Yockey had many aliases, and some facts about him are not certain
. Acquaintances and declassified FBI files described him as a talented speaker, brilliant, well-read, sometimes charming, humorous and a gifted mimic — but also haughty, immature, secretive, a loner, and, in the FBI's words, "nervous, high-strung, erratic, unpredictable and dictatorial", with "an amazing capacity for alienating people".
Early life and education Yockey was born on September 18, 1917, in
Chicago,
Illinois, to Louis and Rose Ellen Yockey. He was the youngest of four siblings in an upper-middle-class Catholic family of Irish and German descent; he had two sisters, Vinette and Alice, and an older brother, James. His father was a stockbroker who had trained as a lawyer, while his mother studied at the
Chicago Musical College. Yockey was raised in
Ludington,
Michigan. He learned classical piano, at which he excelled. He began college as an undergraduate at the
University of Michigan, then transferred to
Georgetown University, and later completed his degree at the
University of Arizona. Before starting law school at
Northwestern University, he also studied law at
De Paul University, and graduated from the
Notre Dame Law School in 1941. In college, he declared he would not dine with black, Jewish or communist students. Yockey had been attracted to
Marxism in early life before gravitating to
Adolf Hitler and
Nazism in the 1930s, and in college,
Oswald Spengler. Other influences include
Karl Haushofer and the Nazi theorist
Carl Schmitt, whom Yockey was later accused of plagiarizing. Yockey joined pro-German and pro-fascist groups in the late 1930s. In 1938, his essay "The Tragedy of Youth" was published in
Social Justice, a journal known for publishing antisemitic tracts that was distributed by the "radio priest"
Charles Coughlin. In 1939 Yockey spoke at a gathering of
Silvershirts.
World War II and immediate postwar Yockey enlisted in the
U.S. Army in 1942, serving in an intelligence unit. He went AWOL from his camp in Georgia in November 1942 on a Nazi mission to Texas and Mexico City. Yockey left his estranged wife and daughters in Germany in 1947 for exile in Ireland. Yockey was a central figure in early postwar Nazi networks. Over time, he contacted or worked with far-right figures and organizations including the
German-American Bund, the
National German-American Alliance,
William Dudley Pelley's
Silver Shirts,
Sir Oswald Mosley's Union Movement,
George Sylvester Viereck, the American
H. Keith Thompson,
Gerald L. K. Smith, and
James H. Madole's
National Renaissance Party. After the war Thompson and Madole became advocates of Yockey's worldview and published some of his essays.
Cold War years Yockey identified the United States, not Russia, as Europe's main enemy, urged Europeans not to collaborate with America in the
Cold War, and wanted to act against American forces in Germany and England. Yockey's ideas were usually embraced only by those who could countenance an alliance between the far left and the far right. Without notes, Yockey wrote his first book,
Imperium: The Philosophy of History and Politics, in
Brittas Bay, Ireland, over the winter and early spring of 1948.
Imperium is a Spenglerian critique of 19th century
materialism and
rationalism that scorns democracy and equality, extols Nazism, and blames Jews for various problems. It is dedicated to "the hero of the Second World War", by which he meant
Hitler. In an early example of
Holocaust denial, it also claims that the Nazis'
gas chambers were faked. Yockey mailed copies of
Imperium to far-right figures in Europe and America. Views expressed in it were endorsed by former Nazi General
Otto Remer (who had been Hitler's bodyguard); the American
Revilo P. Oliver; and
Italian esotericist Julius Evola, as well as the praise of
Hans-Ulrich Rudel,
Giorgio Almirante,
Heinz Knoke, and
Karl-Heinz Priester. Yockey became embittered with Sir
Oswald Mosley (Hitler's leading British proponent) after the latter refused to publish or review
Imperium upon its completion, after having promised to do so. Mosley punched Yockey in the nose during a dispute in London's Hyde Park. With a small group of British fascists including the former Mosleyites Guy Chesham and John Gannon, Yockey formed the
European Liberation Front (ELF) in 1948–49. The ELF formed ties with old Nazis along with other fascists. It issued a newsletter,
Frontfighter, and in 1949 published Yockey's virulent
anti-American,
anti-communist and
antisemitic text
The Proclamation of London, which called for a reinstatement of Nazism and the expulsion of the Jews (whom it labeled "the Culture-distorter") from Europe. The ELF was opposed by other neo-fascist groups and essentially disappeared by 1954 due to members being alienated by Yockey's imperious personality. The
American Nazi Party of
George Lincoln Rockwell rejected Yockey's anti-American attitude and willingness to work with
anti-Zionist communist governments and movements. (Yockey told
Willis Carto that he had never heard of the ANP when Carto visited him in prison in 1960.) Other
neo-Nazis such as Rockwell's ally
Colin Jordan disagreed with Yockey's views on race, and saw Yockeyism as being "
Strasserist" which would undermine Nazism. Declassified FBI files show that Yockey traveled to Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York to collaborate with ultra-right activists, while eluding FBI agents who sought to question him. As a fugitive he spoke at the 1950 Christian Nationalist Party convention in Los Angeles organized by
Gerald L. K. Smith. He wrote a suicide note, left under his pillow which read: ==Views and legacy==