Long before the post-apocalyptic, Troma Entertainment’s “Surf Nazis Must Die” (1987), actual surf Nazis roamed the beaches, road the waves and embraced Neo-Nazi fascism in California. Even when a majority of the beach movies of the sixties looked like young Republican conventions.
California based king of conspiracy theorist Dave Emory would go on his show “For the Record” and, in what he “uncovered”, go into great details connecting the dots between the Republican Party and the Third Reich. One of the individuals Emory points a finger to is former California governor and President Ronald Reagan.
Here is an excerpt from a post written by Emory on spitfire.com from April of 2013 that expands from an airing of his show “For the Record”, #180 in 1999 “The Underground Reich.”
“It would be impossible to exaggerate the damage Reagan inflicted on this country. Nor should that be surprising to one familiar with the realities of his administration, which was a front for the Underground Reich. For decades, the GOP incorporated Third Reich alumni into its ethnic outreach organization. This political alliance culminated in the Reagan regime. The lists of personnel from which Reagan made his appointments was drawn up by Helene von Damm, a protege of Otto von Bolschwing. (Mr. Emory played a small role in the breaking of the original San Jose Mercury story in 1981, along with his late, dear friend Mae Brussell.)”
“Reagan’s 1980 election brought to power the elements incubated in the Nazified GOP ethnic milieu: William Casey orchestrated the State Department machinations to bring the GOP Nazi “ethnics” into the country, after which he became Reagan’s campaign manager and then head of the CIA. Reagan’s Vice President George H.W. Bush had installed the Nazis as a permanent branch of the GOP while serving as chairman of the Republican National Committee. Reagan had served as the chief spokesperson for the Crusade For Freedom, the illegal covert operation that brought the Nazis into the U.S. in the first place.“
From Conspiracy Theory to Actual Facts
The term “surf Nazi” became a common phrase in the California surfing community meaning hardcore local surfers who would use intimidation against outsiders. It may run kind of deeper though.
In the 1930’s, a Los Angeles company produced surfboards with swastikas on them.
1959 movie series “Search for Surf” showed surfers wearing Nazi storm trooper uniforms riding skateboards in a drain. Legendary Malibu surfer Miki Dora was an outspoken racist, spray painted swastikas on his surfboard and pushed the concept of localization and outsiders deserved violence. Ironically, the novel that inspired the beach movie, surfer craze “Gidget” (1957) was written by a Jew who fled the Nazis during World War 2 and his inspiration was his daughter, also a Jew. When the 1959 movie came out outsiders flocked to the beaches of Malibu and Dora led the aggression against them.
In an article written by Daniel Duane, author of “Caught Inside: A Surfer’s Year on the California Coast”, published in the New York Times in September 28, 2019, he writes in detail on his experiences of the “Surf Nazi" culture. The next month Surfer Magazine did it’s best to try to defuse the controversy but did not totally discredit it.
Meanwhile, Back at he Movie
Troma Enterainment became another generations King of the low-budget B movies similar to Lippert Pictures of the 40’s and 50’s who had such films as “The Shark God”, “Lost Continent”, “King Dinosaur” and “Monster From the Ocean Floor”. Troma’s resume includes such “classics” as “The Toxic Avenger”, “Class of Nuke ‘em High” and “Surf Nazis Must Die”. In a post-apocalyptic world on the California beaches a group of Neo-Nazis, the “surf Nazis” rule the beaches. To secure control over the beaches they fight to exterminate other stereotype surfer gangs. In the meanwhile, they randomly kill a white collar black man jogging on the beach in true Aryan racist fashion. Upon hearing the news his mother breaks out of the old folks home for revenge and vowing “Surf Nazis Must Die!” True to the standard low-budget Trouma trope it attempts to parody other movies of it’s time like a “A Clockwork Orange”, “Mad Max”, etc. Director Peter George appears to lag a bit behind “legendary” director Roger Elizabeth DeBris in his production of “Springtime for Hitler”. I re-watched it with a friend and they felt it was entertaining to a point and some others think it’s pretty okay. Give it shot and decide for yourself.
In closing, to quote the Germans involved in the Nuremberg trials after World War 2 “I was only acting under orders” to write about this movie.
