newyorker | Los Angeles’s Nazis and Fascists, some of whom
were taking orders directly from Hitler and Goebbels, were preparing for
what they saw as an inevitable Nazi take-over of the United States.
Anticipating that day, Norman and Winona Stephens bought a fifty-acre
piece of land above the Pacific Palisades, and started to build a
fortress that would serve as Hitler’s West Coast White House, halfway
between Tokyo and Berlin. “This was going to be the equivalent of San
Clemente for Nixon, or Mar-a-Lago, only more convenient,” Ross said.
Another
day, Ross hiked up a fire road leading toward the Nazi ruins. He found a
gap in the fence, and began to descend a steep concrete staircase.
“This is a lo-o-o-ng trip down,” he said.
Inside
the compound, Ross led the way to a dazzling spray-painted building,
the remains of a powerhouse. Catching sight of a “Fuck Trump” tag, he
said, “Quite the opposite of Nazis!” The Stephenses, who spent some
seventy million dollars in today’s money on the project, installed, in
addition to generators, a huge water tank, a diesel fuel tank, and a
meat locker, and erected a stable. Plans included meeting rooms,
twenty-two bedrooms, and a pool: a luxurious and private place for Nazis
to make war plans. “They were going to have a totally self-sustaining
compound,” Ross said. Lewis’s spies warned him that there were Nazis in
the hills, coaching sympathizers in marksmanship, urban warfare, and
hand-to-hand combat. (Members of a clandestine Storm Trooper unit
insisted that their militia-training exercises were a Sportabteilung, a club devoted to hiking and drilling for parades.)
“Hitler
was hoping first to conquer more of Europe, and then turn his eyes to
America,” Ross said. “If Japan had not bombed Pearl Harbor, we would
have remained neutral a lot longer. The thinking was, by the time
America woke up it would have been too late.”
