London, Ontario -- Neo-Nazi Martin Weiche has died.
The former leader of the extremist Canadian National Socialist Party died Friday night, his son Alan said. Weiche was 90.
He was a well-known and self-described racist who held KKK cross and swastika-burning rallies outside his Hyde Park home. Weiche once tried to get the city to declare a European Heritage Week, during which he planned to promote racism.
In the past decade, Weiche was less politically active, but his views remained strong, said Alan Weiche, one of Martin Weiche's nine children.
"Up to a week ago, he was still feisty and talking politics," Alan Weiche said. "He was elaborating on his thesis of why (Moammar) Gadhafi was driven out of power."
The elderly Weiche also recently finished a book about his life, his upbringing and his time as a Nazi soldier.
"I wouldn't say he felt angry anymore, but he was still disturbed ... about the system," Alan said.
A large backwards swastika - which drew international attention to London with the launch of Google Earth - remains cut into a field behind Martin Weiche's home.
"It's more like a Sanskrit swastika," Alan Weiche said. "He called it his peace symbol."
The elder Weiche died of natural causes after his kidneys failed, his son said.
Though Alan Weiche insisted his dad was not a racist because he rented apartments to people of many racial backgrounds and once had a Chinese tenant for Christmas dinner, he agreed Martin Weiche spent a great deal of energy protesting multiculturalism.
A former Luftwaffe pilot during the Second World War, Martin Weiche emigrated to Canada in 1951 and became active in real estate in London. Within a few years, he started building apartment buildings in London and Sarnia, Ont.
He didn't become politically active until about 1965, after reading an autographed copy of Adolf Hitler's book, Mein Kampf. When a London Free Press headline declared the local developer to be a Nazi, he decided to "stand up for his beliefs," Alan Weiche said.
In the 1968 federal election, Martin Weiche ran as a National Socialist. In the late 1990s, after the city turned down his pitch to declare a European heritage week, he filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission, saying councillors discriminated against him. The complaint was turned down.
Weiche's white supremacist beliefs were not well received in Canada, his son said.
"In school, we were picked on a lot. As a young man, there were times in my early 20s, I could be pulled over three times a day. There was a lot of harassment and telephone calls..."
It was the phone calls that eventually broke up his parents' marriage, Alan said. His mom wanted her husband to stop being so outspoken, but he would not back down.
Martin Weiche was married four times. Once in Germany, with one child, before he divorced and married Alan Weiche's mom Lina, with whom he shares seven children. They divorced and he married and had one child with Christa Weiche before they divorced and Martin Weiche married Jeannet.
"We're all coming to grips with (his death) now," said Alan Weiche, a tower crane operator who lives in Huron County.
One of Martin Weiche's sons is David Weiche, a biker once described as the right-hand man of Bandidos massacre murderer Wayne Kellestine.
Alan Weiche said he and most of his siblings share their father's social views and they are planning a memorial service for Sept. 17.
"When you lose an influence like that, you kind of realize that you're on your own."
