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In what may be the latest sign of simmering tensions in Florida between two prominent racist skinhead groups, two men this week during a speech by Holocaust denying historian at a luxury Palm Beach County hotel.

Irving spoke to about three dozen invited guests in a conference room he booked at the Ritz-Carlton hotel south of Palm Beach. During his talk on 鈥渄ecoding the Nazi message,鈥� two men, Christopher Nachtman and John Kopko, stepped outside to argue and one of them pulled a knife, police say. A fight ensued. Furniture was broken and a carpet was bloodied. Both men were taken to nearby hospitals for treatment of knife wounds. No charges have been filed yet.

Irving is a longtime Holocaust revisionist. In 2000, he sued Emory University professor and Holocaust expert Deborah Lipstadt for libel in his homeland of Britain, after she accused of him of deliberate falsification. A London court declared Irving a pro-Nazi anti-Semite and 鈥渁ctive Holocaust denier鈥� and ordered him to pay all court costs. In 2006, he was after pleading guilty to telling audiences that there were no gas chambers in the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz. Irving subsequently backed off those claims. Earlier this year, he set up a website selling Nazi memorabilia. His visit to South Florida was the latest on a surreptitious speaking tour in the United States, in which Irving informs attendees of his venue at the last minute so as to thwart protestors.

Irving told Florida television station WPBF that Kopko initiated the attack, and that the fight had nothing to do with his lecture. He said his assistant witnessed the incident. 鈥淪he said that she saw four people chasing one member of the audience out and beating him to the floor, and she said she thought they were going to kill him, but he pulled a knife from nowhere and stabbed one of these men repeatedly,鈥� he told the TV station. 鈥淚t was a personal feud, apparently, which goes back over the years, and I gained the impression, or so I was told, that three or four of these people had come in there with the intention of roughing him up,鈥� he said. He doesn鈥檛 know Kopko personally, Irving added.

Postings on Stormfront, the leading white supremacist website, imply that Kopko, 43, is associated with Crew 38, the support group for the Confederate Hammerskins. A Stormfront poster using the screen name of 鈥淲hite Racialist鈥� wrote after the incident, 鈥淛ohn is a good man and a true soldier for the Cause, and has been for 20+ years 鈥� As for the lowly coward that pushed a knife into John鈥檚 BACK, no fate is too awful for you. You have to try a lot harder than that to kill Crew 38!鈥�

Kopko was an official of the National Socialist White Workers Party in 1992 when he led a protest outside a West Palm Beach bookstore on the premise that the business sold pornographic material that promoted race mixing and homosexuality. That same year, he tried to get neo-Nazi publications placed in Palm Beach County libraries. A newspaper reported that he showed up at a meeting dressed like a Nazi storm trooper.

Nachtman, 31, is a former member of the once-prominent neo-Nazi group, National Alliance. He has used the screen name 鈥淏lutfahne鈥� 鈥� German for 鈥渂lood flag鈥� 鈥� on Stormfront and VNN Forum. The latter is an online forum of Vanguard News Network, whose motto is, 鈥淣o Jews. Just right.鈥� He also posts under the screen name 鈥淭eutonic Legion鈥� on Stormfront, and his avatar is the Volksfront logo. He has promoted and events, and helped organize the February 2007 Volksfront Victory Achievement Conference in Missouri, where he spoke.

There have been numerous recent confrontations in central Florida that suggest a war is brewing between former longtime allies Volksfront and the Confederate Hammerskins. Michael Lawrence, one of the original founders of the Confederate Hammerskins in 1987, switched his allegiance to Volksfront in 2007, and became the group鈥檚 unofficial leader in Florida. Randal Krager, who co-founded Volksfront in 1994 while serving a prison sentence, moved from Portland, Oregon, to Florida with his wife and son to live next door to Lawrence.

Since Lawrence鈥檚 defection, his longtime friend and Confederate Hammerskins member, Richie Myers, has steadily gained power throughout the state as the group鈥檚 Orlando leader. Myers and his second-in-command, Coby Stonecypher, regularly associate with the Outlaws Motorcycle Club gang. Lawrence and Krager do not. A public indication of trouble brewing between Confederate Hammerskins and Volksfront appeared in a Stormfront posting advertising Volksfront鈥檚 annual Martyr鈥檚 Day event, to be held this year in Pensacola. The announcement said the gathering was 鈥渇amily friendly [by that we mean no drunks, no non-racial 鈥榗lubs鈥�, no deviate or degrading behavior].鈥� Many readers took that as disapproval of outlaw motorcycle clubs attending recent white supremacist gatherings, which has happened at Confederate Hammerskins events.

A woman using the screen name of 鈥淰idgis鈥� hinted on Stormfront this week that the stabbing at Irving鈥檚 lecture reflected an escalation in tensions between the two skinhead groups. She wrote, 鈥溾��the saddest part is how the various White Pride organizations are at war with one another. If we would turn that rage towards the real enemies, we鈥檇 be making real progress.鈥�

Knifings and neo-Nazis aren鈥檛 the sorts of events or people that show up often in Manalapan, the affluent little coastal town where Irving spoke at the Ritz-Carlton. It has been home to the likes of famed criminal defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey, New Age musician Yanni and boxing promoter Don King. The 52-room oceanfront mansion of the widow of publishing heir Randolph Hearst fetched $22 million at a foreclosure auction last year. Monday鈥檚 fracas presumably was an atypical event at the Ritz-Carlton, whose website says it 鈥渉as catered to the world鈥檚 most discerning guests,鈥� and describes it as having 鈥渞efined beauty鈥� and a 鈥済raceful atmosphere.鈥� The presidential suite runs a cool $3,000 per night. Hotel officials say the conference room where Irving spoke was reserved under the name of his book publisher in Great Britain, and they knew nothing about Irving.

Irving told local media that he was 鈥渄eeply ashamed that this happened.鈥�