The shadow of Fascism over Europe's Far Right

Austria, Germany, Italy: Is the Far Right's link to WW2 inevitable?

Whenever the Far Right wins in Europe, the headlines write themselves. It’s a bit like that sketch from Fawlty Towers - sometimes you just can’t help but mention the war. Here’s exhibit A from Politico:

AUSTRIA GOES BACK TO THE FUTURE AS VOTERS EMBRACE PARTY FOUNDED BY NAZIS

The story behind the headline is that Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ) - with its anti-migrant, Eurosceptic and pro-Russian ideology - has just emerged as the biggest winner from the country’s national election. This doesn’t necessarily mean it will be able to form a government but it’s a big shift for Austria regardless.

The Nazi link in the headline is, unfortunately, far from sensationalist. Here’s the history lesson from Politico: “The FPÖ was founded in the 1950s by former members of the SS and other Nazi formations. Its leader, Herbert Kickl promised followers that if he won, he would rule as their Volkskanzler, or “people’s chancellor,” a term once used by Adolf Hitler.”

Austria is, of course, the birthplace of Adolf Hitler.

This election result is another jolt to the right for Europe. And the FPÖ is not the first winner among parties rooted in Nazi and Fascist ideology.

Whereas it’s unlikely that the FPÖ will be able to form a government, Giorgia Meloni has been Italy’s Prime Minister for nearly two years. Her party, Brothers of Italy, emerged as the biggest single party and formed a governing coalition with the League of Matteo Salvini and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia. Unlike its coalition partners, Brothers of Italy has a direct link to the MSI, the Movimento Sociale Italiano, a party that was formed by former fascists after the end of WW2. The MSI emblem of the tricolour flame is still part of the Brothers of Italy party’s symbol today.

When Giorgia Meloni won Italy’s general election in September 2022 (September must obviously be a propitious election month for the far right) every headline was a version of either “most far-right government since Mussolini” or “winning party founded by post-war neo-fascists.”

This September was also the month when Germany’s ghosts from the past seemed to re-emerge. The (far-right, extreme right, neo-nazi, anti-immigration, insert your definer here) AFD - Alternative for Germany - party won the highest share of the vote in state elections in the Eastern German state of Thuringia, and came a close second in Saxony. Even though the party lost last week to Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD party in the Brandenburg state elections, the overall results are still hugely symbolic in the birthplace of Nazism.

Sign at an anti far-right protest in front of the Reichstag in January 2024. It reads “Voting AFD is so 1933”.

I was on air the day of the Thuringia vote. Before the results, we were opening the news programmes with this headline: “Far Right set to win state elections in Germany for the first time since the Second World War”. The headline became more explicit once the results came in: “The Far Right is the main party in the eastern German State of Thuringia since the Nazis.”

The results in Austria and Germany are further proof, as if it were needed, of a surge in Far Right sentiment in Europe. I usually try to resist lumping all of these parties together, though there are obvious common threads between them - a strong anti-immigration stance being one. They also all have echoes of historical fascism and nazism.

But is that echo of the horrors of history inevitable? After all, one thing is an anti-migration ideology, whether you agree with it or not. Quite another is echoing statements and language from the fascist and nazi era, which some members of all those parties have done.

The AFD is a particularly interesting case. Unlike Brothers of Italy with fascism, the AFD does not have its roots in neonazism. Björn Höcke, who leads the party in the state of Thuringia, has twice been found guilty of using a Nazi slogan. However, the AFD was founded in 2013 as an anti-Euro party, by supporters angered by the Eurozone debt crisis and the bailouts given to weakened economies like Greece, Spain and Portugal. A contentious position perhaps, but not one that could be called Far Right. So what changed? And was that change, that drift to the echoes of neo-nazism within the party, inevitable?

I spoke about it with Professor Kai Arzheimer, an expert on the Far Right from the Political Science Department of the University of Mainz, in Germany. For those of you who can still stomach X, his timeline is very interesting and goes beyond the obvious analysis of the Far/Extreme/Radical right in Europe.

So that’s the specific question I put to him. After all, there is strong anti-immigrant sentiment in American and British politics too, but it very rarely openly descends into neo-nazi rhetoric.

Is it then inevitable that in countries with a history of fascism and nazism far-right parties are tainted by the language and attitudes of their dictatorial past?

Kai doesn’t think the neo-nazi link is inevitable to the AFD’s electoral appeal, but there are reasons why the echo of nazism often rears its head.

“Some people in the AFD are more than just anti-immigration. They are racists who really buy into the race replacement conspiracy, they believe there is an existential struggle between the ‘white’ race and everyone else. So they are driven by their political convictions… and they have become a leading faction within the party. Not everyone within the party buys into this radical ideology, but many moderates have left the AFD in recent years. So the immigration issue is central.”

“The Nazi stuff is important for some, but for others it’s seen as a provocation, because the whole raison d’être of Western Germany was NOT being Nazi Germany. So if you really want to stick to the elites, do a Hitler salute (which is illegal in Germany). It’s seen as a provocation. And that’s part of the attraction.”

Like a rebellion? I asked.

“Exactly. It’s also tied to the history of the Eastern states. For the German Democratic Republic, it’s in the first article of their constitution that they’re an anti-fascist state.”

“So if you felt rebellious in the GDR, you could develop an interest in Nazism. It would be a way of rebelling against the old order and the new order all at once, by joining a neo-nazi group. Eventually along that journey you could become a proper neo-nazi, but I think many started the journey as something that was rebellious and exciting.”

I find Kai’s point really interesting. The idea that showing sympathies for historical nazism and fascism is ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT in nations, like Germany and Italy, whose modern post-war incarnations are literally founded on their anti-nazi and anti-fascist identities.

But it might mean that at a time of rising populism and growing anti-establishment sentiments in Europe, we may see more and more sympathetic nods to one of the darkest chapters of the Continent’s history.