James von Brunn, the 88 year-old white supremacist accused of killing a security officer at the U.S. Holocaust Museum on June 10, believes bizarre conspiracy theories.

On May 12, 2008, von Brunn wrote on his “arsenal of hypocrisy” blog that Hitler’s “worst mistake” was that “he didn’t gas the Jews.”

The Jews also secretly control the Catholic Church, according to von Brunn. It’s impossible to reason with such nonsensical hatred.

Von Brunn had spent six years in prison for attempted kidnapping and other crimes. In 1981, he entered the Federal Reserve’s Washington headquarters armed with “a pistol, a shotgun, a knife and an imitation bomb.” Von Brunn explains on his Web site, Holy Western Empire, that he had “attempted to place the treasonous Federal Reserve Board of Governors under legal, non-violent, citizens arrest.”

Stephen Tyrone Johns, the 39 year-old African-American security guard whom von Brunn allegedly shot, was described by friends and family as a “gentle giant” known for his “quiet, friendly nature.” Von Brunn expressed hatred for African-Americans as well as Jews.

Johns had opened the door of the museum for von Brunn as he approached, reportedly with a rifle hidden at his side. He allegedly shot Johns at close range in the chest.

Johns had an 11 year-old son, Stephen Jr., and had recently remarried.

His son said, “He was a pretty great guy and he was always there for me when I was down or sad.”

Other security guards at the museum shot von Brunn, before he was able to shoot others. He remains in critical condition.

Color me grumpy. I went to the U.S. Holocaust Museum last week to see their exhibit “State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda.” It was visually impressive, but I was disappointed.

What interests me most about Nazi propaganda is how was Hitler able to strike a responsive chord in the German people, enabling him to rise from obscurity to winning 37% of the German vote in 1932. He was undoubtedly a brilliant demagogue, but how was he able to sway so many?

I would have liked to learn more about how Hitler played upon the powerful emotions of the time: German feelings about defeat in World War I (with Russia decisively defeated by German arms and no Western armies on German soil); the role Germany saw itself rightfully playing in Europe and the world, the threat of Bolshevism (which was intense in the 1920s); the ruinous post-World War I hyperinflation; the harsh impositions of the Versailles Treaty; the failure of the Weimar Republic; and economic depression. The exhibit has a little about the stab-in-the-back theory, but I would have liked to know more about how Hitler artfully played on German resentments and aspirations.

There’s a great deal in the exhibit on anti-Semitism, as would be expected, but little on how widespread anti-Semitism was in Europe. I remember once looking through a 19th century edition of Grimm’s Fairy Tales and seeing the unfamiliar story “The Jew in the Brambles,” in which a stereotypical dishonest, thieving Jew is hanged. A bit more on the pervasiveness of anti-Semitism in Europe in the 1930s might help explain the power of Nazi propaganda.

There was also a reference to allied atrocity propaganda in World War I as a precursor to Nazi propaganda, but no such references to Soviet propaganda, which seems a better fit to me. The exhibit notes that one popular Nazi slogan was “Work, Freedom, and Bread,” which is strikingly similar to the 1917 Bolshevik slogan “Peace, Land, and Bread.”