REVIEW: American Reich by Erich Lichtbau

 

A co-worker told me about this book first, which put it on my radar and then I read about it on NPR and thought that it was a sign that I needed to read it so I got it from my library. This book looks at the simmering growth of white supremacy in Orange County, CA through the lens of the 2018 murder of Blaze Bernstein, a gay Jewish man, by Sam Woodward, a high school classmate Neo-Nazi. It also incorporates other cases (more superficially) and the history of white supremacy in the United States.  Sam Woodward was part of a shadowy Neo-Nazi group called the Atomwaffen Division and he lured Bernstein out, then stabbed him 28 times before hiding his body in a local park. Woodward was ultimately convicted of the homicide in 2024 and is currently serving a life sentence for the crime.

This book was as fascinating and essential as it was shocking and disheartening to me. It details the surge of Neo-Nazism in the last decade and clearly links that surge to the presidencies of Donald Trump, whose statements have seemingly provided permission for these groups to operate openly, as opposed to in the shadows that were previously in. This book not only details the history but also discusses the number of murders linked to these groups that never actually reach the national news media. It was truly shocking. This book was truly engrossing, well written and necessary. Lichtbau has clearly done his research and has made that research accessible to all in this book. It is a valuable expose of the far right that everyone should read regardless of your political persuasion. Run out and get this one ASAP.