Fourteen Words

"The Fourteen Words" (also abbreviated 14 or 1488) is a reference to two slogans originated by the American domestic terrorist David Eden Lane, one of nine founding members of the defunct white supremacist terrorist organization The Order, and are accompanied by Lane's "88 Precepts". The slogans have served as a rallying cry for militant white nationalists internationally.
The primary slogan in the Fourteen Words is,
Followed by the secondary slogan,
The two slogans were coined prior to Lane being sentenced to 190 years in federal prison for planning and abetting the assassination of the Jewish talk show host Alan Berg, who was murdered by another member of the group in June 1984. They were popularized heavily after Lane's imprisonment. The slogans were publicized through print company 14 Word Press, founded in St. Maries, Idaho, in 1995 by Lane's wife, Katja, to disseminate her husband's writings, along with Ron McVan who later moved his operation to Butte, Montana, after a falling-out with Katja.
Lane used the 14-88 numerical coding extensively throughout his spiritual, political, religious, esoteric, and philosophical tracts and notably in his "88 Precepts" manifesto. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, inspiration for the Fourteen Words "are derived from a passage in Adolf Hitler's autobiographical book Mein Kampf". The Fourteen Words have been prominently used by neo-Nazis, white power skinheads and certain white nationalists and the alt-right. "88" is used by some as a shorthand for "Heil Hitler", 'H' being the 8th letter of the alphabet, though Lane viewed Nazism along with America as being part of the "Zionist conspiracy".
Lane's ideology was anti-American, white separatist, and insurrectionist; he considered loyalty to the United States to be "racial treason" and upheld the acronym "Our Race Is Our Nation" ("ORION"), viewing the United States as committing genocide against white people and as having been founded as a New World Order to finalize a global Zionist government.
Being bitterly opposed to the continued existence of the United States as a political entity, and labeling it the "murderer of the White race", Lane further advocated domestic terrorism as a tool to carve out a "white homeland" in the Northern Mountain States. To that end, Lane issued a declaration called "Moral Authority", published through now-defunct 14 Word Press and shared through the publications of Aryan Nations, World Church of the Creator, and other white separatist groups, in which he referred to the United States as a "Red, White and Blue traveling mass murder machine", while asserting that "true moral authority belongs to those who resist genocide".
After Lane's publication of the Fourteen Words, they were adopted by white supremacists and neo-Nazis, white nationalists, identitarians, and members of the far-right and alt-right. The most widely used variation is "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children"; a less commonly used variation is "Because the beauty of the White Aryan woman must not perish from the earth". They are sometimes combined with the number 88 to form the abbreviations "14/88" or "1488". The 8s represent the eighth letter of the alphabet, H, with "HH" standing for Heil Hitler, according to Neo-Nazis who use the code. The number 88 was used by Lane as a reference to his "88 Precepts", along with a secondary reference to his "88 Lines and 14 Words". "88", when combined with "14", refers to numerology in Lane's white supremacist neo-pagan religion, Wotanism.
The slogan has been used in acts of white supremacist terrorism and violence. It was central to the symbolism of a 2008 Barack Obama assassination plot, which intended to kill 88 African Americans, including future president Barack Obama (at that time the Democratic Party nominee), 14 of whom were to be beheaded. Skinhead Curtis Allgier notably tattooed the words on to his body after he murdered corrections officer Stephen Anderson, and Dylann Roof's race war-inspired Charleston church shooting was influenced by the slogan, as were Robert Bowers' Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and Brenton Tarrant's Christchurch mosque shootings.
Although there is a strong resemblance between the primary slogan and a statement in Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, neither Lane, nor Fourteen Word Press, noted any connection. Scholars including Barry Balleck have stated that Lane was almost certainly influenced by Hitler, specifically by the following statement in Mein Kampf.
According to scholar Mattias Gardell, Lane decoded what Gardell termed the "Pyramid Prophecy", which included the concept that the King James Version of the Bible was encoded by Sir Francis Bacon and the concept that Lane was the "man of prophecy", described as the "666 Sun Man", incarnated to "warn and save the White Aryan Race from near extinction" – a view that was censored by Ron McVan and others who found the "messianic Antichrist" claims counterproductive.
Gardell's book Gods of the Blood states "The number 1776 appears in the numeric square of Mars in which is found the Star of David and its 741 formula, 741 also being the value of the 14 Words in simple English gematria." Lane claimed that both 14 word slogans came to him whilst he was asleep and that each contained 61 letters, 20 syllables and 74 characters, along with the 741 value.
The slogans and the numerology of "14" and "88" have been used by many white supremacists, both before and after they have committed acts of violence (such as in manifestos), as well as in symbols which have been left at the scenes of criminal acts. These include Order-member David Lane, assassination attempters Paul Schlesselman and Daniel Cowart, and murderers Dylann Roof and Curtis Allgier. Allgier has "14" and "88" tattooed on his forehead above and to the sides of the words "skin" and "head" above his eyes in his mugshot.
The assassination of Jewish talk-show host Alan Berg in June 1984 is considered as The Order's most infamous act of terrorism. Order member Bruce Pierce served as the gunman in the murder and Lane served as the getaway driver. During Lane's imprisonment on separate convictions (some relating to violating Alan Berg's civil rights) he created the Fourteen Words slogan. The number 14 continues to symbolize allegiance to the Aryan Nations' vision of a white homeland.
"14/88" numerology was symbolically included in the Barack Obama assassination plot in October 2008. Both Neo-Nazis, Schlesselman and Cowart were introduced to each other online by a mutual friend who shared their white supremacist beliefs. Within a month of meeting, they had planned to kill the Democratic Party nominee by driving at their target and shooting from their vehicle. This was to be followed by a killing spree in which the men planned to kill 88 African Americans, 14 of whom were to be beheaded. They were targeting mostly children at an unidentified, predominantly Black school. Shortly after their arrest, their vehicle was discovered to have "14" and "88" written onto it.
Mass-shooter Wade Michael Page, who killed six and wounded four members of the Sikh community in August 2012, had been a supporter of the Fourteen Words, and was found with "14" onto a Celtic Cross tattooed on his arm, after committing suicide at the scene of the crime. About a year before the shooting, Page wrote on the Internet regarding the slogan, "Passive submission is indirect support to the oppressors. Stand up for yourself and live the 14 words."
After the Charleston mass-murder shooting in June 2015, Dylann Roof's ideology and apparent manifesto emerged in the media with multiple references to "1488"; these included several photos of Roof pictured alongside the numbers. He symbolically brought 88 bullets to the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church to carry out the shooting, in which nine African Americans were killed.
Robert Bowers, the gunman suspected of killing 11 people and wounding 6 at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, included the numeric code "1488" in the header image of his Gab social media account. Bowers also expressed Christian Identity rhetoric declaring "the lord jesus christ is come in the flesh" while espousing anti-Semitic views that "jews are children of satan".
Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the Australian shooter responsible for the attacks on two mosques in New Zealand, posted images on Twitter of firearms and published his manifesto "The Great Replacement" which both had the neo-Nazi symbol Black Sun and the slogan (as "14" or "14 Words") written on the weapons and also in the manifesto. The firearms were used in the shooting. He also cited the slogan in the manifesto proper.
Finnish Atomwaffen members plotted assassinating Prime Minister Sanna Marin, derailing trains and killing members of ethnic minorities, and multiple men from Kankaanpää and Lahti were convicted of terrorism offenses and for possessing illegal weapons and explosives. One man is also suspected of a string of letter bombs sent to Social Democrat, Green and Left party offices. Finnish AWD members ended communiques with "14/88".