Fascism - Volume 5, Issue 1, 2016

In the contemporary literature on the Ustaša organization and its terror regime, the organization is often seen and described as a vague and peripheral case study. Neither the establishment of the Ustaša state, nor the very purpose for which the organization was established, can be understood without taking into consideration the context of its formation, organizational and ideological structure as well as the influences its members were exposed to during their formative period. Therefore the article focuses on the development of its organizational and ideological aspects. The aim is to analyze the basic features and aspects of the Ustaša organization which show that by the mid-1930s, and perhaps even earlier, the Ustaša organization fully evolved into a fascist organization.

Ukrainian president Viktor Iushchenko’s posthumous designation of Roman Shukhevych (1907–1950), the supreme commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (upa) as a Hero of Ukraine in 2007 triggered intense, and polarized debates in Ukraine and abroad, about Second World War-era Ukrainian nationalism and its place in history. Particularly sensitive are Roman Shukhevych’s whereabouts in 1940–1943, when he served in German uniform, as a Hauptmann, or captain, in the battalion Nachtigall in 1941 thereafter, in 1942–1943 in Schutzmannschaft battalion 201, taking part in ‘anti-partisan operations’ in occupied Belarus. This article analyzes the controversy regarding the memory of Roman Shukhevych.

This article investigates the attitude to communism, National Socialism, Fascism, and authoritarian conservatism in the Swedish Catholic Church’s journal Credo from 1922 to 1945. The comparative approach has made it possible to see how the journal distinguished between the various forms of authoritarian ideologies in Europe during this period. The article shows that the Catholic Church in Sweden took a very negative view of communism (the Soviet Union and the Spanish Republic) and strongly condemned it throughout the period, while it took a largely very positive stance towards Fascism (Italy) and Authoritarian Conservativism (Spain and Portugal). In the case of National Socialism (Nazi Germany) the attitude was more diverse. Credo was largely negative towards National Socialism but only because it was thought to threaten Catholics and Catholicism in Germany. However, Credo never criticized discrimination and genocidal violence against the Jews.

The international workshop organized by Daniel Hedinger and Reto Hofmann and financed by the Center for Advanced Studies at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich brought scholars working on Axis countries together in order to explore viable approaches for a global history of fascist imperialism. The major questions addressed the colony–metropole relationship and its role in the radicalization process as well as the ways in which fascist empires learned from the imperial strategies used both by their allies and by their liberal-empire counterparts. In two days, the participants discussed how, when, and where these empires intersected, thereby investigating ideology, culture, empire-building processes and (self) perception.