Responses to Nazism in Britain, 1933–1939: Before War and Holocaust

278 Pages·2003·1.166 MB·English

by  Dan Stone (auth.)

Responses to Nazism in Britain, 1933–1939
Also by Dan Stone
CONSTRUCTING THE HOLOCAUST: A Study in Historiography
BREEDING SUPERMAN: Nietzsche, Race and Eugenics in Edwardian and Interwar
Britain
THEORETICAL INTERPRETATIONS OF THE HOLOCAUST (editor)
Responses to Nazism in
Britain, 1933–1939
Before War and Holocaust
Dan Stone
Lecturer in Twentieth-Century European History
Royal Holloway
University of London
© Dan Stone 2003
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2003 978-0-333-99405-4
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First published 2003 by
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ISBN 978-1-349-43229-5 ISBN 978-0-230-50553-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230505537
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stone, Dan, 1971–
Responses to Nazism in Britain, 1933–1939 : before war and holocaust / Dan
Stone.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
1. Great Britain–Foreign relations–Germany. 2. Public opinion–Great
Britain–History–20th century. 3. Great Britain–Politics and govern-
ment–1910–1936. 4. Great Britain–Politics and government–1936–1945.
5. Jews–Great Britain–History–20th century. 6. Germany–Foreign relations–
Great Britain. 7. Hilter, Adolf, 1889–1945–Public opinion. 8. Germany–Foreign
public opinion, British. 9. Great Britain–Relations–Germany.
10. Germany–Relations–Great Britain. 11. National socialism–Public opinion.
I. Title.
DA47.2.S79 2001
320.53¢3¢094109041–dc21
2003048606
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03
for my grandparents, Harold and Elise,
who remember
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Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction: Responding to Nazism, 1933–1939 1
Part I Explanations Pro and Contra
1 The Energy of Nihilism: Understanding the Appeal of Nazism 17
2 Predicting War? The Place of War in Interpretations of Nazism, 45
1933–1939
3 The Quintessence of Nazism? The Third Reich and the Jews, 79
1933–1939
Part II The Cultural Politics of the British Right
4 The Reasons of the Intellectuals 113
5 The British Far Right and the Back-to-the-Land Movement 148
6 The English Array, the BUF and the Dilemmas of British 166
Fascism
Conclusion 189
Notes 193
Bibliography 237
Index 263
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Acknowledgements
My thanks, first, to Luciana O’Flaherty and Jennifer Nelson at Palgrave
Macmillan, for commissioning this book and making its production such a
straightforward process.
Shorter versions of two of the chapters have been previously published –
chapter 5 as ‘The Far Right and the Back-to-the-Land Movement’, in The
Cultural Politics of the Far Right in Twentieth-Century Britain, eds. Julie
V. Gottlieb and Tom Linehan (London: I. B. Tauris, 2003); and chapter 6 as
‘The English Mistery, the BUF, and the Dilemmas of British Fascism’,
Journal of Modern History, 75 (2003). My thanks to the publishers for permis-
sion to reproduce this material.
For permission to cite archival material, I would like to thank: the Earl
of Portsmouth, for allowing me to make use of his grandfather’s papers;
the Wellcome Trustees and the Galton Institute, for the Eugenics Society
archive; Warwick University Modern Record Centre, for the Gollancz
papers; Edinburgh University Library’s Special Collections Division for
the Ludovici manuscripts and Sarolea papers; the Liddell Hart Centre
for Military Archives, King’s College, London, for the Bryant, Fuller
and Liddell Hart papers; and Francis Dunlop, for the papers of Aurel
Kolnai.
The research for this book was partly supported by a Research Leave
scheme grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB). It was
also facilitated by the sabbatical leave granted to me by the History
Department at Royal Holloway. I am grateful for the support of both insti-
tutions.
Special thanks go to Richard Griffiths and Tony Kushner for their
support, for writing references and for help in tracking down material.
As an undergraduate I read and admired Richard Griffiths’ Fellow
Travellers of the Right (1980). My book is conceived as something of a
supplement to that standard work, whose importance cannot be under-
estimated for understanding one strand of British responses to Nazi
Germany. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to Scott Ashley and Joel
Isaac; both read the first draft of the manuscript, saved me from poten-
tial embarrassment with some extremely helpful suggestions, and made
the process of revision less painful and more fruitful than it otherwise
would have been. Francis Dunlop kindly provided me with copies of
Aurel Kolnai’s publications and manuscripts, and I am grateful to him
for his hospitality and assistance.
Many other friends and colleagues have made the research for this book
easier than it could have been, or have helped by reading some of the
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