Ben Klassen

Bernhardt "Ben" Klassen (Vorlage:Birth date – Vorlage:Death date) was the founder of the pro-White and anti-Christian, authoritarian and hierarchical Church of the Creator in 1973. He was also a one time Florida State Legislator, co-founder of a Nevada town, and inventor of an early version of the electric can opener.

Early life

Klassen was born on February 20, 1918 in Taurida, Ukraine to a Mennonite family. He had seven siblings. When Klassen was nine months old, he caught typhoid fever and nearly died. His earliest memories were of the famine of 1921-22, during which he remembers his father rationing to him one slice of dark bread for dinner. Klassen was first introduced to religion at the age of "three or four." Klassen recalls his mother praising him for the "verve and loudness" with which he sang religious hymns. Klassen recalls being introduced to sugar at a very early age, something he states was "foolish" of his parents to do. When he was five, the family moved to Mexico, where they lived for one year. The first stop on their trip was in Moscow, where Klassen was introduced to electric lights and ice cream. The next stop was Riga, Latvia, then on to Berlin, Germany where they stayed for some time. They stopped in at Cologne where his father and brothers went to see the sites, including the famous Cologne Cathedral. Next, the Klassen family went to Paris, where they again went sight-seeing, visiting the Eiffel Tower and other famous landmarks. From Paris they took a train to their embarkation point across the Atlantic, at LaRochelle, France. Klassen recalls his voyage across the Atlantic Ocean as his first encounter with Black people, oranges, bananas, and pineapples. The Klassen family arrived, after more than a week, at Havana harbor, where they stayed at a boarding house for at least two weeks. After that, the family boarded another train and embarked for Vera Cruz, Mexico. From there, they went north to Chihuaha where the family met with other Mennonites to decide where to go next. 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, Ben Klassen moved to Florida to work for George Wallace's presidential campaign. In 1973 Klassen founded the original Church of the Creator (COTC). The religious organization was later revived as the World Church of the Creator (WCOTC) in 1996 with Matthew F. Hale as its Pontifex Maximus, or Head Priest, and later the name was changed to The Creativity Movement (TCM) in 2003 because of a trademark dispute after the TE-TA-MA Truth Foundation trademarked the name Church of the Creator. Klassen attracted several hundred white racial loyalists as members from the US, Canada, Sweden, Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia and South Africa.

Ben 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 COTC, 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 COTC's 16 commandments of Creativity openly uses the word "nigger". Klassen gives his justification for this in Chapter five of Nature's Eternal Religion.

Ben 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), the autobiographical work Trials, Tribulations and Triumphs (1993) and many others.

Death

A picture of Ben Klassen's headstone

Ben Klassen's gravesite in Otto, NC

Klassen committed suicide in August of 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, in which he 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."Vorlage:Bquote Klassen was buried in Otto, North Carolina.

Bibliography

Books

• 1973: [1] Nature's Eternal Religion (ISBN 0963609424)- The first of the Holy Books of Creativity.
• 1981: [2] The White Man's Bible (ISBN 0317532790)- The second of the Holy Books of Creativity.
• 1983: [3] Salubrious Living (co-author)- The third of the Holy Books of Creativity.
• 1991: [4] A Revolution of Values Through Religion (ISBN 0963609483)- A comparison of various religious doctrines to Creativity.
• 1991: [5] Against the Evil Tide: An Autobiography - Klassen's autobiography.
• 1991: [6] The Little White Book (co-author)- A collection of programmatic statements, creeds, and quotes "for Daily reading and affirmation"
• 1993: [7] Trials, Tribulations, Triumphs - A History of the Church of the Creator during the 1980s

Articles

• 1985: Expanding Creativity (ISBN 0963609432)- A collection of articles from Racial Loyalty #1-12
• 1986: Building a Whiter and Brighter World - A collection of articles from Racial Loyalty #13-28
• 1987: RAHOWA! This Planet is All Ours - A collection of articles from Racial Loyalty #28-39
• 1993: On the Brink of a Bloody Racial War - A collection of articles from Racial Loyalty #40-81

Letters

• 1988: The Klassen Letters, Volume I - A collection of letters.
• 1989: The Klassen Letters, Volume II - A second collection of letters.