Else Christensen brings Odinism to the US

Born in Denmark in 1913, Else Christensen fell under the influence of the National Socialist Workers’ Party of Denmark—the largest Nazi party in Demark—in the 1930’s. After moving to North America in 1951, she learned about Odinism through Mills’ writing and from a New York Nazi constituent. Inspired by these sources, Christensen established the Odinist Fellowship in 1969, creating the first Heathen organization in the US. But like List’s Odinism, this Odinism did not (and does not) derive from surviving animist practices, and is thoroughly a product of Nazi ideology instead.

In the 1980’s, Christensen began to teach Odinism to prison inmates and popularized the faith. Before her arrest in 1993 for drug trafficking, she gave the Fellowship’s membership list to Stephen McNallen who used it to create the Asatru Folk Assembly in 1994. Christensen died in 2003.