The Cantor and the Klansman

By DANIEL S. LEVY LINCOLN Larry Trapp and Michael Weisser

Q. Mr. Trapp, when you realized that Michael Weisser lived in your town of Lincoln, Neb., you started trying to intimidate him. What were you hoping to achieve?

Larry Trapp: The initial thing is fear, with the intention of getting him out of the community. White supremacists think everything is theirs -- the community, the state, everything. As the state leader, the Grand Dragon, I did more than my share of work because I wanted to build up the state of Nebraska into a state as hateful as North Carolina and Florida. I spent a lot of money and went out of my way to instill fear.

Q. When Larry Trapp started harassing and threatening you, what did you do?

Michael Weisser: I called the police, and I had the telephone company put a tap on my telephone. Two days later I got a package of hate mail, anti-Jewish and anti-black material. We knew it was from Larry Trapp, but we couldn't prove it. We were pretty frightened. It went on that way for a while, and then I talked with my wife Julie, and I said I had to confront this. The only thing I hoped to accomplish was to let him know that I wasn't afraid of him. I was pretty angry, but I never expressed any anger on the telephone to him.

Q. Had you actually spoken to him?

Weisser: At first it was just messages. The very first time I reached his answering machine, I had to listen to a 10-minute taped diatribe about how evil the Jews and the blacks were. There was a beep at the end to leave a message, and I said, "Larry, you'd better think about all this hatred you're doing, that you are involved in, because you're going to have to deal with God one day, and it's not going to be easy." Larry is disabled, and another time I called, I said, "Larry, the very first laws that the Nazis passed were against people like yourself, who have physical disabilities, and you would have been among those to die under the Nazis. Why do you love the Nazis so much?"

Trapp: I knew that too.

Weisser: I just kept leaving messages, until finally one day, Larry Trapp, in a fit of anger, picked up the phone. "What do you want?" he said. "You're harassing me! My phone's got a tap on it." I was real quiet and calm. I said I knew he had a hard time getting around and thought he might need a ride to the grocery store. He just got completely quiet, and all the anger went out of his voice, and he said, "I've got that taken care of, but thanks for asking."

Q. Mr. Trapp, what was it that first made you hate?

Trapp: When I was 13 or 14 years old in reform school in Kearney, Neb., I was raped by four or five black boys. From then on I just hated blacks. Every time I was around them, I felt like killing them. Anybody who wasn't like me was my enemy.

Q. Cantor Weisser, over the next few months, the man who considered you his enemy had his doubts about his past and grudgingly accepted your existence. What happened the night you finally met?

Weisser: The phone rang, and Larry said, "I want to get out of this, and I don't know how." I asked if he had had dinner and said I would bring something over and we'd have a bite to eat and talk about it. I told Julie what had happened, and she said, "I'll bet Larry Trapp is just as apprehensive about us as we are about him. I think we ought to bring him a peace offering." She found a silver ring, and we went over there. As we walked in I touched his hand and he burst into tears. He didn't know we were bringing the ring, and he had two silver swastika rings on, one on each hand. He took the two rings off and said, "I want you to take these rings; they just symbolize hatred and evil, and I want them out of my life." Julie gave him the other ring and put it on his finger.

Q. Mr. Trapp, have you now completely renounced the Klan and the Nazi Party?

Trapp: I denounce everything they stand for. But it's not the people in the organizations that I hate. I hate what they stand for and what they do. If I were to say I hate all Klansmen because they're Klansmen and all Nazis because they're Nazis, I would still be a racist. I was one of the most hardcase white activists in the U. S. If I can have that change of mind or change of heart, anybody can.

Q. There is another former Klansman, David Duke, who claims to have renounced the Klan. How is he different?

Trapp: Racism used to take a more blatant form: the hangings, the beating of blacks half to death on the streets. Listen to David Duke's policies. What he is doing -- and I've talked to him personally -- what he's doing is using a more subdued racism. If you check his policies closely, you'll find that they're the same policies that they have always been. There is no change.

Q. Should white supremacists be taken seriously?

Trapp: The end goal of the white movement is the complete annihilation of all nonwhites. There is talk of setting up purely white colonies here in the U.S. $ That way they'll have their economy established when the rest of the U.S. is taken over by the whites. What they are talking about is basically tyranny.

There are books that have been written that are more or less a philosophy of the white movement. They talk about pregnant white women hanging from trees and lampposts with signs on them saying I WAS A RACE TRAITOR, with their belly cut open, their baby cut out. This is what they plan on. They're a bunch of savages.

Q. I understand that you have been threatened since you left the Klan.

Trapp: I really rattled that applecart and caused a lot of damage within the movement by retiring. I'm sure there's a contract out on me. Usually what happens is, the word gets passed around among the skinheads. They're the ones to worry about, because they're the ones who do all the dirty deeds. The skinheads around town know me, and I am not afraid of them.

Q. If a Klansman got in touch with you and said he wanted to leave the organization, would you help him?

Trapp: I'd check him out real good. The Klan pulls a lot of scams on a lot of people, even their own. For years they've been backstabbing themselves. Not one Klansman or one Nazi can really say he actually trusts the other. It's constant conflict. This is one of the reasons they're in a decline.

Q. Do you think the Klan or the Nazi Party will live on?

Trapp: They're going into what they call the Fifth Era. Things are getting kind of bad for them, so they're going to act, and I think it is going to be very soon. I think what they're going to do is get into smaller terrorist groups, and there's going to be a lot of terrorist acts. This is what I fear more than anything.

Q. Cantor Weisser, Larry Trapp once represented a white-cloaked devil to you. How does it feel to realize that he's basically a good man?

Weisser: I think Larry Trapp has always been a good man, yet he's had a life that's been messed up. Until I spoke to Larry Trapp, I'd only had a couple of other experiences with people who are involved in the organizations that Larry was involved with. I never wanted to talk to them; I was afraid of them. The experience of having met and talked with and learning to love Larry Trapp has been eye-opening for me. Larry has helped me realize something about my religion that I've taught a lot of people: I am obligated to try to love Larry Trapp -- to hate what he stood for, but to love Larry Trapp.

Q. Before you met Mr. Trapp, did you have any idea how extensive these racist organizations were?

Weisser: They are larger than I might have expected. The extent of the hate network in the U.S. is frightening, and that network extends beyond our borders. The neo-Nazis are on the rise in Germany, France and other countries of Europe. The appearance of swastikas in Jewish cemeteries is again on the rise, and the destruction of Jewish-owned property is on the rise.

Q. Mr. Trapp, what do the past few months tell you about the past few decades of your life?

Trapp: They tell me I've got a lot of rebuilding to do. I want to try to change some minds. I know I can't change the hard-core racists, but maybe I can put something in the back of their mind that they can think about as time goes on. People who are borderline racists -- maybe I can get to them before they cross that line, because once they cross that line, they get indoctrinated too heavily.

Q. I understand that you received distressing medical news recently. Does that change any of your plans?

Trapp: The doctor told me I have six months to a year to live. I think I can push it further, because I'm ornery as hell. At least I want to get a group started that will teach people to help one another. I'm not going to stop just because I'm sick.

Q. You were born Roman Catholic. Do you have any interest in converting to Judaism?

Trapp: Yes. Oh, definitely. That's my goal. I think the Jewish religion saved me. The only thing that'll keep me from converting is if there's not enough time.

Q. Cantor Weisser, how do you feel about his converting?

Weisser: Judaism doesn't actively seek converts, but if Larry wants to make the effort to adopt the Jewish religion, I don't think I or anybody else should put barriers in his way. I would be more than happy and, in fact, honored if Larry follows through and makes that religious affirmation.

Q. Quite a sea change.

Weisser: The whole course of Larry's history has changed. My history has changed.

Trapp: I think I was meant to be a Klansman, meant to be a Nazi, meant to do the various things I've done so I could learn that they weren't right, so that maybe, out of my experience, I can help other people change their way of thinking. I think the whole thing was planned out. I really do.