We Fight Fascists
We Fight Fascists

Author: Daniel Sonabend

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 2021-05-11

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1788733258

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The “inspiring,” little-known history of the Jewish vigilantes of the 43 Group, who fought fascism in Britain following World War II (Guardian). Returning to civilian life, at the close of the Second World War, a group of Jewish veterans discovered that, for all their effort and sacrifice, their fight was not yet done. Creeping back onto the streets were Britain’s homegrown fascists, directed from the shadows by Sir Oswald Mosley. Horrified that the authorities refused to act, forty-three Jewish ex-servicemen and women resolved to take matters into their own hands. In 1946, they founded the 43 Group and let it be known that they were willing to stop the far-right resurgence by any means necessary. Their numbers quickly swelled. Joining the battle-hardened ex-servicemen in smashing up fascist meetings were younger Jews, including hairdresser Vidal Sassoon, and gentiles as well, some of whom volunteered to infiltrate fascist organizations. The Group published its own newspaper, conducted covert operations, and was able to muster a powerful force of hundreds of fighters who quickly turned fascist street meetings into mass brawls. The struggle peaked in the summer of 1947 with the Battle of Ridley Road, where thousands descended on the Hackney market to participate in weekly riots. The history of the 43 Group is not just a gripping story of a forgotten moment in Britain’s post-war history; it is also a timely lesson in how to confront fascism—and how to win.

Music, Youth and International Links in Post-War British Fascism
Music, Youth and International Links in Post-War British Fascism

Author: Ryan Shaffer

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-09-18

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 3319596683

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This book examines the domestic evolution and international connections of post-war fascists in the UK. It argues that post-war British fascism became transnational as the radicals increasingly exchanged ideas, money and culture with like-minded foreigners. Using interviews with key figures in several countries, this book traces the history of the National Front (NF) and British National Party (BNP), focusing on the political parties’ youth, music and international outreach. It explores how British fascism grew into an international movement, how fascist youth developed skinhead music as a conduit for their ideas, and how some of those key figures made international connections with people in Iraq, Libya, Syria and the United States. Moreover, it also draws from rare internal party documents, law enforcement records and membership lists to track foreign funding and the parties’ domestic electoral growth. For the first time, this book gained access to both the leadership and rank-and-file of the BNP and NF to explore its culture and international connections. In doing so, it shows the successes, failures and changes that have made British fascism a force in the international extremist subculture.

Cultures of Post-War British Fascism
Cultures of Post-War British Fascism

Author: Nigel Copsey

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-04-10

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 1317539370

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In Post-War Britain cultural interventions were a feature of fascist parties and movements, just as they were in Europe. This book makes a new major contribution to existing scholarship which begins to discuss British fascism as a cultural phenomenon. A collection of essays from leading academics, this book uncovers how a cultural struggle lay at the heart of the hegemonic projects of all varieties of British fascism. Such a cultural struggle is enacted and reflected in the text and talk, music and literature of British fascism. Where other published works have examined the cultural visions of British fascism during the inter-war period, this book is the first to dedicate itself to detailed critical analysis of the post-war cultural landscapes of British fascism. Through discussions of cultural phenomena such as folk music, fashion and neo-nazi fiction, among others, Cultures of Post-War British Fascism builds a picture of Post-War Britain which emphasises the importance of understanding these politics with reference to their corresponding cultural output. This book is essential reading for undergraduates and postgraduates studying far right politics and British history.

Mussolini's War
Mussolini's War

Author: John Gooch

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2020-12-01

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 164313549X

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A remarkable new history evoking the centrality of Italy to World War II, outlining the brief rise and triumph of the Fascists, followed by the disastrous fall of the Italian military campaign. While staying closely aligned with Hitler, Mussolini remained carefully neutral until the summer of 1940. At that moment, with the wholly unexpected and sudden collapse of the French and British armies, Mussolini declared war on the Allies in the hope of making territorial gains in southern France and Africa. This decision proved a horrifying miscalculation, dooming Italy to its own prolonged and unwinnable war, immense casualties, and an Allied invasion in 1943 that ushered in a terrible new era for the country. John Gooch's new history is the definitive account of Italy's war experience. Beginning with the invasion of Abyssinia and ending with Mussolini's arrest, Gooch brilliantly portrays the nightmare of a country with too small an industrial sector, too incompetent a leadership and too many fronts on which to fight. Everywhere—whether in the USSR, the Western Desert, or the Balkans—Italian troops found themselves against either better-equipped or more motivated enemies. The result was a war entirely at odds with the dreams of pre-war Italian planners—a series of desperate improvisations against an allied force who could draw on global resources, and against whom Italy proved helpless.

The Pope and Mussolini
The Pope and Mussolini

Author: David I. Kertzer

Publisher:

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 587

ISBN-13: 0198716168

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The compelling story of Pope Pius XI's secret relations with Benito Mussolini. A ground-breaking work, based on seven years of research in the Vatican and Fascist archives by US National Book Award-finalist David Kertzer, it will forever change our understanding of the Vatican's role in the rise of Fascism in Europe.

British Fascism After the Holocaust
British Fascism After the Holocaust

Author: Joe Mulhall

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-10-21

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 042984025X

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This book explores the policies and ideologies of a number of individuals and groups who attempted to relaunch fascist, antisemitic and racist politics in the wake of World War II and the Holocaust. Despite the leading architects of fascism being dead and the newsreel footage of Jewish bodies being pushed into mass graves seared into societal consciousness, fascism survived World War II and, though changed, survives to this day. Britain was the country that ‘stood alone’ against fascism, but it was no exception. This book treads new historical ground and shines a light onto the most understudied period of British fascism, whilst simultaneously adding to our understanding of the evolving ideology of fascism, the persistent nature of antisemitism and the blossoming of Britain’s anti-immigration movement. This book will primarily appeal to scholars and students with an interest in the history of fascism, antisemitism and the Holocaust, racism, immigration and postwar Britain.

The Oxford Handbook of European History, 1914-1945
The Oxford Handbook of European History, 1914-1945

Author: Nicholas Doumanis

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 673

ISBN-13: 0199695660

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The period spanning the two World Wars was unquestionably the most catastrophic in Europe's history. Despite such undeniably progressive developments as the radical expansion of women's suffrage and rising health standards, the era was dominated by political violence and chronic instability. Its symbols were Verdun, Guernica, and Auschwitz. By the end of this dark period, tens of millions of Europeans had been killed and more still had been displaced and permanently traumatized. If the nineteenth century gave Europeans cause to regard the future with a sense of optimism, the early twentieth century had them anticipating the destruction of civilization. The fact that so many revolutions, regime changes, dictatorships, mass killings, and civil wars took place within such a compressed time frame suggests that Europe experienced a general crisis. The Oxford Handbook of European History, 1914-1945 reconsiders the most significant features of this calamitous age from a transnational perspective. It demonstrates the degree to which national experiences were intertwined with those of other nations, and how each crisis was implicated in wider regional, continental, and global developments. Readers will find innovative and stimulating chapters on various political, social, and economic subjects by some of the leading scholars working on modern European history today.

The New Faces of Fascism
The New Faces of Fascism

Author: Enzo Traverso

Publisher: Verso Books

Published: 2019-01-29

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1788730461

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What is fascism in the twenty first century? What does Fascism mean at the beginning of the twenty-first century? When we pronounce this word, our memory goes back to the years between the two world wars and envisions a dark landscape of violence, dictatorships, and genocide. These images spontaneously surface in the face of the rise of radical right, racism, xenophobia, islamophobia and terrorism, the last of which is often depicted as a form of "Islamic fascism." Beyond some superficial analogies, however, all these contemporary tendencies reveal many differences from historical fascism, probably greater than their affinities. Paradoxically, the fear of terrorism nourishes the populist and racist rights, with Marine Le Pen in France or Donald Trump in the US claiming to be the most effective ramparts against "Jihadist fascism". But since fascism was a product of imperialism, can we define as fascist a terrorist movement whose main target is Western domination? Disentangling these contradictory threads, Enzo Traverso's historical gaze helps to decipher the enigmas of the present. He suggests the concept of post-fascism--a hybrid phenomenon, neither the reproduction of old fascism nor something completely different--to define a set of heterogeneous and transitional movements, suspended between an accomplished past still haunting our memories and an unknown future.

The Anatomy of Fascism
The Anatomy of Fascism

Author: Robert O. Paxton

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2007-12-18

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 0307428125

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What is fascism? By focusing on the concrete: what the fascists did, rather than what they said, the esteemed historian Robert O. Paxton answers this question. From the first violent uniformed bands beating up “enemies of the state,” through Mussolini’s rise to power, to Germany’s fascist radicalization in World War II, Paxton shows clearly why fascists came to power in some countries and not others, and explores whether fascism could exist outside the early-twentieth-century European setting in which it emerged. "A deeply intelligent and very readable book. . . . Historical analysis at its best." –The Economist The Anatomy of Fascism will have a lasting impact on our understanding of modern European history, just as Paxton’s classic Vichy France redefined our vision of World War II. Based on a lifetime of research, this compelling and important book transforms our knowledge of fascism–“the major political innovation of the twentieth century, and the source of much of its pain.”

The Fruits of Fascism
The Fruits of Fascism

Author: Simon Reich

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2018-08-06

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 1501732153

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The West German "economic miracle," Simon Reich suggests, may be best understood as a result of the discriminatory economic policies of the Nazi regime. Reich contends that ideological and institutional characteristics originating under fascism were sustained despite Germany's return to democracy and heavily influenced the economic success of its automobile industry. By contrast, the liberal economic policies of the British state led in time to the decline of an industrial sector that in 1930 had closely resembled its German counterpart. Through detailed comparative histories of German and British automobile firms, Reich challenges traditional explanations of the divergent performances of the two nations' economies and sheds new light on the relationship between state policy and economic success in pre- and postwar Europe. Liberal, nondiscriminatory British policies favorable to multinational investment contributed significantly to the decline of domestic firms, he argues, so that eventually multinationals could threaten the health of the entire British economy by investing elsewhere. The Nazi state, however, thwarted the development of American subsidiaries and fostered a core of producers, government officials, bankers, and labor union leaders.