White nationalist music festival planned for Boise this weekend, poster shows

A music festival organized by a white supremacist group and featuring bands that reference Nazi history will take place in Boise this weekend, according to an event poster shared on social media.

The event, called “Hills of Hate Camp,” will be held in Boise on Saturday, the poster showed. The poster was shared on Telegram, a social media site, in a group promoting white nationalism in the Pacific Northwest. The group has called itself the “Pacific Northwest Territorial Imperative.”

It was also shared on Twitter by Redoubt Antifascists, an anonymous group that calls out extremism in the region.

According to the poster, the festival will be held by Northwest Hammerskins and Crew 38, off-shoots of the Hammerskin Nation, which is considered “the most violent and best-organized neo-Nazi skinhead group in the United States” by the Anti-Defamation League. The Anti-Defamation League identifies the national group as a white supremacist group.

The poster advertised an unnamed “special guest speaker,” as well as three bands — Beer Hall Putsch, 13 Knots and Ironwill — with ties to white supremacy. Beer Hall Putsch refers to a failed 1923 Nazi coup attempt that sent Adolf Hitler to prison, where he wrote “Mein Kampf.” 13 Knots has released music under Wewelsburg Records, a German label affiliated with the white power Rock Against Communism movement. Ironwill has released music under the white power record label Label 56.

The exact location of the event was excluded on the poster. A user on Telegram invited others to message them privately for more details.

The event has been held in the Boise area before — in 2012 and again in 2017, when Canyon County officials told the Idaho Statesman that the event took place not in Boise but on private property near Melba. According to previous Statesman reporting, law enforcement reported no issues during the 2017 event.

The Boise Police Department and Canyon County Sheriff’s Office told the Statesman they’re aware of the event.

“We will continue to monitor the situation as we have in years past and respond as needed,” a Boise police spokesperson said in an email.