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Neo-Fascism in Western Germany and Italy*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Taylor Cole
Taylor Cole
Affiliation:
Duke University
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Extract

The action of the French National Assembly in the late summer of 1954 finally ended the hopes of proponents of the European Defense Community Treaty. Today the treaties and protocols of the London and Paris Conferences which proposed the creation of a Western European Union are the objects of official scrutiny. Both Italy and Germany will become members of the Western European Union after the appropriate ratifications of these documents. The restoration of Germany to a status of equality with that of other Western European states and her admission into NATO have been proposed by the Foreign Ministers of the Western powers.

But behind these actions there has lurked a fear which is reflected in many European countries, the fear of a neo-fascist rebirth in Western Germany and Italy. The image of a rearmed Germany, feeding on the industry of the Ruhr and associated with a Nazi revival, frightens many French parliamentarians. In Britain, the Bevanites have expressed left-wing Laborite fears of German rearmament and have associated it with probable fascist direction. Said their leader on November 18, 1954, in a parliamentary exchange: “Do you think the people of this Country will be safer against the prospects of war if German armies and their Nazi officers have atom and hydrogen bombs?” The neutralism prevalent among some groups in Western Europe can be interpreted in part as their reaction to similar questions. And in the United States, there has not been lacking in some quarters a belief that there is a dangerous spectre which is haunting Western Europe and the world, namely a neo-fascist revival on the north side of the Rhine.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , March 1955 , pp. 131 - 143
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1955

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References

1 Quoted from text in New York Times, Nov. 14, 1954, p. 2Google Scholar.

2 Professor Hannah Arendt refuses to classify Fascist Italy, in contrast to Nazi Germany, as a “totalitarian” country. The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York, 1951), esp. pp. 256, 258 ff.Google Scholar

3 Adorno, T. W. et al. , The Authoritarian Personality (New York, 1950)Google Scholar.

4 There is a comparable group of writers who explain the success of communism in somewhat similar fashion. Note the summary in Almond, Gabriel A., The Appeals of Communism (Princeton, 1954), pp. 183–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Adams, John Clarke and Barile, Paolo, “The Implementation of the Italian Constitution”, this Review, Vol. 47, pp. 61–83 (March, 1953)Google Scholar; and cf. the author's “Reform of the Italian Bureaucracy”, Public Administration Review, Vol. 13, pp. 247–56, at p. 249 (Autumn, 1953)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 “German Rearmament and the Old Military Elite”, World Politics, Vol. 6, pp. 147–68, at p. 149 (Jan., 1954)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 “Notes on the Political Scene in Western Germany”, World Politics, Vol. 6, pp. 306 ff. (April, 1954)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Note the pertinent comments by an astute observer, Pollock, James K., in “The Electoral System of the Federal Republic of Germany”, this Review, Vol. 46, pp. 1056–68, esp. pp. 1065 ff. (Dec., 1952)Google Scholar.

8 Not the least nationalist of German political parties has been the Social Democratic party, which has accelerated its past “trend toward nationalism.” See Bretton, Henry L., “The German Social Democratic Party and the International Situation”, this Review, Vol. 47, pp. 980–96 (Dec., 1953)Google Scholar.

9 This is not to deny that there has been corporative writing which is reminiscent of the Fascist past. In Italy, reference might be made to Pellizzi, Camillo, Una rivoluzione mancata (Milan, 1949), esp. pp. 215–22Google Scholar. Pellizzi, a former professor of political science at the University of Florence, was president of the Institute of Fascist Culture from 1940–1943. Mention should also be made of Giovanni Gentile, ed. Vettori, Vittorio (Florence, 1954)Google Scholar, in which the contributors borrow heavily from Gentile's posthumous writing, Genesi e struttura della socıetà, which appeared in 1946. Christian Democratic corporative theories contain a wide variety of points of view, ranging from those held by members of the left, center, and right wings of the party. The masthead of the publication of the anti-Laurian monarchists, Italia Monarchica, carries the motto, “Patria, Liberrà, Corporativismo.” On the background of Christian Democratic corporative theories in Italy, consult Severino, Luisa Riva San, Il movimento sindicale cristiano (Rome, 1950)Google Scholar. (For calling my attention to certain of the writings mentioned above, I wish to express my indebtedness to Mr. Dante Germino.) In addition, particular mention should be made of the argument by H. Stuart Hughes that in Italy “Corporative procedures and the corporative mentality remained” and are the “dominating features of the Italian economy today,” The United States and Italy (Cambridge, 1953), pp. 180 ff.Google Scholar Some of the differences in view points regarding the significance of corporative theory in Italy may be explained in part by differences in the use of the term “corporative,” which lends itself to a wide variety of definitions.

In Nazi Germany after 1935, Nazi spokesmen rejected violently the concept of a Ständestaat and only occasionally made passing reference to corporative organization. See the author's “Corporative Organization of the Third Reich”, Review of Politics, Vol. 2, pp. 438 ff. and esp. pp. 460–62 (Oct., 1940)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. It is to be doubted that a new neo-fascist leader in Western Germany would, if he viewed past precedent from 1935–1945, consider “corporative organization” (as he would define it), to be an essential feature of a new Reich.

10 Cf. Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism.

11 Note, for example, the charges of the Jewish Communal organization and certain other groups against the German party following a party rally in Berlin, New York Times, Nov. 26, 1954, p. 1Google Scholar. In the municipal elections held on December 5, 1954, the German party failed to secure the necessary five per cent of the popular vote which permits representation in the city's legislative body.

12 See the author's “The Democratization of the German Civil Service”, Journal of Politics, Vol. 14, pp. 3–18 (Feb., 1952)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 New York Times, Oct. 10, 1954, p. 19Google Scholar; HICOG, Labor Headline News, Oct. 11, 1954, pp. 1–3Google Scholar.

14 New York Times, Nov. 8, 1954, p. 1Google Scholar. In announcing his plans to relinquish the post of Foreign Minister, Chancellor Adenauer indicated that he wished to devote his attention to West German rearmament so that “the military does not gain the upper hand over civil power,” ibid., Dec. 5, Sec. 1, p. 12. But the problem of screening officers, including the noncommissioned ones, in the new national army is causing concern among certain German observers, ibid., Nov. 14, 1954, Sec. 4, p. 6.

15 Note J. W. Wheeler-Bennett's analysis of the role of a politicalized German army, and particularly after 1938, in his The Nemesis of Power (New York, 1954)Google Scholar.

16 Brecht, Arnold, “What Is Becoming of the German Civil Service”, Public Personnel Review, Vol. 12, pp. 83–91, esp. pp. 84–85 (April, 1951)Google Scholar; Neumann, Franz, German Democracy 1950, International Conciliation Pamphlet No. 461 (May, 1950), esp. pp. 257–58, 263–65Google Scholar; but cf. Pollock, James K., “The First Year of the Bonn Government”, Journal of Politics, Vol. 13, pp. 19–34, at p. 21 (Feb., 1951)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 “The ministerial bureaucracy … are neither pro- nor anti-National Socialist, but pro-ministerial bureaucracy.” Quoted from the original edition (New York, 1942), p. 373. The post-war apologia of former high bureaucrats in both Italy and Germany furnish added support for this viewpoint. Cf. Herz, John H., “German Officialdom Revisited: Political Views and Attitudes of the West German Civil Service”, World Politics, Vol. 7, pp. 63–83, at p. 66 (Oct., 1954)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 These latter organizations publish a monthly periodical, Die Anklage.

19 On the background, see HICOG, 7th Quarterly Report on Germany (1951), pp. 30 ff.Google Scholar, and 9th Quarterly Report on Germany (1951), pp. 44 ffGoogle Scholar. In the elections in Lower Saxony on May 1, 1951, 16 SRP candidates were elected to the legislature composed of 158 members.

20 On the eve of the national election in September, 1953, the National Government requested the dissolution of the German Reich Party by the Constitutional Court, charging that its membership showed it to be the successor of the SRP and that it had unconstitutional objectives.

21 Jaeger, Hans, “Neo-Faschismus in Deutschland”, Deutsche Rundschau, Vol. 79, pp. 139 ff. (Feb., 1953)Google Scholar.

22 The Naumann group was originally also accused of contacts with Communists in the East. One journalist, after reflecting on the Naumann episode, has correctly observed: “the apparent vitality of the Neo-Nazis in Germany is highly deceptive.” It was actually “their very weakness, as evidenced by last year's Bundestag elections,” he maintained, that encouraged contacts with the Communists. Edmond Taylor, “Germany: Where Fascism and Communism Meet”, Reporter, April 13, 1954, pp. 10 ff.Google Scholar

23 See Rossi, Mario, “Neo-Fascism in Italy”, Virginia Quarterly Review, Vol. 29, pp. 505 ff. (Autumn, 1953)Google Scholar.

24 The significance of this split may be seen in the voting behavior of the Monarchists in the Chamber of Deputies, when the Scelba Government was given a vote of confidence by a vote of 295–265 on the Trieste settlement. New York Times, Oct. 20, 1954, p. 1Google Scholar. For the aotion of the Monarchists on an earlier vote of confidence in the Senate, see La Stampa (Turin), Oct. 9, 1954, p. 1Google Scholar.

25 Note the comments of Sulzberger, C. L. in the New York Times, March 15, 1954, pp. 1Google Scholaret seq.

26 Note, in the Basic Law of the Federal Republic, Art. 9, prohibiting “associations directed against the constitutional order” and Art. 21, which confers on the Federal Constitutional Court the power to dissolve parties which “jeopardize the existence of the Federal Republic.”

27 The regional election in Val d'Aosta in November, 1954, resulted in a surprising victory for the Democrats, Christian, La Stampa (Turin), Nov. 16, 1954, p. 1Google Scholar.

28 For these unusual statistics on the elections of 1953, making possible these general comparisons, see Wirtschaft und Statistik, Vol. 6, pp. 9–13 (Jan., 1954)Google Scholar. Passing comments on the voting behavior of Italian youth between the ages of 21–24 for the two chambers of the Italian Parliament may be found in Palombara, Joseph La, “The Italian Elections and the Problem of Representation”, this Review, Vol. 47, pp. 676–703 (Sept., 1953)Google Scholar. According to data furnished by Professor Ithiel de Sola Pool, a poll taken in Italy on the eve of the election of 1953 indicated that the youth in Italy was percentagewise much less “middle-of-the-road” in its voting behavior than in Germany.

29 “We have decided,” said one “prominent Italian” recently to Walter Lippmann in Rome, “not to surrender the state to the Communists, not to allow them to take power even if circumstances were to give them the legal votes.” Durham Morning Herald, Oct. 23, 1954, p. 4Google Scholar. Cf. La Palombara, Joseph G., “Left-Wing Trade Unionism: The Matrix of Communist Power in Italy”, Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 7, pp. 202–26, at pp. 202–4 (June, 1954)Google Scholar.

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