Neo-Nazi Ex-Marine Buys Up Land in Rural Maine for 'Blood Tribe'
Since the beginning of 2023, neo-Nazi and ex-Marine Christopher Alan Pohlhaus has ramped up his efforts to create a white supremacist enclave in Maine by accumulating rural property, soliciting cryptocurrency donations on Telegram and embarking on a cross-country recruiting trip, according to messages Pohlhaus posted to Telegram.
“Let’s just be frank, Maine’s a white state, has always been a super-white state. Let’s keep it the way it is,” Pohlhaus said in a May 11 interview with a journalist that Pohlhaus recorded and posted to Telegram.
Pohlhaus, who has led members of his swastika-toting “Blood Tribe” to disrupt LGBTQ+ community events in Ohio three times, appears to be in the early stages of building a headquarters for his group near Springfield, Maine.
Over the past four months, Pohlhaus also appears to have broadened his network of extremist connections. Along with his previously reported connections to the neo-Nazi Nationalist Social Club (NSC-131) and convicted Jan. 6 rioter Riley June Williams, Pohlhaus recently posted images of blood ritual initiations and has claimed associations with neo-Nazi activists and publishers around the country.
“Whatever, you doxed me. Whatever, old news,” Pohlhaus said in a voice message in response to a request for comment Hatewatch sent via Telegram.
When asked what he would say to Springfield residents who may be concerned about the existence of a neo-Nazi compound in their community, Pohlhaus said: “The people in Springfield know me. I see them all the time. Everybody knows who I am. It’s a town of 400 people. Nobody doesn’t know who the fuck I am when I walk anywhere in Springfield, Lee and Lincoln. Everybody knows who the fuck they’re looking at.”
Lincoln is a town about 20 miles west of Springfield. Lee is located about nine miles east of Springfield.
“I had to move somewhere, you know? You guys are so weird” Pohlhaus said. “Google breaking news, Nazi buys a piece of property. Tell everybody, run the presses. He owns property. What the fuck do you expect me to do? Where do you expect me to go? You want me to go to your neighborhood? Why are you guys so goddamn awkward. This isn’t a news story?”
Building a ‘Blood Tribe’ camp in Maine
Pohlhaus, who also goes by the online moniker “The Hammer,” reportedly moved to Maine in 2022 to build a white supremacist community that would provide a place for the Blood Tribe to network, strategize and train. In a video Pohlhaus posted on Telegram on Jan. 20, 2023, he updated his followers on his plans to build a headquarters for his group. Pohlhaus claims in the video that the Blood Tribe has more than “120 acres already,” including a 10-acre spot he describes as “the main camp.”
All the land is apparently north of Bangor, Maine, which is ideal for its remoteness, according to Pohlhaus’ account in the video. In it, Pohlhaus also claims his group is in the process of purchasing a neighboring 10-acre property that “comes [with] all the utilities we need: septic, well, electric and a whole cabin.” He claimed purchase of this property would cut one year off the group’s original plans to build a base of operations for the group.
A Hatewatch investigation has identified the location of the proposed main camp in Springfield, Maine, which sits near the intersection of Moores Road and Bottle Lake Road. After receiving a tip from a concerned resident who spotted Pohlhaus at a local gym, Hatewatch found a quitclaim deed and mortgage deed filed with the Penobscot Country Registry of Deeds that identifies Pohlhaus and his associate Fred Boyd Ramey as the buyers of the property. A quitclaim deed is a document in which the seller renounces their legal rights to a property, according to real estate listing websites. Ramey signed the mortgage deed on March 8; Pohlhaus’ signature does not appear, but he is identified as a buyer in the document.
On March 11 in Wadsworth, Ohio, Pohlhaus and Ramey were seen screaming obscenities and slurs at participants of an LGBTQ+-inclusive event, according to video posted on TikTok and YouTube. Pohlhaus and Ramey do not conceal their identities. Ramey received attention in 2020 when he was featured in a commercial for Andrew Yang, who was then a Democratic presidential candidate.
Hatewatch sent a request for comment to an email address associated with Ramey found on data broker websites but did not receive a response.
The documents Pohlhaus and Ramey signed do not identify an address for the property. Instead, the documents identify a lot number, a land survey plan and a map file number for the property.
The documents show that Pohlhaus and Ramey paid $25,110 to purchase a 10.6-acre property, which is identified in the document as lot three in the Dead River Company Survey Plan of South Springfield Subdivision II. The mortgage deed for the property shows that Pohlhaus and Ramey signed a $25,000 promissory note for lot three to be paid back over the course of four years, which corresponds to a video message Pohlhaus posted on Telegram Feb. 18 claiming that he purchased the main camp property via owner financing. According to Forbes, owner financing provides a faster way for sellers to close a sale, while helping people who don’t qualify for traditional mortgages buy property. In other words, Pohlhaus and Ramey are paying for the property in installments over a period of four years that began March 11, 2022, according to the document. The exact terms of the owner-financed mortgage do not appear in the document.
After locating the deeds, Hatewatch then found the survey plan and map filed in 1989 with Penobscot County. The Dead River Company Survey Plan of South Springfield Subdivision II delineates several lots, including lot three, which is the lot number listed on the deeds Pohlhaus and Ramey signed. The survey plan also identifies two roads that were renamed in the 1990s in an effort by the county to make 911 emergency calls easier to dispatch, according to the Penobscot County Assessor’s Office.
According to the survey plan, the main camp for the Blood Tribe is located at lot three on Moores Road. Real estate listings for this property are online and include a description of the 10.6-acre property, which is the exact lot size identified in the deeds Pohlhaus and Ramey signed. The planned main camp also appears to be observable using imagery from Google Earth that was updated in 2023. On Google Earth, a clearing in the trees is observable, as is a work truck, which corresponds to the Jan. 20 video message Pohlhaus posted to Telegram claiming he has started to cut down trees on the property.
In video and audio messages Pohlhaus posted to Telegram, he explains that his goal for the camp is to build residences and communal spaces on the property for members of his neo-Nazi group. According to photographs posted to Telegram over the past year, Pohlhaus and members of his neo-Nazi group have slept in tents when visiting the property overnight. Pohlhaus’ main residence is currently offsite in an undisclosed location.
In the Jan. 20 video posted to Telegram, Pohlhaus claims to be in the process of acquiring a neighboring property to the main camp; however, a recent search of property records does not show Pohlhaus or any of his associates buying an adjoining property.
Funding a white supremacist camp
How Pohlhaus or Ramey can afford to purchase land in Maine is unclear. Pohlhaus is widely known within the white supremacist movement as a tattoo artist, and he claims to earn enough income to live comfortably. For instance, in July 2022, Pohlhaus posted a photograph of a skull-and-bones he tattooed on Jon Minadeo’s left arm. Nazis appropriated the skull-and-bones symbol, which is known as the Totenkopf – the German word for skull – and it’s now used within white supremacist groups. Minadeo, who is also known as “Handsome Truth,” is the leader of the Goyim Defense League, an antisemitic hate group known mostly for screaming on street corners at people they perceive as Jewish as well as posting antisemitic flyers and banners.
On Jan. 18, the day before Pohlhaus created his latest channel on Telegram, the SPLC Intelligence Project’s Data Lab found that someone set a Bitcoin payment worth $208.71 to NSC-131, a neo-Nazi hate group based in New England that Pohlhaus has reportedly worked closely with since moving to Maine. Another payment worth $607.36 was sent to the Coinbase donation address for the Blood Tribe. This is the first time the Data Lab has observed a Telegram bot being used to issue cryptocurrency donations to a hate group.
While appearing on a white supremacist podcast on May 6, Pohlhaus claims to receive a percentage of sales from a neo-Nazi book publisher. Responding to a question about the publisher, Pohlhaus states: “Yeah, that’s Grandpa Blood Tribe. I make a certain percentage off of the stuff that I sell. And we’re looking to increase that … and have more inventory.”
For his part, Ramey is listed as the owner of White Working Class Consulting LLC, according to business records. The business, which is licensed in Wyoming, uses a residential address in Cheyenne that is listed as the primary residence of Ramey, according to data brokers. It is unclear what services Ramey’s business provides to customers.
‘Give them PTSD and leave’
Pohlhaus recently finished a four-month, cross-country trip in May in which he claims to have driven 10,000 miles to recruit, organize and grow his group, according to messages and interviews he has given on far-right podcasts. In his response to Hatewatch, Pohlhaus confirmed that he drove 10,000 miles.
Pohlhaus’ Telegram channel is littered with photographs and names of places and groups he visited on his trip. In a Feb. 18 video posted on Telegram, Pohlhaus states that he decided to take the trip after the FBI visited his “normie support network,” as well as “the realtor that sold me my land.” He continues, “They visited the guy that I’m owner-financed through and who I was initiating a new deal with for more land.” Pohlhaus also claims that he is financing the trip by tattooing supporters along the way. He also states that he will be in the “north Midwest” soon.
Hatewatch left several messages with the FBI field office that oversees Maine but did not receive a response prior to publication. A spokesperson for the Maine State Police confirmed that they are aware that Pohlhaus is in the state but have not had any involvement with him so far.
In video and audio messages Pohlhaus posted to Telegram between February and May, he claims to have visited with like-minded white supremacists in New York; West Virginia; Ohio; Green Bay, Milwaukee and Northern Wisconsin; Chicago; Arkansas; Colorado; Phoenix and Flagstaff, Arizona; Las Vegas; Boise, Idaho; and Salt Lake City. He also talks about meeting with people involved in the ShieldWall Network, which is a white nationalist group led by Billy Roper that is attempting to organize a white supremacist community in Arkansas called Ozarkia.
Pohlhaus also has been involved with Asatru Folk Assembly (AFA), an organization that adheres to pre-Christian Norse and Germanic religions and is the largest group within the neo-Völkisch movement. However, Pohlhaus clarified to Hatewatch that he is no longer part of the group. “If you were paying attention, you realize that me and the AFA have parted ways.”
AFA, like other neo-Völkisch groups, often refer to their spirituality as Odinism or Wotanism and focus their spiritual beliefs on the survival of descendants of white Europeans and preserving what they view as dying European cultures.
Pohlhaus has conducted several initiation rituals that involved men standing around bonfires, a spear and blood, according to photographs and video he posted to Telegram. He also claimed in a Jan. 20 video message on Telegram to have used the main camp in Maine to host ceremonies related to his white supremacist spiritual beliefs.
Pohlhaus posted videos and photographs to Telegram on March 17 to document one of these rituals, which he repeated at least three other times during his trip. Pohlhaus is seen holding a spear as three men whose identities are obscured stand around a fire. In the video, Pohlhaus is heard off camera saying: “Those who make this oath and keep it, blessed by the Gods forever. Those who make this oath and break it, cursed for eternity.” After Pohlhaus speaks, the three unidentified individuals use the spear to pierce their right palms to draw blood. As each person bleeds, they place their bloody palms near the fire, then wipe their blood on the handle of the spear while Pohlhaus repeats: “Gods are watching, keeping you accountable. An oath made, an oath forever.”
During his 10,000 mile trip, Pohlhaus gave a March 20 interview on Matt Gebert’s podcast. Gebert is a white nationalist podcaster that Hatewatch revealed to be a U.S. State Department employee. After Gebert was outed for his racist activities, the State Department suspended him, and he moved his family from Washington, D.C.-area suburbs to rural West Virginia.
The interview on Gebert’s podcast came a week after Pohlhaus made headlines for disrupting an LGBTQ+-inclusive event in Wadsworth, Ohio. At this event, Pohlhaus reportedly led about 20 masked men – all dressed in identical red long sleeve shirts and black pants – in “Sieg Heil” chants, as well as brandished a black-and-white swastika flag, all while yelling obscenities at event participants. “Sieg Heil” is German for “hail victory” and was a slogan adopted by the Nazi party.
On April 29, Pohlhaus returned to Ohio to disrupt another LGBTQ+-inclusive event, this time in Columbus. Pohlhaus was reportedly seen leading a group of about 20 masked men dressed in red and black in violent chants of “There will be blood.”
After returning to Maine, Pohlhaus appeared on a white supremacist podcast on May 6 in which he talked about why he focuses his efforts on in-person events instead of posting racist propaganda.
“So, what we want to do is maximize aggression, the noise, the volume, while also maximizing safety. And that’s another reason why we don’t want to engage with any sort of other activism other than in-person at our enemies’ events. We go to the enemy, scream at them, give them PTSD and leave.”
Megan Squire contributed to this report.
Photo illustration by SPLC
