kahl’s ideology, particularly the idea that Jews were in
control of the country and the world, led inevitably to his clash
with the government he feared was “out to get him.” Kahl was a
“true believer,” a fanatical believer in his own “inferiority” and
minority position with respect to the “Zionist-Communist
occupiers” which had taken hold of this country. Such a man,
when confronted by law enforcement, is not likely to give himself
up peacefully. Rather, it is better to die “honorably” with gun in
hand than to bow to the will of the “agents of Satan.”

Like the Klingons of the fictional Star Trek universe, Kahl

believed it was “better to die on our feet than live on our knees.”

I also suspect that Gordon Kahl was genuinely proud of what

he had done. When he walked into the Medina clinic that Sunday
evening, smiling as if he had just been told a good joke, it would be
hard to tell that he had just killed two men in a gun fight. While I
do not think Kahl actively sought out such a confrontation, he
nevertheless seemed satisfied with its outcome. He had won this
fight, and no matter what happened in the days and weeks ahead,
he would come out a winner. If the government succeeded
(somehow) in taking him alive, he would be a “political prisoner”

41
 JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

of the Zionist Occupation Government; some of his more militant

supporters might even have attempted to “rescue” him from
prison. If, on the other hand, he was killed (as happened), he
would be a martyr for the cause. In either case, the government
would come out looking bad:
As for statistics on Posse membership, the Church and Society
report estimated a national “association” of those involved with or
in contact with “ultra-rightist” groups such as the Posse (including
members, sympathizers, “the curious” or friends) at about 30,000.
By contrast, James Wickstrom—the Posse leader and Identity
minister in Wisconsin—claimed a nationwide membership of over
2 million for the Posse alone. Given the secrecy with which the
Posse (and other groups like it) operate, a formal “census” of active
membership or sympathy is hard to estimate.
The influence of the Posse Comitatus in North Dakota and the
Red River Valley continues. Although it is difficult to determine
exactly how much this influence continues to permeate our society,
especially in North Dakota, I think it is fair to assume that Kahl’s
supporters have not backed down from their positions and ideas.
These people are still “out there”; one of the publishing houses for
Posse Comitatus literature is right here in Moorhead. In light of
the above discussion, I feel that it is important to be aware of these
groups, and realize that North Dakota, rural Minnesota and the
Red River Valley are not immune to the racist ideas which Gordon
Kahl and the Posse profess.

42
 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Corcoran, James. Bitter Harvest: Gordon Kahl and the Posse
Comitatus: Murder in the Heartland. New York: Viking Penguin
Books, USA, Inc., 1990.

Corcoran, James. “Details of alleged Kahl letter revealed,”

(Fargo, ND) Forum. 8 March 1983, 1(A).

Destiny [newsletter]. “Thy Servant People.” Destiny Publishers,

1946.

Destiny, Second quarter, 1969.

Fasken, W. H. Israel’s Racial Origin and Migration. Published by

New Christian Crusade Church, n.d.

“Hate Crime in America” by William Muldrow, chairperson of

the Task Force on the Christian Identity Movement and Hate
Groups, Racial Ethnic Ministry Unit, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Church and Society 80, no. 5 (May/June 1990): 58-59.

Hoffer, Eric. The True Believer. (A Mentor Book) New York:

Published by the New American Library of World Literature, Inc.,
1958.

Kahl, Yorie. Traitors in Our Midst: A Letter of Warning from Yorie

Kahl (Prisoner # 04565-059), Son of Gordon Kahl. n.p., n.d.

Martin, Len. The Truth About Gordon Kahl: Radical Tax Protestor
and Militant Posse Comitatus Member. Wichita, KS: Pro-American
Press, 1983.

Martin, Len. Why “They” Wanted to Get Gordon Kahl. Moorhead,

MN: Constitutional Law Center, copyright pending.

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 JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

Marx, Karl and Frederick Engels, The Communist Manifesto.

Samuel H. Beer, ed. Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, Inc.,
1955.

Marsden, Victor E., ed. Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned

Elders of Zion. Tsarskoje Selo, Russia: By S. Nilus; reprint.,
London: Briton Publishing Company [English edition], 1923(?)

The Holy Bible (King James Version). New York: Oxford

University Press, 1945.

We the People…Posse Comitatus, VHS videocassette, 24 min.,

[Fargo, ND: KTHI-TV, 1983].

Wickstrom, James. The American Farmer: 20th Century Slaves. By

the author, n.d.

Zeskind, Leonard. The “Christian Identity” Movement: A Theological

Justification for Racist and Anti-Semitic Violence. (Atlanta: Division of
Church and Society of the National Council of the Churches of
Christ in the USA), 1986.

44