Tag: Patriot Front

Morgan Hill Nazi Raver, Martin J. Wenzel member of “White Lives Matter – CA” and “NorCal Active Club”

Sacramento Children’s Museum (06/24/23).

On June 24, 2023 a group of roughly 15 neo-nazis, consisting of a members of the Sacramento Proud Boys, Patriot Front, White Lives Matter CA, and NorCal Active Club, harassed a children’s pride event at the Sacramento Children’s Museum. Present with the group was recently exposed Modesto neo-nazi Harley Ray Petero Jr., neo-nazi Proud Boy Jeffrey Erik Perrine, and Bay Area Patriot Front member Ryan Sundberg. Also in attendance was Martin Jens Wenzel of Morgan Hill, a member of White Lives Matter CA and NorCal Active Club, who we’ll be getting to know a little better in this article.

For more background on White Lives Matter CA in Northern California please refer first to our previous article on Harley Ray Petero Jr., as well as Borwin10’s recent work detailing both Jeffrey Erik Perrine and neo-nazi bomb maker Joshua Isgrigg. For background on the Active Club movement in general please refer to Stumptown Research Collective’s excellent work outlining Evergreen Active Club in Washington State.

Sacramento Children’s Museum (06/24/23).

Martin J. Wenzel: White Lives Matter CA’s “Cali Kaiser”

Martin J. Wenzel first appeared on antifascists’ radar following WLM’s October 2022 “Day of Action,” where, in protest of Meta’s decision to ban the hate group’s Instagram account, about seven members did a banner drop on a nearby overpass and then posed in front of the 1 Hacker Way sign. Wenzel stuck out, wearing a Rhodesian Brushstroke camouflage gator mask, which he would again wear at the January 22nd 2023 Walk for Life in San Francisco, where WLM CA were confronted by pro-choice counter-protestors.

Martin J. Wenzel pictured wearing a Rhodesian Brushstroke gator mask outside of Meta Headquarters at 1 Hacker Way, Menlo Park (WLM CA’s August 2022 “Day of Action”).

Rhodesian Brushstroke is the camouflage pattern of the former Rhodesian Security Forces, an explicitly white-supremacist colonial military that once occupied present-day Zimbabwe. Today’s white nationalists look to Rhodesia as an example of realized white nationalism, and idealize the Rhodesian Security Forces for their bush fighting tactics, gunsmithing abilities, and their symbolism as anti-communist lost-cause fighters. Recent pro-Rhodesia sentiment is most infamously associated with white nationalist mass shooter Dylann Roof, who went by “The Last Rhodesian” on his website and similarly titled his manifesto, before murdering nine members of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in hopes to start a race war. Recently on August 26 of this year, Jacksonville gunman Ryan Palmeter left behind white supremacist messages and murdered three Black people at a nearby Dollar General, wearing a Rhodesian army patch on his tactical vest. Wenzel himself appears to have traveled to South Africa while studying at Mt. Madonna High School, making his affinity for a symbol of militarized white nationalism, apartheid, and white-minority rule all the more damning.

Example of Rhodesian Brushstroke Camouflage
White nationalist mass shooter Dylann Roof pictured with apartheid South Africa and Rhodesian flag patches.
Martin J. Wenzel wearing the same Rhodesian gator mask as in WLM propaganda
Backpack visible in WLM propaganda video of their attendance at the 2023 SF Walk For Life (01/22/23).
@wenzel_pretzel post with same backpack
Wenzel connecting a potential WLM CA applicant to the Southern California WLM group for vetting.

Meet the Wenzels: Morgan Hill’s German-American White Nationalist Family

(Left to Right) Nicholas, Silke, and Martin Wenzel.

In other white supremacist chats on telegram, Wenzel has consistently stated that his family is supportive of his neo-nazi beliefs, commenting “Going back to visit Germany every couple years, the demographic changes are so striking. In my fam we pretty much all agree these migrants have to go. Just nobody wants to talk openly about how that’s gonna happen. Quite the pickle”. Martin’s brother Nicholas Wenzel also appears to be influenced by his brothers politics and social media account history shows him liking and interacting with Neo-traditionalist and other far-right content. Both Nicholas and Martin recently purchased a house in Boise, Idaho a territory white nationalists see as the American Redoubt or as part of the Northwest Territorial Imperative. The Wenzel brother’s home was previously owned by Sam Wenzel of Boise Rental Properties LLC, a family member who also appears to have also worked for Martin’s employer PrimePay and SyncHR by Primepay a “Human Capital Management” company.

“Going back to visit Germany every couple years, the demographic changes are so striking. In my fam we pretty much all agree these migrants have to go.” – Martin Wenzel

PLUR Means Raver Nazis Not Welcome

“PLUR” is a set of principles associated with rave subculture. An ideology to some, a form of community agreements to others, PLUR originated out of the 1990s nightlife and rave scene and stands for:

P. – Peace
L. – Love
U. – Unity
R. – Respect

Essentially, the agreement can be summed up as: don’t bring conflict and negativity into rave spaces, engage in goodwill with others, welcome others into the environment and shared space regardless of personal differences, and show sensitivity and tolerance towards others. As a member of multiple white nationalist hate groups, Wenzel’s behavior flies directly in the face of this principle he supports in name, and claims he “redpills when (he) can”, nudging members of his social group in the direction of neo-nazi ideas. Wenzel is also involved in mycology and a weed growing subculture, as well as backpacking, surfing, and trail running. He is likely armed.

“I redpill as much as I can (…) we need the guidance to bring normies into the fold”
While NorCal Active Club occasionally works with Patriot Front it doesn’t seem like Martin is “Rejecting Poison” here.
Post made by Wenzel of his PLUR type rave bracelets

As a member of the white supremacist groups WLM CA and NorCal Active Club, Martin J. Wenzel’s identity as “Cali Kaiser” is of public interest. Due to his enthusiastic identification with Rhodesia’s militarized white nationalism and explicit nazism as a German-American, and his direct connection via WLM to members of Patriot Front and Golden State Skinheads, residents of Morgan Hill and Santa Clara County as well as Boise, ID should made aware of his regional organizing and activity. An employee at PrimePay, a company specializing in payroll, benefits, and HR solutions, it is not difficult to see how Wenzel’s embrace of explicitly Nazism could lead to workplace discrimination.

Martin Jens Wenzel

DOB: 04/22/96

Address: 16814 Hill Top Ct. Morgan Hill, CA, 7747 W Middle Fork St Boise, Id 83709

Twitter: @cali_kaiser

Instagram: @wenzel_pretzel

Occupation: Emerging Market HCM Consultant at PrimePay

7747 W Middle Fork St Boise, Id 83709 – Home recently purchased by Nicholas and Martin Wenzel.

Please send any further tips about Martin Jens Wenzel, WLM CA, NorCal Active Club, or the Wenzel family to bay161(at)riseup(dot)net

Bay Area Community Advisory September 2020: Neo-Nazi organization Patriot Front

Recently the Torch Antifascist Network released 560+ leaked PDFs depicting over fifteen months of chat logs of Patriot Front’s “general” or membership-wide private RocketChat channel.  To access these files and read their analysis by Torch Network antifascist comrades: 
 
 
For a brief account of the formation and history of Patriot Front, see the above link or our previous community advisory from May of this year: 
 
 
As can be expected, these internal discussions reveal everything that white nationalists hope to keep to themselves, from the banal to the totally horrific. From relationship advice between misogynist bros to Zionist conspiracy theories, anti-blackness and scapegoating of immigrant people, these chats reveal exactly what one would expect: a seventh grade lunch table of violent xenophobia. This isn’t surprising, coming from an organization whose primary accomplishment so far is being associated with killing someone rather famously in Charlottesville. In the three years since that damning day, Patriot Front’s leadership has tried desperately to steer the group toward some semblance of legitimacy and trustworthiness. To no avail, it seems – the group is lousy with deeply entrenched bigots and Mama’s basement Nazis of the worst order. The chats reveal  the stark disparity between what they hope to convey to the general public, and what they’re actually about. 
 
This is what they say when they think no one is watching. 
 
The definition of their “Nation”, for example is much expounded upon, and as one could guess, is explicitly white: 
This is not surprising, since the “Manifesto” (their founding document, written by Rousseau when he was not yet 17) explicitly states that “nationhood is born of blood, not ink” and is available only to other descendants of European nations who colonized North America within a specific time frame. 
Their false assertion of victimhood even extends to “reverse racism” – aren’t Nazis the REAL victims here?!? Their patent delusions include thinking that white nationalism should be protected from any social consequences:
Various forms of hatred permeate the daily discourse. Homophobia is a constant:
Some congratulated a Florida member for defacing the Pulse Nightclub shooting memorial mural:
Of course there is blatant, unbridled misogyny: 

They need to blame their sad lot in life on a whole lot of people – generally demographically, so unsurprisingly their belief in bizarre anti-semitic conspiracies abounds:

Being a Nazi is generally depressing, so they spend a fair amount of time consoling each other and attempting to convince each other that being Nazis gives them a purpose in life. That, and just generally egging each other on to be better Nazis:
They also have very brittle and fragile egos and have an absolute obsession with comparing themselves favorably to other white supremacist organizations:
For the purposes of this advisory, we’ll be showcasing various screenshots to illustrate our points, but are primarily focused on California members. Here we have a local: “Charles” PF-8009, a young native of San Francisco who despite having been born and raised in one of the most diverse cities in the world, is very unhappy with diversity:  
In other parts of the chat, Charles admires Casa Pound’s base in Rome and states that he would love to host headquarters for white nationalists in San Francisco, but laments that the rent is too high. He is proud to have been radicalized in his early 20’s and not have suffered the fate of his three older brothers, whose potential lifespan he finds potentially at odds with his political goals:  
On the very same day he throws his actual brothers under the bus, his profile photo is of him and his three Patriot Front “brothers” (as they refer to each other) after their hypermasculine sparring session at Land’s End. One of the strapping young lads in this photo is undoubtedly the same person who has stickered the Sunset District along Lincoln, Irving and Judah streets, Golden Gate Park and the upper Haight. Perhaps he commutes via the N Judah train? Charles, is that you?!?
Of the approximately 160 Patriot Front members participating in the chats, fourteen are from California. There are two networks in California as of this writing – NorCal NW12  which formed 12/16/19 and of which there were approximately four members as of 1/3/20, SoCal NW14, and other members whose exact location are unknown.  Paul PF-7265 became the Northern California Network Director immediately upon its formation and travelled extensively the last 3 weeks of 2019 to DC, Maryland, Florida and Texas to network and create ties with other PF clusters and members. He definitely made connections in Virginia, where he moved around 6/1/20. Other members likely in NorCal are Josh PF-7674, Jack, and Henry, who was identified by Paul PF-7265 as having placed promotional materials around Lake Merritt. Perhaps this is his work? 
In Southern California the most active member is Michael PF-8485, who became Network Director on 3/2/20. 
 
Bay161 has been monitoring and mapping Patriot Front’s local activity for almost a year. In that time we’ve established a few patterns of where they’ve placed promotional materials and attempted to establish a presence. UC Berkeley, Laney College/Lake Merritt in Oakland, several points in Alameda are the most consistent. The community response has been inspiring:
When left alone to flourish, white nationalists create an unsafe environment for all those who are the targets of their considerable venom. Ignoring them is a bad idea, since many of us and those we care about are their “degenerates”, “mongrels”, “thots” and other groups they deem undeserving of free travel, migration, civil liberties and human rights.  Bay161 seeks any information as to the identities of the Patriot Front members detailed here and also exact locations and images of their promotional materials. Whenever it is safe to do so, please report tips to us at bay161 @ riseup dot net

Bay Area Community Advisory May 2020: Neo-Nazi organization Patriot Front is active near you.

Patriot Front was formed from the rubble of Vanguard America, after one of their members, James Alex Fields Jr. murdered antifascist Heather Heyer in Charlottesville August 12th 2017. In a slick PR move, their leader Thomas Rousseau ditched the tiki torch and declared everything merely pro-patriot that had been explicitly pro-white. But considering that their support of blatant white nationalism is unwavering, this flag-draping is nothing but rebranding after a high profile weekend that started with a flaming torch attack on outnumbered students and ended with vehicular homicide. 
Rousseau’s PF manifesto reads like patriotic gibberish – an NRA fundraising missive meets a 19th century presidential stump speech.  It veers from cherry picking history, mythologizing the “nation’s founders” and ultimately sounding as though Jonathan Livingston Seagull had done his American Lit report on Thomas Paine. But what’s important is what’s written between the lines – the now coded term “patriot”, who he’s attempting to mobilize and to what end. Rousseau’s “leadership” is a series of plays straight out of Mussolini’s Doctrine of Fascism, mimicking his rhetoric and techniques and hoping for a similar, proven trajectory. Hype up the resentful and disenfranchised about the former greatness of the nation, now sullied by the incursion of the unwanted “other”. Wax about the once proud and mighty people of this place, bowed before degeneracy, corruption and incompetence. Promise the return of greatness, the restoration of a just and prosperous era for the true heirs of this place (who in this case need to be 80% or more “pan-European”, heterosexual, cisgender and definitely not Jewish).  
 
It’s important to understand that their rhetoric is the tip of the iceberg. Make no mistake – Patriot Front are Nazis, and they want what all Nazis want. Their immediate goals are to intensify the false perception of white victimhood, create a vehicle for the intimidation of those they wish to cast as “others”, normalize scapegoating and conspiracy paranoia, and create cultural support for a white ethnostate. Their ultimate vision would include mass deportation, intimidation, violence, and genocide. There is no room in their “nation” for most of us – they’ve said so themselves:
 
“Those of foreign birth may occupy civil status within the lands occupied by the state, and they may even be dutiful citizens, yet they may not be American. Membership within the American nation is inherited through blood, not ink. Even those born in America may yet be foreign. Nationhood cannot be bestowed upon those who are not of the founding stock of our people, and those who do not share the common spirit that permeates our greater civilization, and the European diaspora.”
Promotional materials in the form of stickers, posters and stencils have been placed in various locations around the Bay Area with increasing frequency – over 50 times in approximately six months. Their members are fond of hitting places with cultural relevance, especially those perceived to be left-leaning, as revealed by their Twitter account. Repeat locations include Golden Gate Park, UC Berkeley, and Alameda. Some places are deliberately high profile, such as the corner of Haight and Ashbury and most recently, the front door of DIY space 924 Gilman Street. 
Although they are instructed via an elaborate “Promo Guide” to always operate in packs of three, this may not always be possible (and Nazis are ultimately cowards) so most of their promo runs happen in the middle of nowhere or late at night. Even so, if you happen to see one of these events in progress, please proceed with caution. These are avowed white supremacists, and members of this group have been proven violent. If you can, discreetly take a photo during and/or after the posting and send it with date, time, location and description of the poster(s) including any details you can *safely* obtain to: Bay161 at riseup dot net
 
Stay safe and defend your community!
 
 
BAY161 – SF bay area anti-fascist research collective