The Columbine School Shooting in 1999 was an event – along with 9/11 – that profoundly affected me as a person and marked the end of an era of apolitical depression in my life. When the Columbine High School students – falsely labelled as being part of the so-called ‘Trenchcoat Mafia’ by the media – Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot up their school and killed 12 fellow students and one teacher in their rampage. It changed the world for a lot of people.
Not least did it trigger demands for ‘gun control’ – most notably in Michael Moore’s famous documentary ‘Bowling for Columbine’ – but it was also used to claim that Harris and Klebold were ‘influenced by Adolf Hitler’. We know that Harris admired the traditional narrative about Hitler and how he was ‘evil’, but this links to Harris’ strong belief that natural selection needed to be ‘kicked up a notch’ not any genuine commitment or interest in National Socialism. (1)
Klebold by comparison was not pro-Hitler or interested in National Socialism in the slightest, but instead appeared to be interested in Marxism and the Soviet Union as a symbol of his own rebellion with a Soviet pin attached to one of his boots during the shooting. (2)
While there is no evidence that Harris had any jewish ancestry; he did have a jewish girlfriend named Sarah Davis. (3)
Not exactly the ‘adherent of Nazism’ that the media likes to imply: was he? (4)
Klebold was from a part-jewish family with his mother Susan Klebold growing up in a mixed jewish-Christian family with her jewish father. (5) Klebold was himself very aware of his jewishness given that he attended family Passover Seders and identified as a jew to Harris (who didn’t seem too bothered by this revelation). (6)
In other words: Eric Harris wasn’t jewish but liked jews - hence the jewish girlfriend and having no issue with Dylan’s jewishness - while Dylan Klebold was an semi-observant jew from a mixed jewish-Christian marriage.
References
(1) Peter Langman, 2010, ‘Influences on the Ideology of Eric Harris’, SchoolShooters.info, p. 3
(2) http://www.acolumbinesite.com/autopsies/dylan2.gif
(3) https://youthjournalism.org/killer-friendship-colorado-shooter-eric-harris-old-middle-school-classmates-remember-normal-kid/
(4) For example: https://www.timesofisrael.com/columbine-shooters-had-tense-moment-over-passover-mother-says/; https://forward.com/news/breaking-news/333862/columbine-shooter-had-jewish-roots-dreaded-passover-seder/
(5) https://forward.com/culture/422806/susan-klebold-doesnt-believe-god-is-watching-over-her-family-anymore/
(6) https://www.timesofisrael.com/columbine-shooters-had-tense-moment-over-passover-mother-says/; https://forward.com/news/breaking-news/333862/columbine-shooter-had-jewish-roots-dreaded-passover-seder/