Alexander Rud Mills (15 July 1885 – 8 April 1964) was an Australian barrister and writer, interned in 1942 for his Nazi sympathies and fascist beliefs.

[1] He was the son of Annie Elizabeth (née Vertigan) and Alexander Rudd Mills; his father was a farmer.

[citation needed] Mills eventually moved to Victoria to enrol at Melbourne University Law School.

[7] Although already reactionary in nature, he claimed to have become disillusioned with communism, which he had come to view as a form of organised thuggery, during his trip to Russia.

He told an undercover agent the following year that this 'religion' was a front which allowed him to pursue his dedication to fascism without fear of prosecution.

He established two short-lived newspapers, the National Socialist and The Angle, as vehicles through which to espouse his racist, pseudo-religious and political views.

During wartime investigations into his views during the 1930s, it was established that he owned an autographed photograph of Julius Streicher, publisher of Der Stürmer.

[17] In 1941, he became associated with the anti-War, pro-Isolationist Australia First Movement and contributed to its newspaper The Publicist,[18] which, before 1939, had described itself as being "for national socialism" and "for Aryanism; against semitism",[19] and which was the mouthpiece for William John Miles, a leading member of the Rationalist Society.

[21] His platform included increased pay for soldiers, additional war service homes for returned soldiers, government control of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia to "control all Australian loans and cheapen money to encourage young people to marry and rear families".

[25] Barbara Winter shows that, in fact, he fully supported Australia First's position, read its publications and was convinced of the idea of a widespread Jewish conspiracy; he believed, for instance, that former Australian prime minister William Hughes was half-Jewish and that Chiang Kai Shek was a prominent freemason and therefore in the thrall of 'Jewish Christianity'.

[26] Major Edward Hattam of the Commonwealth Investigation Branch later testified that he believed "Mills had views leaning somewhat toward Nazi ideology.

Peter Henderson, writing of Australian Nazi sympathisers of the 20th century, suggests that his Australia First association was not the reason for Mills' internment: "Mills was interned primarily for leading the Odinist cult in Victoria, as well as for receiving 'substantial sums from unknown sources' and for his links with German and British Nazi groups.

"[29] In Federal Parliament on 30 March 1944 Robert Menzies, then leader of the opposition, said of Mills, "I happen to know him quite well, because he went through the university at the same time as I did... he was hauled out of his home, imprisoned and put in an internment camp... his association, so I am informed, with the Australia First Movement amounted to this: some man who had secured appointment with the movement wrote to him and asked him to subscribe, and he forward 10s 6d.

"[30] Having formulated "his own unique blend" of Ariosophy,[31] he drew heavily on writings of pioneering Austrian Ariosophist and Wotanist Guido von List.

[32] For Mills, Odin represented an archetypal father figure, with other deities from Norse mythology, such as Thor and Frigg, having minor roles.

"[41]control the media: "... in our newspapers, colleges, wireless and the like news-services (even when not directly controlled Jews [sic]) ... the word 'Jew' is only spoken with circumspection ..."[42]and dominate Freemasonry: "[Freemasonry has] been seriously affected by reason of the pervading Jewish culture, which war against our national and racial identity ... and the Jewish racial spirit ... and the denial of our own.

Bruce Muirden relates that Mills continued to pursue compensation for his internment in the 1940s for long after his release and threatened to write about his experiences, 'still talking about a book' in 1961.

Curiously, considering Mills' avowed rejection of Christianity, and his wife's status as an 'Odinist of many years' standing',[50] both are buried in the Church of England section of the Cemetery.

'[52] Writing in the Australian Religion Studies Journal, A. Asbjørn Jøn characterised Mills as "obscure yet important", having played a "very significant role" in the development of Norse-oriented Neopaganism.

[54] Christensen subsequently established the Odinist Fellowship in 1969, then based from her mobile home in Crystal River, Florida.

[55] According to Australian historian of the far right, Kristy Campion, the Odinist religion had more influence in the United States than in Mills' native Australia.