Sonnenkrieg Division

Introduction

Sonnenkrieg Division (SKD) is the British chapter of the U.S.-based Atomwaffen Division (AWD). AWD was a neo-Nazi organization that sought the creation of a National Socialist government through a violent “white revolution,” and believed in the inevitability of a race war.*

SKD follows a neo-Nazi ideology promoted by James Mason, a former American Nazi Party member and a follower of cult leader Charles Manson.* During the 1980s, Mason wrote a series of pro-Manson and pro-Nazi newsletters that he called Siege and later compiled into a book of the same name.* Users on the now-defunct fascist web forum IronMarch formed AWD after discovering Siege. They based AWD’s ideology on Mason’s ideas of autonomous terror cells fighting a guerilla war against ”the system.”*

SKD formed in 2018 as a British offshoot of AWD.* Private messages exchanged online by SKD group members in 2018 labeled the United Kingdom’s Prince Harry a “race traitor” for marrying a mixed-race woman and called for him to be shot.* In other private online messages, alleged leader Andrew Dymock called for police officers to be raped and killed.* Group members have also called for white women who date non-white men to be hanged.*

Dymock was arrested in December 2018 on terror offenses. Both Dymock and SKD member Oskar Dunn-Koczorowski formerly belonged to System Resistance Network (SRN), an alias of the banned British white supremacist group National Action.* In June 2019, Dunn-Koczorowski and Michal Szewczuk were imprisoned for terror offenses.* During Dymock’s trial in the spring of 2021, prosecutors alleged his involvement with both SKD and SRN. According to the prosecution, Dymock ran SRN’s website and Twitter account while a student at Aberystwyth University between 2017 and 2018. Dymock allegedly used the platforms to call Jewish people a “cancer” and call for their eradication.* Dymock was convicted of five charges of encouraging terrorism, two of fundraising for terrorism, four counts of disseminating terrorist publications, possessing a terrorist document, stirring up racial hatred and hatred based on sexual orientation, and possessing racially inflammatory material. He was sentenced in July 2021 to seven years in prison to be followed by three years of probation.*

In 2015, members of the far-right IronMarch online forum formed the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division (AWD). AWD was linked to multiple murders around the United States as well as racist, homophobic, and antisemitic protests. On January 2, 2018, AWD member Sam Woodward allegedly murdered gay, Jewish college student Blaze Bernstein, an act AWD celebrated.* In 2015, AWD members republished Siege and began to popularize it online through the creation of an online subculture called Siege Culture, an umbrella brand publicized across social media, podcasts, and chatrooms dedicated to Mason’s book.* AWD disbanded in March 2020.* That July, a group of former AWD leaders announced the reorganization of AWD into the National Socialist Order (NSO). NSO leaders claimed they learned from the mistakes of AWD, pointing to a lack of ideological cohesion. The NSO leaders further claimed they had built the NSO with a new leadership dedicated to creating an “Aryan, National Socialist world by any means necessary.”* In September 2022, the American Futurist website declared the NSO to be dead. Its announcement accused “bad actors” of taking over the organization on behalf of ONA and promoting “Satanism and Child Rape.”*

Leadership

Andrew Dymock was the reported leader of SKD.*

Andrew Dymock

Base of Operations

United Kingdom

Website

N/A

Membership Size and Relevance

The group reportedly had 10 to 15 members in Europe as of 2018.* The United Kingdom banned SKD in February 2020.* Australia banned SKD in March 2021.* In April 2021, U.S. Representative Elissa Slotkin called on the U.S. government to designate more than a dozen foreign white supremacist groups as terrorist organizations, including SKD.*

Recruitment and Propaganda

SKD members initially communicated through an online gaming forum. The group has posted violent images on social media praising Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik and calling for violence.*

Like AWD, SKD is inspired by Siege, the anthology of violent pro-Nazi and pro-Charles Manson essays written by American neo-Nazi James Mason in the 1980s and first published as a single volume in 1992.* Dymock has called SKD “full on Universal Order,” referring to Mason’s pro-Nazi and pro-Manson ideology.* Dymock has compared SKD to AWD but noted SKD has fewer guns.*

Violent Activities

SKD has not claimed credit for specific violent activities, but members have been linked to calls for violence.*

Rhetoric

  • Andrew Dymock, undated: SKD is like “atomwaffen with less guns.”*
  • Andrew Dymock, undated: “kill all police officers.”*

Daily Dose

Extremists: Their Words. Their Actions.

Fact:

On October 7, 2023, Hamas invaded southern Israel where, in the space of eight hours, hundreds of armed terrorists perpetrated mass crimes of brutality, rape, and torture against men, women and children. In the biggest attack on Jewish life in a single day since the Holocaust, 1,200 were killed, and 251 were taken hostage into Gaza—where 101 remain. One year on, antisemitic incidents have increased by record numbers. 

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