Alleged Holocaust Museum Shooter Planned Other Attacks
Only days before he allegedly shot and killed a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, transferred the domain name of his racist website to a man in Michigan. Records show that von Brunn, 88, created holywesternempire.org in October 2000, and that Steve Reimink of West Olive, Mich., acquired the domain name around June 1 of this year. The website was designated a hate website by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2003.
Reimink鈥檚 E-mail address, 鈥steveo1488@hotmail.com鈥 includes the symbolic number 1488. In white supremacist circles, 14 refers to the very popular 14-word slogan coined by the late neo-Nazi : 鈥淲e must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.鈥 The letter H is the eighth letter in the alphabet, and 88 often stands for 鈥淗eil Hitler.鈥 Reimink鈥檚 cell phone was not accepting messages, and he did not respond to an E-mail request for comment.
Relinquishing the domain name may have signaled von Brunn鈥檚 intent to soon 鈥済o out with his boots on,鈥 as he once told his former wife. He was about to give away his computer and was living hand to mouth, reported.
Von Brunn is said by police to have entered the Holocaust Museum Wednesday afternoon, where he shot the security guard, and then was shot and critically wounded by other guards. Police say they found a notebook in von Brunn鈥檚 car with a list of , including the White House, the U.S. Capitol, the National Cathedral and The Washington Post. According to , witnesses said he was wearing a confederate soldier's cap and a long coat, which he may have worn to conceal what police describe as an early-1900s rifle.
Von Brunn wrote racist and anti-Semitic screeds for many years. He worked over the years as an ad agency copywriter and business owner, an artist and a real estate agent, according to his website. He has lived in New Hampshire, California, Florida and most recently, Annapolis, Md. He worked at the anti-Semitic publisher Noontide Press in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Noontide Press was founded by , who also started the anti-Semitic Liberty Lobby and the , a Holocaust denial outfit.
Von Brunn also lived in Hayden, Idaho, a few years ago with a racist named , who has claimed that the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks were orchestrated by a rogue faction of the federal government. Hess also started a group called the European-American Human Rights Task Force and wanted to designate October as 鈥淓uropean-American Heritage Month,鈥 the reported.
Conservatives were all talk and no action, according to von Brunn. On his website he complained, 鈥淭he American Right-wing with few exceptions is totally Pacifist. The [right wing] does NOTHING BUT TALK. MORAL: America dies for want of men.鈥