Ben Klassen

Infobox Person
name = Ben (Bernhardt) Klassen


caption =
birth_date = birth date|1918|02|20
birth_place = Taurida, Ukraine
death_date = death date and age|1993|08|06|1918|02|20
death_place =
other_names =
known_for = Founding The Church Of The Creator
occupation = Author, White Nationalist.
nationality = Ukrainian Ben (Bernhardt) Klassen (birth date|1918|02|20 — death date|1993|08|06) was the founder of the white supremacist Church of the Creator (COTC).

Early life

Klassen was born in Taurida, Ukraine to a Mennonite family. At the age of five, he and his family moved to Mexico, where they lived for one year. At age six, he moved with his family to Herschel, Saskatchewan (in Canada). He attended the German-English Academy (now Rosthern Junior College).

White Racial activism

In 1968, he moved to Florida to work for George Wallace's presidential campaign. In 1973 he founded the original Church of the Creator (COTC) which changed its name to the World Church of the Creator (WCOTC) in 1996 when Matthew F. Hale was elected as its Pontifex Maximus, or Head Priest, and later to The Creativity Movement (TCM) in 2003 after a trademark dispute with the TE-TA-MA Truth Foundation. He attracted several hundred white racial loyalists as members from the US, Canada, Sweden, Ukraine, Russia, Poland, and South Africa.

Klassen first popularized the term Racial Holy War (RaHoWa) within the white racialist movement. He also consistently called Black people "niggers" in public discourse as well as in the literature of the WCOTC, as opposed to many white nationalist leaders who use relatively more polite terms for the aforementioned group in public. For example, the 7th commandment of the WCOTC's "16 commandments of Creativity" openly uses the word "nigger".

Klassen was the author of several books - "Nature's Eternal Religion" (1973), "The White Man's Bible" (1981), "Expanding Creativity" (1985), "A Revolution of Values Through Religion" (1991) and many others.

Death

Klassen committed suicide in 1993 after the death of his wife, by overdosing on sleeping pills. In his suicide note, he made reference to his book "The White Man's Bible", which describes suicide as "an honorable and dignified way to die for any... of a number of reasons, such as having come to the decision that life is no longer worthwhile."

References

* [http://www.zoominfo.com/people/Klassen_Ben_48920199.aspx info]
* [http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/orgs/american/adl/cotc/creator.html biography]

Works Online