Frank Collin

Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Use American English Template:Infobox officeholder Template:Neo-Nazism sidebar Francis Joseph Collin (born November 3, 1944) is an American former political activist and Midwest coordinator with the American Nazi Party, later known as the National Socialist White People's Party. After being ousted for being partly Jewish (which he denied), in 1970, Collin founded the National Socialist Party of America (NSPA). In the late 1970s, his planned march in the predominantly Jewish suburb of Skokie, Illinois was challenged; the case ultimately reached the United States Supreme Court to correct procedural deficiencies.

In 1979 Collin was convicted of child molestation and sentenced to seven years in prison, and he lost his position in the party. After being released early on parole from prison, Collin created a new career as a writer, publishing numerous books under the pen name Frank Joseph. He wrote New Age and hyperdiffusionist works.

Early life

Collin was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, where he attended local schools. His father, Max Frank Collin, was born Max Simon Cohn in Munich, Germany, on August 23, 1913,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> the son of Jewish parents who were murdered in The Holocaust, and was a survivor of Dachau concentration camp.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Frank's mother, Virginia Gertrude née Hardyman, was born in Chicago on August 18, 1920, and was Catholic.<ref name="Peters">Template:Cite book</ref>

Political activity

As a young man, Collin in the 1960s joined George Lincoln Rockwell's National Socialist White People's Party (formerly the American Nazi Party).Template:Sfn He became the Midwest coordinator.Template:Sfn He broke with the NSWPP due to a disagreement with Rockwell's successor, Matt Koehl,Template:Sfn who was elected as the party leader by popular vote after Rockwell was assassinated on August 25, 1967. The falling out stemmed in part from published accounts by Max Collin, Frank's father, who said that he was a Jewish Holocaust survivor and had changed his name from Cohen (or Cohn) to Collin.<ref name= "Watia">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="UPI"/> Frank Collin denied having Jewish roots and maintained that his father was not telling the truth.<ref name="UPI">Template:Cite news</ref>

In 1970, Collin formed another organization, the National Socialist Party of America (NSPA). It attracted other disaffected members of the NSWPP,Template:Sfn as well as Michael Allen, Gary Lauck and Harold Covington.Template:Sfn Covington helped buy a building for the group which they called Rockwell Hall,Template:Sfn where Collin and some other members lived in a barracks in upper floor.<ref name="UPI"/> Collin ran for alderman of Chicago in 1975 and pulled 16% of the vote.Template:Sfn

The NSPA began holding anti-black demonstrations in Chicago's Marquette Park.<ref name="Marcovitz2010">Template:Cite book</ref> The Chicago authorities became concerned about violence and passed an ordinance which required demonstrations to post large insurance bonds.<ref name="Marcovitz2010" /><ref name="Walker1994">Template:Cite book</ref> Collin went to the ACLU and they filed a suit.<ref name="Walker1994" /> While the case was proceeding without public notice, Collin attempted to contact other cities about holding demonstrations.<ref name="Walker1994" /> In the late 1970s, his planned march in the predominantly Jewish suburb of Skokie, Illinois was challenged;<ref name="Walker1994" /> however, the American Civil Liberties Union defended Collin's group's freedom of speech and assembly in a case that reached the United States Supreme Court to correct procedural deficiencies.<ref name="Grossman">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=":0">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Specifically, the necessity of immediate appellate review of orders restraining the exercise of First Amendment rights was strongly emphasized in National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, 432 U.S. 43 (1977). Afterward, the Illinois Supreme Court held that the party had a right to march and to display swastikas, despite local opposition, based on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Collin then offered a compromise, offering to march in Chicago's Marquette Park (where Martin Luther King had been attacked in 1966) instead of Skokie.<ref name="Grossman" /><ref name=":0" /> Collin's plan for his neo-Nazi group to march in uniforms through Skokie, which was heavily Jewish with numerous residents who were Holocaust survivors, generated public outrage and the media attention which Collin sought.Template:Sfn<ref name="Marcovitz2010" />

Also in 1977, Koehl's NSWPP began a campaign in their paper White Power about Collin's father being Jewish, and offered $10,000 to anyone who could disprove the claim. This was not seen as credible until they managed to find and published what they stated were Max Simon Cohn's naturalization records. Collin and the NSPA leadership continued to deny the claim and said the images were fakes.Template:Sfn

Under unclear circumstances in the aftermath,Template:Sfn Covington then found pictures in Frank Collin's desk that linked Collin to the sexual abuse of young boys.<ref name="Kaplan1997">Template:Cite book</ref> In what Kaplan described as a play for power in the organization, Covington and the other NSPA members turned the evidence on Collin over to the police.<ref name="Kaplan1997" /> After Collin was arrested, Covington took over leadership of the NSPA and moved the headquarters from Chicago to North Carolina.Template:Sfn A 1980 article in The New York Times reported that Frank Collin was expelled from the party for illicit intercourse with minors and the use of Nazi headquarters in Chicago for purposes of sodomy with children. The report indicates that the Nazis "tipped" the police who arrested Collin.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Collin was convicted of child molestation<ref name="Kaplan1997" /><ref name="Bernstein2013" /> and sentenced to seven years in prison at the Pontiac Correctional Center in 1979. He served three years.<ref name="Kaplan1997" />

Author

Upon his release from prison, Collin "reinvented himself under the pseudonym of Frank Joseph, a New Age writer and a pagan worshiper".<ref name="Bernstein2013">Template:Cite book</ref> His time in the Pontiac Correctional Facility in Illinois had coincided with the period when Russell E. Burrows worked there as a prison guard.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> He subsequently wrote many books and articles in support of Burrows Cave, an alleged cache of ancient treasure in an unrevealed location, supposedly discovered by Russell Burrows in southern Illinois.<ref name="Joseph2003">Template:Cite book</ref> In 1987, he had his first New Age book published, The Destruction of Atlantis: Compelling Evidence of the Sudden Fall of the Legendary Civilization.

He wrote articles for Fate magazine, and he was also the editor of The Ancient American magazine.<ref name="Press2008">Template:Cite book</ref> The Ancient American focuses on what it says is evidence of ancient, pre-Columbian transoceanic contact between the Old World and North America, with the implication that all complex aspects of North America's indigenous cultures must have originated on other continents. The magazine's claims are similar to discredited nineteenth century theories, and as a result, they are considered dubious or exploitative by scholars.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Books (as Frank Joseph)

• The Destruction of Atlantis: Compelling Evidence of the Sudden Fall of the Legendary Civilization (Atlantis Research Publishers, 1987) Template:Oclc

• Reprinted 2004, Bear and Co., Template:ISBN

• Atlantis in Wisconsin: New Revelations About the Lost Sunken City (Galde Press, 1995) Template:ISBN
• Edgar Cayce's Atlantis and Lemuria: The Lost Civilizations in the Light of Modern Discoveries (A.R.E. Press, 2001) Template:ISBN
• Lost Pyramids of Rock Lake: Wisconsin's Sunken Civilization (Galde Press, 2002) Template:ISBN
• The Lost Treasure of King Juba: The Evidence of Africans in America before Columbus (Bear and Co., 2003) Template:ISBN
• Synchronicity & You: Understanding the Role of Meaningful Coincidence in Your Life, 2003, Template:ISBN
• Last of the Red Devils: America's First Bomber Pilot (Galde Press, 2003) Template:ISBN
• Survivors of Atlantis: Their Impact on World Culture (Galde Press, 2004) Template:ISBN
• The Atlantis Encyclopedia (New Page Books, 2005) Template:ISBN
• The Lost Civilization of Lemuria: The Rise and Fall of the Worlds Oldest Culture (Bear and Co., 2006) Template:ISBN
• Opening the Ark of the Covenant: The Secret Power of the Ancients, The Knights Templar Connection, and the Search for the Holy Grail (New Page Books, 2007) Template:ISBN
• Atlantis and Other Lost Worlds (Arcturus, 2008) Template:ISBN
• Advanced Civilizations of Prehistoric America: The Lost Kingdoms of the Adena, Hopewell, Mississippians, and Anasazi (Bear and Co., 2009) Template:ISBN
• Power of Coincidence: The Mysterious Role of Synchronicity in Shaping Our Lives (Arcturus, 2009) Template:ISBN
• Mussolini's War: Fascist Italy's Military Struggles from Africa and Western Europe to the Mediterranean and Soviet Union 1935–45 (Helion & Company Ltd., 2009) Template:ISBN
• Gods of the Runes: The Divine Shapers of Fate (Bear and Co., 2010) Template:ISBN
• Atlantis and 2012: The Science of the Lost Civilization and the Prophecies of the Maya (Bear and Co., 2010) Template:ISBN
• The Axis Air Forces: Flying in Support of the German Luftwaffe (Praeger, 2011) Template:ISBN
• Ancient High Tech: The Astonishing Scientific Achievements of Early Civilizations (Bear and Co., 2020) Template:ISBN
• Military Encounters with Extraterrestrials: The Real War of the Worlds (Bear and Co., 2018) Template:ISBN

See also

• Dan Burros

References

Works cited

• Template:Cite book