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This edited collection presents new research on how the Great War and its aftermath shaped political thought in the interwar period across Europe. Assessing the major players of the war as well as more peripheral cases, the contributors challenge previous interpretations of the relationship between veterans and fascism, and provide new perspectives on how veterans tried to promote a new political and social order. Those who had frontline experience of the First World War committed themselves to constructing a new political and social order in war-torn Europe, shaped by their experience of the war and its aftermath. A number of them gave voice to the need for a world order free from political and social conflict, and all over Europe veterans imagined a third way between capitalist liberalism and state-controlled socialism. By doing so, many of them moved towards emerging fascist movements and became, in some case unwillingly, the heralds of totalitarian dictatorships.
List of contents
Introduction; Alessandro Salvador and Anders G. Kjøstvedt.- PART I: WAR EXPERIENCE SHAPING IDEAS.- 1. Rediscovering Democracy and the Nation: Hendrik de Man and the Legacy of the Great War; Tommaso Milani.- 2. Between Vienna, Venezuela, and Versailles: The Effects of World War One on the Nationalist Thought of Milos Crnjanski; John K. Cox.- 3. French Intellectual Fascism and the Third Way: The Case of Bertrand de Jouvenel and Alfred Fabre-Luce; Daniel Knegt.- 4. From Trenches to Corporations: The Making of Harold Macmillan's Third Way in Interwar Britain, 1927-1935; Valerio Torreggiani.- PART II: WAR EXPERIENCE SHAPING POLITICAL MOVEMENTS.- 5. 'Frontsozialismus der Tat': War Experience as Foundation of Corporatism in the Stahlhelm Veterans' League; Alessandro Salvador.- 6. Social Policy in the Shadow of the Lost War: The Nazi Movement and Labour Conflicts in the Weimar Period; Anders G. Kjøstvedt.- 7. 'We're of their Blood and Spirit of their Spirit': Ex-Servicemen and the British Union of Fascists; Jakub Drabik.- PART III: WAR EXPERIENCE SHAPING REGIMES.- 8. 'Citizens of Honor': The Disabled Veterans of the First World War and the National Socialist Regime; Nils Löffelbein.- 9. Within the Fascist World of Work: Sven Olov Lindholm, Ernst Jünger and the Pursuit of Proletarian Fascism in Sweden; Victor Lundberg.- 10. Francoist War Veterans and the 'New State': Social Benefits and the Consolidation of the Franco Dictatorship in Spain, 1939-1945; Angel Alcalde.- Conclusion; Alessandro Salvador and Anders G. Kjøstvedt.
About the author
Alessandro Salvador is Lecturer in History at the University of Trento, Italy. His main research interests are the First World War, post-war demobilization processes, and the inter-war period in Italy and Germany. He is involved with the ‘World War II: Everyday Life under German Occupation’ project at the Herder Institut, Germany. His recent publications include La Guerra in Tempo di Pace. Gli ex Combattenti e la Politica nella Repubblica di Weimar (2013).
Anders Kjøstvedt is Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Oslo, Norway. He is currently working on a project financed by the Norwegian Research Council, ‘Constructing a “People’s Community”: The Dual Processes of Inclusion and Exclusion in National Socialism’. He has published several articles on Nazism and the Nazi movement, and he is especially interested in the relationship between the regime and the population.
Summary
This edited collection presents new research on how the Great War and its aftermath shaped political thought in the interwar period across Europe. Assessing the major players of the war as well as more peripheral cases, the contributors challenge previous interpretations of the relationship between veterans and fascism, and provide new perspectives on how veterans tried to promote a new political and social order. Those who had frontline experience of the First World War committed themselves to constructing a new political and social order in war-torn Europe, shaped by their experience of the war and its aftermath. A number of them gave voice to the need for a world order free from political and social conflict, and all over Europe veterans imagined a third way between capitalist liberalism and state-controlled socialism. By doing so, many of them moved towards emerging fascist movements and became, in some case unwillingly, the heralds of totalitarian dictatorships.
