David Lane (white supremacist)
David Eden Lane (November 2, 1938 – May 28, 2007) was an American domestic terrorist, white separatist,[1] neo-Nazi,[2] and a convicted felon.[3][4][5] A member of the terrorist organization The Order, he was convicted and sentenced to 190 years in prison for racketeering, conspiracy, and the violation of the civil rights of Alan Berg, a Jewish radio talk show host, who prosecutors claimed was murdered by a member of the group via a drive-by shooting with Lane acting as driver, though they were unsuccessful in getting murder convictions.[6][7] He died while still incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana.[8]
For other people named David Lane, see David Lane (disambiguation).
David Lane
May 28, 2007 (aged 68)
Wodensson
- Violation of civil rights
- Racketeering
- Conspiracy to engage in racketeering
De facto life imprisonment (190 years in prison)[a]
Alan Harrison Berg, aged 50
Lane coined the "Fourteen Words", a well known white supremacist slogan in North America. He has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as "one of the most important ideologues of contemporary white supremacy".[3]
Background[edit]
Lane was born as the third of four siblings in Woden, Iowa; he had a brother and two sisters. His father was an alcoholic migrant worker who was physically abusive toward his wife and children. Lane would later claim that his father forced his mother to engage in prostitution so he could obtain "booze money", and that his older brother was rendered permanently deaf as a result of a "beating gone awry".[9] When Lane was four years old, his father abandoned his family. In 1944, his older brother was arrested after searching for food in a neighbor's trash bins, and he and his sisters were placed in foster care. Lane was soon adopted by a traveling Lutheran minister, which resulted in Lane being separated from his two sisters. Lane described his adoptive father as a "doctrinaire fundamentalist from the old school".[10]
Lane rejected Christianity, which he found boring. Inspired by Nazi religious beliefs, Lane later favored pagan beliefs as a more authentic ancestral "white" religion, as opposed to what he viewed as Jewish influenced Christianity.[10][11] Travelling across the Midwestern United States with his adoptive family, Lane finally settled in Aurora, Colorado, where he attended Aurora Central High School. Originally aspiring to become a golf professional,[12] Lane worked as a real estate broker until his license was revoked because he "wouldn't sell homes to coloreds in white neighborhoods".[13]
Lane claimed that he first became attracted to women of the "Caucasian race" after befriending a blonde-haired girl in first grade.[9] Lane stated that while he reenacted battles with his foster brother as a child, he portrayed a Nazi stormtrooper while his brother portrayed an American soldier.[9] Lane was briefly a member of the John Birch Society before joining the Ku Klux Klan, becoming the organizer of the Denver unit of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in 1979. In late 1981, Lane became Colorado State Organizer of Aryan Nations.[13]
Lane met Robert Jay Mathews in July 1983 at the Aryan Nations world congress.[14] On September 22, 1983, Lane was among the nine founding members to be sworn into The Order, a white supremacist group whose mission was to "deliver our people from the Jew and bring total victory to the Aryan race."[15] The Order was accused of stealing over $4.1 million in armored car hijackings, killing three people (one of whom was Order member Walter E. West), detonating bombs, counterfeiting money, organizing militaristic training camps and carrying out numerous other crimes with the ultimate goal of overthrowing the "Zionist occupational government" they deemed in control of the United States and to "liberate the Pacific Northwest as a homeland for whites" in the process (see Northwest Territorial Imperative).[16]
Convictions and incarceration[edit]
For his role in The Order's crimes, Lane was sentenced to consecutive sentences totaling 190 years, including 20 years for racketeering, 20 years for conspiracy, both under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), and 150 years for violating the civil rights of Alan Berg, a Jewish radio talk show host who was murdered on June 18, 1984.[6][7][8][17] Berg was shot and killed in the driveway of his Denver home by three members of The Order.[18] Lane was arrested on the evening of March 30, 1985, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.[19] While he did not pull the trigger, prosecutors said Lane drove the getaway car and played a large role in the planning of Berg's assassination.[20][21]
Lane was also among 14 men prosecuted for seditious conspiracy in Fort Smith, Arkansas, but he was acquitted. Lane was considered extremely dangerous by the American justice system and was incarcerated at various times after his conviction in the United States Penitentiary, Marion, the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado, and the Federal Correctional Complex, Terre Haute.
While incarcerated, he had the Federal Bureau of Prisons ID # 12873–057.[22] Lane wrote books and articles about gematria and the demographic and sociopolitical status of the white race for white nationalist periodicals and websites. With his wife and Ron McVan, he ran a publishing company called 14 Word Press in Idaho to disseminate his writings.[23]
He was featured in Nazi Pop Twins, a documentary aired on July 19, 2007, on Channel 4 in the UK.[24] In it he was shown speaking by phone with Prussian Blue (the music act from the documentary) and termed them "fantasy sweethearts" and that he viewed them like daughters.[25]
Lane's earliest possible release date from prison would have been on March 29, 2035 (at age 96). He died on May 28, 2007, in FCC Terre Haute due to an epileptic seizure.[5] On June 30, 2007, white supremacists held memorial demonstrations for Lane in cities across the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine.[26]
Beliefs[edit]
Racial beliefs[edit]
Lane stated that his beliefs can be best summarized by a slogan he called the "Fourteen Words": "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children." He also coined a second 14-word slogan: "because the beauty of ALL the woman must not perish from the earth."[9]
Informational notes
Citations
Bibliography