Francis Parker Yockey

Unraveling the Mystery

by E. F.

A student essay from Dr. Elliot Neaman's History 210 class (historical methods - spring 2001)

The character of Francis Parker Yockey is one that is clouded with mystery. His life was one that was filled with confusion and secrets. In order to understand this individual and his influence in the post WWII right wing community, one must first be able to have a firm grasp on his mysterious past. Through extensive probing into the past of Francis Parker Yockey, it is difficult to find accurate information that coincides with one another properly. There have been many disputes as to the correct historical documentation of Yockey’s life. Despite the disagreements as to the exact historical information, one thing can be agreed upon, Francis Parker Yockey was a very influential character in the right wing community. His comprehensions of the west and its problems have been used even today in small sectors of society across the globe, especially in the United States and Eastern Europe. These concepts must be better understood in order to prevent the spread of intolerant, far right, white supremacist groups and their detrimental effects on society due to racism and oppression.

The life of Francis Parker Yockey began on the 18^th of September 1917 in Chicago, Illinois. He was the youngest of four children from Louis Francis and Rose Ellen Yockey. His life was in constant turmoil from a very young age. Because of his strained family relations including his father’s alcohol problem due to the Great Depression, his distance from his oldest brother James, and poor relationship with his mother, Yockey was driven closest to his sister Vinette. Yockey’s sister basically raised, supported, and acted as a role model for him during his growing period and further supported him during his adult life as he traveled across the globe.

During Yockey’s childhood he was considered a very talented pianist. It was thought by many that he could have been a concert pianist in his adult life if he had so desired. However, Yockey did not desire to enter the musical industry. He was more of a politically than musically inclined individual at this point in his life. Many also noted, even when Yockey was very young, that he was an exceptionally intelligent person. Some would even consider him a young genius.

Yockey enrolled at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in the fall of 1934. It was during his time at Michigan that Yockey turned from his former pro-Communism views, towards Nazism. Yockey’s friend Perry Patterson noted that Yockey "turned to Nazism and became a believer in the supremacy of the German race and their political future." It was also around the time that Yockey spent At Michigan that he began to turn towards the far right political movement. He was greatly inspired by Oswald Spengler and his book Decline of the West. Yockey considered Spengler to be "the Philosopher of the Twentieth Century" and was "convinced that he was Spengler’s intellectual heir." This ideology of Oswald Spengler led Yockey to often paraphrase, and in some cases simply outright plagiarize, much of Spengler’s writings in Yockey’s own works of literature.

Following his studies at Michigan, Yockey transferred to Georgetown University School of Foreign Services in the fall of 1936. He transferred in order to study the relationship between international law and foreign policy. It was also at this time that Yockey began to have for right belief based writings. He began to show support for right wing militias, which he believed were a part of a positive political activity, which America needed. Yockey began to read many works by Carl Schmitt, who was Germany’s leading Catholic international and constitutional law theorist at the time. Yockey was greatly influenced by these writings and often plagiarized from them, much like that of Oswald Spengler. Yockey agreed greatly with Schmitt’s contempt for constitutional order.

Yockey subsequently left Georgetown University in 1938 without graduating. He then went to the University of Arizona at Tuscon where he finally graduated. After his graduation, Yockey decided to move back to Chicago and enroll in Northwestern’s Law School. However, Yockey was unhappy at Northwestern. He claimed that the school "was nothing but a group of Negroes, Jews, and Communists." Because of his growing racist sentiment, Yockey chose to transfer once again, this time he went to De Paul Law School in the fall term of 1940. However, he quickly changed his mind about attending De Paul and transferred again, to Notre Dame’s law school. Finally Yockey appeared to be content with the school he was attending and graduated "cum laude from Notre Dame’s law school on 1 June 1941." Yockey then passed the Michigan law board shortly after his graduation.

After finally graduating from law school, Yockey’s life began to take a mysterious turn. A short time after Yockey enlisted in the Army in 1942, he went Absent Without Leave (AWOL) for an extended period of time. After his return, Yockey was given a medical discharge in 1943 "on the grounds that he suffered from ‘dementia praecox, paranoid type. According to the army report, he revealed marked delusions of persecution, had auditory hallucinations, and involved prominent people in his delusional system." Interestingly, many of Yockey’s followers are not aware of his unusual discharge from the army. Many simply believe he was released on an honorable medical discharge and not because of his mental instability.

Following his release from the army and the conclusion of WWII, Yockey went to Germany and took a position with the War Crimes Tribunal in Germany as a legal researcher. However, after a few short months Yockey left this position because of a moral dilemma that involved his views regarding the Nazi leaders that were awaiting trial for their involvement in the war. It was his opinion that the War Crimes Tribunal was treating these leaders unfairly and that he would refuse to conform to the beliefs of the Tribunal.

It was at this time of his departure from the War Crimes Tribunal that Yockey began his life as a mysterious traveler across the globe. He first stayed in Africa for several months, and then took refuge in Ireland to seek isolation and focus on his writing. After approximately six months in Ireland, Yockey began moving throughout Europe, the United States, Canada, and Egypt in order to spread his message of the West and its importance to society. Yockey’s legal troubles soon began because of his traveling and the message he was spreading. "In 1952 the State Department refused to renew his passport… A game then developed between the FBI and Yockey, for the FBI had received orders to keep him under surveillance at all times." The lack of a legal passport from the State Department did not sway Yockey. He proceeded to travel under several different aliases with the assistance of forged documents and financial backing from friends and family, most importantly his sister Vinette. He continued a secretive lifestyle, living at various addresses and hotels across mainly the United States out of a suitcase for several years. The strange lifestyle that Yockey had created for himself came to an abrupt halt in 1960 when he was arrested for possessing passports and forged documents of different names and identities. It was only by a strange case of lost luggage that the passports were even discovered by an airline company. This airline company chose to open the bags in order to identify the owner of the missing luggage, inadvertently, Yockey’s passports were found inside. Following his arrest Yockey awaited trial in a prison cell in San Francisco, California where, on the night of 16 June 1960 he consumed a pill of potassium cyanide and ended his mysterious life. The question still remains as to where Yockey acquired the pill during his imprisonment as well as his possible reason for suicide. The cyanide pill must have been smuggled into the prison cell somehow, but the question still remains as to who did the smuggling? Yockey left a taunting suicide note claiming, "You will never discover who helped me, for he is to be found in your multitudinous ranks, at least outwardly." This type of taunting was to be expected by an individual such as Yockey, but it raises the question of a possible conspiracy on the part of someone involved in the case that assisted with Yockey’s death. This individual still remains unknown.

Yockey’s most well known accomplishment during his lifetime was the writing of his book Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics, which is dedicated "To the hero of the Second World War." This "hero" that Yockey is referring to is most commonly believed to be Adolf Hitler. The book itself is basically a prediction of the capabilities and future successes of the West. This work of literature is what Yockey will most likely remembered for. This book was originally written while Yockey was living in Ireland after the Second World War. Imperium was originally printed in 1946. However, at the time it was not a very popular book, and gained little recognition in the literary community. His loyal followers refer to his book as a legitimate work of literature that has been conveniently overlooked by the general public. One of Yockey’s more outspoken followers was Willis A Carto who believed that the genius book was overlooked because:

"Hungry publishers of our advanced day know that any pile of trash, filth, sex, sadism, perversion, and sickness will sell when wrapped between two gaudy covers and called a book, but under no circumstance may they allow readers to come into contact with a serious work unless it contains the standard obeisance to the catchwords of equality, democracy, and universal brotherhood."

The spread of Imperium, although slow, has been persistent throughout the Twentieth Century. It resurfaced in 1962 when the Noontide Press, a largely right wing group, decided to publish it with an introduction written by Willis Carto. It is interesting to note that Willis Carto, the man who has helped the legend of Francis Parker Yockey survive, was the last person to visit Yockey the night before his suicide in prison. The book Imperium is now available across the globe with Spanish and German translations in Europe. However, it is appealing to note that "[a]lthough the book has sold well over 20,000 copies in the US, there has been virtually nothing written about it inside the far right." Imperium is a book that, although it is a staple for many of the right wing’s libraries and points of reference, has made its lasting impression on society because its "enduring reputation lies in its incomprehensibility… In the tiny community of neo-Nazism, Imperium is the ‘bible’ few people have thoroughly read and almost nobody understands." The work by Yockey, that many consider an amazing work of literature, is one that is readily quoted from and have had ideas extracted from, it is not generally read and understood properly cover to cover.

One major belief that permeated Yockey’s writings was his concept of the West. "In Imperium Yockey called for an absolute imperial system, an imperium of western Aryan nations united by the principles of Hitlerian national socialism." The West was also a major concept in Yockey’s Proclamation of London in 1949. His Western mentality pervaded almost all of Yockey’s works as well as his general beliefs. The concept of the West and its impact on the right wing community can be better understood when viewing Yockey’s stance on the position that he so readily promoted.

Yockey’s concept of the West is of an idealized culture that has been in decline and is in desperate need of repair. This Western Culture, in Yockey’s opinion, emerged during the time of the Crusades. It contained many basic elements that defined it as a unique culture, which Yockey romanticized and highly endorsed to all aspects of society who would listen to his stance. These elements include:

"Western Culture had one State, with the Emperor at its head, one Church and religion, Gothic Christianity, with an authoritarian Pope, one race, one nation, and one people, which felt itself, and was recognized by all outer forces, to be distinct and unitary. There was a universal style, Gothic, which inspired and informed all art from the crafts to the cathedrals. There was one ethical code for the Culture-bearing stratum, Western chivalry, founded on a purely Western feeling of honour."

The Western Culture that Yockey envisions contains a very powerful element of inner unity that can fight against outside forces and influences. The West was believed to be of a higher culture than that of other ethnic groups. A sense of racial superiority pervades this concept of the West. The West is believed to be all of Europe combined in one group of racial unity. This race is the Aryan race that will dominate other cultures with its white sense of purity and authority. It is necessary to understand that Yockey desired nothing less than complete unity of his Western ideal at the expense of all other ethnic groups and races. These races are believed to be mentally, and physically inferior to that of the Western race. The religions and cultures of other groups are to be rejected and to be referred to as a substandard culture to that of the greater Western culture.

The perfect, idealistic Western culture is believed to have been contaminated and damaged by the outer influence of other cultures. Various factors have been blamed for the downfall of Western society. The rise in materialism and power of the Western culture faced an abrupt decline with the emergence of class conflicts within European society; this emergence has been attributed to the infestation of the Western culture by outside non-Aryan groups. These conflicts led to the change in political parties, as well as the emergence of new parties that diversified the political scene in Europe. Life in Europe was no longer run by an Imperialist form of government, but more of a democratic from of rule. Also, the breakdown of religious unity and the formation of separate religious affiliations further led to the divide of the West. The breakdown of the united culture that permeated the West with its ideal single ethnic group, allowed for the power structure to no longer be as strong as when it was singular and this weakness allowed for the further invasion of Europe by other cultures. This type of multiculturalism only furthered the weakening of the Western idealistic culture. Although this concept may seem accurate by many white supremacists, one fact is missing from the argument of the Western ideal culture. The argument fails to mention the presence of other ethnic groups across Europe well before the Crusades. The reality of the Western ideal is that it is based on a false premise that never existed in the whole of Europe. There has always been ethnic and cultural diversity in Europe. A completely "pure" ethnic group of Aryans has never dominated a large portion of European society. Throughout history there has been multiculturalism and diversity in all areas of European life.

The minority group that has been blamed largely for the majority of the supposed fall of the West is the Jews. This group is seen by many white supremacists as the "root of all evil" in regard to the West. They are seen as Christ killing individuals who have sought to better their lives at the expense of the Western culture. These people are often regarded as being devoid of morals, are racially impure, and inhabit professions that are looked down upon by the majority of society as a whole. It was believed by Yockey that "[i]nterest-taking was forbidden to Westerners by their religion, and the Jew was not slow to seize the usury monopoly that this conferred on him." Yockey failed to realize that the position of banking (i.e. interest-taking) was a position that was somewhat forced upon the Jews because of their lack of employment in other areas of society due to racism inflicted upon them by the majority of Europe. Yockey and others also promoted the basic sentiment that "[t]he general feeling of the religious Gothic Age was that the Jew was the creation of the Devil, who appointed him to drive his trade of usury." The degree of antisemitism that pervaded right wing society led many individuals to commit acts of persecution and racism against the Jewish community as a whole. The Jews were simply a group of innocent victims that were subjected to a form of scapegoated hatred that was targeted by those who followed the Western ideology.

Yockey highly supported and promoted a better understanding of Western ideals in the hope to shape the future of Europe after the Western cultural model. It was his hope that he could gain a following of fascists who would also help support his Western concept and spread this belief to the rest of the world. The ideals of Yockey and other supporters of the Western culture model have gained many followers in the racist, white supremacist community. The belief in white superiority allows for these groups to have a target in order to focus their aggression. The use of the Jews and other minority groups as a scapegoat has been considered to be completely acceptable by these groups in the spirit of Western superiority. The concept of the West justifies racism for these people and alleviates guilt from their oppressive actions towards minority groups.

Although the denial of the Holocaust was not one of Yockey’s most pronounced beliefs, it is evident through his writing in Imperium that he was in fact a Holocaust denier in addition to an avid racist. His belief was that the Holocaust was a hoax and that:

"[t]he propaganda was on a world-wide scale, and was of a mendacity that was perhaps adapted to a uniformed mass, but was simply disgusting to discriminating Europeans. The propaganda was technically quite complete. The American masses, both military and civilian, were given this mental poison in order to inflame them to the point where they would carry out without flinching the post-war annihilation-program."

Yockey firmly believed that the supposed Holocaust was simply a form of propaganda in order to better facilitate the United States’ steady desire for power and control over all of defenseless Europe. This type of action against Europe was believed by Yockey to have occurred even several years before the start of WWII, with the gradual takeover of European culture by American customs, and was only increased after the war by the myth created around the holocaust. It was this type of paranoia that possessed Yockey and drove him further along on his campaign for the unification of the West.

Yockey’s anti-American sentiment was deeply rooted in his childhood. It was during this period that he was an innocent bystander who was witness to the effects of the stock market crash on his family. The crash and the resulting Great Depression particularly affected Yockey’s father because he lost all of his money and turned towards alcoholism. The death of Louis Yockey in 1936 is believed to be directly linked to his alcohol problem, however there is no proper evidence to verify this claim. Francis blames the Great Depression and American society as a whole on his father’s death.

The spread of Yockey’s influence can be traced across the globe. He has become something of a cult hero among small sectors of society. His influence has persisted among many right-wing extremists, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, practitioners of Odinism, some of the occult underground, small parts of the Church of Satan, an offshoot of the Church of Satan known as the Abraxas Foundation, as well as some of the racist elements of the "black metal" music scene.

One disturbing example of Yockey’s vast stretch of influence can be found in a recent court case involving racism and murder in the United States:

Late one night in June 1998, a disabled black man was chained to the back of a pickup truck in Jasper, Texas, and dragged by his ankles on a rough rural road for several miles until his head ripped off his body. White supremacist John William King, 25, and two of his friends were subsequently tried and convicted for the gruesome murder of James Byrd Jr. The first of the accused to go to court, King showed little remorse when the death sentence was handed down. He issued a terse statement through his lawyer that ended with a quote from deceased American fascist Francis Parker Yockey: "The promise of success is with the man who is determined to die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly."

This type of racist influence is greatly frightening to many in the minority communities. Many racists and white supremacists idolize Yockey as "The Crucified Son" because of his stance on the superiority of the West and its decline due to the conspiracies of other races and the supposed false propaganda after the Second World War. It is exactly this type of deep-rooted, yet seemingly unjustified, form of racism that is the most powerful in society. There has been no single traceable cause to account for the white supremacist hatred towards minority groups besides the feelings of white superiority that possess many of these individuals. It is simply a sense of hatred, combined with possible feelings of jealousy, which could possibly account for the racist actions that have taken place in the name of the West.

A great deal can be learned from a man such as Francis Parker Yockey. One such notion is the sense of fear that this man’s influence has caused. His subtle form of racism can lead to the belief that "If fascism should return as a serious political force, it is much more likely to appear in an unexpected guise than in a hooded sheet or a brown shirt with a swastika." This type of mentality is much more influential to those who are possibly leaning towards the right wing than an intense show of brute force such as the KKK or the Nazi military party. However, Yockey’s beliefs are also strong enough that they can also pervade the minds of hostile racists and further their drive towards a desire of dominance over society. His large reach of influence proves that Yockey cannot simply be written off as a radical racist

It is crucial to gain a better understanding of these types of individuals that one would normally cast aside as being crazy, mentally unhinged, or simply too far right for anyone to follow. This mentality is not sufficient when dealing with far right wing fascists such as Yockey. His mind, although arguably unstable, was one that was very quick and intelligent. His ability to spread his thoughts and ideas across many countries, and gain followers in small sectors of society depicts a man with a talent for persuasion and a keen mental capacity. One cannot underestimate the power of persuasion. There are many individuals who are looking for an individual such as Yockey to be a leader and a driving force in which to channel their energy. The reality of the matter is that racism and far right conservatism is still very prevalent in today’s society and only requires an outspoken individual, such as Yockey, to gravitate towards. A well-known example of this phenomenon occurred in Germany with the rise of Adolf Hitler. Although many Europeans simply saw Hitler as a radical that would not be able to gain a strong following, they were proved to be gravely wrong. Hitler was able to spread his influence and racist message across the majority of Germany at a time when the impoverished German people were looking for this type of leader in their society. Also, these people required some type of scapegoat in which to direct their hostility, as well as blame their problems on. Hitler supplied this type of scapegoat as the Jews of Europe. Through the following of Hitler and the persecution of the Jews, the German people were able to collaborate and unite to form a major force to be reckoned with. What once started out as a small group of radicals, grew and spread to encompass the majority of Germany in a relatively short period of time. This phenomenon that occurred in Germany could easily happen again without the realization by the general public that radical groups do have the power to gain a large following and spread their influence to the larger society. Through acts of public intervention, education, and awareness, the prevention of these types of oppressive activities can occur. One must not underestimate the power of hate in today’s society.