Capitalism in Decay

One of the most active IAdN [Internationale Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Nationalisten] members was [Hans] Keller’s pen pal Herman Harris Aall, a Norwegian jurist and party ideologue of the National Gathering who became the co‐host of the Oslo congress.⁴⁹

Another example was the leader of the Danish Nazi Party (DNSAP), Frits Clausen, who gave a lecture on ‘Nation and Race’ at the London congress. Only months earlier, Clausen had also lectured at a meeting of the CAUR [Comitati d’Azione per l’Universalità di Roma] executive committee in Amsterdam, making him the only fascist party leader who was actively involved in both competing groups.⁵⁰

In Switzerland, the IAdN cooperated with the pro‐[Reich] party National Front and its leaders Rolf Henne and Hans Oehler.⁵¹ The Dutch National Socialist Workers Party (Dutch Nationaal‐Socialistische Nederlandsche Arbeiderspartij; NSB) was represented at the London congress by its founding member and leading propagandist Herman van Houten, and the Swedish National Socialist Workers’ Party (Nationalsocialistiska Arbetarepartiet; NSAP) sent two members to the Oslo congress.⁵²

In all these cases, the character of the IAdN as a rather loose, ephemeral network with a supposedly academic purpose was helpful. Politicians from fascist parties such as Frits Clausen or Rolf Henne could make appearances at its congresses without fearing a backlash within their national movements for being too involved in an international organisation which would contradict the nationalist aims of their own parties.

In addition to politicians, fascist intellectuals and writers participated as well. Many came from the Balkans, such as the poet Ion Sân‐Giorgiu, a sympathiser of the Fascist Party Iron Guard, as well as Janko Janeff, a Bulgarian philosopher and follower of the völkisch intellectual Arthur Moeller van den Bruck.

However, beyond these ‘fascist’ politicians and intellectuals in a narrow sense, there were also delegates representing […] aristocratic and conservative political beliefs.

For example, at the London congress, the large British section included Daniel Gerald Somerville, a member of parliament from the Conservative Party. The Catholic aristocratic Count Henry Carton de Wiart, a former prime minister of Belgium, also sent a long message to the congress (without being present himself ).⁵³ France was represented by Louis Bertrand, a well‐known conservative French novelist, historian and member of the Académie française.

To conclude, an analysis of the international delegates of the IAdN illustrates the fluid entanglements between fascism, the radical right, conservatism and existing élites in the interwar period. All were united in their antagonism towards their internationalist enemies, as will be addressed in the following section.

[…]

Communist internationalism was perceived as the other main enemy of the delegates. For example, Arnold Huber, the leader of the anti‐communist Swiss Patriotic Federation (Schweizerischer Vaterländischer Verband), 1919–48, argued at one congress that the IAdN should take action against Bolshevism and its international activities.⁶¹ The anti‐communist stance was often blended with anti‐Semitism in general and the ‘Jewish‐Bolshevist’ myth in particular.

This was most openly expressed by Ulrich Fleischhauer from the anti‐Semitic organisation Welt‐Dienst (World Service) at the Berlin congress. Fleischhauer argued that international Jewry would destroy all national development; hence, the Jewish question should not only be addressed by Germans but by all nationalists.⁶² This demonstrates an overlap of interest between the IAdN and other interwar organisations such as the Welt‐Dienst involved in anti‐communist and anti‐Semitic propaganda.

[…]

Ideas of a ‘racial community’ of the ‘Nordic’, ‘European’ or ‘white’ race(s), which had to be protected from miscegenation and from other ‘black’ or ‘yellow’ races, featured prominently at the IAdN congresses. Examples were two speeches at the Oslo congress by the Norwegian racial researcher Jon Alfred Mjøen and by the South African Herman Dirk van Broekhuizen (of Dutch descent), who talked about the white race as a larger community of destiny.⁷⁷

(Emphasis added.)