British Couple Who Named Son After Hitler Were Members Of A Terrorist Group

Image by Getty Images
(JTA) — A neo-Nazi couple in Britain who named their baby after Hitler were found guilty of being members of a banned terrorist group.
Adam Thomas, 22, and Claudia Patatas, 38, were convicted on Monday in Birmingham Crown Court in Britain’s West Midlands region for being members of the extreme right-wing organization, National Action. The group was banned in 2016.
The couple had given their baby son the middle name Adolf out of “admiration for the Nazi leader,” Thomas told the jury during the seven-week trial.
Photographs taken by police from their home showed Thomas, who had worked as a security guard, carefully holding his newborn baby while wearing the hood and white robes associated with the Ku Klux Klan.
Thomas also was convicted of having a terrorist manual, titled the “Anarchist’s Cookbook,” which contained instructions on making actual working bombs.
During the trial Thomas admitted to being a racist, but said it is “something I want to put behind me,” the Guardian reported. He said that his parents were “common racists” and that his participation in chat groups where he had made anti-Semitic and racist remarks to other alleged National Action members “was entertaining to me at the time. It was funny at the time.”
Six other West Midlands residents also have been found guilty of being members of the banned extremist group in recent days. The National Action cell displayed hatred of Jews and Muslims in their encrypted online chats, according to The Guardian.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 3
Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
- 4
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history.
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Trump administration restores student visas, but impact on pro-Palestinian protesters is unclear
-
Fast Forward Deborah Lipstadt says Trump’s campus antisemitism crackdown has ‘gone way too far’
-
Fast Forward 5 Jewish senators accuse Trump of using antisemitism as ‘guise’ to attack universities
-
Fast Forward Jewish Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky reportedly to retire after 26 years in office
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.