Fascism - Current Issue

In the context of Fascism and National Socialism, politically-themed literary fiction for the youth was often employed as a bridge between public education and pre-military training, aiding the continued indoctrination of young people. This article analyses two prominent Fascist and national-socialist youth novels—Ragazzi della rivoluzione by Gino Fornari (1940) and Der Hitlerjunge Quex by Karl Aloys Schenzinger (1932)—to observe this praxis in a comparative context. Focusing on the representation of two primary themes in the fascist education of youth—violence and self-sacrifice—it examines the narrative strategies employed to encourage identification, agitation and emulation in the reader. Despite a similar depiction of the enemy, a discernible interest in exceptional individual qualities emerges on the Fascist side, contrasting with the Nazi will to self-nullification. Consequently, the authors allow for different degrees of agency in the conversion of their protagonists, reflected in their unequal access to violence. Finally, the contrasting narratives of youth martyrdom, as presented in the novels, are contextualised within the shifting political priorities that characterised the distinct historical phases of the regimes in question.

This article will analyse examples of denunciations made against the Jewish population in the Independent State of Croatia (1941–45). As elsewhere in Europe, Croatian and German security forces were dependent on the cooperation of the local population. Those making denunciations made a conscious decision to exercise power over persecuted Jews out of a feeling of racial superiority. Charges were brought based on uninhibited egoism and free will, motivated by antisemitism, jealousy, feelings of competition and/or revenge, and also because they wanted to get their hands on Jewish property. Personally motivated denunciations were presented as political concerns, so charges would appear legitimate, and people making denunciations could fall back on numerous anti-Jewish laws and regulations enacted in the Independent State of Croatia. Through their actions, such denouncers initiated and expedited the deportation and murder of the Jews persecuted by the Ustaša state. The following questions will be examined in this article: Who were the denouncers? What were their motives? What arguments did they use? And which consequences did their denunciations have for their Jewish victims?