The NRP was founded in January 1949 by James Madole through the merger of several earlier American fascist organizations. Its headquarters were in the Yorkville area of New York City. The NRP was named for a phrase from the Last will and testament of Adolf Hitler, which stated that "I die with a happy heart aware there will spring up...the seed of a radiant renaissance of the National Socialist movement." By 1954, government investigators, although unable to determine the exact size of the party, estimated its membership to be between 200 and 700, although historian John George thought that NRP membership never exceeded 50 at any given time. The group also had an "elite Security Echelon," headed in the 1960s by covertly Jewish United Klans of America leader and Odinist Dan Burros, who killed himself on the same day in 1965 that his ethnicity was revealed by "The New York Times". By 1963 Madole was running the party out of his apartment at 10 West 90th Street.