How Kash Patel used a neo-Nazi stock phrase to honor Charlie Kirk
At a press conference announcing that the suspect in the shooting of Charlie Kirk had been detained, FBI director Kash Patel ended his speech with a personal message to his “brother,” saying: “We have the watch, and I’ll see you in Valhalla.”
Many people commenting on the press conference reacted to this confusing reference to Valhalla with a mixture of amusement and disdain, with some pointing out the contradiction of eulogizing a Christian nationalist with reference to the pagan afterlife.
For scholars of the Vikings, Patel’s reference to Valhalla looked like something far more sinister. To understand why, we need to know both whatValhalla meant to the Vikings, and what it means in political discourse today.
The Norse peoples had a developed concept of the afterlife. The desirable destination for Norse warriors was Valhalla, the hall of the slain, where Odin watched over his band of chosen warriors as they prepared for Ragnarök, the world-destroying battle against the giants. Only those who died a heroic death in combat were brought to Valhalla by the Valkyries.
Those who died by sickness, old age or accident – or who had committed murder and other dishonourable crimes – seem to have been excluded from this martial afterlife. Some believed that you could cheat the Norse gods by arranging to be buried with deliberately worn and damaged weapons as if you had seen heavy combat. There’s a lot we don’t know.
What we do know is that in the 1930s the concept of Valhalla, along with the image of the heroic Viking and many of the symbols of Norse mythology, had a profound appeal to Nazi thought leaders. They looked to Norse mythology as a survival of a wider “Germanic” culture that had been erased by Judeo-Christian dominance.
The Nordic “race” was held up as the Aryan ideal. Norse cultural remnants were used to add legitimacy to the idea of a glorious German past. Heinrich Himmler in particular repurposed Norse symbols for use by the SS.
Today, many white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups continue to brand themselves using a widening range of symbols taken from Norse mythology. One aspect of Norse culture that has gained increasing prominence in the past few decades is the specific co-opting of Valhalla by those who are prepared to kill, and die, in the cause of “protecting” an endangered white supremacy.
The most chilling example of the co-option of the phrase “see you in Valhalla” is found in the manifestos published by far-right terrorists in the wake of their atrocities.
In 2019, Brenton Tarrant carried out mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which 51 people were killed. He published a rambling manifesto in which he attempted to justify his actions, and touted the “great replacement” conspiracy theory which holds that Jewish elites are deliberately engineering the replacement of white populations through immigration.
This has since become a far-right talking point and was pushed by Charlie Kirk on his show. Tarrant signed off his diatribe against multiculturalism and “white genocide” by saying “Goodbye, god bless you all and I will see you in Valhalla.”
Tarrant in turn influenced other far-right terrorists. One such terrorist, Peyton Gendron, was convicted of the Buffalo mass shooting in 2022 in which 10 black Americans were murdered. Gendron plagiarized much of his 180-page manifesto, and similarly ends his screed with the statement: “I hope to see you in Valhalla.”
By invoking Valhalla, these terrorists are attempting to cast themselves as warriors in the Viking tradition. There is, of course, nothing remotely heroic about gunning down unarmed civilians.
But the point is that this reference doesn’t require any understanding of the Norse tradition. In this context it comes directly from the Nazis’ fetishization of violent death to secure the racial purity of Germany.
