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Reflections on Fascism and Religion Roger Eatwell a a University of Bath.

To cite this Article Eatwell, Roger(2003) 'Reflections on Fascism and Religion', Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 4: 3, 145 — 166 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/14690760412331329991 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14690760412331329991

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8

Reflections on ascism and Religion

ROGER EATWELL

Introduction In recent years, the relationship between fascism and religion has attracted considerable attention. This has primarily focused on two, partly related, issues. The first has concerned ‘clerical fascism’ – a debate which at times has assumed polemical form in attacks on Pius XII as ‘Hitler’s Pope’. Indeed, the debate has moved well beyond the confines of academia. "or instance, at the 2002 Berlin "ilm "estival an award was given to Constantin Costa-Gavros’s film Amen (based on Rolf Hochhuth’s 1960s’ play, The Deputy), in which a German Schutzstaffel (SS) officer tells a Catholic priest about the Nazi extermination programme. Although the Pope is informed, he does nothing. The second dimension concerns the growing academic tendency to interpret fascism – especially in its Italian and German

Downloaded By: [INFLIBNET India Order] At: 11:54 18 March 2010 variants – as a form of ‘political religion’. So far the battle lines on this issue have not been fully formed – though the issue raises major questions about the nature of, and support for, fascism.1 The term ‘clerical fascism’ was popularised in Italy during the 1920s, especially by opponents who sought to point to those within the Catholic Church who supported "ascism. Later, the term was broadened to encompass links between the churches and fascism elsewhere (in the case of the Nazis, the links were much stronger with Protestantism). The term ‘clerical fascism’ has also been applied to fascist movements which were overtly and sincerely religious – such as the Romanian Iron Guard, led by the devoutly Orthodox Corneliu 43tmp08.qxd 02/10/03 12:58 Page 146

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Codreanu. Most historians who use the term, such as Hugh Trevor- Roper, are seeking to refine typologies of different forms of fascism – especially contrasting authoritarian-conservative ‘clerical fascism’ with more radical ‘dynamic’ variants.2 However, for a growing group of scholars recently, like Daniel Goldhagen, the purpose of stressing the links between the church and fascism has been more to damn the former (especially the Vatican) by association.3 The first part of this article seeks to probe the relationship between the churches and inter-war fascism – in particular, the question of to what extent is it legitimate to talk of ‘clerical fascism’? As early as the 1930s, several philosophers and social scientists, such as Eric Voegelin, claimed that fascism was following in the footsteps of the "rench Revolutionaries, and seeking to found a ‘civil’ or ‘political’ religion.4 They pointed especially to the rise of godlike rulers, characterised by an apocalyptic sense of mission and allegedly capable of inspiring mass affective emotion. Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini were typically seen as the archetypes of this form of leadership. Recently, the political religion interpretation has attracted renewed interest on the part of several major historians, including Michael Burleigh and Emilio Gentile.5 They argue that terms like ‘dictatorship’, even ‘totalitarianism’, do not sufficiently convey the nature and fanatical support of movements such as Nazism and "ascism. Burleigh, for example, argues that: ‘Among committed [Nazi] believers, a mythic world of eternal strong heroes, demons, fire and sword – in a word, the fantasy world of the nursery – displaced reality’.6 Another interesting convert to the cause has been Roger Griffin, who in his early magnum opus had been critical of the political religion approach, apparently in an attempt to add explanatory force to his definitional focus on fascist ideology as a Downloaded By: [INFLIBNET India Order] At: 11:54 18 March 2010 form of nationalist ‘palingenesis’ (rebirth).7 In the second part of this article, I will look more closely at this aspect of the relationship between fascism and religion – including both the attitudes of leading fascists to religion and the nature of popular support for fascism. Overall, my main conclusions are:

1. There were important ‘clerical fellow-travellers’ and even more ‘clerical opportunists’. They undoubtedly helped give fascism legitimacy. But ‘clerical fascism’ is essentially a misleading concept outside groups such as the Iron Guard. Although notably different forms of syncretism were possible within the matrix of fascist 43tmp08.qxd 02/10/03 12:58 Page 147

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ideology, few leading members of the church in Germany or Italy believed that a true symbiosis was possible with fascism. Paradoxically, many fascists were not the rabid anti-Christians of academic conventional wisdom.8 2. And this constitutes the main part of my argument, I want to hold that the fascism-as-a-political-religion approach yields important insights. However, it tends to focus unduly on culture and form over belief and function. In particular, the approach overstates the affective side of fascist support compared to its more rational appeals. The latter were in part linked to serious fascist ideological views about creating a new Third Way (neither capitalist nor socialist) state. They were also linked to scientific views about geopolitics-politics and race, which played a more important role in fascist expansionism and in the Holocaust than affective pseudo-religious sentiments.9

Clerical ascism The term ‘clerical fascism’ has been applied to factions, movements and regimes in a variety of countries. The main examples, which will be considered here relate to Italian "ascism and German National Socialism. Brief consideration will also be given to the Iron Guard, arguably the best example of an overtly Christian fascism. Benito Mussolini founded the first fascist movement at a meeting in Milan in March 1919 – a gathering of an eclectic group of activists, whose apparent main link was their relative youth and passionate celebration of Italy’s participation in the "irst World War. "ascism took its name from the Italian word ‘fascio’, meaning in a political context a ‘union’ or ‘front’ (the ancient Roman symbol of authority, Downloaded By: [INFLIBNET India Order] At: 11:54 18 March 2010 the fasces, was initially not part of the movement’s iconography).10 During 1919, the "ascist movement adopted a programme which included measures such as: the election of a new National Assembly to decide on the radical reform of the state; worker participation in industrial management; old age and sickness insurance; a capital levy; secular schooling; and the confiscation of the property of religious institutions. "ilippo Marinetti, the leading "uturist artist and prominent early "ascist, even called for the expulsion of the Pope from Rome. Early fascism, therefore, sought no favours from the church – a provocative position in a highly Catholic country. However, by the time of the March on Rome in October 1922, which 43tmp08.qxd 02/10/03 12:58 Page 148

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brought Mussolini to power, relations between the church and fascism had improved dramatically.11 "ascist anti-clericalism had been toned down in an effort to gain church support. There were several points of symbiosis between Catholicism and emerging fascist movements. One was doctrinal and stemmed from Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 Encyclical, Rerum Novarum. This sought to defuse the dual secular challenge of liberal individualism and socialist class-collectivism by promoting new co- operative social institutions, especially corporatism. Although the motives were very different, this provided a direct point of contact with the important group of early Italian "ascists who were converts from syndicalism (during the "irst World War, nationalism rather than the revolutionary general strike came to be seen as the great mobilising myth). Arguably more important points of contact between Catholicism and "ascism were shared enemies – in particular, the weak liberal state and the anti-nationalist Left, which in Italy had a violent tradition even before the Bolshevik Revolution. Many in the Catholic Church came to see "ascism as a way both of defeating the Left on the streets and of providing a more steely conservative government in Rome (thus perpetuating a tradition of trasformismo – namely, incorporating insurgent centre and right- wing parties into the governing coalition). Some leading Catholics argued that "ascism was based on a dangerous, radical ideology. The most prominent exponent of this line was Don Luigi Sturzo, the founder of the Christian Democrat Partito Popolare in 1919, and the man who coined the term clerico- fascismo/clerico-fascisti (derived from the older clerico- moderatismo/clerico-moderati). Sturzo contrasted "ascism’s street violence with what he saw as the conciliatory nature of core Downloaded By: [INFLIBNET India Order] At: 11:54 18 March 2010 Christian values; he also feared that "ascism’s goal was the destruction of all opposition, not just the Left.12 However, eminent figures, such as the conservative Archbishop of Milan, Achille Ratti, openly succoured the infant "ascist movement. After he became Pope Pius XI in "ebruary 1922, he actively promoted a political united front against the Left, rebuking the Popolari who were willing to ally with socialists and others against the rapidly rising "ascist Party. A small number of leading Catholics – for instance, those around the Jesuit review La Civiltà Cattolica – even claimed that "ascism had effectively synthesised the values of the Popolari, making it redundant. 43tmp08.qxd 02/10/03 12:58 Page 149

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By 1926, the "ascist Party (PN") had established a dictatorship. The Catholic hierarchy in general concurred in this. After 1922, it was particularly grateful for concessions such as the introduction of religious services on state occasions and of the crucifix into the classroom. In 1929, the Church signed a longed-for Concordat and the Lateran Pacts, which formalised relations with the Italian state (a lacuna since unification). This conceded social powers to the Church in fields such as education. There was notable opposition to this rapprochement among the anti-clerical element in the "ascist Party, who correctly saw the Church as essentially a conservative force which militated against a more radical "ascist totalitarian state and the creation of a secular ‘new man’. At the local level, this wing of the PN" encouraged attacks on Azione Cattolica youth centres in 1931. However, Mussolini apologised profusely to the Vatican for these, smoothing the troubled waters. During both the Abyssinian War and the Spanish Civil War (which was marked by notable atrocities against Catholics, as well as against the Republicans), the Church continued to give the regime important support. Indeed, by the mid-1930s the regime enjoyed widespread support. However, historians debate the exact extent and nature of this ‘consensus’, which in general seems to have been based more on passive acceptance rather than fanatical and activist support for the Duce, let alone the increasingly corrupt PN". After 1936, there were growing public doubts about rapprochement with Nazi Germany, but Mussolini’s promulgation of German-style anti-Semitic laws in 1938 did not provoke a split with the Church. Previously, anti-Semitism had been a minor strand in the party, which contained many Jews – the Duce even had a long- standing Jewish mistress. Some of the radicals in the PN" appear to Downloaded By: [INFLIBNET India Order] At: 11:54 18 March 2010 have hoped that the new policy might provoke a clash with Catholicism, as it ran against its doctrine of universal redemption through baptism.13 If this was the case, the plan failed. In 1937, Pius XI issued an Encyclical – Mit brennender Sorge (With Profound Anxiety) – which specifically dealt with the Nazis’ celebration of race and state. However, the document gave no real guidelines as to how Catholics should act when faced with the reality of anti- Semitism (though in Italy, persecution was relatively benign until the Nazis took over control of the centre and north of the country after 1943). Subsequently, Pius XII (1939–58) failed to take a clear public line about anti-Semitism in Italy and especially on the issue of how 43tmp08.qxd 02/10/03 12:58 Page 150

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to deal with growing evidence that the Nazis were committing genocide. The recent band of critics of the Pope are part of a wider tendency within the historiography of fascism since the 1960s to focus unduly on the Holocaust. A more balanced reading of the evidence indicates that whilst the Pope was highly anti-communist and felt at home in German culture, he was neither pro-Nazi nor did he ignore the plight of Jews.14 Recent evidence shows that Pius XII wrote two letters in late 1940 to Giuseppe Palatucci, Bishop of Campagna, sending money to help Jews who were ‘suffering for reasons of race’. It is worth noting that the Nazi government pointedly sent no delegation to Pius’s enthronement in 1939, probably reflecting the fact that he had helped draft Mit brennender Sorge. Moreover, after 1939 Jews were not the only victims of Nazism. Although the number of Jews who were killed is horrific, far more non-Jews died – including many Catholics who were persecuted in eastern Europe by the Nazis. The Vatican, which had only a small international staff, was bombarded with information about such crimes. Even if the Pope had spoken out forcefully against Nazi policies, it is highly unlikely that this would have halted the killings. In the circumstances, Pius’s policy of cautious opposition, while in private encouraging help for Jews, becomes more understandable. Where the recent critics are on stronger ground is concerning their criticism of the Catholic Church’s historic teachings on Jews.15 There was a deep-rooted antipathy to Jews within Catholicism – a hostility which can be traced back to the Gospel of Matthew, with its shifting of the blame for the crucifixion from the Romans to the evil Jews. Defenders of the Catholic Church claim that historically it had been anti-Judaic rather than anti-Semitic, hostile to the Jewish Downloaded By: [INFLIBNET India Order] At: 11:54 18 March 2010 religion rather than hostile to Jews as a race. This is correct in the sense that Jews could be, and were, admitted into the Catholic faith. Nevertheless, it is hard not to believe that such demonisation of Judaism helped prepare the way for the Holocaust – in which a notable number of Catholics played a prominent part. However, the critics again overstate their case. Many Catholics in Italy helped Jews to survive – over 80 per cent escaped the Holocaust. Even in Germany, relations between Nazis and Catholics were complex. Unlike early Italian "ascism, Nazi Party (NSDAP) programmes defended the rights of the Christian Churches. Such assurances were repeated by Nazi leaders: for instance, Josef Goebbels (a lapsed 43tmp08.qxd 02/10/03 12:58 Page 151

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Catholic) assured a crowd in 1926 that the Nazis would create a new Reich in which true Christianity would be at home. Like Italian "ascism, the Nazis were extremely hostile to atheistic Marxism – though they also had a strong anti-capitalist slant, which was partly linked to the identification of sectors of business and finance with Jews. However, initially the Nazis appealed to few Catholics. Before 1930, Nazism was a minor force in German politics: in the 1928 elections, almost ten years after the party’s foundation, it was supported by just over 2 per cent of voters. Moreover, it was highly nationalistic and racist, which alienated a Catholic Church that tended to associate nationalism with an expansionary Protestant Prussian state in the nineteenth century. As a result, the Catholic hierarchy openly preached against the Nazis.16 After Hitler’s accession to power in January 1933, the Papal Secretary of State, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, negotiated a Concordat with the new regime. Pacelli was later to become Pius XII and critics have used this as part of their case that he was sympathetic to Nazism. However, it was normal practice for the Holy See to seek to establish clear guidelines for state–Catholic relations. Inter alia, Hitler agreed to grant Catholic pupils more schools and teachers. In return, Pacelli successfully encouraged the Christian Democrat Centre Party to disband and accept a Nazi dictatorship. Pacelli was hardly a liberal democrat, but it is highly unlikely that the Nazis would have tolerated the continued existence of the Centre Party in a Germany where all other parties had been banned by the summer of 1933. Subsequently, both Pacelli and local Catholic leaders protested against aspects of Nazism. The best-known example of the latter form of opposition came when Count von Galen, the Bishop of Munster, spoke out against the ‘euthanasia’ programme in 1940.17 Downloaded By: [INFLIBNET India Order] At: 11:54 18 March 2010 However, there were also important areas where Nazi and Church concerns coincided, especially anti-communism. It is interesting to note in this context that Galen fully endorsed the ‘crusade’ against Bolshevism launched in 1941. He also did not extend his protest against murder to treatment of the Jews. Pacelli in many ways represented the mainstream, middle line of German Catholicism. He did not support the small numbers who pursued persistent forms of opposition, which led to periodic harassment and arrests of priests and nuns. On the other hand, he certainly did not share the views of an even smaller number of Catholic prelates who believed that a synthesis was possible with 43tmp08.qxd 02/10/03 12:58 Page 152

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Nazism. Although he feared communism more, Pacelli/Pius XII did see Nazism as a major short-term threat to the Church. Arguably the best example of the symbiotic position was Bishop Aloys Hudal, who openly referred to himself as a ‘clerical fascist’. Hudal was the author of a book published in 1936, entitled Die Grundlagen des Nationalsozialismus: eine Ideengeschichtliche Untersuchung (The 'oundations of National Socialism). In this he argued that the most offensive doctrines of some Nazis, namely racism and totalitarianism, were "rench and Italian imports whose origins lay especially in the writings of Artur de Gobineau and Niccolò Machiavelli. He argued that most Nazis defended Christianity, and claimed that the duty of Catholics was to work with mainstream Nazis to check the radical anti-Christian Nazis, such as the pagan Arthur Rosenberg, whose book The Myth of the Twentieth Century was second only to Mein Kampf in the Nazi bestseller list, but whose influence within the higher echelons of the party was minimal.18 Catholicism at this time was Germany’s second religion and Protestantism was the religion of about two-thirds of the 90 per cent of Germans who claimed to be members of a church in the 1930s. Whereas Hitler saw the Catholic Church as essentially anti-national, he believed that the Protestant ones would stand up for the advancement of Germanism – though be believed that most Protestants had not seen the extent of the Jewish danger, in spite of the fact that anti-Jewish sentiment had been historically important within German Protestantism.19 He therefore believed in 1933 that Gleichschaltung (involving shared aims more than a takeover) with these churches was a real possibility. However, even within the Protestant churches there were relatively few who really believed that Downloaded By: [INFLIBNET India Order] At: 11:54 18 March 2010 the world views of Christianity and Nazism could be synthesised. In terms of their views about the relationship of religion to political nationalism, there were three main groups within the Protestant church. By far the largest, the conservative mainstream within the Lutheran Church, defended the autonomy of the church and was largely apolitical. The Confessional groups were keener to demonstrate their ‘national’ sentiments politically, and pastors often lent a powerful voice to the rise of Nazism immediately prior to 1933 (often linking support to other issues, such as anti-Marxism and defence of the family, which appealed especially to women).20 "inally, there were various small radical groups which believed that the 43tmp08.qxd 02/10/03 12:58 Page 153

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rebirth of both the church and Germany could come through the synthesis of religion with Nazi politics.21 One of these radical groups, the so-called German Christians, self-styled themselves ‘stormtroopers of Christ’. The reference here was not simply to Nazism. It was also to the Stormtroopers of the "irst World War, an élite group of shock troops from all classes who wore the silver Death’s Head emblem, which had previously been reserved for the aristocratic cavalry. The German Christians were not just attracted to the Nazis through nationalism. They also saw them as a party which had taken politics to the people, whereas the existing churches were too dominated by the aloof and cold language of the aristocracy and bourgeoisie who cluttered its higher echelons. The Nazis sought to weaken the more conservative groups by appointing as Reich Bishop in 1933 Ludwig Müller, who was well known for his anti-Semitic and blood and soil views. Moreover, the Evangelical German Christian Nazi front organisation won a two- thirds majority in the church elections of 1933. But then the radicals over-extended themselves, proposing to expunge the whole of the (Jewish) Old Testament from the Bible. Even before this, mainstream Protestants had argued that a politics of race and blood had nothing to do with Christianity and was a form of tribalism rather than religion. There were also rapidly growing fears after January 1933 that Nazism was interfering too much in the sphere of religion. Prominent critics who pushed such views too publicly, for instance Martin Niemöller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, risked harassment, imprisonment and even death. But fears of more diffuse resistance meant that the Nazis made little serious attempt to achieve forced Gleichschaltung with Protestantism after the early months of 1933.22 Most Nazi leaders realised that head-on confrontation with the Downloaded By: [INFLIBNET India Order] At: 11:54 18 March 2010 churches risked alienating public opinion. As in Italy, the issue is subject to some controversy among historians, but in general Germans appear to have become largely compliant after 1933 (‘consensus’ was reinforced by a far more extensive state terror than in Italy). Discussion of the term ‘clerical fascism’ also needs to consider forms of fascism which sincerely and uniformly espoused religious views. These usually emerged in highly peasant-based societies, where outside the radical Left there was little scope for parties which were not overtly religious. Arguably the best example of this form of fascism was the Romanian Iron Guard, whose leader, Codreanu, 43tmp08.qxd 02/10/03 12:58 Page 154

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spoke of creating ‘National-Christian Socialism’.23 One of the group’s leading intellectual supporters was Mircea Eliade, who was later to become an internationally renowned scholar of religion. In 1937 he wrote that: ‘the supreme target of the Legionary revolution, is, as the Captain has said, the salvation of the people, the reconciliation of the Romanian people with God’.24 Codreanu, who modestly termed himself ‘Captain’, would typically campaign by arriving in a village mounted on a white horse. He would kneel and pray, swearing before God that the struggle for the country’s welfare was sacred and that he was the reincarnation of Archangel Michael. Iron Guard members often wore a white cross on their green uniform; sometimes they also wore swastikas. Among activists, there was a strong cult of sacrifice, which included a willingness to die for the cause. Indeed, two of the Guard’s leaders were to die in the Spanish Civil War fighting ‘Bolshevism’. Many Orthodox clergy were attracted not just by the Guard’s religiosity, but also through shared enemies. These were not just to be found on the Left and in the external menace of the USSR. Romania had done well from the post-"irst World War peace settlements, and the country included extensive ethnic minorities, especially the widely disliked Jews and Catholic Hungarians. There was a shared desire to create a strong state, which could either eliminate such minorities, or force them to become part of a holistic nation. More positively, elements within the Orthodox Church were attracted to the reformist plans for the Guard, which included forging a form of local peasant democracy and national corporatism, seeing these as safeguards against the promises of the Left. However, increasingly during the 1930s Codreanu moved away from some of his early fascist radicalism towards an emphasis on the rebirth of a vaguely Downloaded By: [INFLIBNET India Order] At: 11:54 18 March 2010 defined ‘new man’ and conservative mysticism. The last point highlights the fact that there are problems in unequivocally including the Iron Guard within a radical generic fascist pantheon. Nevertheless, on balance the use of the term ‘clerical fascism’ seems far more appropriate in this context than in Germany and Italy, where only a small number were true ‘clerical fascists’ rather than ‘clerical fellow-travellers’, or ‘clerical opportunists’. 43tmp08.qxd 02/10/03 12:58 Page 155

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ascism as a Political Religion In recent years several historians have reiterated the claim that fascism was a ‘political religion’, focusing especially on Germany and Italy rather than on countries like Britain where the religious side of fascism was less pronounced. The argument tends to involve three main claims: first, that fascism was characterised by a religious form, particularly in terms of language and ritual; second, that fascism was a sacralised form of totalitarianism, which legitimised violence in defence of the nation and regeneration of a fascist ‘new man’; and third, that fascism took on many of the functions of religion for a broad swathe of society.25 In the words of Emilio Gentile: ‘This religion sacralised the state and assigned it the primary educational task of transforming the mentality, the character and the customs of Italians. The aim was to create a “new man”, a believer in and an observing member of the cult of "ascism’.26 Even before the "irst World War, there were proto-fascist thinkers who were interested in the political uses of religion. Japan’s military defeat of Russia in 1904–05 strengthened the view that new, more martial cultures were emerging, which would defeat decadent ones (‘Born a man, died a grocer’, was Maurice Barrès’s famous epitaph for Western bourgeois society). Symptomatic of the more extreme reactions to Japan’s victory was the conclusion of Enrico Corradini, who sought to establish a religion of ‘nature and heroes’27 in which a Bushido-like ethic would be married to what Barrès termed ‘enracinement’. There was also some interest, especially among the German Right, in Hinduism. Here the attraction was not simply the élitist caste system or the more martial aspects of Hinduism. There were also affinities with fascist critiques of bourgeois materialism and

Downloaded By: [INFLIBNET India Order] At: 11:54 18 March 2010 its emphasis on the short run over long-term goals – traits that had helped lead "riedrich Nietzsche to seek a synthesis between Eastern and Western thought, which in turn influenced a coming generation of fascists.28 "ascists were especially interested in the role of quasi-religious ceremonies and symbols in tying the populace to the state. Indeed, the fascist style plays a key part in many definitions: the ubiquitous swastika (hakenkreuz, or hooked cross), the mass rallies and the charismatic leader.29 Other aspects included innovations such as new calendar festivities. Some were based on Christian festivals, but others included key dates in Nazi Party history, such as 9 November, 43tmp08.qxd 02/10/03 12:58 Page 156

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which included a procession of old fighters carrying a bloodstained flag from the Bürgerbrau to the "eldherrnhalle in Munich. In Italy, the calendar was even revised to start from the March on Rome rather than from the birth of Christ. The language of fascism could also be highly religious in tone. Italian "ascism was replete with references to ‘faith’, ‘martyrdom’ and ‘sacrifice’. Hitler’s language included words like ‘mission’, ‘salvation’ and ‘redemption’. Leading Nazis specifically sought to fit Hitler into the Protestant tradition through the doctrine of Providence, which held that God directed the affairs of men in moments of great need. "or instance, rapidly rising Nazi support after 1930 was sometimes portrayed as divine will. However, it is important to note that this religious style was not unique to fascism. Nor was it simply a result of the "irst World War, which helped spread the language and imagery of religion, especially in Germany where the concept of rebirth pervaded propaganda. When Hitler preached that he had been given a mission by God to save Germany, he was only picking up a common theme in Protestant German nationalism. Nor was religious legitimation and symbolism unique to the Right. Pictures of "erdinand Lassalle, who had founded the German socialist movement in 1864, decorated workers’ homes – a cult which was criticised by fellow-socialist August Babel, whose picture in turn came to be carried regularly in processions by workers.30 Gentile has argued that Mussolini’s charismatic appeal was a new feature in Italian politics.31 However, Giuseppe Garibaldi long before had been elevated to the status of prophet and saviour. Moreover, the Duce came from the Emilia-Romagna, whose socialists mimicked many aspects of Catholicism, including processions and naming children after socialist ‘saints’. Although Max Weber’s concept of charisma is often considered as prefiguring a new style of Downloaded By: [INFLIBNET India Order] At: 11:54 18 March 2010 leaders of the Right after 1918, it was in fact partly the product of Robert Michels’s encounters with the German and especially the Italian Left before 1914. Indeed, proto-fascist theorists such as Enrico Corradini saw fascist mythology as necessary propaganda to free the working class of socialist myths, such as international brotherhood or the iniquities of private property. Hitler too was concerned by the affective appeals of the Left, though he was more directly influenced in his youth by the rise of Austrian politicians who sought to counter the rise of socialism with quasi-religious appeals. The first was Georg Schönerer, who had people pay tribute to him as ‘'ührer’ and who abolished the Christian 43tmp08.qxd 02/10/03 12:58 Page 157

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calendar for supporters. The second key influence was Karl Lueger, who – like Schönerer – addressed people in the low language of the tavern, rather than the high language of the salon (many socialists failed to learn this lesson, though theirs tended to be the high language of Marxist theory). But Lueger and his Christian Social Party also surrounded themselves with priests and the trappings of conservative Catholicism. The result was a more sustained electoral success than that achieved by Schönerer. Hitler, a lapsed Catholic who was bitterly hostile to Catholicism’s anti-Germanism, concluded that Schönerer’s break with Rome had been a major political error.32 There were undoubtedly some fascists who sought to replace Christianity with a new religion. Rosenberg was a pagan willing to attack both Christian doctrine, for example, over its universalist egalitarianism, and Church pronouncements on specific policies, like compulsory sterilisation. Heinrich Himmler was fascinated by the occult, and sought to turn the SS into the basis of an official state cult.33 In an attempt to eradicate Christian thinking, after 1939 even the word ‘Christmas’ was forbidden in any SS document. However, such cultism was not a major concern among the Nazi leadership. Within Italian "ascism it was largely absent. Although Julius Evola supported the cultivation of a warrior priesthood, which would manipulate the masses through myths, he was a fringe figure within "ascism before 1945 (though he later became a cult figure for some neo-fascists, who often married his views with those of Codreanu, seeing both as prophets of the need for an ascetic and violent band of ‘political soldiers’).34 Hitler sought to limit the influence of the Christian church more than to create a new religion. During his ‘table talk’ in November 1941, he commented that the ‘heaviest blow that ever struck humanity Downloaded By: [INFLIBNET India Order] At: 11:54 18 March 2010 was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity’s illegitimate child’.35 But he added that ‘we must not replace the Church by something equivalent. That would be terrifying’. Albert Speer has written that the 'ührer believed that in the short run the Church was indispensable and that any attempt to replace the Church by party ideologies would lead to a relapse into the mysticism of the Middle Ages.36 Léon Degrelle, the leader of the Belgian Rexists who became a wartime Waffen-SS officer, has claimed that Hitler believed that in the longer run the Church would gradually fade away under the dual impact of science undermining its mysticism and consumerism alleviating its appeal to the poor.37 A similar sentiment can be found in 43tmp08.qxd 02/10/03 12:58 Page 158

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the 'ührer’s wartime table talk, when he commented: ‘The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science’.38 However, whilst Hitler saw his views (not least on race) as supported by science, he still believed in the existence of a higher Being, who directed him. This syncretic blend of rationality and revelation was typical of much fascist thinking.39 In Italy, the Duce appears to have held relatively similar views. Mussolini, like several leading "ascists, began as a rabid anti-clerical. However, in 1936 he suggested to Hans "rank, the Nazi Justice Minister, that relations with the Catholic Church in Germany should be improved and argued that a separation between church and state was crucial, as this provided the state with more freedom.40 The first comment was probably designed to help improve the image of the Nazis within Italy, in order to make the emerging Axis more acceptable to public opinion. But Mussolini and most "ascists viewed the Church as a form of occasional irritant rather than as an enemy which needed to be vanquished. There were occasional tensions with the Vatican, such as over Azione Cattolica and after Mit brennender Sorge. However, Pius XI did not subscribe to the view that Nazism and "ascism were essentially the same form of regime, and his criticism was directed against the former rather than the latter. Nor did Pius XII – a point held against him by his many critics, who argue that by summer 1940 he should have known better. What linked fascists was not so much the desire to forge a new religion, as the quest to forge a holistic nation, linked to a radical syncretic Third Way (neither capitalist nor socialist) state. As Manichaeism was central, especially to the Nazi mindset, enemies would need to be defeated along the way. But these were mainly the forces of the Left (Jews too were central to Nazi demonology, though Downloaded By: [INFLIBNET India Order] At: 11:54 18 March 2010 before 1933 anti-Semitism often did not figure prominently in local Nazi campaigning, in part a reflection of the fact that in many areas the Nazis sought to portray themselves as a respectable party, not of the wild fringes). The quest for a new élite was also central to fascism, which tended to encourage the celebration of the Party leader. By the 1930s, there was undoubtedly a godlike aspect to Hitler’s persona.41 But the style of fascist leaders was not necessarily religious. Mussolini, for example, was fond of machismo-like posturing while engaged in sporting activities. The leader of the British Union of "ascists, Oswald Mosley, sought more to convey the image of the commanding officer-intellectual, defining fascism in the syncretic 43tmp08.qxd 02/10/03 12:58 Page 159

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terms of ‘Science and Caesarism’.42 Nor did the ‘disciples’ necessarily see the leader as God. Moreover, whilst there is no doubt that Hitler especially inspired great loyalty among leading Nazis, this was perfectly consistent with his acolytes conceiving God and religion in a variety of different ways (including the occult, paganism and belief in a Christian god). Some idea of how fascist leaders saw mass ‘new man’ can be gauged from Mussolini, who wrote: ‘Man is integral, he is political, he is economic, he is religious, he is saint, he is warrior’.43 An important function of ‘new man’ was to overcome bourgeois decadence and to rediscover martial virtues. In some countries, leading fascists openly celebrated the redemptive qualities of violence. However, fascist violence was in part a response to paramilitary organisation on the Left. Moreover, not all fascists positively valued violence and/or war. Even some leading Nazis, for instance Ernst Roehm, who had been wounded three times during 1914–18, had no love of war itself. This was especially true in countries, such as Britain and "rance, which had no territorial aspirations after 1918 – although in the "rench case there were strong fears about German revanchisme. The "rench literary fascist, Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, argued that there was no romance in modern war, which was fought at a distance by high explosives and aircraft, rather than in chivalrous combat by knights of old. The leader of the "rench 'aisceau, Georges Valois, who had fought in the "irst World War, did not so much celebrate war as derive lessons from it – such as the need for leadership and to create a new spirit of community to ensure the achievement of collective tasks. The "irst World War undoubtedly heightened interest in the power of propaganda, especially the ability of nationalist myths to mobilise Downloaded By: [INFLIBNET India Order] At: 11:54 18 March 2010 the masses. However, Hitler did not see the German nation as a myth in the sense that modern theorists of nationalism talk about an ‘imagined community’ or the ‘invention of tradition’. Hitler saw the German race as a historical reality, whose existence and superiority was supported by a great body of modern science. There is no doubt that Mussolini was fascinated by the power of myth. But Giovanni Gentile, the philosopher who provided the most sophisticated defence of "ascism, did not see his task essentially in terms of myth-making. His concern was more to build a totalitarian ‘ethical state’, namely a state which rejected the minimalist and pluralist nightwatchman conception of liberalism and which sought to school its citizens in 43tmp08.qxd 02/10/03 12:58 Page 160

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moral values. Similarly, most syndicalist theorists who turned to fascism were mainly concerned with creating a new state, though in their case the emphasis was more on economic development. It has become commonplace to argue that fascism lacked a clear economic vision. Yet the British Union of "ascists’ propaganda arguably focused mainly on economics. The Nazis after 1928 set out a notable panoply of economic programmes, and after 1933 they developed a relatively clear economic programme based on a state–private market symbiosis. The Italian corporate state may have failed to live up to the expectations of the syndicalists, but it was a serious attempt to achieve class harmony and increase production. So too were organisations like the Dopolavoro and the Nazi ‘Strength through Joy’ movement (Kd"), which concerned themselves with workplace, safety, food, as well as holidays and the like. "ascists may have believed that man cannot live by bread alone, but they also thought that materialist rewards, like a week’s holiday on the isle of Rügen (where the Kd" had built Europe’s largest hotel by 1939) and a Volkswagen outside the front door, could work wonders too when it came to consolidating fascist support among the masses. The fascism-as-a-political-religion thesis is not simply about issues such as ritual or creed. It is also raises the question of how people continued to view the churches. In Italy, church attendance seems to have remained widespread. In Germany, church membership declined only slightly after 1933, and actually rose during the Second World War (a trend in line with other countries). Although the evidence is not conclusive, it seems that varying forms of opposition to the regime made the local pastor and priest important interlocutors – sources of advice and solace for those troubled by aspects of fascism. The various festivities introduced to supplant Downloaded By: [INFLIBNET India Order] At: 11:54 18 March 2010 Christian ones remained a peripheral phenomenon in Germany. Himmler and the SS’s attempts to forge a link with supposed Teutonic traditions were met with widespread indifference and, depending on people’s courage, mild-to-biting derision. The political religion thesis also raises the central issue of why people supported fascism. In the 1950s and 1960s, arguably the two most common theories on this saw fascism as a movement of the middle class in crisis, or as a movement which appealed to individuals suffering from anomie as a result of rapid change (mass society theory). More recently, William Brustein (using Nazi membership data) has constructed a rational choice model, which stresses 43tmp08.qxd 02/10/03 12:58 Page 161

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economic interest in voting for the Nazis prior to 1933. At the other extreme, Roger Griffin has recently stressed the affective force of ‘palingenetic’ appeals (he follows a tendency common since the 1930s among German intellectuals, in seeing Nazism as a quest for authentic meaning).44 Clearly, these are very different interpretations. Although most recent work holds that the Nazis were a catch-all Volkspartei (with half the vote in 1932 coming from women),45 disagreements continue as to why people voted in this way. The fascism-as-a-political-religion thesis in this context seems largely a revival of mass society theory, which in its earlier form has been largely discredited in the German context (outside Germany, evidence about voting for fascist parties is often weak). In a famous phrase, Walter Benjamin has talked of fascism’s ‘aestheticisation of politics’. The phrase conjures up popular images such as the opening of Leni Riefenstahl’s film of the 1934 Nuremberg Rally, Triumph of the Will, with a godlike 'ührer, descending from the clouds to be worshipped by the faithful in new open-air temples designed by Speer. There seems little doubt that Hitler did exert a godlike appeal over some, though whether he exerted true mass charisma rather than a limited ‘coterie’ charisma is more debatable.46 Less frequently noted are the images of motorways and their modernist bridges, new consumer goods such as the ubiquitous radio (sold cheaply to aid state propaganda), or of Alfa Romeo and Auto Union racing cars vying for individual – and national – glory. They point to support based on more materialist motives. Certainly reports from the Social Democratic underground indicate the importance of economic factors, such as full employment and new consumerist and leisure opportunities. "ascists correctly perceived that ‘man’ was not one-dimensional: s/he responded to a blend of different appeals. Downloaded By: [INFLIBNET India Order] At: 11:54 18 March 2010 The best predictor of Nazi voting in 1932, the last year of the Weimar Republic, was the religious nature of the area. In general, the more Protestant an area, the greater the Nazi vote, whereas the converse was true in Catholic areas. In part this reflected the ability of the Nazis to adapt their rhetoric to fit Protestant styles of thought. But there were exceptions to these generalisations, which points to the need for a more general stress on local (meso) dimensions when understanding support for fascism – especially the role of conformity and networks.47 In Italy, "ascism was strongest where civil society was most dense – not the opposite, as mass society theory would predict (and much contemporary democratisation theory). Local studies in 43tmp08.qxd 02/10/03 12:58 Page 162

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Germany, for instance in Marburg, show that the Nazis were more active in local social clubs and professional organisations than any other movement, often taking them over.48 Here, and perhaps even more so in some rural areas, Nazism offered opportunities for participation which were not possible in other nationalist parties. The appeal was thus, in a sense, democratic and politically directed rather than religious. At the same time, it could be élite-legitimated, for example the way in which local Protestant pastors blessed the Nazis as bastions against the ‘November Criminals’ (Marxists and Jews). The Christian tradition of demonising Jews, and the Manichaean nature of Nazi thinking, seem to point towards political religion as an important tool in analysing the Holocaust. Certainly propaganda, such as the widely shown film The Eternal Jew (1940), seemed to imply that the destruction of Jews was part of a just war, which had been launched by conspiring Jews. However, it is important not to overstate religious inspiration. The bureaucrats who planned the Holocaust and even the Einsatzgruppen soldiers who personally shot the eastern Jews were frequently not fanatics. They were often professionals, acting in the best interests of their career and/or in what they saw as the economic interests of the new Germany.49 In the words of Hannah Arendt, what was interesting about Adolf Eichmann, the archetypal bureaucrat of the "inal Solution, was the ‘banality of evil’ – not his quasi-religious fanaticism. In general, the ‘ordinary’ Germans who took part in the shootings of Jews after 1941 do not seem to have seen this as part of a millenarian quest to renew the nation: excessive drinking of alcohol helped them to perform their ‘duty’. Previously, extensive propaganda seems to have helped inure them to the fate of Jews.50 The prestige with which racial science was held in Germany even before the Nazis came to power was an important factor too.51 Downloaded By: [INFLIBNET India Order] At: 11:54 18 March 2010 Indeed, the sacralisation of science rather than the politicisation of religion offers more clues to fascism’s most evil act. As argued above, so too does the deep-rooted hostility to Jews which existed within many branches of the Christian faith.

Conclusion The main focus of this article has been the growing tendency to see fascism as a form of political religion. If the approach is seen as heuristic, then it is a useful addition to our methodological toolbox. "or example, it points to many questions which are not yet fully resolved, including 43tmp08.qxd 02/10/03 12:58 Page 163

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how the churches viewed fascism and vice versa, and about popular attitudes to both the churches and fascism. However, if the approach is understood in a more essentialist way, there are serious problems. To the extent that a linking essence can be identified, fascism was a political ideology rather than a political religion. The issue can simply be defined away by holding that ideologies are secular forms of thought about human nature, the process of history, and socio-economic and political arrangements.52 Religions, on the other hand, involve some form of belief in a supernatural being(s). However, this misses the point that all modern ideologies exhibit dimensions of religions. Even ‘rationalist’ ideologies like liberalism have an affective side to their appeal, especially if studied in concrete political situations rather than through the dry texts of their great thinkers. Compare the pomp and circumstance surrounding the contemporary US Presidency with the restrained rationalism of James Madison’s eighteenth-century writings on the emerging US Constitution. Or consider why many liberals seem to need to be at war, metaphorically at least, with those who do not share their views – a question which points to interesting conclusions about much of liberal historiography’s demonisation of fascism as an un-intellectual creed – or political religion! A more fruitful way of distinguishing between ideology and religion is to adapt Søren Kierkegaard’s view that the essence of a religion is not the persuasion of the truth of the doctrine, but a leap of faith to accept a view which is inherently absurd. What could be more absurd than to believe that God allowed his only son to be born of a virgin in a lowly stable in Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago? Christianity is a religion because of this core absurdity – this need for a leap of faith. "ascism’s essential syncretism meant that it was Downloaded By: [INFLIBNET India Order] At: 11:54 18 March 2010 possible to find forms which overtly married ideology and religion – for example, in the Iron Guard, or among a limited number of Italian and German clerics (though most failed to see the radicalism at the core of fascism). Moreover, there were aspects of fascism which were absurd – especially the belief of some Nazis that there was an international Jewish conspiracy against Germany, which encouraged a belief in apocalyptic holy war against the Jew. However, most fascists were not driven by such affective sentiments. Indeed, there is nothing absurd about the core ideology of generic fascism – namely the quest to forge a holistic nation and create a radical syncretic Third Way state. 43tmp08.qxd 02/10/03 12:58 Page 164

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NOTES

1. A third issue concerns ‘Islamo-fascism’ – the extent to which it is legitimate to make parallels between Islam and fascism. Some made this equation – though in the reverse direction – back in the 1930s. "or instance, Carl Jung said of Adolf Hitler in 1939: ‘he is like Muhammad. The emotion in Germany is Islamic, warlike and Islamic. They are all drunk with a wild god’, C. Jung, The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol.10 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970), p.281. With the growth of Islamic ‘fundamentalism’ after the 1970s, discussion of such linkages re-emerged. See for example, W. Laqueur, 'ascism, Past, Present and 'uture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), in which Laqueur portrays Islamic ‘fundamentalism’ as a new form of ‘clerical fascism’. After 11 September, the debate moved well beyond the confines of academia, with President George W. Bush arguing that al-Qaeda and its supporters: ‘follow in the path of fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism’, Congressional Record (House), 20 September 2001. However, a systematic comparison of Islam and fascism raises vast issues beyond the scope of this article. 2. H.R. Trevor-Roper, ‘The Phenomenon of "ascism’, in S. Woolf (ed.), 'ascism in Europe (London: Methuen, 1981), esp. p.26. 3. "or recent critics of the Roman Catholic Church in the field of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, see J. Cornwell, Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII (London: Viking, 1999); D.J. Goldhagen, A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Roman Catholic Church in the Holocaust and its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair (Boston: Little Brown, 2002); D.I. Kertzer, The Unholy War: The Vatican’s Role in the Rise of Modern anti- Semitism (London: Macmillan, 2001); and S. Zuccotti, Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000). 4. See especially E. Voegelin, Political Religions (Lewiston, NY: E. Mellen Press, 1986; first German edn. 1938); see also P.". Drucker, The End of Economic Man (London: William Heinemann, 1939). 5. "or example, M. Burleigh, The Third Reich: A New History (London: Macmillan, 2000); and E. Gentile, The Sacralization of Politics in 'ascist Italy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996). "or more analytical presentations, see M. Burleigh, ‘National Socialism as a Political Religion’, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 1/2 (2000), pp.1–26; and E. Gentile, ‘The Sacralisation of Politics: Definitions, Interpretations and Reflections on the Question of Secular Religion and Totalitarianism’, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 1/1 (2000), pp.18–55. 6. Burleigh, The Third Reich (note 5), pp.8–9. 7. Compare R. Griffin, The Nature of 'ascism (London: Pinter, 1991), esp. p.196, with R. Griffin, ‘The Palingenetic Political Community: Rethinking the Legitimation of Totalitarian Regimes in Inter-War Europe’, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 2/2 (2002), pp.24–43.

Downloaded By: [INFLIBNET India Order] At: 11:54 18 March 2010 8. "or example, Griffin, The Nature of 'ascism (note 7), p.32. 9. Restrictions on space mean that I cannot fully develop my views on the nature of fascist ideology, especially the need to see it within a flexible ‘matrix’ rather than a more essentialist and static ‘minimum’. "or my views on this, see R. Eatwell, ‘Towards a New Model of Generic "ascism’, Journal of Theoretical Politics 4/2 (1992), pp.161–94; idem, ‘On Defining the “"ascist Minimum”: The Centrality of Ideology’, Journal of Political Ideologies 1/3 (1996), pp.303–19; and idem, ‘On Defining Generic "ascism: The “"ascist Minimum” and the "ascist Matrix’ (in German), in U. Backes (ed.), Rechsextreme Ideologien im 20 und 21 Jahrhundert (Cologne: Bohlau Verlag, 2003). 10. On early "ascism, see A. Lytteleton, The Seizure of Power: 'ascism in Italy, 1919–1929 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987). 11. See especially D.A. Binchy, Church and State in 'ascist Italy (London: Oxford University Press, 1970); J.". Pollard, The Vatican and Italian 'ascism, 1929–1932 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); and R.A. Webster, The Cross and the 'asces (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1960). 43tmp08.qxd 02/10/03 12:58 Page 165

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12. On the divergent opinions in the party, see J.N. Molony, The Emergence of Political Catholicism in Italy: ‘Partito Popolare’ 1919–1926 (London: Croom Helm, 1977). "or a sympathetic work on the Popular Party, see G. De Rosa, Il partito popolare italiano (Bari: Laterza, 1966). 13. On "ascist–Jewish relations, see M. Michaelis, Mussolini and the Jews (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978); A. Stille, Benevolence and Betrayal: 'ive Jewish 'amilies under 'ascism (London: Cape, 1992); and S. Zuccotti, The Italians and the Holocaust (New York: Basic Books, 1987). 14. "or the most balanced account of the issue, see R. Rychlak, Hitler, the War and the Pope (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor Books, 2000). "or the defence case relating to Pius XII, see P. Blet, Pius XII and the Second World War: According to the Archives of the Vatican (New York: Paulist Press, 1999). 15. See especially Goldhagen (note 3) and Kertzer (note 3). 16. "or a general work on the churches under Nazism, see K. Scholder, The Churches and the Third Reich, 2 vols. (London: SCM Press, 1987). 17. On the euthanasia programme, and Catholic opposition, see M. Burleigh and W. Wippermann, The Racial State: Germany 1933–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), esp. p.152ff. 18. A. Rosenberg, The Myth of the Twentieth Century (Torrance, CA: Noontide Press, 1982; original German edn. 1930). 19. A. Hitler, Mein Kampf (London: Hutchinson, 1969; first German edn. 1925), esp. pp.100, 103. 20. See C. Koonz, Mothers in the 'atherland: Women, the 'amily and Nazi Politics (London: Cape, 1987). 21. D.L. Bergen, Twisted Cross: The German Christian Movement in the Third Reich (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1996). See also K. Poewe, ‘The Spell of National Socialism: The Berlin Mission’s Opposition to, and Compromise with, the Völkisch Movement and National Socialism: Knak, Braun, Weichert’, in U. Van der Heyden and J. Becher (eds.), Mission und Gewalt (Stuttgart: "ran Steiner Verlag, 2000); and D. Sikkink and M. Regnerus, ‘"or God and the "atherland: Protestant Symbolic Worlds and the Rise of German National Socialism’, in C. Smith (ed.), Disruptive Religion: The 'orce of 'aith in Social Movements (New York: Routledge, 1996). 22. On resistance to Nazis more generally, see P. Hoffman, German Resistance to Hitler (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988); I. Kershaw, Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich: Bavaria 1933–45 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983); and D. Peukert, Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity and Opposition in Daily Life (London: Batsford, 1987). 23. C. Codreanu, La Garde de 'er (Paris: Editions Prométhée, 1938), p.19. On the Iron Guard, see R. Ioanid, The Sword of Archangel (New York: Columbia University Press,

Downloaded By: [INFLIBNET India Order] At: 11:54 18 March 2010 1990). 24. Cited in L. Volovici, Nationalist Ideology and anti-Semitism: The Case of Romanian Intellectuals in the 1930s (Oxford: Pergamon, 1991), p.85 (italics in the original). 25. "or a good, concise statement of the case, see Gentile, ‘The Sacralization of Politics’ (note 5); see also P. Burrin, ‘Political Religion: The Relevance of a Concept’, History and Memory 9 (1997), pp.321–49. 26. Gentile, ‘The Sacralization of Politics’ (note 5), p.ix. 27. E. Gentile, ‘"ascism as Political Religion’, Journal of Contemporary History 25/2–3 (1990), p.232. 28. On Nietzsche, see G. Parkes, Nietzsche and Asian Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). 29. See especially S. Payne, 'ascism: Comparison and Definition (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980). Payne’s other two defining dimensions concern fascism’s ‘negations’ and its more positive programme. 30. W. Hardtwig, ‘Political Religion in Modern Germany: Reflections on Nationalism, 43tmp08.qxd 02/10/03 12:58 Page 166

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Socialism and National Socialism’, GHI Bulletin 28 (Spring 2001), pp.3–27. 31. E. Gentile, ‘Mussolini’s Charisma’, Modern Italy 3/2 (1998), p.219. 32. B. Hamann, Hitler’s Vienna (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p.236ff. 33. N. Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism (Wellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1985); and P. Levenda, Unholy Alliance (New York: Continuum, 2002). 34. See ". "erraresi, ‘Julius Evola: Tradition, Reaction and the Radical Right’, European Journal of Sociology XXVIII (1987), pp.107–51. 35. H.R. Trevor-Roper (ed.), Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941–1944 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1953), pp.6–7. 36. A. Speer, Inside the Third Reich (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970), esp. pp.148–9. 37. L. Degrelle, Hitler pour 1000 ans (Paris: La Table Ronde, 1969), esp. pp.158–9. 38. Trevor-Roper (note 35), p.59. 39. M. Rissmann, Hitlers Gott (Zurich and Munich: Pendo, 2001), esp. p.191ff. 40. R. Mallett, Mussolini and the Origins of the Second World War, 1933–1940 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2003), pp.95–6. 41. I. Kershaw, Hitler, 1889–1936: Hubris (London: Penguin Press, 1998), esp. the Preface; and I. Kershaw, The ‘Hitler Myth’: Image and Reality in the Third Reich (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987). 42. O. Mosley, ‘The Philosophy of "ascism’, 'ascist Quarterly 1/1 (1935), esp. p.45. 43. B. Mussolini, 'ascism: Doctrine and Institutions (Rome: Ardita, 1935), pp.25–6, 59. 44. W. Brustein, The Logic of Evil: The Social Origins of the Nazi Party, 1925–1933 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996). See also a similar argument applied to Italy in W. Brustein, ‘“Red Menace” and the Rise of Italian "ascism’, American Political Science Review 56/4 (1991). Compare Griffin, ‘The Palingenetic Political Community’ (note 7), for example, p.34, with its literary supporting evidence. 45. "or examples of important works on Nazi voting, see C. "ischer, The Rise of National Socialism and the Working Class in Weimar Germany (Oxford: Berghahn, 1996); and D. Mühlberger, Hitler’s 'ollowers (London: Routledge, 1991). 46. On the distinction between coterie and mass charisma, see R. Eatwell, ‘The Rebirth of Right-Wing Charisma: The Cases of Jean-Marie Le Pen and Vladimir Zhirinovsky’, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 3/3 (2002), pp.1–23. 47. "or the argument that the local/group (meso) side of fascist support has often been neglected at the expense of sweeping socio-economic/psychological (macro) or individual (micro) explanations, see R. Eatwell, ‘Towards a New Model of the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism’, German Politics 6/3 (1997), pp.166–84. 48. R. Koshar, Social Life, Local Politics and Nazism: Marburg 1880–1935 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1986). 49. G. Ally and S. Heim, The Architects of Auschwitz and the Logic of Destruction (London: Weidenfeld, 2003).

Downloaded By: [INFLIBNET India Order] At: 11:54 18 March 2010 50. See for example, C. Browning, The Path to Genocide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), esp. p.169ff. Compare this with D.J. Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners (Boston: Little Brown, 1996), which claims that the Germans were deep-rootedly anti-Semitic. 51. On the prestige of science, see P. Weindling, Health, Race and German Politics between National Unification and Nazism 1870–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 52. R. Eatwell and A.W. Wright, Contemporary Political Ideologies (London: Pinter, 1999), esp. ch.1.