Wolfgang Droege

Wolfgang Walter Droege (or Dröge) (September 25, 1949 – April 13, 2005) was a Canadian white supremacist, neo-Nazi and founding leader of the Heritage Front.

Droege was born in Forchheim, Germany. His parents and grandparents had been enthusiastic supporters of the Nazi Party, and Julius Streicher was a friend of the family. Droege and his mother moved to Canada in 1962. In 1967, he moved back to Germany to join the military but was rejected due to health reasons. He moved back to Canada and became a Canadian citizen in the early 1970s. Droege became interested in far-right politics and joined an extremist group, the Western Guard, in 1974 at the prompting of Don Andrews and later joined Andrews's Nationalist Party of Canada. He was arrested, charged, and convicted of damage to property and mischief in 1975 after spraying "white power" slogans along the route of the African Liberation Day march in Toronto. In December 1976 he joined the Ku Klux Klan, then led by David Duke, after attending the "International Patriotic Congress" in New Orleans organized by Duke. Droege attempted to start a KKK branch in Toronto and also organized for the Klan in British Columbia.

In 1981, Droege helped organize a failed attempt, codenamed "Operation Red Dog", to invade the Caribbean nation of Dominica and overthrow its government and restore deposed Prime Minister Patrick John to power. According to testimony presented at the trial of Droege and his nine co-conspirators, in exchange for restoring John to power, Droege would have been permitted to use the island as the centre of a drug-refinement and trafficking operation. The attempted coup turned sour after a CFTR radio reporter who had been approached about an "exclusive story" decided to contact the police. Droege was sentenced to a three-year prison sentence for his mercenary activities. As it was launched from New Orleans, this event was derided as the "Bayou of Pigs" fiasco by critics such as Don Andrews.

In 1985 he was arrested in Alabama as an illegal alien and charged with cocaine possession, as well as possession of an illegal knife. He served four years of a 13-year sentence.

Upon his release from jail in 1989, Droege went to Libya to attend a congress of what became the International Third Position and then returned to Canada to found the Heritage Front. The growth of the neo-Nazi group prompted the creation of Anti-Racist Action (ARA) in Toronto which devotes itself to combating the Front and other groups. In 1992, Droege's connections with racist organizations led to his expulsion from the Reform Party of Canada. In 1993, following a brawl with ARA members, Droege was charged and convicted of aggravated assault and possession of dangerous weapons, and he served two months of a three-month sentence. Following his release from prison, Droege drifted away from organized racial activity and worked for a time as a bailiff. After losing his job, he returned to cigarette and drug trafficking as well as auto theft. In 1998 he pleaded guilty to possession of a stolen car.

Droege was found shot to death on April 13, 2005 in the hallway of his lowrise apartment in Scarborough, Ontario. One suspect barricaded himself in Droege's apartment but was arrested at the scene without incident after negotiations with the Emergency Task Force.

On April 14 2005, Keith Deroux, 44, a friend of Droege's, was charged with second-degree murder in Droege's death. Newspaper reports allege that Deroux, Droege and Nicola Slyford were enmeshed in a love triangle, but Slyford denies there was any such relationship among the three [1] (http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/TorontoSun/News/2005/04/16/pf-999776.html). Slyford, formerly Nicola Polinuk, Don Andrews's former common-law wife, was a member of the Heritage Front from its inception and is also a former lover of former leading Front member Peter Mitrevski. She says she briefly dated Droege in 1997 but otherwise denies any romantic involvement with him.

Droege's remains were cremated and returned to Germany.

External links

• Wolfgang Droege information (http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/d/droege-wolfgang/) (Nizkor Project)
• Love triangle may have triggered Droege murder (http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1113501689061_108910889) (CTV News)
• Prominent white supremacist killed in Toronto (http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1113430343180_108839543) (CTV News)
• Heritage Front founder reportedly shot dead (http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/04/13/droege-050413.html) (CBC News)
• No Love Triangle: Woman denies relationship with neo-Nazi (http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/TorontoSun/News/2005/04/16/pf-999776.html) (Toronto Sun)