Fascism's and national socialism's influence on the development of the post-war extreme right in Germany and Italy E-Book

Felix Wiebrecht

• Herausgeber: GRIN Verlag
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Essay from the year 2015 in the subject Politics - Region: Western Europe, grade: B1, University of Aberdeen, course: The Extreme Right in Western Europe, language: English, abstract: This paper wants to argue that initially fascism and national socialism still greatly influenced the development of the post-war extreme right (ER). However, this degree of influence gradually declined and nowadays these ideologies cannot be said to exert much influence on the political landscape anymore. Therefore, this essay will proceed by firstly looking at the case of Italy and especially the Movimento Socialist Italiano’s (MSI) ideological development over the years. Secondly, the German political landscape after the Second World War (WWII) will be examined before proceeding with a comparison. This essay will argue that the development of the ER in their relation to the interwar ideologies was similar to a certain extent.

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Table of content

1. Introduction

2. Italy

2.1. The MSI as openly fascist party

2.2. The MSI’s ideological development

2.3. The surge of the Lega Nord – unrelated to fascism?

3. Germany

3.1. Initial success, remaining electoral potential

3.2. Electoral potential gone with prohibition of SDR?

3.3. East vs. West – consequence of different de-nazification?

4. Comparison

5. Conclusion

6. Bibliography

1. Introduction

Italy and Germany have both experienced fascist/nazi rule. Is it possible to link this historical fact to the development of the post-war extreme right in these two countries?

This paper wants to argue that initially fascism and national socialism still greatly influenced the development of the post-war extreme right (ER). However, this degree of influence gradually declined and nowadays these ideologies cannot be said to exert much influence on the political landscape anymore. Therefore, this essay will proceed by firstly looking at the case of Italy and especially the Movimento Socialist Italiano’s (MSI) ideological development over the years. Secondly, the German political landscape after the Second World War (WWII) will be examined before proceeding with a comparison. This essay will argue that the development of the ER in their relation to the interwar ideologies was similar to a certain extent.

2. Italy

2.1. The MSI as openly fascist party

Italy finds itself in a position different than Germany since it has experienced a civil war that led to the fascist regime’s end and to the birth of the Italian Republic. While the public division about the country’s ideology probably persisted to a similar degree in Germany, the intervention of the Allied Forces prevented that this public division was fought openly. Thus, the civil war led to what Ignazi names a “very deep and emotionally loaded divide between the fascist and antifascist camps” (Ignazi, 2003:35). Therefore, fascism’s demise as governing ideology did not cause it to disappear as ideological alternative for parts of the Italian population. Consequently, fascism was also institutionalized in post-war Italy in the name of the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), that never attempted to hide its ideological foundations. This fact becomes apparent by looking at the leading personalities of the party that were to a great extent active in the Italian Social Republic, as for instance the first general secretary Giorgio Almirante who served as official in the German puppet state (Cheles, Ferguson, and Vaughan, 1992:43). Furthermore, as part of Mussolini’s legacy, the party built much of the party organization in the original fascist style and was maintaining its tradition of holding demonstration marches accompanied by pictures of the former leader (Spiegel, 13/12/1950). Scholars have also found resemblance to fascist ideas in the MSI’s political programme, for instance Ignazi, who claims that although “the MSI’s first ’10 points programme’ somewhat veiled its ideological-political mould… the symbolic and cultural references were unquestionably linked to fascism” (Ignazi, 2003:36) Furthermore, he describes that “the party depicted itself as a ‘veterans fraternity’ which gather together the ‘losers’ of the civil war” (Ignazi, 2003:36). Thus, in the case of the MSI a continuation of the organized fascist ideology, being maintained by the same cadres with a political agenda only marginally different from that of pre-war fascists is visible. However, importantly the Italian fascists realised from the beginning that there is no alternative than engaging in the restored democratic system and thus, “the MSI decided to accept electoral competition” (Ignazi, 1996:694). This led to an ideological conflict within the party. Participating in elections and following the democratic norms and procedures severely damaged the party’s legitimacy since its overall goal was the abolition of these democratic principles. Despite consisting of different fractions the party resisted any “temptation of militia-style organization” (Ignazi, 2003:36) and followed the moderate wing’s stance of following the mass-party model and pursuing a “fit-in” (Ignazi, 2003:36) approach and thus, followed the rules of the democratic system.