A neo-Nazi is building a compound in rural Maine for his ‘Blood Tribe’

This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.

A prominent neo-Nazi who travels the country fomenting hate has bought 10 acres in the Maine woods with plans to build a retreat for his followers.

Ex-Marine Christopher Pohlhaus, leader of the Blood Tribe, is clearing land off a dirt road in the tiny town of Springfield, population 400. Springfield is 70 miles from Bangor, which is Maine’s third-largest city and home to three synagogues.

“If you go to the chatroom that the Blood Tribe is active in, antisemitism comes up every minute of the day,” said Jeff Tischauser, a researcher at the Southern Poverty Law Center and author of a report on Pohlhaus for the SPLC’s Hatewatch project. Tischauser has spoken with Pohlhaus and monitors the Blood Tribe on the encrypted messaging app Telegram.

“They’re railing against Jewish control of the U.S., linking it with the ‘great replacement theory,’ thinking that Jewish folks want open borders because they want migrants here so they can destroy white culture and better control the power in the U.S.,” Tischauser said.

Why Maine? It’s the ‘whitest state’ in the nation

More than 90% of Maine’s 1.3 million residents are white, making it the whitest state in the nation.

Tischauser said white supremacists think “racial demographics equate to a political ideology. They think they could go around and get people to be on their side. That’s how delusional they are.”

In a fundraising campaign cited by the Anti-Defamation League, Pohlhaus described the Maine property as “a retreat/community area we can train on and help families move to.” He called a gathering held there a “beautiful racist family campout.”

“He claims to have selected Maine because it is cheaper than other majority white places,” said Carla Hill, director of investigative research for the ADL’s Center on Extremism. “He has specifically compared the cost to the Pacific Northwest, which is a popular place among extremists.”

Vice said his ultimate goal is to create a “white ethnostate” in Maine.

Who is Christopher Pohlhaus?

Pohlhaus grew up in Maryland, then moved to Alabama with his father, described by Tischauser as a “Pentecostal minister and snake-handler.”

“Chris was headed that way” — following his father’s path — “when he started getting into libertarian politics around the same time he entered the Marines,” Tischauser said. He was stationed in Japan, then California, “where he became what he would call ‘awakened to the Jewish question and the racial question.’”

His bigoted rants made him an Instagram celebrity until the site blocked him. Nicknamed “The Hammer,” Pohlhaus now has thousands of followers on Telegram and other platforms.

In the past year, Pohlhaus has been photographed waving swastika flags and chanting “Sieg Heil” at anti-LGBTQ+ protests in Ohio and elsewhere. He makes money as a sought-after tattoo artist, by selling extremist propaganda, by speaking on various online platforms, and through crowdfunding campaigns, according to the ADL.

Another ADL report says he took part in an effort to debase the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder by selling stickers bearing swastikas and the words “We are everywhere.” Hill and Tischauser also say he is planning a September protest in Florida with the Goyim Defense League, the group known for putting antisemitic flyers and Nazi banners in high-profile places.

Making a show of living off the land

Pohlhaus moved from Texas to Maine in 2022. A story in the Bangor Daily News says he has a sawmill on the Springfield site with plans to “build cabins from hemlock logs.”

The reporter who wrote the story, Kathleen Phelan Tomaselli, visited Pohlhaus’ property but found nobody there. Town officials told her that Pohlhaus will be required to secure permits and comply with various regulations before undertaking any construction.

In the meantime, Pohlhaus is putting on a show of living off the land with his supporters. Tomaselli found photos on Telegram and other sites “of him catching fish in Maine and cooking it,” she said in a phone interview, along with images of Blood Tribe initiation rituals conducted on the property.

That initiation consists of cutting a member’s palm with a spear and smearing blood on the handle.

Pohlhaus bought the Springfield property for $25,000 with Fred Boyd Ramey, who owns a Wyoming business called White Working Class Consulting. The unidentified previous owner is allowing them to pay for the land in installments over four years, rather than getting a traditional bank mortgage, according to the SPLC.

Pohlhaus has said he owns 100 acres in Maine, but Hill said she’s only seen the deed for 10 acres in Springfield.

The reception in Maine

Tischauser said Pohlhaus “talks about people coming from outside of Maine” to join him there and claims “there are Mainers actively supporting the group,” but so far Tischauser has seen no evidence of that.

Tomaselli said reader comments on her story were “all against his behaviors. People were really disappointed to see that this was happening here.”

Shannon Moss, spokesperson for the Maine State Police, said the agency “is aware of Christopher Pohlhaus but has not had any interactions with him.”

The Bangor Daily News also reported that a local Planet Fitness gym banned Pohlhaus from using its facilities because of his clothing.

Tischauser noted that Pohlhaus “has a huge swastika tattoo on his chest,” and many gyms have rules banning displays of offensive images or slogans.

Hill called the gym’s ban a courageous move and “a good way to point out that’s not who we are here in Maine.”

Maine State Sen. Joe Baldacci on Tuesday tweeted: “It’s time for the Governor, the Attorney General of Maine, the Penobscot County District Attorney and the U.S. Attorney work on shutting these Nazis down and sending this guy back to Texas.”

Maine’s Jewish community

Jews have lived in Maine for more than 200 years. For decades, the legacy of Jewish immigrants peddling wares in Maine lived on in the names of local retailers like Levine’s, a clothing store that was located in Waterville for more than a century. Many of Maine’s factories were also owned by Jews, including the famed Dexter Shoe Company.

Estimates of Maine’s Jewish population today range from 12,550 to 20,000. The state is home to 15 Jewish congregations and several Jewish summer camps.

Congregation Beth Israel, a conservative shul in Bangor founded in 1888, is Maine’s oldest continuously operating synagogue. Its rabbi, Bill Siemers, called the news about Pohlhaus “shocking and scary. This is something very new and concerning.”

He said older members of Beth Israel still tell stories about restrictive covenants that kept them from buying homes in certain Bangor neighborhoods, but “there weren’t stories of Nazis.”

Nevertheless, the synagogue “didn’t wait for this to come to Maine before taking steps to protect ourselves,” Siemers said. “After the Tree of Life massacre, we upped security.”

‘I am not afraid’

Beth Israel’s president, Brian Kresge, was defiant when asked about Pohlhaus.

“I am not afraid,” he said. “With the High Holy Days looming, all of Bangor’s three congregations have great security systems and practices — and more than a few armed congregants.”

Kresge added that former Marines like Pohlhaus “aren’t the only tough guys out there.” A number of Beth Israel congregants are current or former members of the military or law enforcement. That includes Kresge himself, a Maine National Guardsman who served as a paratrooper with the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division.

He also noted that the synagogue has good relations with other shuls, local churches and a nearby Islamic center. When a swastika defaced their building a few years ago, another synagogue’s video footage helped catch the teenagers responsible.

“We have more friends than the neo-Nazis do, and Bangor’s proactive police force will invariably step up patrols as they always do,” Kresge said. “Sure, these sad cats can buy some land in Penobscot County, but they aren’t Mainers, and they aren’t welcomed by Mainers.” He added that “it’s our LGBTQ+ friends I worry about the most.”

Rebranding the swastika

Pohlhaus’ followers have “repeatedly talked about wanting to destroy or vandalize Jewish cemeteries,” Tischauser said, but there’s no evidence that Pohlhaus is planning any vandalism in Maine, attacks on synagogues or other places where Jews gather.

And while owning a gun or hearing one go off is not unusual in rural Maine, there are no reports of weapon stockpiling or target practice at the Springfield site.

“He tells people not to open carry,” Tischauser said. “He wants his optics to be on the swastikas.”

Hill agreed, saying she does not believe the Springfield compound is a militia training ground. “I’m not seeing Kevlar vests and crawling on the ground with rifles,” she said. Pohlhaus is more focused on “rebranding the swastika by finding a way to give it more power and normalize it.”

Hill emphasized that Pohlhaus’ activities are “not representative of the broader Maine community. That’s clear. He moved there as an outsider and anyone who welcomes and joins them is also an outsider.”

But while extremists do not now appear to have much support in Maine, Hill said, make no mistake: “They are part of the fabric of America.”

Beth Harpaz is a reporter for the Forward. She previously worked for The Associated Press, first covering breaking news and politics, then as AP Travel editor. Follow her @literarydj or email [email protected].

This article was originally published on the Forward.