The Gaede Bunch
Neo-Nazi stage mom April Gaede and her singing twins are poised for stardom, of a sort
By Susy Buchanan</p>
<p>Cute, blonde and very Nordic: Could the Gaede bunch become the neo-Nazi movement’s Olsen twins? </p>
<p>April Gaede wears a tweed suit the color of wheat, her light brown mullet neatly curled. Her twin daughters, Lynx and Lamb, are clad in matching powder-blue dresses with fuzzy collars, their blond hair in braids, impossibly cute and well aware of it. They stand and sing to a rapt crowd in shrill voices.
If it weren’t for the electric guitars on the stage behind them, the flag with the “life rune” symbol on it, and the white-power lyrics, they could be singing hymns in church. Instead, they are entertaining a room full of neo-Nazis. </p>
<p>“Strike force! White survival. Strike force! Yeah,” they sing, punctuating each “Strike force!” with miniature sieg heils. Some of the men in the audience return the salute, and when the girls finish, thunderous applause fills the room. </p>
<p>Since joining the neo-Nazi National Alliance in 2001, Gaede and her girls have become prominent ambassadors of hate, thanks in no small part to Gaede’s dogged determination to turn her 12-year-olds into racist pop stars. </p>
<p>Gaede herself grew up on goat’s milk and Third Reich footage in the foothills of Fresno (the family now lives in Bakersfield), the daughter of a rancher who branded horses with swastikas. A college dropout, she married a man she describes as a pot-smoking Icelandic pole-vaulter when she was 20, giving birth to Lynx and Lamb in 1993. </p>
<p>The next year, Gaede rode a horse through the streets of her hometown wearing nothing but a cowboy hat, boots, G-string, bunny tail, and a pair of bumper stickers slapped across her breasts as part of a contest at a local radio station. She was arrested for indecent exposure before a winner could be determined. </p>
<p>Although Gaede’s husband made for good “Aryan” breeding stock, she claims that their relationship turned violent, and they were divorced in 1996. Her one regret, she says now, is “the many years that I lost in which I could have produced four to six more children with that ideal eugenic quality that [Lynx and Lamb] possess.” </p>
<p>Since joining the Alliance, Gaede has occupied herself posting advice on Internet forums under the screen name Odin’s Shieldmaiden and writing about parenting, Yule, and mad cow disease for the group’s National Vanguard magazine. </p>
<p>She looks a little like Martha Stewart when she smiles, and fancies herself a white-power version of the domestic goddess, the kind of woman who rides “into battle in armor cutting the heads off my enemies but home in time to make a tasty dinner for my man.” </p>
<p>But April Gaede is not content to sit at home forging bronze swastika cookie cutters or trying to make sure her laundry detergent isn’t kosher like that of the other homemakers she corresponds with. </p>
<p>Instead, the neo-Nazi stage mom focuses on forging her daughters into über-Olsen twins and preparing for celebrity as the girls develop. </p>
<p>“I mean what young red blooded American boy isn’t going to find two blonde twins, sixteen years old, singing about white pride and pride in your race … very appealing?” she asks. </p>
<p>And don’t worry, fellows — these girls are no feminists. Home-schooled, they’re taught to “realize that their main duty is to raise lots of White children” and other lessons their mom culls from 1950s textbooks she picks up at second-hand stores. </p>
<p>Things are going well for the Gaede bunch. In the last year, the girls, known to their music fans as “Prussian Blue,” made their first movie (a campy horror film called “Darkwalker” in which they play “creepy twins”), granted interviews to national and international publications, and launched their own Web site. They have performed at Alliance and Holocaust-denial events, county fairs, open mike nights and folk festivals. </p>
<p>Although Gaede’s parenting style and her twins’ dubious musical talents have brought criticism in white supremacist forums and even spawned an unkind blog (<a href=“http://www.prussianbluesucks.info)%5B/url%5D”>www.prussianbluesucks.info)</a>, Gaede’s supporters refuse to let a few out-of-tune instruments and off-key harmonies deter their dreams of glory. </p>
<p>Alliance member Rich Lindstrom is a believer. He predicts the Gaede twins will “capture the imagination of young boys and girls all across the world. The impact could be huge and their influence will encourage ‘copycats’ … creating an entire genre of pro-White music. … I’m hanging on the edge of my seat with anticipation.”