Matt Heimbach’s Traditionalist Youth Network is Cutting Deals with Holocaust Deniers

But that long courtship is over. The Traditionalist Youth Network (TYN) and its sister Traditionalist Worker Party (TWP), has partnered with The Barnes Review (TBR), a journal dedicated to historical revisionism and Holocaust denial. In a post on TYN’s website announcing this partnership, the group called the publication known for its vile take on history “an esteemed revisionist publication.”

“Despite maintaining rigorous scholarly standards and following the truth whichever direction it may lead … the Southern Poverty Law Center [has called TBR] ‘one of the most virulent anti-Semitic organizations around,’” TYN wrote in announcing the partnership. “Perhaps … but only because real history is virulently anti-Semitic!”

Real history? The Barnes Review is hardly real history.

The publication practices an extremist form of revisionist history that includes defending the Nazi regime, denying the Holocaust, discounting the evils of slavery and promoting white nationalism. TBR's now-deceased founder Willis Carto once said that, “Without a means of confronting the onrushing third world, white civilization is doomed.”

The publication also has published articles entitled, "Treblinka Was No Death Camp", "Is There a Negro Race?", "‘Reconquista': The Mexican Plan to Take the Southwest", and "David Duke: An Awakening." Most recently, in a blog posted after the death of Elie Wiesel, a TBR writer referred to Wiesel as ”a proven holocaust hoaxer.”

But as for TYN, pairing up with the world’s most prominent Holocaust denial magazine represents a stark dive in a new direction for Matthew Heimbach and Matthew Parrott, co-founders of TYN and self-declared ethnonationalists who often cite “faith, family and folk” in defense of their ideology.

“Do I believe there was an organized gassing campaign of Jews? No, I do not,” Heimbach told Hatewatch.

The offer includes an annual subscription and three anti-Semitic books at a discount for exclusively for supporters and members of his groups, including the Traditionalist Worker Party (TWP). For a two-year subscription, subscribers “receive everything in the first year’s offer and also an annual subscription to American Free Press,” a weekly newspaper that contains stories on anti-Semitism, secret "New World Order" conspiracies, American Jews and Israel.

Heimbach hopes the partnership will “convert more people, open more people's minds” and allow his followers “to share [issues of TBR] with family members or friends.” Heimbach added that accepting this special offer, “promote[s] unity” amongst white nationalist organizations." 

“One of my main missions is to be able to … promote one another,” he said during the interview.  

Questions about the partnership have shed some light on understanding the ever-evolving ideology behind Heimbach’s organizations. Heimbach claims it was during conversations with former members of the John Birch Society who shared with him his first issues of TBR around the time he was head of a white nationalist Youth for Western Civilization chapter at Towson University.

When asked if Adolf Hitler had a reason to separate Jews from German society during World War II, for example, Heimbach oddly compared the treatment of Jews in Europe to siblings in a fight. “Your mom, when she gets mad at you as a kid if you're teasing your brother, she doesn't make you stay and play together,” Heimbach said. “She sends you to other rooms to have your own space."

Shockingly, Heimbach used that comparison to justify the Nazi Party’s treatment of the Jews. “The main mission wasn't to penalize Jews, it was to rebuild German society,” he said. 

Heimbach didn’t always believe in Jewish conspiracy theories, though. He attended evangelical church services when he was younger and used to describe himself as an “ardent Zionist.” He cites disgraced British historian David Irving, a holocaust denier who once claimed that Adolf Hitler “was probably not at all anti-Semitic,” for changing his perspective on National Socialism.

“I have never found answers to the questions and critiques brought up by issues of The Barnes Review or David Irving,” Heimbach said. “That was really the turning point for me.