Fascism was one of the defining experiences of the European 20th Century. Within it many of the economic, political, social and cultural contradictions that had been brewing in the unprecedented transformation that European society underwent in the 19th and early 20th century came to a head. Mussolini, the man who most fashioned Italian Fascism, dramatically expressed the unease and the hopes of his age. To what extent can we compare Mussolini's Italy to Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia? What legacy has the experience of Fascism left behind in Italy and in Europe? These and many more important questions are explored in Finaldi's introduction to one of the most important movements of the European 20th Century.

Originally published in hardback only in 1987, Michael Freeman's valuable guide to the history of Nazi Germany now returns to print in a substantially revised Second Edition. Dealing with all aspects of the Nazi regime, it is far more than just an atlas: the integration of the maps themselves with charts and other visually-displayed data, and an extensive and authoritative commentary, makes this a book to read as well as to refer to.

This examination of Hitler's stormtroopers provides vital insights into the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the establishment of the Nazi state. Drawing on a wide range of archival sources and extensive biographical material left by the stormtroopers themselves, the author challenges the belief that Hitler's SA was predominantly lower-middle

This book is a sequel to Richard Griffiths's two highly successful previous books on the British pro-Nazi Right, Fellow Travellers of the Right: British Enthusiasts for Nazi Germany 1933-39 and Patriotism Perverted: Captain Ramsay, the Right Club and British Anti-Semitism 1939-1940. It follows the fortunes of his protagonists after the arrests of May-June 1940, and charts their very varied reactions to the failure of their cause, while also looking at the possible reasons for the Government's failure to detain prominent pro-Nazis from the higher strata of society. Some of the pro-Nazis continued with their original views, and even undertook politically subversive activity, here and in Germany. Others, finding that their pre-war balance between patriotism and pro-Nazism had now tipped firmly on the side of patriotism, fully supported the war effort, while still maintaining their old views privately. Other people found that events had made them change their views sincerely. And then there were those who, frightened by the prospect of detention or disgrace, tried to hide or even to deny their former views by a variety of subterfuges, including attacking former colleagues. This wide variety of reactions sheds new light on the equally wide range of reasons for their original admiration for Nazism, and also gives us some more general insight into what could be termed 'the psychology of failure'.

When originally published in 1991, this book was the first systematic, detailed evaluation of the social structure of the Nazi Party in several regions of Germany during its so-called Kampfzeit phase. Based on extensive archival material, much of it left untouched since the end of the war until Detlef Muhlberger uncovered it, the book demonstrates that the Nazi Party and its major auxiliaries, the SA and the SS mobilized support which was remarkably heterogeneous in social terms. The author reveals that in addition to followers from the middle and upper social classes the Nazi Party enjoyed strong support among the lower class and it was indeed, as it claimed to be a people's party, or Volkspartei.

The life of Jorian Jenks (1899-1963) has great potential to upset settled assumptions. Why did a sensitive and intelligent man from a liberal family become a fascist? How did a Blackshirt go green? The son of an eminent academic, from his childhood onwards Jenks instead longed to farm. Lacking the means to do so, he worked as a farm bailiff and then, in New Zealand, as a government agricultural instructor. Finally, a legacy permitted him to come home and become a tenant farmer. Struggling to survive in the economic depression of the 1930s, he became an author and activist for rural reconstruction. Then, having lost faith in the established parties, he joined the British Union of Fascists. Becoming one of the Blackshirts' leading figures, he was imprisoned without trial during the war. On his release, Jenks returned to the struggle, this time in the cause of ecology, becoming a pioneer of today's organic movement and a founder of the Soil Association. This book draws on an extensive range of sources, a large proportion of which were previously unseen by historians. For the first time, it portrays the private and public life of this unusual man, revealing many hitherto un-glimpsed facets of Jenks' life.

The ever-growing library on the history of eugenics and fascism focuses largely on nation-states, while Georgescu asks why an ethnic minority, the German-speaking Transylvanian Saxons, turned to eugenics as a means of self-empowerment in inter-war Romania. The Eugenic Fortress examines the eugenic movement that emerged in the early twentieth century, and focuses on its conceptual and methodological evolution during this turbulent period. Further on, the book analyzes the gradual process of radicalising and politicization by a second generation of Saxon eugenicists in conjunction with the rise of an equally indigenous fascist movement. The Saxon case-study offers valuable insights into why an ethnic minority would seek to re-entrench itself behind the race-hygienic walls of a 'eugenic fortress', as well as the influence that home nations had upon its design. Georgescu's work is ground-breaking in the sense that the history of this uprooted community is usually handled with extreme sensitivity and serious (and critical) research into Transylvanian Saxon involvement with Nazism has been scant, until now.

Young Germany explores the revolt of the younger generation in Germany from 1896 to 1933. It is a readable history of the Free Youth Movement, one of the most significant factors in shaping modern Germany. Laqueur, who grew up in Germany, retraces the history of the movement, its central ideas, and its cultural background.

Today his study is of even greater interest and importance than when it was first published in 1962. In his new introduction to this edition, Laqueur shows that the German Youth Movement can be seen as a precursor of contemporary youth revolt. It inspired all of the ideas which continue to preoccupy proponents and students of generational conflict today.

Searching for Lord Haw-Haw is an authoritative account of the political lives of William Joyce. He became notorious as a fascist, an anti-Semite and then as a Second World War traitor when, assuming the persona of Lord Haw-Haw, he acted as a radio propagandist for the Nazis. It is an endlessly compelling story of simmering hope, intense frustration, renewed anticipation and ultimately catastrophic failure. This fully-referenced work is the first attempt to place Joyce at the centre of the turbulent, traumatic and influential events through which he lived. It challenges existing biographies, which have reflected not only Joyce's frequent calculated deceptions but also the suspect claims advanced by his family, friends and apologists. By exploring his rampant, increasingly influential narcissism it also offers a pioneering analysis of Joyce's personality and exposes its dangerous, destructive consequences. "What a saga my life would make!" Joyce wrote from prison just before his execution. Few would disagree with him.

Anti-fascism has long been one of the most active and dynamic areas of radical protest and direct action. Yet it is an area of struggle and popular resistance that remains largely unexplored by historians, sociologists and political scientists. Fully revised and updated from its earlier edition, this book continues to provide the definitive account of anti-fascism in Britain from its roots in the 1930s opposition to Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists, to the street demonstrations and online campaigns of the twenty-first century. The author draws on an impressive range of sources including official government, police and security services records, the writings and recollections of activists themselves, and the publications and propaganda of anti-fascist groups and their opponents. The book traces the ideological, tactical and organisational evolution of anti-fascist groups and explores their often complicated relationships with the mainstream and radical left, as well as assessing their effectiveness in combating the extreme right.

This book is a sequel to Richard Griffiths's two highly successful previous books on the British pro-Nazi Right, Fellow Travellers of the Right: British Enthusiasts for Nazi Germany 1933-39 and Patriotism Perverted: Captain Ramsay, the Right Club and British Anti-Semitism 1939-1940. It follows the fortunes of his protagonists after the arrests of May-June 1940, and charts their very varied reactions to the failure of their cause, while also looking at the possible reasons for the Government's failure to detain prominent pro-Nazis from the higher strata of society. Some of the pro-Nazis continued with their original views, and even undertook politically subversive activity, here and in Germany. Others, finding that their pre-war balance between patriotism and pro-Nazism had now tipped firmly on the side of patriotism, fully supported the war effort, while still maintaining their old views privately. Other people found that events had made them change their views sincerely. And then there were those who, frightened by the prospect of detention or disgrace, tried to hide or even to deny their former views by a variety of subterfuges, including attacking former colleagues. This wide variety of reactions sheds new light on the equally wide range of reasons for their original admiration for Nazism, and also gives us some more general insight into what could be termed 'the psychology of failure'.

Drawing on a mixed research methodology with a strong qualitative character, this book traces the political impact of the British National Party in the UK, the Front National in France and the Lega Nord in Italy by exploring their contagion effects on immigration politics and policy in particular over the patterns of inter-party competition, public behaviour and policy developments. This book suggests that extreme right party impact on immigration politics and policy is an outcome of the extreme right parties' electoral threats to established parties alongside the agency of mainstream political elites. It also highlights the decline in the intensity of extreme right parties' contagion effects on public attitudes to immigration throughout the late 2000s or the potential overstatement of this political process in the past. Featuring detailed case studies of the UK, France and Italy as three mature multi-party democracies where the extreme right was on the rise during the past decade, this work will be of great interest to students and scholars of populism, extremism, European politics and comparative and party politics.

This is a truly unique account of Nazi Germany at war and of one man's struggle against totalitarianism. A mid-level official in a provincial town, Friedrich Kellner kept a secret diary from 1939 to 1945, risking his life to record Germany's path to dictatorship and genocide, and to protest his countrymen's complicity in the regime's brutalities. Just one month into the war he notes how soldiers on leave spoke openly about the extermination of the Jews and the murder of POWs, while he also documents the Gestapo's merciless rule at home from euthanasia campaigns against the handicapped and mentally ill to the execution of anyone found listening to foreign broadcasts. This essential testimony of everyday life under the Third Reich is accompanied by a foreword by Alan Steinweis and the remarkable story of how the diary was brought to light by Robert Scott Kellner, Friedrich's grandson.

From its creation in 1950, to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the German Democratic Republic's Ministry for State Security closely monitored its nation's citizens. Known as the Staatssicherheit or Stasi, this organization was regarded as one of the most repressive intelligence agencies in the world. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's 2006 film The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) has received international acclaim -- including an Academy Award, an Independent Spirit Award, and multiple German Film Awards -- for its moving portrayal of East German life under the pervasive surveillance of the Stasi.

In Totalitarianism on Screen, political theorists Carl Eric Scott and F. Flagg Taylor IV assemble top scholars to analyze the film from philosophical and political perspectives. Their essays confront the nature and legacy of East Germany's totalitarian government and outline the reasons why such regimes endure.

Other than magazine and newspaper reviews, little has been written about The Lives of Others. This volume brings German scholarship on the topic to an English-speaking audience for the first time and explores the issue of government surveillance at a time when the subject is often front-page news. Featuring contributions from German president Joachim Gauck, prominent singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann, journalists Paul Hockenos and Lauren Weiner, and noted scholars Paul Cantor and James Pontuso, Totalitarianism on Screen contributes to the growing scholarship on totalitarianism and will interest historians, political theorists, philosophers, and fans of the film.

Over half a century after the defeat of the Third Reich, the complexities of Nazi ideology are still being unravelled. This text is a serious attempt to identify these ideological origins. It demonstrates the way in which Nazism was influenced by powerful occult and millenarian sects that thrived in Germany and Austria at the turn of the century. Their ideas and symbols filtered through to nationalist-racist groups associated with the infant Nazi party and their fantasies were played out with terrifying consequences in the Third Reich: Auschwitz, Sobibor and Treblinka are the hellish museums of the Nazi apocalypse. This bizarre and fascinating story contains lessons we cannot afford to ignore.

This book, first published in 1973, sets out to clear away many of the confused ideas and misconceptions concerning the origins and nature of fascism. The first section deals with the intellectual origins of fascism and examines the constituent strands and development of fascist theory, including discussion of such topics as the myth of race, the idea of the elite and the leader, nationalism, and the influence of militarism. The book then goes on to look at fascism in action, particularly in relation to economic affairs. The author here examines the process by which the fascists came to power in Germany and Italy, investigating both the political and social causes. A third section contains discussion of the nature of more recent regimes in Greece, Latin America and Africa.

What was fascism, why did it gain support between the wars, and could it happen again? This collection of essays, published in 1981, by leading authorities on the subject, offers a comprehensive study of European fascism, with a detailed analysis of its roots, its extraordinary strength between the two world wars, and its prospects in modern Europe. The essays discuss the economic, political and social conditions out of which individual fascist movements arose, the crucial problem of why a few fascist parties succeeded but most failed. The essays on Italy, Germany and Spain examine the continuities and contradictions between the fascist movements in opposition and the fascist regimes in power. The introductory and conclusive essays are concerned with the overall problem of the historical nature of the fascist phenomenon, but all the papers address themselves directly to this theme, testing the generalizations made by social scientists against the historical experiences of individual countries. Besides Italy and Germany, which harboured the major fascist movements, the countries discussed range from those with traditional parliamentary democracies - such as England, France, Belgium and Norway - to the new states which emerged from the collapse of the central European empires, such as Austria, Hungary, Romania and Poland. Originally published in 1968 under the title European Fascism, this survey acquired a worldwide reputation for its excellent and wide-ranging account of the history, role and functions of fascism in Europe. The present edition contains six new or wholly re-written essays and three substantially revised ones.

Adolf Hitler is perceived to be the most evil political leader of twentieth-century Europe. By presenting a critical selection of primary source material this book examines Hitler's background and involvement in the rise of National Socialism, the government of the Third Reich, leadership of the Second World War in Germany and his psychology, to discuss Hitler's credentials as a revolutionary.
This volume includes examination of:
* the general characteristics of revolutions and revolutionaries
* Hitler as agitator, dictator, deceiver and warlord
* Hitler's architectural and artistic ambitions
* Hitler's mind and personality.
Hitler investigates what it was that motivated this national leader to commit such monstrosities which still cast a shadow over Europe today.

This set gathers together a collection of out-of-print titles, all classics in their field. Reissued for the first time in some years, they offer an insightful reference resource to a variety of topics. From Professor Colin Holmes's groundbreaking studies of racism in British society, to Professor Kitchen's analysis of the rise of fascism in pre-war Austria, these books shed much light on society's recent dark past.

Alarmed by a growing Muslim population and a reputedly weak imperial administration, European settlers in Algeria in the early twentieth century increasingly turned to fascism in order to seize power and create an authoritarian regime. This study investigates the extreme-rightist leagues that arose in this context, with particular attention to the rabid xenophobia directed at local Jews and Muslims, who were derisively branded '"indigenes"' and cast as anti-colonial and left-wing actors. In their attempts to preserve European hegemony and a subjugated pool of unskilled labor, these groups helped to cement a clear racial hierarchy and definitively shaped Algeria's colonial history.

The story of how Germans came to embrace the Third Reich. Germany in early 1933 was a country ravaged by years of economic depression and increasingly polarized between the extremes of left and right. Over the spring of that year, Germany was transformed from a republic, albeit a seriously faltering one, into a one-party dictatorship. In Hitler's First Hundred Days, award-winning historian Peter Fritzsche examines the pivotal moments during this fateful period in which the Nazis apparently won over the majority of Germans to join them in their project to construct the Third Reich. Fritzsche scrutinizes the events of the period - the elections and mass arrests, the bonfires and gunfire, the patriotic rallies and anti-Jewish boycotts - to understand both the terrifying power that the National Socialists came to exert over ordinary Germans and the powerful appeal of the new era that they promised.

We know a lot about the sociology of fascism, but how have sociologists responded to fascism when confronted with it in their own lives? How courageous or compromising have they been? And why has this history been shrouded in silence for so long? In this major work of historical scholarship sociologists from around the world describe and evaluate the reactions of sociologists to the rise and practice of fascism.

France and Fascism: February 1934 and the Dynamics of Political Crisis is the first English-language book to examine the most significant political event in interwar France: the Paris riots of February 1934. On 6 February 1934, thousands of fascist rioters almost succeeded in bringing down the French democratic regime. The violence prompted the polarisation of French politics as hundreds of thousands of French citizens joined extreme right-wing paramilitary leagues or the left-wing Popular Front coalition. This 'French civil war', the first shots of which were fired in February 1934, would come to an end only at the Liberation of France ten years later. The book challenges the assumption that the riots did not pose a serious threat to French democracy by providing a more balanced historical contextualisation of the events. Each chapter follows a distinctive analytical framework, incorporating the latest research in the field on French interwar politics as well as important new investigations into political violence and the dynamics of political crisis. With a direct focus on the actual processes of the unfolding political crisis and the dynamics of the riots themselves, France and Fascism offers a comprehensive analysis which will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as scholars, in the areas of French history and politics, and fascism and the far right.

Exploring how the boundary between the extremist far right and centre-right parties and politics became blurred, Normalization of the Global Far Right: Pandemic Disruption deconstructs one of the most pressing issues of today: the rise of the far right. Taking a critical look at the 'normalisation' of far-right thinking underpinned by gendered racisms, Vieten and Poynting trace the emergence of transnational far right populist movements and how these have been shaped by European colonialism, white supremacy, and ideological legacies of the Empire alike.