Ritz Knife Fight Reveals "War" Between White Supremacists, Watchdog Says

The knife fight that broke out during Holocaust-denier David Irving's speech at the Ritz-Carlton on Manalapan this week appears to be the latest twist in an ongoing spat between two white supremacist factions, according to a watchdog that monitors hate groups nationwide.

"This is just the latest manifestation of a war that has been developing between the Confederate Hammerskins and Volksfront," says Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report. "This is something that's happening in Florida, and this is really the event that has sprung it into public view."

See, even the neo-Nazis have trouble

maintaining unity within their race. And the two men involved in the stabbings, John Kopko and Christopher Nachtman, are apparently loyal to opposing groups. 

Here's an excerpt from the Southern Poverty Law Center's blog, explaining their backgrounds:

Kopko was an official of the National Socialist White Workers Party in 1992 when he led a protest outside a West Palm Beach bookstore on the premise that the business sold pornographic material that promoted race mixing and homosexuality. That same year, he tried to get neo-Nazi publications placed in Palm Beach County libraries. A newspaper reported that he showed up at a meeting dressed like a Nazi storm trooper.

Nachtman, 31, is a former member of the once-prominent neo-Nazi group, National Alliance... He has promoted Volksfront and Confederate Hammerskins events, and helped organize the February 2007 Volksfront Victory Achievement Conference in Missouri, where he spoke. 

There have been numerous recent confrontations in central Florida that suggest a war is brewing between former longtime allies Volksfront and the Confederate Hammerskins.

A woman using the screen name of "Vidgis" hinted on Stormfront this week that the stabbing at Irving's lecture reflected an escalation in tensions between the two skinhead groups. She wrote, "...the saddest part is how the various White Pride organizations are at war with one another. If we would turn that rage towards the real enemies, we'd be making real progress."