Notes Introduction 1 V. Bartlett, Nazi Germany Explained (London: Victor Gollancz, 1933), p. 9; G. R. Stirling Taylor, ‘Review of The Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. X: The Augustan Empire 44 B.C.–A.D. 70’, English Review, 61 (1935) 629. 2 Cited in H. Fein, Accounting for Genocide: National Responses and Jewish Victimization during the Holocaust (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), p. 4. 3 F. Borkenau, The New German Empire (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1939), p. 132. 4 H.-J. Gamm, Der braune Kult: Das Dritte Reich und seine Ersatzreligion. Ein Beitrag zur politischen Bildung (Hamburg: Rütten & Loening Verlag, 1962), p. 63. 5 G. Norlin, Hitlerism: Why and Whither? (London: Friends of Europe, 1935), p. 5. Cf. H. G. Alexander, ‘Whither Germany? Whither Europe?’, Contemporary Review, 144 (1933) 662: ‘the pagan faith that has brought a new hope to Germany’; E. W. D. Tennant, ‘Hitler’, in The Man and the Hour: Studies of Six Great Men of Our Time, ed. A. Bryant (London: Philip Allan, 1934), p. 138: ‘in Hitlerism the Germans have found a new religion’; Rev. E. Quinn, ‘The Religion of National Socialism’, Hibbert Journal, 36 (1938) 444–5: ‘The real religion of National Socialism consists in Germanism.’ 6 See especially M. Burleigh, The Third Reich: A New History (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000); and R. S. Wistrich, Hitler and the Holocaust (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2001); see also H.-J. Schoeps and M. Ley, eds., Der Nationalsozialismus als politische Religion (Bodenheim: Syndikat, 1997); C.-E. Bärsch, Die politische Religion des Nationalsozialismus: Die religiöse Dimension der NS-Ideologie in den Schriften von Dietrich Eckart, Joseph Goebbels, Alfred Rosenberg und Adolf Hitler (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1998); P. Burrin, ‘Political Religion: The Relevance of a Concept’, History & Memory, 9, 1–2 (1997) 321–49. For interesting comparisons see E. Gentile, The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), and K. Clark, Petersburg: Crucible of Cultural Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), chapter 11: ‘The Sacralization of Everyday Life’. 7 M. A. Bernstein, Foregone Conclusions: Against Apocalyptic History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). See also the introduction to chapter 2 below. 8 On evil as part of what makes us human rather than as a ‘transcendental’ concept, see J.-L. Nancy, The Experience of Freedom, trans. B. McDonald (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993). 9 J. Katz, ‘Was the Holocaust Predictable?’, in The Holocaust as Historical Experience, eds. Y. Bauer and N. Rotenstreich (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1981), p. 24. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid., p. 25. 12 R. Muhs, The Brownshirts in Britain (forthcoming). 13 For the classic account, see R. West, The Meaning of Treason (London: Virago, 1982 [1949]). See also A. Weale, Renegades: Hitler’s Englishmen (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1994). 193 194 Notes 14 See the letters to Lorimer in Lorimer papers, MSS Eur.F177/51 and F177/52, espe- cially letters from Muriel Whitehouse, Principal of Arley Castle School, 3 February 1939 (F177/51), and Sir Henry Strakosch, 22 May 1939 (F177/52). See also the reviews of What Hitler Wants in F177/53. The reviewer for Time and Tide suggested that a benefactor of the Nuffield type should distribute 20 million copies of Lorimer’s book to British households. 15 L. L. Jones, ‘Fifty Years of Penguin Books’, in Fifty Penguin Years (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985), pp. 28, 30. 16 N. Joicey, ‘A Paperback Guide to Progress: Penguin Books, 1935–c.1951’, Twentieth Century British History, 4 (1993) 41. 17 On the concept of the ‘reading public’, see R. Williams, ‘The Growth of the Reading Public’, in The Long Revolution (London: Chatto & Windus, 1961), pp. 156–72. See also R. Chartier, On the Edge of the Cliff: History, Language, and Practices, trans. L. G. Cochrane (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997). 18 J. McAleer, Popular Reading and Publishing in Britain 1914–1950 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 59. 19 S. Wichert, ‘The British Left and Appeasement: Political Tactics or Alternative Policies?’, in The Fascist Challenge and the Policy of Appeasement, eds. W. J. Mommsen and L. Kettenacker (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983), p. 125. 20 S. Samuels, ‘The Left Book Club’, Journal of Contemporary History, 1, 2 (1966) 84. 21 G. Orwell, ‘Review of Searchlight on Spain by the Duchess of Atholl’, New English Weekly (21 July 1938), reprinted in The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell. Volume 1: An Age Like This 1920–1940, eds. S. Orwell and I. Angus (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970), p. 383. Also cited in Joicey, ‘A Paperback Guide’, p. 37. Orwell also noted of the LBC (Collected Essays, p. 397), that ‘Here you have about 50,000 people who are willing to make a noise about Spain, China etc. and because the majority of people are normally silent this gives the impression that the Left Bookmongers are the voice of the nation instead of being a tiny minority.’ 22 Williams, The Long Revolution, p. 170. 23 Arnold Hyde to Emily Lorimer, 30 April 1939, Lorimer papers, MSS Eur.F177/51. 24 See my Breeding Superman: Nietzsche, Race and Eugenics in Edwardian and Inter-war Britain (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2002) for the argument that British fascism meant more than the BUF and was not confined to the arena of high politics. 25 R. Griffiths, An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Fascism (London: Duckworth, 2000). 26 Cf. D. LaCapra, Writing History, Writing Trauma (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), for the idea of the ‘carnivalesque’ in explaining the Holocaust. See also my article ‘Genocide as Transgression’, European Journal of Social Theory, 6 (2003). 27 D. Renton, Fascism: Theory and Practice (London: Pluto, 1999). 28 Borkenau, The New German Empire, p. 15. 29 J. A. Cole, Just Back from Germany (London: Faber & Faber, 1938), p. 328. 30 M. M. Green, Eyes Right! A Left-Wing Glance at the New Germany (London: Christophers, 1935). I discuss this book further later on. 31 M. Hermant, Idoles allemandes (Paris: Éditions Bernard Grasset, 1935); D. Guérin, The Brown Plague: Travels in Late Weimar and Early Nazi Germany, trans. R. Schwartzwald (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994); E. Levinas, ‘Reflections on the Philosophy of Hitlerism’, Critical Inquiry, 17 (1990) 63–71; W. Benjamin, ‘Theories of German Fascism: On the Collection of Essays War and Warrior, edited by Ernst Jünger’, New German Critique, 17 (1979) 120–8. Notes 195 32 B. Crick, ‘Introduction’ to B. Granzow, A Mirror of Nazism: British Opinion and the Emergence of Hitler 1929–1933 (London: Victor Gollancz, 1964), pp. 20–1. 33 A. Schwarz, ‘British Visitors to National Socialist Germany’, Journal of Contemporary History, 28 (1993) 505. 34 A. Kolnai, ‘Pacifism Means Suicide’, The Nation, 148, 4 (21 January 1939) 87. 35 Kolnai to Béla Menczer, 18 August 1938. All Kolnai correspondence cited is in the possession of Dr Francis Dunlop. 36 Jászi to Laski, 21 July 1933. 37 Kolnai, ‘Pacifism Means Suicide’, p. 88. 38 A. Kolnai, The Pivotal Principles of NS Ideology (handwritten ms, 1939), p. 3, in possession of Francis Dunlop. 39 Draft manifesto of Defence of Freedom and Peace, Steed Papers, Add. 74114/4. 40 Steed to A. H. Richard, Steed Papers Add. 74114/52. 41 R. Griffin, ‘The Primacy of Culture: The Current Growth (or Manufacture) of Consensus within Fascist Studies’, Journal of Contemporary History, 37 (2002) 21–43. 42 D. D. Roberts, A. de Grand, M. Antliff and T. Linehan, ‘Comments on Roger Griffin, “The Primacy of Culture: The Current Growth (or Manufacture) of Consensus within Fascist Studies”’, Journal of Contemporary History, 37 (2002) 266. 43 Ibid., p. 260. 44 Ibid., p. 272. 45 R. Griffiths, Fellow Travellers of the Right: British Enthusiasts for Nazi Germany 1933–39 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 53. 46 Kolnai to Irene Grant, 8 May 1934. 47 See also R. Bessel, ed., Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany: Comparisons and Contrasts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 48 E. Lengyel, Hitler, rev. edn. (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1933 [1932]), p. 239. 49 G. Orwell, ‘London Letter to Partisan Review’, Partisan Review (March–April 1942), reprinted in The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell. Volume 2: My Country Right or Left 1940–1943, eds. S. Orwell and I. Angus (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970), pp. 213–14. Chapter 1 1 B. Brecht, ‘The Anxieties of the Regime’, in Poems 1913–1956 (London: Methuen, 1987), p. 296; A. Kolnai, ‘The Pivotal Principles of NS Ideology’ (MS, 1939), p. 2. 2 G. Benn, ‘Excerpt from Double Life’, in Primary Vision: Selected Writings, ed. E. B. Ashton (New York: New Directions, 1971), p. 138. 3 For example, G. Benn, ‘Answer to the Literary Emigrants’, in ibid., pp. 46–53. Cf. B. Weisbrod, ‘Military Violence and Male Fundamentalism: Ernst Jünger’s Contribution to the Conservative Revolution’, History Workshop Journal, 49 (2000) 69–94; A. Huyssen, ‘Fortifying the Heart – Totally: Ernst Jünger’s Armored Texts’, in his Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia (New York: Routledge, 1995), pp. 127–43. 4 H. Arendt, ‘Fernsehgespräch mit Thilo Koch’, in Ich will verstehen: Selbstauskünfte zu Leben und Werk, ed. U. Ludz (Munich: Piper, 1996), p. 40. 5 See D. Renton, ‘Fascism is More than an Ideology’, Searchlight, 290 (August 1999) 24–5; and R. Griffin’s reply, ‘Fascism is More than Reaction’, Searchlight, 196 Notes 291 (September 1999) 24–5. See also Renton’s comments in Fascism: Theory and Practice (London: Pluto Press, 1999). 6 H. Rauschning, Germany’s Revolution of Destruction, trans. E. W. Dickes (London: William Heinemann, 1939), originally published as Die Revolution des Nihilismus (Zurich & New York: Europa Verlag, 1938). Rauschning’s ‘records’ of his conversations with Hitler have long been regarded by historians with suspicion, yet recent research suggests that Rauschning did have at least several discus- sions with Hitler.