:::spoiler Quotes > The historians and the political scientists and the journalists who treat the subject of Fascism usually write from a centrist ideological perspective; from the political center of the spectrum. Which means [that] they usually ignore the link between Fascism and capitalism, just as they tend to ignore the entire subject of capitalism itself when there’s something unfavorable to say about it. Instead, they dwell on the more phantasmic components of Fascist ideology: the nihilistic revolt against Western rationalism and individuality, the irrational appeals to mass submission to a leader and all that, and Fascism was those things but along with its irrational appeals… it had rational functions: it was a rational instrument for class domination and for the preservation of the existing capitalist system. > >After World War I, Italy had a parliamentary government that seemed really incapable of solving the country’s economic crises. Profits were declining, banks were failing, unemployment was rising, so to ensure profits the big industrial giants and the big landowners would have to slash wages and raise prices. The state, in turn, would have to provide the big owners with tariff protections, along with massive subsidies and tax exemptions. To finance this, the population would have to be taxed more heavily, their wages rolled back, and social welfare expenditures drastically cut. It sounds like Reaganism? Well, it is. Even more extremely so. > >But the government wasn’t totally free to apply these harsh measures. First of all, Italian workers and peasants had their own unions, they had political organizations, they had cooperatives, they had their own publications, and through the use of demonstrations and strikes, boycotts, factory takeovers, occupying farmlands, the forcible occupation of farmlands, they often won some very real concessions in wages and work conditions, unemployment benefits, and they won the right to organize… and even in the face of this worsening economic crisis they were able to mount a troublesome defense of their standard of living. (I mean troublesome for those who own the land, the labor, and the capital, and the money and the banks and the farms and the factories.) So the only solution, really, was to smash the worker and peasant organizations, in effect destroying all political and civil liberties, including the right to organize, agitate, and propagandize. The state would have to be more authoritarian and more firmly subservient to the interests of capital. > >Mussolini and his Blackshirts were around right after World War I, and through—for about three or four years, the big landowners and industrialists used their Fascist goon squads, gave them money and gave them arms, and used them as kind of strikebreakers: antilabor militias. They styled themselves the United Front against Bolshevism. > >In 1922, the big capital interests in Italy decided to go for the whole thing. Representatives of the Federation of Industry and the Federation of Agriculture, which was a[n] agribusiness firm, and representatives of the national banking association, they all met together, and they met with Mussolini, and they planned the Fascist March on Rome. Mussolini sat there and planned that with the leading capitalists of Italy. (By the way, this is almost never mentioned in the accounts about the March on Rome.) > >These big capitalists contributed 20 million lire toward that undertaking. In the [words](https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=B943BD468DA9D4DACB7F37D7AA189F80) of Senator Ettore Conti, himself a very loyal representative of the moneyed interests, quote, “Mussolini was the candidate of the plutocracy [that is, of the wealthy], and the business associations.” > >[…] > >Neither in Italy nor in Germany was revolution really something that was […] in the offing. I mean, it wasn’t a real threat. The left was never strong enough to take state power in either of those countries. So the threat wasn’t really from the left. **The bourgeoisie resorted to Fascism less in response to the disturbances in the street, and more in response to the disturbances in their own economic system. The threat wasn’t from the left; the threat was from their own economic system and its contradictions, and the fact that democratic forces had developed enough democratic strength to resist the austerity and the rollback that the capitalists tried to impose to maintain their levels of profit.** The sickness that these capitalists tried to vanish was from within, not from without. :::

>As told by his obituary, Stephen J. Skubik (1916–1996) “started life in a basket left on the doorstep of a Ukrainian church in Philadelphia,” and in his Depression-era teens, “spent a year traveling across the country as a railway hobo.” > >By 1970, he “[suggested the concept](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-CRECB-1971-pt14/pdf/GPO-CRECB-1971-pt14-5-3.pdf) of building a monument to the victims of Communism” according to Donald Miller, the executive director of the NCNC and the Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation, which was a front for the Moonie cult, or [Unification Church](https://vocinfo.substack.com/p/the-unification-church). Skubik and Miller served on the “American Action Committee” of the AACCC, which announced “Operation M” to create a memorial for the “victims of communism.” > >[…] > >In 1993, the year that Congress “encouraged” the NCNC to “create an independent entity” for its victims of communism memorial project, a 77-year old Stephen Skubik self-published a poorly written, dubious and conspiratorial book, “The Murder of General Patton,” according to which **the author had a life changing meeting with OUN-B leader Stepan Bandera, the infamous Ukrainian [Axis] collaborator**, just a week after World War II ended in Europe. > >[…] > >Stephen Skubik wrote that he subsequently questioned other Ukrainian nationalist leaders, who repeated the rumor about Patton. Skubik “interrogated” General Pavlo Shandruk, who had commanded the remainder of the Ukrainian Waffen-SS division, and Professor Roman Smal-Stocki, who was also wanted by the Soviets as a Nazi collaborator. (Emphasis added.) Skubik was also partly responsible for encouraging more aggression towards the people’s republics, euphemistically called a policy of ‘liberation’: >The Ukrainian Congress Committee sent Stephen J. Skubik, future VOC founder Lev Dobriansky, and three other representatives to the 1952 Republican national convention, where they urged the platform committee to adopt a foreign policy plank “advocating and supporting freedom and independence for all nations enslaved by Soviet Russia.”

>Estimating the number of homosexual men in the SA or any right‐wing group is extremely difficult because as Theweleit so accurately determines, “In the absence of statements from fascist men directly involved in sexual relationships with other men — it is impossible to determine the nature of those relationships in any detail.” However, there is reason to believe that there was a notable amount of homosexual presence in Volkisch parties, including the NSDAP. > >In a 1926 survey done by The League of Human Rights, a homosexual rights advocacy group based in Berlin, about 3% of the more than 30,000 male members of the League said they were members of far‐right völkisch parties (including the Nazis). 21% said they belonged to the conservative DNVP (Deutschnationale Volkspartei; originally a conservative monarchist party that in the later Weimar period aligned itself more closely to radical far‐right parties like the NSDAP). > >Furthermore, there were some homosexuals in SA leadership whose sexual orientation was an open secret in the [NSDAP] for a long time, most notable of which were the SA co‐founder and commander Ernst Röhm, Edmund Heines (Röhm’s deputy), and Gerhard Rossbach (an associate of Röhm who supplied early SA troops with their signature brown shirts). > >[…] > >As demonstrated, the SA’s balancing act depended on its homosexual members keeping their proclivities a secret, giving the organization plausible deniability against accusations of harbouring homosexuals. It is interesting to note that these men were critical of how activists such as Magnus Hirschfield promoted gay acceptance. On the contrary, gay fascists thought that they should earn heterosexuals’ acceptance by proving that they were just as manly — if not more so — than the ideal straight man. In short, whereas some gay men opposed the neopatriarchy, gay fascists sided with it. As for queer women, I know only of the case of [Violette Morris](https://allthatsinteresting.com/?p=255704), who gained the Fascists’ interest as early as 1936 and later collaborated with the French Gestapo. She had access to black market goods and she transported Axis officials. There are also rumors that she committed her own atrocities, but these remain unconfirmed.

Do the middle ages have minimal relevance to modern history? Contrary to first impressions, maybe not. Research indicates that anti‐Jewish sentiment from the mediaeval period never fully faded away, and only made the NSDAP’s job of attracting support easier: >Churches from Cologne to Brandenburg displayed (and many still display) a *Judensau*, the image of a female pig in intimate contact with several Jews shown in demeaning poses. The same type of sculpture can also be found in Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, France, and the Low Countries. > >[…] > >Before turning to the regression results, we examine differences in various twentieth-century outcome variables between cities that did and did not experience Black Death pogroms. As Table IV shows, pogroms in the 1920s were substantially more frequent in towns with a history of medieval anti-Semitism. > >Similarly, vote shares for the Nazi party (NSDAP) in 1928 and for the anti-Semitic DVFP in 1924 (when the Nazi Party was banned) were more than a percentage point higher—which is substantial, given that the average vote shares were (respectively) 3.6% and 8%. > >Our three proxies for anti-Semitism in the 1930s also show marked differences for towns with Black Death pogroms: the proportion of Jewish population deported is more than 10% higher, letters to the editor of *Der Stürmer* were about 30% more frequent, and the probability that local synagogues were damaged or destroyed during the *Reichskristallnacht* of 1938 is more than 10% higher.

([Alternative link.](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292061831)) To a certain extent, this was the fault of the U.S.’s xenophobia, which alienated many Italians and made them desperate for acceptance. >Mussolini had been aware since the early 1930s that the only effective way to exploit Italian Americans for political purposes was to mobilize them as a lobby. He, therefore, **encouraged them to become U.S. citizens so that they would be eligible for the suffrage and, as U.S. voters, could pressure American political institutions such as Congress and the Presidency into adopting policies that benefited Italy and Fascist interests.** > >This strategy reached a climax during the Italo‐Ethiopian War, when the “Little Italies” supported Mussolini’s war efforts and lobbied Congress to prevent the passing of a neutrality legislation that would have granted the U.S. president the power to impose economic sanctions on Italy. > >[…] > >Mussolini thought that Italian communities would be more useful if they turned into American electoral lobbies. In his view, Italian Americans could be loyal U.S. citizens providing that they maintained strong spiritual ties to their mother country, which involved promoting Italy’s interests in the United States. > >In the Spring of 1932, *Il Duce* officially stated to German journalist Emil Ludwig: ‘*We consider it a matter of principle to ask our fellow countrymen *[Italian Americans]* to be loyal to the State in which they live. If they acquire full citizenship in the spiritual sense as well as in the material, they count for something; but if they hold themselves aloof from their adoptive land, they remain helots. **Since we began to advocate the policy of assimilation, many Italian‐born citizens have attained high positions over there.***’ (Emphasis added.) :::spoiler [Additional excerpt] Nevertheless, despite the Fascists’ best efforts, young Italian‐Americans were less excited to embrace Fascism: >In the interwar years, young Italian Americans experienced generational clashes with their parents. The latter lived according to Italian traditions and rejected the American‐style behaviour of their children who regarded Italy as a far and away country that existed only in their parents’ and grandparents’ recollections. > >[…] > >The members of the second generation grew up during the years of Mussolini’s regime and experienced a harsh conflict with their parents. Young Italian Americans usually refused to speak Italian in public and were even ashamed of their ancestry. > >They also thought of Italy as an unknown country. Few were aware of what fascism was. To most of them, it was just an obscure ideology that was very distant from their […] values. Some observers and scholars have held that young Italian Americans did not even accept fascism. :::

([Alternative link.](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335876683_The_Dante_Alighieri_Society_in_Warsaw_From_aristocratic_sociability_to_Fascism's_intellectual_showcasing_1924-1934)) >**The involvement of commercial partners became more evident, reminiscent of the public–private partnerships that the Mussolini régime was eager to encourage. The financial report of 1933 shows that sponsoring came from a number of Italian and Polish companies**: the Milanese engineering company Società Anonima Puricelli Strade e Cave, insurance companies (Riunione Adriatica di Sicurtà, and Assicurazioni Generali), the shipping company Italia-Cosulich Lloyd Triestino, the Warsaw-based Handlowy Bank, the car manufacturer Polski Fiat S.A., and the Warsaw firm Dom Handlowy Meyer. (Emphasis added.)

Quoting Haile Larebo in [*Italian Colonialism*](https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=0E75DB6F534118D0783B6EF202E93F4B), page 86: >In the case of [Fascist] colonialism, the “prestige of the White race” would be maintained by educating the workers in an imperialist mentality and employing a vigorous policy of racial segregation. **The points of reference were the examples of native reserves in South Africa and Kenya.** > >In part to compensate for the lesser use of native labor, settlement was conceived of in the most grandiose terms, with figures arriving at 6,250,000 settlers who would be settled on 50,000, one‐hectare plots. Although the unrealistic nature of these claims was apparent within a few years of the invasion, Party officials and journalists continued to perpetuate the illusion. (Emphasis added.)

>Seen as antithetical to traditional masculine ideals, gay men in Fascist Italy were targeted for discrimination and oppression—even though technically there had been no laws outlawing consensual same-sex relations. > >Mussolini believed homosexuality to be an imported vice and didn’t want to officially recognise activity that he considered to be fundamentally incompatible with a strong fascist country. > >“Fascism was especially keen on spreading the myth of a stereotypical Italian virility,” explains researcher Tommaso Giartosio, co-author of the 2006 book *The City and the Island* which explored the internal exile of gay men to the island of San Domino in Fascist Italy. > >“The repression of homosexuality did take place, but it was carried out by the police very discreetly, through a procedure that deliberately avoided trials or any other kind of publicity.” > >“When several hundred gay men were arrested in about half of Italy’s provinces, the newspapers didn’t report it at all.”

>G2 was headed by the irascible and vehemently anti‐communist Major General Charles A. Willoughby (1892–1972). Willoughby, who was the son of a German father and American mother and whose birth name was Adolf Tscheppe‐Weidenbach, had moved to America at the age of eighteen and become a naturalized U.S. citizen. > >As Takemae Eiji notes, “fellow Occupationaires mocked the General’s stiff Prussian bearing, referring to him alternately as ‘Sir Charles’ and ‘Baron von Willoughby’… Regarded as a martinet by his subordinates — **he took a perverse pride in the epithet ‘Little Hitler’, and even MacArthur dubbed him ‘my loveable fascist’** — the volatile Willoughby nonetheless enjoyed the Supreme Commander’s full confidence”. > >[…] > >Eventually, it was the CIA that gained the upper hand in the struggle for intelligence control. Immediately after MacArthur’s dismissal in April 1951, Willoughby too returned to the United States in a state of “nervous slump”, handing over to the CIA his files, many of his contacts in Japan, and his messages of concern about the need to **continue protecting and nurturing the former senior Imperial Army officers whom he considered “essential for rearmament”.** > >[…] > >Arisue’s new position of trust with the American forces enabled him to provide financial support to Kawabe Torashirō, who also soon became a key informant to the occupation forces; and **Arisue then proceeded to recruit a number of other leading former military figures, including Hattori Takushirō, who had held key positions in the Imperial army general staff, and later Tsuji Masanobu, a wartime colonel and military strategist who was regarded as one of the architects of the invasion of Malaya and Singapore, and had gone into hiding during the early occupation era after being listed as a Class A war criminal.** > >As Willoughby later wrote, **these people had been “the brains” of the former Imperial Japanese general staff**: “monographs were just a cover, to keep them from starving”. Equally importantly, the research activities of Arisue, Kawabe, Hattori, Tsuji and others enabled them to become crucial conduits of information for the U.S. occupiers — a rôle to which they took with enthusiasm. > >**They rapidly reestablished their authority over now unemployed former military subordinates, creating a web of private intelligence organizations which provided information to the Americans in return for a variety of monetary and other rewards.** This web, as we shall see, extended across borders into many parts of the former Japanese empire. (Emphasis added.) :::spoiler [Notes] Particularly cautious readers will wonder if others were overreacting when they called Willoughby a fascist. On the contrary, these reactions were justified: >**Charles Willoughby, an outspoken admirer of Benito Mussolini**, may also have been attracted to Arisue by the fact that the former intelligence chief had once served as Japanese Military Attaché in Rome, where he had developed a similar enthusiasm for Italian Fascism and reportedly attempted to develop a joint Japanese–Italian strategy towards the Muslim world. > >**Rather than being investigated for war crimes, therefore, Arisue was “interrogated, then called in for consultation very early in the occupation”, and “a working relationship apparently developed”.** Reconstructing Axis history is at least twice as difficult as reconstructing Allied history. Axis officials, possibly anticipating that I love a good challenge, destroyed substantial amounts of potentially incriminating documents in 1945. Nevertheless, they shouldn’t get all the credit for making my figurative job more difficult: >Arisue was soon installed by Willoughby in a section of G2’s headquarters in the NYK Building in central Tōkyō, where his ostensible task was to collect and analyze archives and write monographs about Japan’s wartime activities. > >One advantage of this appointment was the opportunities it provided, not only to unearth and preserve the archive of Japan’s military actions in Asia, **but also to make parts of it disappear from the record (so continuing a process which had begun with the destruction of many documents during the last days of the war). A U.S. official note from May 1946 advises that some Japanese War Ministry documents “of a special nature” are absent from the catalogue of files that had been drawn up, “having been left in the charge of Arisue.”** (All emphasis added.) :::

(The figurative kind, but also [the literal](https://books.google.com/books?id=MS25xxY2LKQC&pg=PA67), whose story is for another time.) >**female gender nonconformity, transvestitism, or apparent lesbianism could lead to serious trouble with the Gestapo**, though not in simple, direct ways, and not necessarily in isolation from other aspects of a person’s life—thus not in a manner that some of the opponents of including women in the memorial would term “persecution.” **Perceived gender nonconformity might, for example, bolster an accusation of sabotage.** > >**Even absent an explicit campaign against lesbianism, some lesbians and female-to-male transvestites were harassed, terrorized, and subjected to violence by state and [NSDAP] officials and hostile neighbors at least in part on account of their gender or sexuality.** This maltreatment can be accurately termed “persecution,” though it was nothing like what men caught up in the effort to eradicate male homosexuality suffered. > >[…] > >Thus far, historians of lesbians in Nazi Germany have found a checkered record. Some women ran into serious trouble with the state on account of their sexuality. Others did not. Austria had an anti-homosexuality law that did apply to women, and women were convicted under it. Although Germany’s sodomy law did not apply to women, there were legal grounds for prosecuting women for same-sex sexuality. > >With the exception of the sodomy law, sex laws in Germany, including the age of consent law, were gender-neutral and therefore could be used against lesbians. They were applied in cases where the fact of the matter was simple lesbianism, not the crime with which the women in question were charged. (Emphasis added.) [Under Italian Fascism:](https://web.archive.org/web/20080804114345/http://www.zadigweb.it/amis/schede.asp?id=8&idsch=189) >The case of lesbians is different [from men], as in Germany: they run into moral and social sanctions more than anything else, they are marginalized, perhaps even arrested, prosecuted with specious motivations such as supposed mental illnesses. Particularly avid in denouncing lesbianism were the priests and psychiatrists: given that female homosexuality was unpunishable by law, the stigmatization of lesbians occurred by declaring them mentally ill (hysterical). See also: [*Lesbianism and Fascist Rule: Exploring the Discrepancies between the Persecution of Gay Men and Women in Nazi Germany*](https://ojs.lib.uwo.ca/index.php/westernumirror/article/download/15129/11844).

>Not only was this newly established government in France fundamentally right wing, but they introduced antisemitic laws, built and controlled internment camps for “undesirables,” and instigated a roundup of more than one‐quarter of France’s native and refugee Jewish population, including women and children, **against previous Gestapo orders to round up only fit men.** > >**This government of France chose to implement certain Nazi‐like policies in ways that were independent from [Berlin’s] administrative orders, yet served a common goal.** > >[…] > >The independent enactment of racist policies is one of the central examples that demonstrate the collaborative nature of the Vichy Government. > >In the fall of 1940, a series of anti‐Semitic laws were created without any instruction from the occupying [Fascist] government and introduced within three to six months of the Vichy Government coming into power. > >Legislative changes were introduced three months after inauguration and began with the “abolition on August 27, 1940 of the ‘Marchandeau Decree”’, which repealed prior laws against anti‐Semitism in the media. > >[…] > >In addition, the new Vichy government had created a “Committee on the Jewish Questions” (Commissariat général aux questions juives) in 1940 that was led by Xavier Vallat. > >With the exception of ordering the registration of Jewish persons, “**none of these actions were forced upon by the [Third Reich]; on the contrary […] the [Third Reich] noted the rapidity and scope of French legislation with bemusement, opportunistic glee**, and even occasional annoyance”. The Vichy Government was in fact “eager to legislate, [and] prideful of tracking its own course on questions of race”. (Emphasis added.) See also: [The Third Reich interfered minimally in France’s private sector.](https://lemmygrad.ml/post/104943)

([Alternative link.](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/365237481)) >By the end of 1940 and following the defeat of France, the former Bas‐Rhin and Haut‐Rhin departments were annexed to the [Third Reich’s] territory and Strasbourg progressively became the new administrative and political centre of the Gau Oberrhein, which united Baden and annexed Alsace. > >**This borderland territory of the Rhine area was perceived as a fundamental space in the Nazi policy, which intended to reshape racial European frontiers. Alsace was meant to become a Western march built for the defence of Germanness.** Thus, the Alsatian lands were subjected to Germanization policies that affected [Roma and Sinti] within this territory. (Emphasis added.) Note the class backgrounds of the victims: >mainly musicians, basket‐makers, fairground artists and trailer dwellers linked to the travelling worlds of this transfrontier area between France, Germany, and Switzerland: Sinti, Manouches, Roma and Yenish experienced familial dislocations and endured persecution policies throughout the war. In the same way that antisemitism benefited petty bourgeois gentiles, the oppression of Roma and Sinti must have benefited petty bourgeois whites: here you have a minority soaking up the worst of capitalism’s economic pressures, simultaneously reducing economic competition (for the white petty bourgeoisie) and freeing up space for future settlers. But Fascist capitalists’ motivations for oppressing ethnic minorities is a topic that I’d prefer to save for another day. The rest of this paper is an examination of the evolution of a white supremacist policy in a territory under Axis control. It is pretty dry, so it might not be your cup of tea, but it’s good that somebody analysed this. :::spoiler [Alternative excerpt] >The study of the implementation of the genocidal policies in annexed Alsace underlines the methods used by [Axis] repressive forces to project onto this borderland space their own conception of [Roma], product of their racial imaginary and former police methods. > >Registration of presumed [Sinti and Roma], gathering of individual and familial data, transmission of records from Strasbourg to Berlin, inquiries into genealogical materials, and selections for deportation: these police and bureaucratic operations show how brutally [Axis] racial ideology found its own spatial expression in a recently annexed Western European borderland territory. :::

Quoting Alessandro Bufalini’s [*Italian Colonialism in Somalia: issues of reparation for the crimes committed*](http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2177-7055.2017v38n76p11): >As an example one could mention the De Vecchi’s governorship (1923–1928), when **thousands of indigenous people were subjected to forced labor. In the same period, the [Fascist] governor undertook a campaign of aggressive military expansion marked by a violent repression against the civilian population.** > >Moreover, and notwithstanding the attempt to ignore or try to explain away evidence of the atrocities occurred, it is a fact that at the end of 1935 Italy extensively used poison gas in Africa. **Thirty‐six tons of mustard gas were apparently sent in Somalia in September 1935. In addition, in the very same year, a concentration camp was built at Danane, not far [south] from Mogadishu.** > >Indeed, the acts of violence against civilians date back to before the advent of Fascism. In the early twentieth century, the [Regio Esercito] wiped out entire populations stationed on Somali territory, for instance the Bimàls and Majerteens. In 1905, slavery was formally outlawed, but in practice widely tolerated for many years. > >In fact, the Benadir officials’ practice to purchase female slaves or coerce local women to be their mistresses has not been particularly obstructed when the Italian government asserted its direct administration of Somalia. > >[…] > >Although not much material is available, it seems beyond doubt that **forced labour was a widespread practice both in liberal and fascist Italian colonialism.** Mostly, this labour, based on the exploitation of indigenous people, was not needed for the military occupation, but was destined for the development of the agricultural sector and aimed at favouring the installation of Italian agrarian companies. As discussed in Abdisalam M. Issa-Salwe’s *The Collapse of the Somali State*, Cesare Maria De Vecchi and his crew commenced a reconquest of Somalia which lasted from 1925 to 1928. To give [just one example of his exploits](https://sci-hub.ru/10.1017/S0960777304001602): >While in Africa, De Vecchi ordered the extremely bloody action by Fascist squads against Somali dissidents on 28 October 1926 that caused about one hundred deaths. [Concerning the Danane concentration camp](https://sci-hub.ru/10.1017/S0018246X96007042): >of the 6,500 Ethiopians and Somalis who passed through the camp between 1936 and 1941, **3,175 died either through poor or insufficient food, malaria, enterocolitis, lack of hygiene, the unhealthy climate and salinated wells.** ([Details here, including on how some survived.](https://campifascisti.it/scheda_campo.php?id_campo=49)) Ian Campbell’s *The Addis Ababa Massacre* has a great deal of information on this camp, but for brevity’s sake I shall quote only one paragraph: >**For most of the prisoners at Danane there was never any imputation that they had done anything wrong. They were not convicts, for they had never been convicted of any offence.** Thus Danane was not officially a death camp, but, **since the captives there were sentenced to life imprisonment, it was clearly intended that they would all die at Danane, sooner or later.** > >Several officials of the Italian administration, which was well known to have been riddled with corruption, had lucrative banana concessions and sugar‐cane plantations at a project known as Genale, **and ran them using forced labour from Danane.** (Emphasis added in all cases.) Further reading: [*The "Historic Sins" of Colonialism in Somalia*](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333775677) (a perspective from a Somali).

How many of us can summarize Eritrea under Fascism? No more than a few, I suspect. In fact, I am sure that at least one person who reads this post will be unaware that Eritrea was under Fascism at all. This unknowingness is easy to understand: the Fascists in Eritrea simply weren’t in the habit of committing obvious atrocities like massacres or imprisonments in concentration camps, as in Ethiopia, Libya, or Yugoslavia. Instead, the ways in which the Fascists oppressed Eritreans were often far subtler. Since I am guessing that most of us know very little about this subject, this thread aims to fill in that gap. I’ll mostly be quoting from Tekeste Negash’s [*Italian Colonialism in Eritrea, 1882–1941*](https://archive.org/stream/italiancolonialismineritrea), one of the few books on this subject, for this purpose, and I’ll try to keep this post at a manageable length. # Trade Imports from Italy (most of which were probably for the colonists’ benefit) intensified under Fascism. Eritrea’s Italian imports numbered at 35,764 in 1920, before exploding into a massive 133,083 imports in 1925. It did decline to 89,731 in 1930, but what’s interesting is that that number is still greater than the imports of 1900, 1905, 1910, 1915, and 1920 combined. Similarly, Eritrea’s exports to the fatherland proper numbered at 26,777 in 1920 before skyrocketing to 81,061 in 1925. The number declined to 42,687 in 1930 before ascending to 53,190 in 1934, almost more than half of the 1920 number. (Remember that the Great Depression started in 1929.) >From the modest scale of the colony’s exports inherited by the Italians, the growth of the import/export trade as expressed in annual statistical reports appears rather striking. In 1900, Eritrea exported 2.8 million lire worth of products, while by 1933 exports had climbed to 62 million lire. From a little over nine million lire in 1900, imports jumped to the level of 177 million lire. > >[…] > >The sharp increase in exports from 1924 onwards, when compared with the 1915–24 period, was largely based on coffee imports from Arabia, which were immediately exported to Italy. The increase was also due to Eritrea’s position as an outlet for the Ethiopian import/export trade. Coffee exports, which never exceeded one million lire per annum until 1922, jumped to 26 million in 1924 and reached a peak of 33 million in 1928. > >In most years between 1924 and 1933 the import/export figure contained an average of 50 million lire which had virtually nothing to do with the Eritrean economy. Moreover, the aggregate import/export figure does not in any way take into consideration the inflation of the lire. Eritrea was Fascism’s most profitable colony in 1930, but even so the colonial economists considered this an underperformance. No matter: it sufficed as a dépôt of transit trade. -_Hafen_-_Annemarie_Schwarzenbach_-_SLA-Schwarzenbach-A-5-23-147.jpg) # Employment While there was a capitalist sector, its spread was both slow and uneven: >**In order to increase primitive accumulation Eritrean workers were offered precarious jobs and invariably low wages, thus compelling them to rely for survival on the pre‐capitalist economic system. […] The economic rôle of Eritreans was to perpetually supply labor for [Fascist] capital.** > >As far as the Eritreans were concerned, **the colonial economy was a closed circuit where they could never aspire beyond the stage of selling their labour for wages, which were in turn so low that full proletarianization was virtually impossible.** > >[…] > >As **the colonial state kept labour costs to a level that would not discourage the inflow of capital**, most of the Eritreans employed in the modern sector considered wages as supplementary to their main source of income. […] By providing salaried employment to between 10 and 15 per cent of the population, colonialism increased considerably the autonomy and independence of the colony against natural catastrophes, such as drought and famine. Although it’s uneasy to say for sure, the number of Eritrean wage laborers in the economy’s productive sector during the 1930s probably ranged between 4,000 and 5,000, and they worked part‐time. This excludes Eritreans laboring outside of the colony, of which there were more than a few: >[By 1939, more than 2,000 factories, **chiefly operating with Eritrean laborers newly arrived from the surrounding countryside**, produced everything from food and drug products (e.g., pasta, cooking oil, dried meat, and tobacco), to clothing (buttons and hides), to construction materials.](https://dianagarvin.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Paper-Soldiers-on-the-March.pdf) The Fascist war machine (or the economy’s **de**structive sector) was another story. Service may not have guaranteed citizenship, but it certainly guaranteed [other privileges](https://wp.me/p1OD48-J): >In so far as Eritreans were concerned, the colonial army had its own hierarchy, **with promotion rewarded by higher salaries, privileges and a possible future post in the local colonial bureaucracy.** Differences in salaries were based on rank and years of service. > >Recruitment into the colonial army remained voluntary until the beginning of the 1930s, but once recruited the Eritrean soldier was obliged, if required, to go overseas. Soldiers sent to [Libya](https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/368656) were paid at double the rate of their normal pay in Eritrea. The number of enlisted Eritreans, already in numbers as high as 10,000 in the liberal period, only intensified under Fascism: >Between May and the end of October of 1934, recruitment increased by 11,800, thus bringing [the Eritrean colonial army](https://martinplaut.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/image4.jpg) to a total of 60,200 men. General Visconti Prasca estimated that only 22,400 of these blokes received adequate training; 12,000 were poorly trained and another dozen thousand had no training at all. The issue for the Fascists, of course, was not the possible loss of many black lives, but winning the war. Eritrea’s economy was closely tied to military recruitment: >That the recruitment of Eritreans to the colonial army ran counter to the economic interests of the colony can be illustrated by pointing out the British attitude to the problem during the Second World War. > >In Ghana during the colonial period, the British worked under the assumption that they could not, without damaging the economy of the colony, recruit more than 2% of the total population or equivalent to about 9% of the active male labour force. In the Eritrean case, **the [Fascists] had during the 1935–41 period a colonial army made up of about 40% of the active labour force.** -_Hafen_-_Annemarie_Schwarzenbach_-_SLA-Schwarzenbach-A-5-23-144.jpg) # Settlers >In 1931, there were 4,188 Italians. […] This ratio was complete changed from the early months of 1935 onwards. In a matter of a few months, Eritrea was transformed into a staging post and supply dépôt for the invading [Regio Esercito]. Between April 1935 and May 1936 more than 300,000 soldiers landed in Eritrea on their way to Ethiopia. > >50,000 labourers arrived from [Fascist] Italy to tackle the enormous problems of transportation and accommodation. Eritrea became the nerve centre of the new empire [that] the [Fascists] were about to construct, and during the 1935–37 period the colonial economy gave way to a war economy. > >[…] > >In the ‘historic’ Eritrea (in contrast to the ‘New’ Eritrea created in 1936 with the incorporation of Tigrai) the Italian population increased from 4,600 in 1934 to nearly 75,000 in 1939. Eritrea had accommodated Italians, approximately 15% of the entire Eritrean population, which according to the unpublished census of 1939 was said to be 614,353. > >[…] > >**Thus the [Fascist] colonization of Ethiopia turned Eritrea into a colony of settl[ers], composed of colonists whose income was derived from industrial and commercial capital rather than from small‐scale agriculture. Accounting for nearly 15% of the entire population, the Italians in Eritrea were in a far stronger position than settlers in other colonies such as Kenya, and Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).** The Fascists did not forcibly confiscate Eritreans’ lands, for a few reasons: it made colonial rule more tolerable, thereby preserving stability, and perhaps more importantly, the colony simply did not mature to the point where it needed to expand at others’ expense. Had Fascist colonialism survived a few decades longer, a classic policy of aggressive expansion would have been inevitable. Some of you may be stunned to see a case of colonialism without aggressive expansion. Well, [in 1889 and most of the 1890s there **was** a policy of confiscation and violent suppression of resistance](http://www.ehrea.org/historypast.php), but conflict with Eritrea’s protectorate, Ethiopia, suspended this policy. This was another reason why the Fascist oppression of Eritrea was relatively subtle: the prefascist colonialists already took care of the dirty work. -_Hafen_-_Annemarie_Schwarzenbach_-_SLA-Schwarzenbach-A-5-23-129.jpg) # Education The Fascists have frequently been stereotyped as anti‐intellectual. This is an exaggeration, as the privileged status of both Giovanni Gentile and superfascist Julius Evola would suggest. However, as far as colonial subjects were concerned this was no exaggeration. To quote Fascist Professor Mininni Caracciolo: >We have to recognize from the outset that the teaching of natives along the same lines as in Europe has produced most sad and dangerous results for the natives as well as for the colonizers. It is therefore necessary that native education be adapted as much as possible to the conditions and needs of the native and to the character and specific exigencies of colonialism. Consequently, Eritreans were given, at best, a third grade education (similarly to Poles during Axis occupation), and only a tiny percentage attended. As Giuseppe Bottai and others suggested, education’s purpose was to create obedient manual laborers, which was why it was simple and extremely Italocentric. Any increase in literacy was likely only marginal: >According to the census of 1939 the population of Great Eritrea amounted to 1,537,213. Thus of a school age population of over 300,000, the total enrolment of c. 5,000 amounted to c. 1.7 per cent of the school age children and much less than 1 per cent of the total population. This minimal enrolment was intentional: >The need for introducing western education was recognized, but at the same time it was argued that western education ought to be tailored and rationed on the grounds that the mind of the Eritrean, being infantile[,] indiscriminate extension of western education could cause mental imbalance. Hence, no Eritrean intelligentsia developed under Fascism: all according to plan, as such an absence only made colonial rule even more secure. There was no Eritrean press and no newspapers for them to read.  # Law While the colonial court could have the final say on any matter (if necessary), customary laws and courts were tolerated as alternatives and many Eritrean chiefs remained, only acting as spokesmen and informants for the Fascist state. Such concessions made colonialism easier to tolerate, and they were cheaper and easier for the Fascists to maintain, but this system had its own difficulties: >The colonial judicial system, although it was meant to be a reflection or a continuation of the precolonial system, was considerably different. The most important point of difference lay in the fact that Eritrean chiefs had more power than earlier. > >Backed by the colonial state, chiefs both at a village and sub‐district level distorted the balance of power that existed between the chiefs, the elders and the members of the clergy. Recruited and kept in office as long as they functioned as mouthpieces of the central administration at Asmara, **the loyalty of the chiefs lay primarily with the colonial system.** > >The arbitrariness of the colonial system can best be seen in the manner in which administration of justice was carried out. Based on the stereotype conception of the Eritrean as someone with a fine sense of speedy justice, **no distinction was made between the executive and the judicial functions of the colonial government.** The same district governor acted simultaneously as a judge, albeit assisted by notables paid by the colonial state, and as an administrator. As you can see, law in Eritrea was in many ways conservative (barring obvious obligations like ‘don’t fuck with the state’). So conservative, in fact, that the Fascists tolerated serfdom: >The serfs, who repeatedly asked the colonial state to free them from their onerous obligations to their masters would certainly have rebelled against these ruling élites had the latter chosen to resist Italian rule. The demands and aspirations of the serfs were, however, not fulfilled by the Italians. […] **[Fascist] colonialism did not hasten the disintegration of feudal structures, which in fact continued to prevail up to the mid 1970s**[.] That said, in a few other ways the law differed: as the 1930s progressed [a policy of apartheid evolved](https://lemmygrad.ml/post/655599), limiting autonomy for Italians and Eritreans alike.  # Conclusion Eritrea can be seen as the exception to the rule; given how merciless the Fascists were elsewhere, Fascist rule in Eritrea likely comes across as incredibly moderate. Nevertheless, this is not due to Fascism’s merit but rather to the political needs of the day: >The failure of the policy of Italian settlement led to the new role of the colony firstly as a centre of trade and secondly as a reservoir of soldiers for the colonial army. **These subsequent rôles called for a policy of political stability**, which was effected without great difficulty and expense. Nor was there anything unique about this policy: >Trading colonies generally did not require a radical restructuring of their ‘traditional’ or precolonial economic system. […] As in other African colonies the first four decades of this century were characterized by political stability which in effect meant that there was minimal resistance to colonial rule. Nonetheless, Eritrea under Fascism differed in some notable respects: >In the case of Eritrea, **the desire for radical restructuring was hampered by the scarcity of Italian capital.** During the 1900–40 period **the main objective of the colonial government was to run the colony as inexpensively as possible, or in other words, to maintain political stability.** Issues which were likely to cause political instability were anticipated and measures were taken to pre‐empt them. > >In the process of stabilization, the colonial government utilized the ethnic diversity of the colony and the various Eritrean attitudes towards the colonial system. The Tigrinyans were the only group who, on the basis of a diffuse but nevertheless real notion of Ethiopian nationalism, could really challenge Italian colonialism. The threat of Tigrinyan resistance […] was reduced by a policy of meticulous preservation of the precolonial socio‐political structures. As for why there was a scarcity of Fascist capital: >The functions of Eritrea, firstly as a focus of transit trade and secondly as a reservoir of men for the colonial army, explain both the scarcity of readily exploitable raw material resources and the reluctance of Italian capitalists to invest in the production sector. In short: >**As Italy developed a stronger awareness of the strategic rôle of Eritrea as a staging post for colonial expansion into Ethiopia, it found it to be in its interest to maintain political stability.** And as long as they were holding a staging post, they may as well have fed their war machine and their pockets while doing it! (Emphasis added in all cases.)

>Behind all of these attacks lies a pan-Scandinavian neo-Nazi network: the Nordic Resistance Movement, in Swedish Nordiska Motståndsrörelsen, abbreviated as NMR. > >The movement was founded in [the Kingdom of] Sweden in 1997 by the neo-Nazi Klas Lund as Svenska Motståndsrörelsen, and later renamed to the more-inclusive Nordiska Motståndsrörelsen. Lund was already a well-known face in the Swedish far right — as a leading member of the violent neo-Nazi group Vitt Ariskt Motstånd (White Aryan Resistance). > >[…] > >According to the Expo Foundation, there were 2,801 such propaganda tours in 2018 alone. In 2019, there were 1,658. In addition, the movement organises 125 to 265 demonstrations and rallies annually in Sweden. Expo estimates that there were between 150 and 300 active members of the NMR before the split of the movement in 2019, as well as many other passive members and supporters. > >There are no official government figures on the size of the movement. “At the height of the movement, the NMR was able to mobilise 600 to 700 people for its demonstrations”, Morgan Finnsiö estimates. Social democracy fail: >Swedish historian, publicist and author of the book *Älskade fascism* (Beloved Fascism), Henrik Arnstad, describes Sweden as a fertile ground for fascism after 1945. In interview with *Belltower.News*, he explains: “After World War II, **Sweden was one of the few countries where fascists could still meet and organise – for the most part quite openly. As a result, fascism flourished in the country.**” That awkward moment when even Adolf Schicklgruber is ‘too moderate’ for a neofascist movement: >Although Hitler is also idolised to some extent in the Nordic Resistance Movement, he is also seen as a loser, Arnstad explains. “He ultimately lost the war, then killed himself.” Rather than the NSDAP, **the Romanian fascist Iron Guard movement led by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu serves as inspiration for the NMR**. “Both movements use the colours green and white, both organise in so-called ‘nests’”, Arnstad notes. > >“The Iron Guard was even more antisemitic than the NSDAP. Hitler called them radicals; their antisemitism was even too extreme for him.” The cult of personality around Codreanu is also attractive for the NMR: “He died a heroic death: he was executed by the Romanian government in 1938 and is seen as a ‘saint’”. And—surprise, surprise—these anticommies have been mingling with Azov! >**The NMR also has links to the [Ukrainian Azov Regiment](https://web.archive.org/web/20201127084801/https://www.belltower.news/ukraine-wie-ein-rechtsextremes-freiwilligenregiment-mit-black-metal-nachwuchs-rekrutiert-102385)**: The far-right podcast “FashCast” published an interview between a member of the Finnish NMR and Olena Semenyaka, the so-called “First Lady” and spokeswoman of the far-right paramilitary volunteer battalion in Ukraine. > >In the interview, Semenyaka mentions a “foreign legion” in Ukraine that international volunteers could join, as well as military training camps at the Azov camp in eastern Ukraine. A delegation of the Finnish NMR [visited the Azov Regiment in Kyiv in 2019](https://web.archive.org/web/20201125090622/https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/17/theres-one-far-right-movement-that-hates-the-kremlin-azov-ukraine-biletsky-nouvelle-droite-venner). (Emphasis added in all cases.)

As in Eurasia, Fascism in Africa presented many with an opportunity to ‘get even’ with their (real or perceived) foes. Quoting Alfredo González-Ruibal’s [*Fascist Colonialism: The Archaeology of Italian Outposts in Western Ethiopia (1936–41)*](https://lemmygrad.ml/post/648540): >The reactions of the common folk vary. Some of the Gumuz not only collaborated with the [Fascists], but also joined the fascist army—**often forcibly.** Many Gumuz were later persecuted by patriots for their collaboration with the invaders. > >The changing sides of the Bertha and Gumuz commoners that exasperated the Europeans may be explained as a strategy of resistance developed by populations who have been accustomed to be conquered, enslaved and looted over the centuries. For them, it was mere survival that was at stake. > >Within the Bertha, the Islamized groups (Watawit and Mayu), tended to collaborate with the [Fascists], and some of them still remember the short [Fascist] period as the best in history. (Needless to say, [lower‐class Muslims in Libya would have begged to differ](https://lemmygrad.ml/post/356919).) >The Bertha regarded the Ethiopian highlanders with bitterness, as they had invaded their land, burnt their villages and crops, and killed many only a generation before the arrival of the fascists. > >**The reaction of many communities facing the [Fascist] occupation, however, was to escape**, following a millennium‐old tradition in the area. This is what the Gumuz living south of the Blue Nile did, although they later returned and “gave their hands to the Italians” probably as soon as they saw that they were [[allegedly](https://lemmygrad.ml/post/566960)] against slavery. > >What is obvious is that **the indigenous groups did not respond homogeneously to the [Fascist] invasion. Their behavior depended on their relations of power, local alliances, and ethnic status.** > >Hence, the image of the conflict that we obtain is more complex, murky and ambiguous than is usually transmitted, as it is always the case with colonial situations. > >[…] > >The conflict had local ramifications that colonial authors from both sides overlooked. **The presence of the colonizers aggravated the political and ethnic rifts that crisscrossed the local societies** and the resulting situation turned out to be more ambivalent and complex in the frontier than in other parts of Ethiopia. > >Among the élites, what we see is the bargaining for power and privileges to which the rulers of Benishangul-Gumuz had grown accustomed for centuries. > >Some chiefs, like the Agaw ruler, Zäläk'ä Liku joined the resistance against the [Fascists], whereas others, such as the Bertha Sheikh Khojele Al-Hassan, at first collaborated with them. **The early support offered by Khojele to the [Fascists] was undoubtedly motivated by his hatred toward the British, who hampered his slave trade with the Sudan and imprisoned Sitt Amna, his wife and also a slave trader.** > >**For Khojele and many other aristocrats, the alliance with the new masters provided another source of social differentiation on which to base their power**: a set of distinctions that was negotiated through material culture among other things. To the emblems of rank conferred by the Ethiopian kings, new forms of regalia were added. (Emphasis added.) :::spoiler [Additional excerpt] >Thus, as a souvenir of the alliance between Sheikh Khojele and the fascists, several Italian slate records of the late 1930s are still in the possession of his family. Modern weapons, however, were the main reward sought by chiefs from the invaders. > >Khojele Al-Hassan eventually contributed large sums to the cause of the emperor and his family managed to remain in power after the return of Haile Selassie. His palace was burnt down by the [Fascists] as a reprisal. > >For Zäläk'ä Liku the struggle against the [Fascists] was, at the same time, a vindication of his feudal privileges and his right to enslave the Gumuz. > >Duri Demeke (village of Bowla Dibas'a, Gublak wereda, March 7–8, 2006), an 85‐year old Gumuz, remembered the slave raids conducted by Zäläk'ä and other chiefs before 1936: they enslaved women and children, killed the men and looted the villages. It is not strange, therefore, that the Gumuz did not complain about the [Fascists] arriving to the region. > >However, those areas that were beyond [Fascist] control were still raided. Zäläk'ä captured slaves in remote places. These practices were probably not seen as incompatible with the general struggle for national liberation. After all, many patriot chiefs did not consider true human beings the recently conquered peoples of the lowlands. :::

Although it sounds obvious, various people—from disgruntled Axis commanders to well meaning historians—have nevertheless played down Fascist Italy’s rôle in World War II and have exaggerated the Italian army’s deficiencies, portraying it as risibly incompetent. On the contrary, battling the Regio Esercito (the Italian equivalent to the Wehrmacht) was not easy: >Although the historiographic debate still rages on, the false narratives of the post war era have begun to fade away. Contemporary experts on the Second World War would intensely disagree that it was “more detrimental for Germany to have Italy as an ally than simply to have fought her as an enemy.” While clearly incapable of fighting a first class world power by herself, **Italy was valuable ally to Hitler.** > >In Bruce Watson’s history of the North African theatre, he writes that the British had to shatter “Rommel’s Panzer Armie Afrika – and its supporting Italian divisions.” The phrasing of this statement has it backwards. > >**From 1940 to mid‐1943 Italy — not [the Third Reich] — was the primary Axis power in both Africa and the Balkans.** Vast amounts of Anglo‐American material and hundreds of thousands of men that could have been used against [the Third Reich] instead was devoted to fighting [Fascist] Italy. > >Italian assistance held up the Western powers and allowed [the Third Reich] to concentrate the majority of its strength on the Eastern Front. Even after [the Kingdom of] Italy’s surrender, the collaborationist Italian Social Republic continued the fight for the Axis. > >After [the Kingdom of] Italy’s [capitulation], the Nazi régime was forced to redeploy significant forces to cover the areas once occupied by the [Regio Esercito]. This forced the [Third Reich’s] forces stationed on the [Soviet] front to be substantially reduced. By June 1944, there were 52 German divisions in Italy and the Balkans — about 18.3 per cent of [the Third Reich’s] 285 divisions. > >When the [Soviets] launched their great summer offensives of 1944, there were simply not enough Germans left to stop them. Additionally, Allied troops previously held down in North Africa were redirected to Operation Overlord. **Without Italian support, the German Reich's attempt to turn back the Allied advance would prove pointless.** > >**Anglo‐Saxon historiography not only overlooks the Italian rôle in the war, but [the Reich’s] other ‘minor’ allies as well. The Third Reich’s survival was dependent on the immense effort made by all of the nations that fought beside it.** Without the combat troops, logistical support, and occupation forces provided by her allies, [the Third Reich] could not have fought for so long in as many theatres as it did. > >German “arrogance, indifference, and ineptitude” concerning their allies led to horrific loss of life. Forty six non‐German divisions from [other] Axis Armies were wiped out at Stalingrad alone. **Without the contributions of Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Finland, [the Third Reich’s] collapse would have come much earlier.** (Emphasis added.) See also: [*Understanding Defeat: Reappraising Italy's Role in World War II*](https://sci-hub.ru/10.2307/260699).

The Fascists planted seeds—[figuratively](https://lemmygrad.ml/post/251846) as well as [literally](https://archive.is/1fCk1)—of phenomena intended to have bright futures in the New Order, only for them to lose their original purposes now that the Axis was defeated, looking incongruous after the Allied victory. One such phenomenon was a generation of antisemites. This seems like a pretty obvious concern to have, but strangely I had never seen anybody address this topic. (The closest that I’ve seen was a few people discussing how Oskar Schindler’s compatriots treated him in West Germany.) A casual observer might assume that ‘denazification’ did away with the white supremacist mindset, but that’s doubtful: >In combination, these results suggest that Nazi indoctrination—in school, through propaganda, and in youth organizations—successfully instilled strongly anti‐Semitic attitudes in the cohorts that grew up under [Fascism], and that **the differential effect is still visible today, more than half a century after the fall of the Third Reich.** > >The strength of effects for the 1930s cohort may be surprising; children born in 1939 were only 6 y[ears] old in 1945. However, results in social psychology show high levels of ethnocentric bias at early ages. Studies from several countries demonstrate that preschool children already exhibit in‐group favoritism and out‐group dislike (18–21). In addition, memoirs of Germans who grew up under [Fascism] speak eloquently of how as early as age 5 and 6, they were being indoctrinated in nationalist ideology and racial hatred (22, 23). > >[…] > >In addition, we show that in towns and cities where indoctrination was most effective—and the share of extremists in the 1930s cohort is particularly high—there is markedly higher anti‐Semitism also among those born after 1945, 1955, 1965, and even after 1975. [This is true even after controlling for historical anti‐Semitism. **This implies that effective indoctrination in the 1930s created an “echo effect,” with the share of committed anti‐Semites higher than one would expect based on historical anti‐Semitism alone.**] > >These findings suggest that by reinforcing preexisting racial hatred, **[Fascist] indoctrination contributed importantly to the long‐term persistence of antisemitism in Germany**. And conversely, the strong interaction with preexisting attitudes suggests that confirmation bias played an important rôle in shaping antisemitic beliefs. (Emphasis added.)

Quoting Tekeste Negash’s [*Italian Colonialism in Eritrea, 1882–1941*](https://archive.org/stream/italiancolonialismineritrea), pages 96–7: >For E.A. Scaglione, a biographer of Governor Aosta, **[Fascist] Italy pursued a policy, during the 1937–40 period, that was very similar to that of apartheid.** According to Scaglione's interpretation, the East African empire was to be divided into three geographical zones. > >In the first zone, entirely inhabited by Italian colonists, autonomous politico‐administrative structures were to be developed. The colonial state would be obsolete as it was envisaged that **the first zone would become the home of an Italian community, planted in African soil. The second zone was a much wider area, and where the main economic activities were to be controlled by [Fascist] agro‐industry. The natives were not to be pushed out completely as they were required to provide labour for [Fascist] capital.** > >The last zone was presumably to comprise all the areas that were of least economic interest to [the Fascist bourgeoisie]. This third zone was to be at the disposition of the natives. The colonial state was to function as a mediator between the first and the other two zones. > >On the basis of the laws which made inter‐racial cohabitation punishable, Angelo Del Boca, has argued that **[Fascist] Italy pursued policies that were similar to the system of apartheid as practiced […] in the Republic of South Africa.** For Professor Denis Mack Smith, a British scholar of Italian history, ‘**the most notable contribution of Fascist Italy to colonialism was the theory and practice of apartheid**’. Similar views have also been expressed by Professor Sergio Romano in his concluding comments on the Italian invasion of Libya. > >In his anthology on Italian Imperialism, Professor Aldo Mola concurred with the summation of Denis Mack Smith that Italy pursued a policy of apartheid in Africa. Explaining the class basis of Italian colonial racism, Professor Mola emphasized that it did not help to qualify the ‘apartheid’ nature of [Fascist] native policy by presenting numerous cases of commercial sexual contacts between [Fascist] colonizers and their Eritrean ‘madames’ which permeate colonial chronicles. > >**The purposes of racial laws and the basis of [Fascist] racism** according to Mola **were not only to create a barrier against the consequences of inter‐racial sexual contacts but to reaffirm in a very drastic manner the immutability of the relations between the colonizer and the colonized.** > >However, for professor Alberto Sbacchi, the author of the most substantial study on [Fascist] colonialism in Ethiopia, 1936–40, colonial policies are discussed as conglomerations of isolated episodes rather than as a well‐defined and coherent system of relations between the colonizer and the colonized. (Emphasis added.)

It may be difficult to believe, but the Axis had more than a few ‘benevolent’ white supremacists (if you will) who believed that, under certain conditions, Roma and Sinti could be tolerated (or even welcomed as cannon fodder). For example: >Thus, as opposed to Jews, Himmler believed that full‐blooded Roma could potentially have a future in the German Reich, though *mischlinge* Roma—at least those considered “asocial” because of alleged crimes, “non‐German” customs, and itinerancy—could not. > >Ritter suggested designating a territory within which the “racially pure” Roma could wander, separate from the German people but allowed to maintain their own customs. Himmler seems to have supported this suggestion, writing vaguely that the goal of legislation regarding Roma was “the regulation of [their] way of life,” not their sterilization or extermination. > >Eva Justin, however, a racial researcher who worked with Ritter, disagreed with the assumption that the purer elements in the Roma population were superior. She declared that “[Roma] and part‐[Roma] of predominantly [Roma] blood, whether socially assimilated or asocial and criminal, should as a general rule be sterilized,” though she allowed that “socially integrated” Roma with “less than half [the] blood” could be accepted into the German population. > >According to Justin, any degree of Roma blood merited exclusion, and a greater degree meant a larger measure of negative Roma characteristics. Another researcher, Dr. Behrendt, agreed, declaring that “All [of them] should be treated as hereditarily sick” and imprisoned and sterilized. The oppression that Roma and Sinti suffered depended on the time, the place, and the oppressor: >The vast majority of Roma in Auschwitz died due to the living conditions or from treatment meted out by camp officials, not through an extermination policy dictated by Berlin; of the more than 19,000 Roma who died in Auschwitz, only about 5,000–6,000 were killed in the gas chambers. > >Revealing the uncertainty surrounding the place of the Roma in [Fascist] beliefs, Rudolf Höss, one of the camp administrators, expressed concern over the conditions of the barracks, declaring that they were “utterly unsuitable” for a family camp. He even requested special rations for children and pregnant women. > >In his testimony, Karl Stojka confirms this, stating that small children received jam with their bread. Although these rations were soon stopped, the fact that the request was submitted and granted, at least at first, demonstrates that **[Fascist] policy regarding the Roma was flexible enough to be variously adapted by lower officials to be more brutal or more humane depending on their own beliefs.** > >Roma survivor Hermine Horvath describes a member of the SS who was “so touched” by the malnourished Roma children in Auschwitz that he procured some extra bread for them. **For an unknown reason, the man was gone the following day—perhaps due to the disapproval of his superiors.** In Horvath’s same paragraph, however, she writes that “the point” of the camps was “to break us […] down to nothing.” > >[…] > >Sometimes the Roma were kept separate from other inmates; Jewish survivor Gina Beckerman risked being shot for interacting with a Roma girl in Auschwitz. **But in other camps, Jews and Roma were imprisoned together and were treated no differently.** > >Dutch political prisoner Anthony Van Velsen lived in the Roma section of Auschwitz for a time and described the Roma as being treated “in the same manner as the Jews.” In much of Germany and [Axis]‐occupied lands, **Himmler’s edicts had little effect on the daily experience of the Roma.** (Emphasis added.) In short, the experience of Roma and Sinti under the Axis was negative overall, but not uniformly so. While no Fascists considered the Roma and Sinti to be first‐class citizens, there was otherwise no consensus with what to do with them. You may find this predicament comparable to that of other white supremacist régimes, such as Imperial America: should chattel slavery remain intact, or will neoslavery have to suffice? Should black folks be expelled elsewhere, such as Africa or the Dominican Republic, or can they stay here (as long as they’re useful)? Should black men be offered military service, or should they stick to something less threatening? All of these questions are nonsense to us, of course, but white supremacist régimes take them very seriously.

>Wilhelmine rule in German South West Africa was not the sole inspiration for [Fascist] policies in Eastern Europe, but **it contributed ideas, methods, and a lexicon that Nazi leaders borrowed and expanded. Language, literature, media, institutional memory, and individual experience all transmitted these concepts, methods and terms to the [Fascists].** > >[…] > >Colonial Namibia’s death camp at Shark Island was different from Spanish and British concentration camps in that it was operated for the purpose of destroying human life. Thus, **it served as a rough model for later [Fascist] *Vernichtungslager*, or annihilation camps, like Treblinka and Auschwitz, whose primary purpose was murder.** > >The second variant, German South West African work camps, were also innovative: geared not merely toward incarcerating guerilla rebels and potentially sympathetic civilians, as in Cuba and South Africa, their purpose was to extract economic value from prisoners under conditions that camp administrators anticipated would lead to mass fatalities. Thus, **the Second Reich’s colonial Namibian work camps provided a rough template for Third Reich concentration camps like Buchenwald and Dachau.** (Emphasis added.) For a comprehensive look at this important subject, see [*The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany's Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism*](https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=FF5B75A7B4A46692BF85CADA8CFFB1C4).

>Although futurist artists first pioneered the idea that Italian toys ought to “accustom the child to… physical courage, struggle, and WAR,” the Italian toy industry under fascism adapted these ideas to the new political moment. They made use of régime projects in their product designs, miniaturizing the world of fascist adults to create attractive commercial items. As a result, **private companies often designed more effective propaganda for fascism than the régime.** Playing with fascism: >The Conquest of Abyssinia, Farina Lattea Erba’s imperial board game, invited children to walk in the footsteps of fascist foot soldiers and the Italian industrial titans who came before them. Illustrations of steam ships, palm trees, and [Fascist] military progress were printed in bright color lithograph on heavy cardboard stock by Officina Istituto Italiano d’Arte Grafica Bergamo. > >This tabletop amusement for children represented a significant advertising investment on the part of Carlo Erba S.A., the Milanese food company. Measuring two feet by one foot, it would have dominated the table as children played the game at breakfast (presumably consisting of the cream of wheat hawked by the company). Carlo Erba S.A. provided this toy *in omaggio*, the gift that came with a number of porridge box purchases. > >[…] > >**Italian children could even eat their morning cream of what out of a 1935 line of colonial dishware** from ceramics maker Ginora, called “Figli di Lupa”. **These tiny cups and plates showed camels, palm trees, and huts alongside the cannons, tanks, and guns used to take them.** Key to the construction of children’s racism, this reduction in scale conveys an empire that you can hold in the palm of your hand. Advertising and illustration reduced the actual violence to miniaturized play. (Emphasis added in all cases.) I am including a screenshot in this excerpt because you really have to see these to believe them:  Concerning playthings under German Fascism, see [*Nazi toys expected to raise thousands at Thornaby auction*](https://web.archive.org/web/20151023065803/http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tees-31991001). (One particularly infamous board game was [*Juden Raus!*](http://www.giochidelloca.it/storia/BGS6.pdf#page=44), but apparently it was a critical and commercial failure, unlike [the Adolf Schicklgruber sticker album.](https://web.archive.org/web/20170625121010/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/4359000/Nazi-sticker-book-with-pictures-of-Adolf-Hitler-skiing-up-for-auction.html))

>Many state agencies were affected by a permanence of the Fascist ideology and several para‐state agencies associated with the régime did not fade away with the fall of the *duce*. This ‘ideological permanence’ flourished in the 1950s and 1960s through the emergence of what has been labelled ‘a double state’, typified by informative and illegal police‐type bodies. > >For instance, it is revealing that **the first Italian military secret service (Sifar, *Servizio Informazioni Forze Armate*) was created in 1949 without a proper political debate. The Sifar was identical to the Sim (*Servizio Informazioni Militari*; Military Information Service) created under Mussolini’s régime.** > >When the aforementioned Gesualdo Barletta left the management of the new Division of General and Reserved Affairs in 1958, the approach to state security did not change. The new director, Domenico De Nozza, moved from Trieste to Rome with more than 40 collaborators who, with the help of the Ministry of Interior Tambroni, engaged in illegal information gathering on communists, specifically on the Italian Communist Party (PCI). > >This illegal activity was carried out independently from the legal secret service Sifar and thus epitomized the emergence of a state within a state **also supported by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)**. After De Nozza, Ulderico Caputo, who was an ex‐Fascist police officer, continued along the same lines. (Emphasis added.)

([Alternative link.](https://sci-hub.ru/10.2307/41719807)) >There is nothing remarkable in tin cans and bottles turning up in military sites. What is more strange is them appearing in the specific contexts that I am studying. > >**An enormous logistical effort had to be made to bring supplies to this isolated outpost**: The Eritrean ports were situated well over a thousand kilometers away and were only communicated by roads, most of them dirt tracks. What surprises most is not the logistical effort as its pointlessness from a practical point of view. > >**Only a handful of Italians lived in Gubba and Afodo. The colonial presence was overwhelmingly represented by Ethiopians and Eritreans. They would have been very glad to keep on with their customary eating and drinking habits. Yet they were provided with European foods and drinks at an enormous cost.** > >Actually, **neither colonial nor Italian soldiers consumed local foods except in cases of starvation.** Eritrean veterans interviewed by Alessandnro Volterra noted that, by the end of the war in 1941 and during a siege, they were so hungry that they all, including the Italians, ended up eating the Ethiopian fermented pancake: *ïnjära*. > >Whereas one explanation to the logistical deployment could be the rigid bureaucratic system of the [Regio Esercito] and administration, another likely explanation is that food and drink, especially wine, were being used to “civilize” the natives. > >**It was also a strategy to underpin the difference between colonial troops and the rest of the population**, to foster the dependence of colonial servants from the colonizers, and to create a[n] *[e]sprit de corps* among the alienated indigenous soldiers. This was reinforced by the use of white ware, dishes and coffee cups, related to European consumption habits. (Emphasis added.)

>Bearing in mind that **the regular police forces of neither country underwent radical changes in personnel following the rise to power of Mussolini/Hitler**, the rituals aimed to make a positive statement about the political credentials of police institutions. > >[…] > >Moreover, as the article of October 1936 implies, the presence of representatives of the police forces of other countries at the celebrations was used to propagandise the international reputation of the Interior Ministry Police, along the lines that in the past the Italian police had had to look up to foreign police forces; **now it was the foreign police who had to learn from them**. > >The oral commentator of newsreel footage of the 1937 celebration reinforced this notion in proclaiming how : ‘The German, Austrian, Hungarian, Portuguese, Yugoslav and Albanian police delegations watch the superb spectacle and the procession of six thousand men carrying the most advanced arms and equipment’. > >[…] > >**The activities that characterised the *Tag der deutschen Polizei* were not new to the police** as they resembled promotional efforts carried out from the mid‐1920s onwards to improve the image of the police, especially the Prussian police force. > >In the Weimar as well as in the [Fascist] years, these activities included public donations of meals to the poor, the staging of sporting events, public concerts, exercises using dogs and horses, as well as games for children. The *Tag der deutschen Polizei* continued and expanded these types of activities. In some areas police stations were decorated, parades were held and riding on horseback was organised. > >[…] > >Difficulties in recruiting young men into the police who preferred a career in the army meant that [**[Fascist] Germany’s uniformed police never achieved the same levels of manpower which they had during the Weimar years. The suggestion that the police had eyes and ears everywhere was a myth — not only for the Gestapo**](https://lemmygrad.ml/post/626812) — and perhaps this helps to explain some of the importance which high‐ranking police officials gave to the *Tag der deutschen Polizei*. (Emphasis added.)

(Probably to further whitewash [Axis personnel](https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/304217).)

>According to Acting Justice Francis A. Kahn III, “all rent lists, orders, unexpired and expired leases, agreements, correspondence, notices and registration statements relating to rental spaces or facilities in the premise” must be turned over, and “all persons now and hereafter in possession of said premises, or any part thereof, and not holding such possession under valid and existing leases or tendencies, do forthwith surrender such possession to the Temporary Receiver.” > >The New York Banderites could face serious consequences if they obstruct the [court-ordered takeover](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mFqhqlS-IZ6oXINaJp69fE9ZoJ4_8yZW) of their residential and commercial building, but they may be in big trouble regardless, and these are people not known to “capitulate” under any circumstances. > >[…] > >Christine Balko, the coordinator of the “Organizations of the Ukrainian Liberation Front” in the United States, is the treasurer of the ODFFU, secretary of the UAFF, and a director of the CUSUR. According to the same anonymous complaint, “In the past, she was forced to resign from Self Reliance NY Federal Credit Union for stealing members’ Social Security numbers and the addresses of their families in Ukraine to whom they sent money through electronic fund transfers.” > >If the new “Leader” of OUN-B was briefed on the “Big Trouble in Little Ukraine,” he might not have wanted to take a picture with Balko to tout the success of his first “mission” to the United States. At least in New York City, the “Bandera Lobby” is controlled by a “Bandera Mafia,” the days of which seem to be numbered.

>In 1919, German women received the right to vote. For the first time, female representatives took seats in the German parliament. Though the percentage of female delegates remained small, women were the majority of voters in the Weimar Republic. As a result, many German political parties created special appeals to women. > >The Nazi Party was no exception. It marketed specially tailored propaganda to female voters emphasizing that women could save the German family from ruin **simply by voting for Hitler or the [NSDAP]**. Such marketing strategies worked, despite the [NSDAP’s] poor record on women’s rights. [Fascist] messages aimed to create a sense of female empowerment by highlighting the crucial rôle of women in paving the way for social and political change. (Emphasis added.) Most surprisingly, the Fascists even attempted to appeal to blind folk: >The [NSDAP] used propaganda to reach out to a variety of often-overlooked audiences. One of these audiences was blind Germans. [Fascist] propagandists issued a number of publications in Braille, one of which was a three-volume edition of Hitler’s *Mein Kampf*. > >The [Fascists] claimed that other German political parties marginalized blind Germans. Moreover, [Fascist] propagandists appealed to blind Germans by reminding them that Hitler had been blinded in a poison gas attack in World War I, so he understood their plight. They promised to integrate blind people into the [Fascist] ideal of a national community. What is unsurprising, though, is that [living standards for blind Germans never improved under Fascism.](https://books.google.com/books?id=1AFc0TCLZfcC&pg=PA85)

In my experience, antisocialists have little—if anything—to say about Fascist colonialism, and even less to say about [how other forms of European colonialism influenced it.](https://lemmygrad.ml/post/376261) I suspect that they shy away from the subject because seriously arguing that European colonialism was ‘socialist’ would only open the door to a lot of awkward questions and conclusions (particularly regarding successful colonies like the United States). But understanding Fascist colonialism is crucial to understanding Fascism. We can view the Third Reich’s colonialism in particular as part of the tradition of German imperialism, and European imperialism in general: >Parallels with colonialism are not limited to ideological justifications of rule and conquest, but are also evident in the methods employed by rulers. In the colonies, a small élite of colonial administrators and officers ruled over a much larger indigenous population that barely participated in governance. > >The colonizers and the colonized belonged to different, racialized legal systems. The influence of colonial images on [Fascist] occupation policy is demonstrated by the fact that the Ostministerium (Ministry for the East) in Berlin **was explicitly said to be modelled on the British India Office.** > >[…] > >**Not only were former German colonists in Africa the preferred settlers in the East, where their ‘pioneer qualities’ were thought to be useful, but trained specialists were also in great demand.** Franz Ritter von Epp, director of the Imperial Colonial Office, called for colonial experts to volunteer for the East: > >>As the Director of the Colonial Office I urge **all colonial farmers and experts from the German colonies or other tropical regions, who had volunteered for duty in our colonies, now to assist with their expertise in the southern part of the occupied East**[.] Those who prove themselves are assured preferential treatment in the colonies in the future. (Emphasis added.) This shall not be the last time that I discuss the Twoth Reich’s colonialism’s influence on its successor. More to come next week…

>In Java, policies enacted by the occupying [Imperial] Japanese military led to mass famine. The Vietnam famine, notwithstanding highly unfavourable weather and wartime bombing, might well have been sidestepped if one or more of three main groups had moved to supply food to the famine‐affected Tonkin delta and North Annam. > >Those whose decisions could have made a difference included the French, who administered the country as a pro‐Vichy régime until the 9 March 1945 [Imperial] coup, the [Axis] military which occupied Vietnam from 1941 onwards, and the Americans who bombed the country. :::spoiler [Commentary] Although this paper provides some much needed discussion of this relatively obscure topic the author makes a few (typical) mistakes. The most apparent one discussing price controls without making an effort to understand **why** a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie would enact them. A generic antisocialist would explain this away with the claim that they were simply a poor personal choice, or at least an inevitability due to poor personal choices, but that explanation fails to consider how they benefitted the Imperial bourgeoisie. Forcing the vendor to sell at a lower price maximized the buyer’s profits. Similarly: > a substantial part of the incentive that price disparities would have provided to grow and trade in rice was dissipated by [Imperial] suppression of the black market. The author mentioned this without further comment. The part about price disparities may be true, but it misses the point. The intention of suppressing the black market was to encourage the native populace to focus on feeding the Axis war machine. >Because Java’s highly integrated rice market tended to equalize supplies and iron out price rises due to crop failures, a decision towards the end of 1944 to close Residency boundaries for food crops and order Residencies to become self-sufficient in food production was a badly misguided policy. What I said above can apply here, as it’s likelier that the intention was to concentrate distribution to the Axis war machine and away from the native inhabitants. The author’s use of ‘badly misguided’ implies that the Axis rulers had the natives’ best interests at heart, which is odd. >Different [Axis] policies, perhaps even a willingness in early 1943 to change policy, might also have prevented famine. Instead, [Axis] officials and policymakers showed little understanding of the Javanese rice economy and the importance to it of market mechanisms and incentives. > >That may have been because of an inflexible, military government; because the [Axis] lacked Javanese experience; or, most likely, because it was thought best to adopt a system like that which existed in Japan. When things began to go wrong, [Axis] administrators relentlessly moved away from market solutions and, as described above, enforced ever more restrictions: ‘the more the Japanese tried to control rice marketing, the more it slipped out of control’. Remember: this was after the Fascists failed to conquer Stalingrad, at which point an Axis victory was all but assured and only became more and more improbable by the month. That the Axis would intensify its exploitation—even if it meant sacrificing entire populations—to achieve victory does not enter into the author’s consideration at all. >The Viet Minh, of course, had its own goals. While understanding the famine’s use as a weapon of revolution, discussed below, the Viet Minh also saw the opportunity to enlist the famine to try to gain American support against the French. Judging from Patti’s account of his interaction with Ho Chi Minh, an alliance with the Americans, not aid for famine sufferers, appears to have been the principal motivation behind the ‘Black Book’ of photographic famine evidence that Ho gave Patti. Now it wouldn’t a Western historian’s paper without the compulsory potshot at communists, would it? That said, this article is still worth reading. Even if you discount natural factors the Western Allies bore some responsibility for the famines, so I wouldn’t blame them entirely on the Axis, but the Axis’s rôle in them was still important. :::

>Ukraine’s new authorities actually made every concession to neo‐Nazi militants because they themselves feared the monster they had armed to keep them in power. > >However, nationalist and neo‐Nazi groups were systematically made mainstream by all Ukrainian governments after the collapse of the Soviet Union; they were needed to reverse the mass nostalgia for the late‐Soviet welfare state with free healthcare, education, free apartments for workers, free trips to resorts and vacation homes with very low prices for food, gas, electricity and public transport. > >Now people get prison sentences for even wearing a Soviet badge, listening to Communist songs, or wearing a T‐shirt with a hammer and sickle. Most of the communists left for the rebellious republics of Donbass (where their own communist party operates), some went to Russia, and some stayed to work underground in Ukraine. > >Even recently, in March 2023, the Ukrainian security services reported the detention in western Ukraine, in the city of Lviv, of a cell of the illegal Communist Party of the Soviet Union, numbering 45 people. Judging by their description, they were mostly elderly people.

>Garcia made a positive reference to [Libs of TikTok](https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2022/06/14/far-right-influencers-hyped-coeur-dalene-pride-patriot-front-showed), the pseudonym of Chaya Raichik, who posts anti-LGBTQ+ commentary on mainstream platforms including Substack and Twitter. He also lauded the activities and beliefs of the white nationalist and antisemite [Nick Fuentes](https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/nick-fuentes), and highlighted more than one of his appearances on easily accessible online talk shows. I hesitated to share this since it’s probable that you already know about it, but one fact that the media gloss over is his military background: [a typical feature among fascists](https://lemmygrad.ml/post/575902). Aside from being petty‐bourgeois, having military training was another risk factor, and many fascists (including Adolf Schicklgruber hisself) had both: >The banner of National Socialism was raised by upstarts from the lower and middle commanding ranks of the old army. Decorated with medals for distinguished service, commissioned and noncommissioned officers could not believe that their heroism and sufferings for the Fatherland had not only come to naught, but also gave them no special claims to gratitude. Hence their hatred of the revolution and the proletariat. ([Source.](https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/germany/1933/330610.htm))

>These public honorings of people who committed horrific atrocities during World War II persist despite Germany’s strict laws against displaying Nazi flags or other symbols, and even though many of its major cities have over the past two decades [commissioned reports](https://www.stadt-salzburg.at/fileadmin/landingpages/stadtgeschichte/ns_projekt/ns_strassennamen/strassennamenforschung_in_deutschen_stae_00469249.pdf) aimed at rooting out inappropriate honorings of [NSDAP] members and others with racist or antisemitic pasts. **Most are in the former West Germany.** (Emphasis added.) For a look specifically at Italy, [see here.](https://archive.is/ZVUaI) ETA: retitled to be clearer.

>A remarkable document which is part of the memoirs of Jozef Lipski, the Polish ambassador to Berlin from 1933 to 1939, unwittingly provides the clue to the main motive: Poland was chosen because it shared with Germany as a national goal the elimination of the Jews from its midst. This official document reveals in a few short sentences far more than what many volumes on the Polish participation in the Holocaust could express. > >In document 99, Ambassador Lipski transcribes for the Polish Foreign Minister Joseph Beck his conversation with Hitler in a meeting which took place in Obersalzberg on September 20, 1938, three months after the Evian Conference (June 6-15, 1938), where 29 nations had already made clear their unanimous unwillingness to grant asylum to the Jewish refugees. > >Hitler, who was persuading the Poles to join Germany in his impending attack on Czechoslovakia, also referred to the Jewish problem. Speaking in his characteristic code language on “solving” the “Jewish question,” he told the Polish ambassador that: “he had in mind an idea for settling the Jewish problem by way of emigration to the colonies with an understanding with Poland, Hungary, and possibly also Rumania.” > >**The Polish ambassador was so impressed with Hitler's proposal on helping Poland get rid of its Jewish population that he responded enthusiastically, as described in the ambassador's own words: “I told him if he finds such a solution we will erect him a beautiful monument in Warsaw.” Hitler knew very well that nothing would gladden the heart of his Polish interlocutor as his plans on the elimination of the Jews. After all, it was Poland, not Germany which had come up one year before with the plan to exile the Jews to Madagascar.** (Emphasis added.) :::spoiler [Additional excerpt] >When [the Fascist bourgeoisie] felt the time was ripe to move ahead and invade Poland, [it] could feel assured that, regardless of how the Poles might react to the occupation of their homeland, they would be on [Berlin’s] side as far as the destruction of Jewry was concerned. In this they did not err. > >In view of Poland's eliminationist stand, the [Fascists] could assume not simply the passivity, but the eternal gratitude of the Polish nation for doing for them what they wanted most—clearing Poland of its Jews, as Lipsky made it clear to him. > >As the [Fascists] escalated by stages their extermination program in Poland they confirmed their assumptions far beyond their wildest expectations. Not only was there no danger that the Poles might join hands with the Jews to resist the [Fascist] occupation, but they cooperated willingly with the [Fascists] to exterminate the Jews. > >That is why Poland was chosen as the main site to establish the [ethnocidal] machinery to annihilate European Jewry. Nowhere else could such a place be found where the Jews would find themselves totally isolated in a sea of mortal enemies who were bombarded day and night with the belief that their country would benefit immensely from the elimination of the Jews. > >Thus could the [Fascists] slaughter before the eyes of millions of Poles their Jewish neighbors in the outskirts of all the towns of Poland, destroy ghetto after ghetto, and transport millions from all over Europe to their death in the Polish concentration camps, without the slightest opposition of the population and its underground army. > >The annihilation of the Jews on Polish soil at the same time served as a demonstration to the Polish population of what lay in store for them, if they did not submit meekly to their [Fascist] masters. :::

>Prolog chief Mykola Lebed (“AECASSOWARY 2”), the “Foreign Minister” of the ZP/UHVR, was Bandera’s murderous deputy during World War II and was once associated with a Gestapo school in occupied Poland which included “exercises in the hardening of hearts” — torturing Jews. A US military intelligence report shared the view that Lebed was a “well-known sadist and collaborator of the Germans.” He became the CIA’s go-to Ukrainian nationalist for decades. > >Lebed complained to his handlers that Dobriansky “has more and more identified with the far-right in American politics” as he slipped “more and more under the influence of the Bandera people.” In 1967, the CIA informed the 303 Committee, a high-level interagency panel that approved major covert actions, about Operation Aerodynamic, and that “right-wing Ukrainians in the UCCA (Ukrainian Congress Committee of America), have also denounced Prolog and its leader as soft on communism and as CIA tools.” > >[…] > >Another Wikipedia myth is that Lev Dobriansky and Yaroslav Stetsko co-chaired the National Captive Nations Committee (NCNC). Dobriansky set up this body following what appears to have been one of the proudest accomplishments of his life. In 1959 the UCCA president drafted a Congressional resolution that Dwight Eisenhower signed into law, which designated the third week of July as Captive Nations Week, “until such time as freedom and independence shall have been achieved for all the captive nations of the world.” > >According to Public Law 86-90, this included “submerged nations” of the Soviet Union (such as “Idel-Ural” and “Cossackia”) that Dobriansky’s nemesis George F. Kennan claimed were “invented in the Nazi propaganda ministry.” Lev Dobriansky typically gets all the credit for authoring the “Captive Nations Resolution,” which a former Secretary of State once privately described as “one of the wildest kinds of cold war kind of thing you ever seen in your life.”

For a more serious and in‐depth look at how the German and Spanish anticommunists collaborated, see David A. Messenger’s [*Hunting Nazis in Franco's Spain*](https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=C10A3D9DCEDFEAFFE03809C209E96A80). See also: [*Nazi and Francoist medals: The secret inheritance of a German woman who died in Spain’s Dénia*](https://web.archive.org/web/20211115125721/https://english.elpais.com/culture/2021-11-15/nazi-and-francoist-medals-the-secret-inheritance-of-a-german-woman-who-died-in-spains-denia.html)

([Alternative link.](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340313943_Tormented_Alderney_archaeological_investigations_of_the_Nazi_labour_and_concentration_camp_of_Sylt)) >The limited testimonies that describe life in Sylt labour camp highlight the severity of the atrocities committed, even in this early period. Former Helgoland camp prisoner Georgi Kondikov, for example, described Sylt as “the most terrible camp [which] everybody was afraid of”. > >This reputation was attributed to the camp’s architecture—barracks exposed to the windy weather—and the treatment of prisoners by OT staff. Former Sylt prisoner Cyprian Lipinski explained how, during forced labour duties, “**we were beaten with everything they could lay their hands on […] most of these beaten people died of wounds they had received**”. > >Each prisoner was assigned to a labour company and **forced to undertake heavy construction work for 12 hours per day**. They were inadequately dressed and undernourished. Daily rations consisted of black coffee for breakfast; a thin soup and a loaf of bread between five prisoners for lunch; and a relatively thicker soup with butter for dinner. > >The OT did not administer medical treatment at Sylt: sick prisoners who were able to walk were sometimes permitted to visit the hospital at Norderney. **One‐fifth of the camp’s inmates reportedly died between August 1942 and January 1943.** > >[…] > >After the Second World War, the existence of Sylt became public knowledge through media reports, resulting in rumours about a death camp on Alderney. To quash these claims, the findings from Pantcheff's 1945 investigation were published in 1981, but presented a less atrocious version of events compared to the original investigation. > >Although the 1945 investigations highlighted the extent of atrocities at Sylt and identified those responsible, **no prosecutions took place. Prisoner nationalities were simplified (reducing most victims to ‘Russian’) and, eventually, claims regarding the brutality were watered down. This was partly guided by the British Government's desire to hand over the investigations to the Russian government in 1945, and to forget about the crimes perpetrated on the island, a view shared by many in the local government and population of Alderney.** (Emphasis added.) This is somewhat unrelated, but as long as I am mentioning Axis concentration camps I’d like to take this opportunity to mention [this archaeological analysis](https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/12/11/1802) ([alternative link](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341904972)) of several in southeast Poland that have been almost completely forgotten by time. It’s all very dense and technical, but is a good example of archaeologists taking on a challenge, if any of that’s your bag.

Militant anticommunists sometimes tormented and massacred Jews with a sick sense of humor that would have made even [the Joker](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/the_Joker) blush. This included parodying or misappropriating aspects from Judaism. For example, quoting Colin Evans’s [*The Casebook of Forensic Detection*](https://books.google.com/books?id=adKcM055ERoC&pg=PT157): >To describe the events in Bucharest in 1941 as “religious matters” was stretching incredulity to the breaking point. On January 21—St. Valerian’s Day—hordes of green‐shirted members of the Iron Guard, Romania’s virulently pro‐[Reich] political party, scythed through the Jewish quarter of Bucharest, laying waste to everyone and everything. The [chaos] lasted three days and **left almost six thousand dead**. > >An eyewitness wrote, “Perhaps the most horrifying single episode was **the ‘kosher butchering’ of more than 200 Jews in the municipal slaughterhouse. The Greenshirts forced them to undress and led them to the chopping block, where they cut their throats in a horrible parody of the traditional Jewish methods of slaughtering fowl and livestock.**” [The bodies were ‘[then left to hang on meat hooks.](https://books.google.com/books?id=GoKLDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT62)’] (Emphasis added.) :::spoiler There were similar instances elsewhere. Quoting Edward B. Westermann’s [*Drunk on Genocide*](https://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=9B99A0D2D44812B5CBC7523EB518AC58), pages 52–3: >Verbal mockery and rituals of humiliation often incorporated a grotesque parody of Jewish religious practices. For example, some members of the *Einsatzgruppen* forced their victims to recite the phrase “I want to go to the Promised Land” prior to their execution. Similarly, SS camp guards at Treblinka dressed prisoners as rabbis with cowbells around their necks and forced them to supervise the latrines and respond to the question “How’s it going with the shit?” > >At Treblinka, the front wall of the building housing the gas chambers was adorned with a Star of David and a curtain taken from a synagogue with the Hebrew sentence, “This is the gate through which the righteous pass.” > >In some cases, the perpetrators went so far as to create ritual religious parodies as “ceremonial mockeries” of their victims’ Jewish faith. One witness in the Ukrainian town of Chudnov described the [Fascists’] use of one such “ceremonial mockery” in which the town’s eighty‐seven‐year‐old rabbi was forced to don his religious garments and was led by two women carrying candles to the execution site. Escorted by a [Fascist] with a rubber whip, “the old women were forced to sing, walking through the whole shtetl [village] until they reached the garden. […] They were killed and buried in the same pit right there in the garden, and a cross was put over their grave.” > >During mass killings in Minsk, SS and police forces organized a “ceremony” on Saturdays (the Sabbath) that included Jewish musicians playing arias from the opera *The Jewess* and “Kol Nidre,” the opening sung prayer of the Yom Kippur service. > >These acts were not only intended as a humiliation of the individual, but also to ridicule Judaism itself. By incorporating song, prayers, and religious artifacts into the killing process, the perpetrators appropriated their victims’ rituals while symbolically repudiating their Jewish faith, an act made explicit with the placing of the cross over the mass grave in Chudnov. In addition, there was at least one instance where the Fascists intentionally selected 613 Jews to exterminate because they knew that [the number 613 was sacred to Judaists.](https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1556513/jewish/What-Is-the-Significance-of-the-Number-of-Gds-613-Commandments.htm) Enzo Garofalo of the Institute of Concentrationary Music Literature Foundation told me this: >[I]n derision against Jewish people, the Nazis chose 613 young guys (a number corresponding to the precepts of Judaism) and put them on a truck promising them that they would be freed. There was also a 614th young guy with them: the Nazis then said that one of them had to go down because he was supernumerary. The only one who had the intuition to get off was fourteen-year-old Jacob Garfein ([who] survived, [and] after the war [was] expatriated to the USA and became a famous theater director and well-known as Jack Garfein) who, during the trip, had heard one of the boys singing a poignant melody. Garfein recorded it in his mind without ever singing it. (The song was *Tsi itzt mayn harts* by a Polish anonym from the Märzbachtal camp.) :::

>The building of the New State saw the formation of a new political élite, more professional and middle‐class in character than the one that had been in existence before 1931. > >Although not many members of the traditional business élites could be found among the régime’s top officials, **plenty of them held positions on local government and trade union bodies. From here, they were able to defend their interests and enjoy access to local councils and the boards of financial firms. During these years, many politicians and army officials became members of the business élite.** > >[…] > >Franco was quick to realise the shift in the international landscape in mid‐1947. He increased police repression of the opposition, decimating the clandestine structure of the CNT, and openly used the military to fight against the guerrillas, weakening them enormously. He surmised that, **given the threat of communism, the [liberal régimes] would look the other way and he was right.** > >In the wake of the Soviet blockade of Berlin (from June 1948 to May 1949) and the birth of NATO (April 1949), amid an all‐out war in Korea (from June 1950 to July 1953), **the UN rescinded its condemnation of the Franco régime and recommended the return of ambassadors (December 1950). In the spring of 1951, the US, British and French ambassadors all came back to Madrid and Spain was admitted into UNESCO in 1952. Subsequently, the régime signed the Concordat of 1953 with the Vatican (in August of that year) and a bilateral agreement with the USA (September 1953), and Spain was finally admitted into the UN (December 1955).** > >For the Communist Party of Spain (PCE), the diplomatic strategy necessitated armed action at home: a guerrilla strategy. The guerrilla war was a complex situation. The guerrilla army consisted of left‐wing activists who had sought refuge in the mountains to escape from repression, peasants persecuted because of their involvement in wartime collectivisations and the members of those parties and trade unions in support of organised armed struggle against the régime. > >Bands of guerrillas cropped up in various mountainous areas of Spain at the end of the civil war. They reached their zenith and achieved a certain level of organisation from the latter stages of the Second World War through the end of the 1940s. > >It is calculated that between 1946 and 1951, some 15,000 guerrilla fighters met their deaths in Spain. **The PCE was the organisation that gave them the greatest support in this period, as a mechanism to mobilise the population against the régime and draw the Allies into a war to end Francoism.** (Emphasis added.) By comparison, **liberal capitalists in the same era were (quietly) supporting Axis‐affiliated guerrillas in Eurasia** in the hopes of overthrowing, or at least weakening, the U.S.S.R. and the other people’s republics. See Christopher Simpson’s *Blowback*, chapters eleven and twelve, for proof. ETA: modified the title to be clearer.

>NSB internationalism was also shaped by imperialism, unlike Quisling’s and Lindholm’s parties. The Dutch empire, and particularly colonial rule in the East Indies (Indonesia), enjoyed majority popular support, while the NSB itself was staffed by several former colonial administrators and military. > >Fascist organisations enjoyed greater support in the Indies than in the metropole: the NSB became the largest political party in the colony by the mid-30s, while the colonial branch supplied a disproportionate amount of funding. NSB headquarters quickly acquired a dedicated department for the East Indies administration. > >[…] > >Accordingly, at the end of the decade, contacts between the NS, SSS and DNSAP intensified: in June 1939, after the success of gaining three seats in the Danish parliament, the DNSAP, the main driving force in this Scandinavian cooperation, invited the Norwegians and Swedes to its party convention in Kolding. > >Per Dahlberg, Lindholm’s right-hand man, gave a speech highlighting the common Nordic destiny. Vidkun Quisling spoke too, outlining the common battle of the Nordic peoples against the international forces of Marxism. > >The convention was also the occasion for Clausen and Quisling to discuss the formation of an international Nordic fascist organisation, the Nordic Peoples’ Rising [Nordisk Folkereisning], which would coordinate the three parties’ activities and support each other. Soon after the outbreak of the Second World War, a so-called Nordic battle appeal [Nordisk Kampapell] was organised on 13 November 1939 in Copenhagen. The conference was a spectacle of international fascist solidarity in Scandinavia, underpinning a myth of a revived Nordic Great Power in Europe in the presence of two-thousand guests.