[Veröffentlichung] Tagungsberichte auf H-Soz-Kult

The international conference on the transnational Extreme Right after 1945 examined the post-war evolution of far-right actors, including organizational revivals and ideological shifts, focusing on transnational networks, generational change, and the interaction of older and newer extreme-right circles. It highlighted how cross-border contacts, media circulation, and the exchange of ideas, aesthetics, and lifestyles shaped mobilization and organizational strategies. In his opening remarks, DAMIR SKENDEROVIC (Fribourg) and STEFAN RINDLISBACHER (Fribourg) emphasized the centrality of transnationalism to the post-1945 extreme right, highlighting Switzerland’s role as a key hub for neo-fascists, conservatives, and the New Right. Switzerland, they argued, provided a refuge for activists facing bans and prosecution, enabling them to adapt, build alliances, and reorganize their ideology. Through publishers, meetings, and forums, the country became a platform for propagandists and intermediaries who exchanged ideas, sustained networks, and advanced currents such as negationism, antisemitism, and revisionism. The conference underscored that, rather than disappearing, far-right actors reactivated, reconstructed, and adapted after 1945, developing strong international cooperation and transferring ideas across borders. Post-fascist movements did not operate in isolation but sought strategic alliances enabling them to survive, mutate, and maintain influence in the post-war era.

VALERIE DUBSLAFF (Rennes) explored how old and new Nazi networks, such as the European Social Movement and the Nouvel Ordre Européen, were reactivated in Western Europe in the early 1950s. Mostly intellectuals formed a network in which they invited one another and published each other’s works – often as a continuation of their previous involvement with Nazism. This transnational and multilingual media space involved protagonists from West Germany, Belgium, Sweden, France, and Switzerland, serving as a vehicle for propaganda and ideology. However, finding a coherent ideological foundation proved difficult, as some promoted a moderate anticommunist view rather than emphasizing racist theories. Despite internal dissent, it revealed the enduring potential of Nazism after 1945. NICOLA KRISTIN KARCHER (Østfold) and OULA SILVENNOINEN (Helsinki) examined the re-emergence of the Nordic far right after 1945. They showed how far-right actors revived organizations and adapted their ideas to post-war conditions, laying the groundwork for renewed transnational networks. Post-war activities included völkisch movements, Sweden’s Neo-Nazi party Nordiska rikspartiet, and publications such as the newspaper “Folk og Land” for Norwegian Nazi collaborators or the Finnish Waffen-SS journal “Achtung”. Much of this activity crossed national borders within a distinct Nordic milieu, with Sweden serving as a refuge, transit hub, and base for rebuilding transnational networks. JOHANNES DAFINGER (Salzburg) revealed how transnational far-right groups in the post-war period engaged with and defended apartheid in South Africa and Namibia. They maintained ties with like-minded activists and state officials, exchanged ideas on apartheid ideology, and sought to influence international opinion through visits, publications, and events. Anticommunism drove much of this activism, particularly among economic elites. While the South African government did not officially support Far-Right groups, it maintained contacts and gave interviews to sympathetic media. Visits to South Africa by prominent figures, including Oswald Mosley, facilitated the circulation of ideas and served as models for Far-Right actors in other countries.

Approaching the topic from a methodological perspective, DOMINIK RIGOLL (Potsdam) examined the 1967 study by political scientist Kurt P. Tauber on post-war German nationalism. Rigoll focused on Tauber’s chapters on the transnational activities of the German far right. In these chapters, Tauber traces West German nationalist connections to Central and Eastern Europe – continuities rooted in the close ties some German nationalists had cultivated with the Tsarist Empire. Tauber demonstrates how these actors pursued projects such as a “Nation Europa,” “Eurafrika,” and even a global propaganda agency called “Natinform.” According to Rigoll, Tauber was the first to stress the importance of examining transcontinental dimensions when studying the history of organized nationalism in post-war Europe.

From antifeminist ideology to subcultural music and youth movements, as well as regional initiatives and public events, it becomes evident that political mobilization and transnational networking occurred through multiple channels. Based on abortion debates in the 1970s, AURELIA ROHRMANN (Fribourg) explored how antifeminism served as a unifying element among far-right actors in the post-war period. Opposition to abortion was not only driven by moral or religious convictions but also shaped by concerns and imagined threats about population decline and national survival. Anti-emancipatory, fascist, and nationalist ideologies often permeated debates over abortion in Switzerland and West Germany. FABIO FERRARINI (Milan) provided insight of how far-right “alternative” music emerged in early-1960s Italy as an anticommunist and anti-Soviet cultural counter-project. Musicians adopted the label “alternative” to mark a distinct milieu. He highlighted the blending of music, symbols, and literature—for example, politically infused fantasy inspired by “The Lord of the Rings”, as seen in the 1977 “Hobbit Camp” in Benevento. By the 1970s, punk music was adopted by far-right bands to spread their ideas and mobilize supporters. ANNELOTTE JANSE (Potsdam) addressed how the Yzer Pilgrimage in Belgium, originally a World War I commemoration, became a transnational mass event in the 1970s. Extreme-right groups from across Europe used it as a site for ideological performance, the ritualization of collective identity, and milieu-building – expressed through flag parades, marching, and singing.

Media, ranging from traditional magazines and books to digital platforms, play a crucial role in maintaining ideological continuity, fostering the transnationalization of networks, and mobilizing new actors. MARIE MÜLLER-ZETZSCHE (Potsdam) delved into the role of far-right “political writers” and their media after 1945, pointing out how they functioned as bridges for fascist and Nazi ideologies into the post-war era. Far-right magazines such as “Nation Europa” and “Défense de l’Occident”, which reached a significant readership abroad, served as platforms for political writers, right-wing extremists, neo-fascists or Nazi propagandists, SS veterans, and fascist intellectuals like Maurice Bardèche or Oswald Mosley. They functioned as ideological archives, preserving and republishing historical narratives while encouraging reader participation, thereby solidifying a far-right political culture across generations. Using Swiss entrepreneur and publisher Emil Rahm as an example, FRANCA SCHAAD (Bern) showed how from the 1960s to the 2000s, a political activist successfully popularized far-right ideas among a wider public. In his bulletin “Memopress”, he warned of moral decline by distributing conservative, evangelical, conspiratorial, and antisemitic ideologies. Moreover, he presided over the Committee against women’s suffrage in 1971 and actively opposed the anti-racism penal norm during the 1994 referendum. ANNA KARAKATSOULI (Athens) discussed far-right, often family-run publishers in Greece that produced extremist literature with antisemitic, anticommunist, and revisionist topics. While Hellenocentric publishers usually focus on nativism and Greek supremacy since Antiquity, extremist neo-Nazi publishers demonstrate strong ties to groups and organizations outside Greece. As she convincingly argued, translations play an important role. There are translations of Nazi and revisionist anti-Semitic literature, but also magazines such as “Zentromag” or “Blood & Honour” have been available in various languages, including Greek. As the final speaker of the panel, KATARINA RISTIĆ (Leipzig) showed how anonymous digital activism connects far-right communities and helps transform the far right into a global phenomenon. Digital platforms enable bottom-up mobilization of the masses, especially in the Western Balkans – a region that, as a site of radical mobilization during the 1990s wars, has since become a hub for far-right ideologies and activism. Social media proliferates far-right content by allowing individuals to offer their interpretations of narratives to a larger audience, translate far-right messages, and adapt them to local cultural contexts.

In his keynote lecture, ANDREA MAMMONE (Rome) called for ongoing research on the Extreme Right and urged historians to engage more actively in public debate. Drawing parallels between the present and the interwar period, such as disputes over migration and austerity, he stressed that media discussions rarely address the transnational dimension. He also raised questions that resonate amid current developments, arguing that key issues include how Europe interacts with Trumpism and how the European Extreme Right connects to it. Challenging the prevailing tendency to study fascism and the extreme right as isolated phenomena within national frameworks, Mammone advocated a transnational approach to the history of the post-war Extreme Right, focusing on cross-border flows, exchanges, actors, and historical continuities that persisted beyond 1945.

On the second day, panelists approached the post-1945 extreme right from a purely actor-centred angle, asking how specific individuals and their platforms weave together transnational worlds. Rather than focusing solely on parties, the panels traced cross-border networks and contacts (brokers, clubs, institutes), the circulation of media products (journals, translations, publishing houses), and the exchange of ideas (metapolitics, “right to difference,” protochronism) as they move across languages and publics. Speakers also highlighted the role of aesthetics and lifestyles (rituals, camps, elite salons, music circuits) as mobilizing repertoires and showed how organisational forms – from invitation-only institutes to Euro-level alliances—emerged from these personal linkages. In short, the focus was on the specific actors who transferred doctrines, formats, and affects across borders – and on the strategies they used to turn these into durable forms of mobilisation.

JOHANNES GROẞMANN (Munich) reconstructed the behind-the-scenes career of the Swede Arvid Fredborg, showing how his work as foreign correspondent, fixer, and convenor connected Christian-conservative, radical-right, and neoliberal milieus across Europe and the Atlantic. At the heart of his network stood the Institut d’Études Politiques de Vaduz (f. 1959), an invitation-only club whose closed meetings and in-house magazine, “International Background”, functioned as brokerage devices: Gaullists, Christian Democrats, and British Conservatives met industry figures and editors, testing a vocabulary that married market liberalism to hard law-and-order and anti-egalitarianism. Großmann argued that this mix helped establish later European party-group alignments and crystallized into a durable program he termed “authoritarian libertarianism.”

THERESE MAGER (Leipzig) examined Alain de Benoist and Groupement de recherche et d’études pour la civilisation européenne (GRECE) as architects of an elite-oriented metapolitics that repackaged far-right doctrine as theory. Early GRECE combined neo-pagan anti-egalitarianism, anti-modernism, with ethno-differentialism, reaching mass conservative audiences through “Le Figaro Magazine” before splintering into militant currents and bridge organizations. De Benoist’s “Vu de droite” and, later, “Krisis” sought left–right dialogue, provoking the well-known “Appel à la vigilance” (1993), in which hundreds of academics warned against the banalization of far-right ideas. Mager traced the Anglophone afterlife of these frames through Paul Piccone’s journal “Telos” and, later, “Arktos Media” (founded by Daniel Friberg), showing how translation chains and editorial gatekeeping carried “right-wing Gramscianism,” anti-egalitarianism, and the “right to difference” into identitarian and alt-right repertoires without simply reproducing French contexts.

LINN SOFIE BØRRESEN (Berlin) presented Henning Eichberg as a “seismograph” who absorbed and redeployed French nationalist theory in West German and Danish contexts. Drawing on diaries and estate papers, she traced Eichberg’s first contacts back to 1963, then followed his importation of a French model of militant metapolitics (“no revolution without doctrine”) into German networks via journals, correspondence, and “Nouvelle École” – the political-philosophical journal founded in 1968 by GRECE. Børresen demonstrated that, through talks, articles, and careful network-building, Eichberg promoted an ethnopluralist vocabulary while tailoring his register to different publics.

OLIVIER BURTIN (Amiens) charted a century of U.S. far-right entanglements as a persistent oscillation between outward-facing coalition-building and domestic rebranding that translated foreign cues into American idioms of 1776 and constitutionalism. From Francis Parker Yockey’s pan-European “Imperium” and the National Renaissance Party’s Nazi links to George Lincoln Rockwell’s global project and his later “white power” turn, actors blended imported models with local myth, toggling between vanguardism and mainstreaming. Burtin argued that the result was a movement at once provincial and international – switching registers to navigate opportunity and stigma in the United States and abroad.

MANUEL MIREANU (Cluj) traced an unbroken continuity of the Romanian far right through the figure of Iosif Constantin Drăgan—an interwar activist turned Italy-based business magnate—who built a cross-border pipeline for “protochronism”, which aligns with claims of Romanian/Thracian civilizational primacy. Via his very own “Nagard” press and a network of foundations, Drăgan circulated ultra-nationalist and at times anti-Semitic narratives from Italian exile across Romania. Under Ceaușescu, these ideas fed a state-sanctioned autarkic differentiation from both West and USSR. After 1989, Drăgan became a key ideologue and funder of the main far-right party Greater Romania, benefiting from his established publishing and heritage infrastructure. By foregrounding a figure such as Drăgan, Mireanu showed how Cold War ambiguities and cultural entrepreneurship sustained the transfer of far-right ideology into the post-communist party field – a dynamic that persists in Romania to this day.

PEDRO PABLO GARCÉS PALACIOS (Zaragoza) mapped the Italo-Hispanic axis between the Movimento Sociale Italiano and Fuerza Nueva under their leaders Giorgio Almirante and Blas Piñar. Early-1970s contacts crystallized into Eurodestra, a far-right European political alliance established in 1978. Mutual media support and campaign appearances followed, with each leader borrowing from the other’s symbolic repertoire – Piñar leaning toward a Christianized “Europe of Fatherlands,” Almirante incorporating Falangist inflections. Using correspondence from the Piñar family archive, Garcés Palacios showed how leader-level trust, shared stages, and youth-wing emulation anchored cooperation despite electoral weakness – an exemplary instance of personal networks converting parallel national projects into a transnational neo-fascist node.

The final roundtable reached a clear conclusion: In the post-1945 far right, transnationalism is the rule rather than the exception. The scholars emphasized that these extremist ideas, actors, and resources circulated through publishing and event economies, think tanks, summer camps, lecture circuits, and, more recently, digital platform ecologies. Because representatives and collaborations of the far right often recalibrate their public self-descriptions (conservative, right, extreme; “democratic,” “liberal”), the group agreed that network and repertoire analysis offer a more accurate account of circulation than narrow party typologies. On that basis, the discussion turned to normative clarity: Anti-fascism belongs here not as an activist label but as a concise reference to non-negotiable democratic rules. As the post-1945 anti-fascist consensus in Western Europe erodes, articulating and defending those rules becomes more urgent, even as public engagement becomes increasingly challenging.

The conference allowed for a more transnational approach on the Extreme Right but also sought to strengthen the network of historical research on right-wing extremism in Europe. It additionally provided the occasion for the annual meeting of the Zeithistorischer Arbeitskreis Extreme Rechte (ZAER), which for the first time fostered networking beyond the German-speaking world.

Conference overview:

Damir Skenderovic (Fribourg) / Stefan Rindlisbacher (Fribourg): Conference Opening

Panel I: Continuities and Transformations
Chair: Damir Skenderovic (Fribourg)

Valérie Dusblaff (Rennes): National Socialist Continuities in Western Europe: (Re-)activation of Transnational Networks in the Post-War Period (1950s)

Nicola Kristin Karcher (Østfold) / Oula Silvennoinen (Helsinki): The Re-Establishment of Nordic Far-Right Activism after 1945

Johannes Daginer (Salzburg): The Transnational Far Right and Apartheid South Africa in the Post-War Period

Dominik Rigoll (Potsdam): Historicizing Nationalist Internationalism. Kurt P. Tauber’s Empirical and Theoretical Legacy for Today’s Research on the Transnational Far Right

Panel II: Gender, Space, Culture
Chair: Caroline Rusterholz (Fribourg)

Aurelia Rohrmann (Fribourg): Demographic Anxieties. The Transnational Antifeminism of the Radical Right 1968-1990

Fabio Ferrarini (Milan): “Tomorrow Belongs to Us”. Origins and Developments of Far-right Alternative Music in Italy (1965-1977)

Annelotte Janse (Potsdam): More Than a “Fascist Disneyland”: The Yzer Pilgrimage and a Transnationalizing Western European Extreme Right (1960s-1980s)

Panel III: Media and Communication
Chair: Vêra Stojarová (Brno)

Marie Müller-Zetzsche (Potsdam): Far-Right “Political Writers” and Their Media

Franca Schaad (Bern): Swiss Far-Right Entrepreneur Emil Rahm and His Political PR-Network

Anna Karakatsouli (Athens): Radical Translations: Far-Right Publishing and Extremist Networking in Greece since 1974

Katarina Ristić (Leipzig): Transnational Far-Right in Digital Platforms: Organic Influencers, Digital Archives, and Memetic Activism. Case Study Balkans

Public Keynote
Andrea Mammone (Rome): Transnational History and Right-wing Extremism: An Unfinished Journey

Panel IV: Transnational Networks and Protagonists I
Chair: Gideon Botsch (Potsdam)

Johannes Großmann (Munich): In the Background. The Transnational Career of Arvid Fredborg and the Nordic Roots of Authoritarian Libertarians

Therese Mager (Leipzig): Translating Alain de Benoist: Cultural Brokers and the Recreation of the Far-Right Intellectual in a New Space

Linn Sofie Børresen (Berlin): Nationalists Going Transnational: Henning Eichberg and the Nouvelle Droite

Panel V: Transnational Networks and Protagonists II
Chair: Franziska Zaugg (Fribourg)

Olivier Burtin (Amiens): Nationalism and Internationalism: The Ambivalent Relationship of the U.S. Far Right with the World after 1945

Manuel Mireanu (Cluj): We, the Fascists: Iosif Drăgan and Far Right Ideas in Post-1948 Romania

Pedro Pablo Garcés Palacios (Zaragoza): Transnational Networks and Political Alliances: The Relationship Between the Movimento Sociale Italiano and Fuerza Nueva Through Giorgio Almirante and Blas Piñar

Final Roundtable
Moderator: Damir Skenderovic (Fribourg)

Sebastian Bischoff (Bielefeld) / Nicola Kristin Karcher (Østfold) / Andrea Mammone (Rome) / Věra Stojarová (Brno)

An international far-right movement began in Europe in the 1980s at the latest, which continues in various ramifications to this day. Such developments can never be viewed in isolation; rather, it is necessary to look at different countries, people and subject areas. The conference at the University of Mannheim has therefore set itself the goal of opening up transnational perspectives on the European extreme right, shedding light not only on political parties, but also on underground organisations and the cultural sphere. To this end, speakers from various countries and disciplines were invited. Case studies as well as larger lines of development made it possible to obtain a multifaceted overview of the European extreme right.

In his keynote speech, with which he opened the conference, MASSIMILIANO LIVI (Trier) gave an overview of the development of the Far Right, explaining various strategies in particular. He pointed out the deliberately blurred boundaries between extremism and conservatism, presented various methods of normalisation and drew attention to the tendency of the far right to claim victimhood. Livi’s analyses were partly based on Norberto Bobbio and his theories on the left and right, and he also used the Italian right as a case study and developed the complex party landscape there. In this context, Livi showed how successfully the extreme right can adapt to political and historical contexts and how the labelling of right-wing groups can vary greatly in this way. Finally, Livi proposed a classification of far-right ideology and reminded us to perceive the extreme right as “fluid constellations of shifting alliances”.

Both the adaptability and cooperation of far-right groups were also addressed by CARLOS DOMPER LASÚS (Zaragoza) in his lecture, which opened the first panel of the conference. In his presentation, he focussed on the transnational radical conservative space that developed in Europe after 1945 and served as a back door into European politics. Lasús referred to the theories of Johannes Großmann and pointed out that fascist groups did not disappear after 1945, but rather withdrew and set up various transnational organisations such as the Comité International de Défense de la Civilisation Chrétienn (CIDCC), the Centre Européen de Documentation et d’Information (CEDI) or the Cercle Pinay and thus gradually returned to politics. This gave rise to a European network that was linked not only by criticism of liberalism and materialism, but above all by the concept of the Abendland, which was central to the right-wing scene and served “as a banner and as a bridge”. According to Lasús, radical conservative thinkers practised criticism along three axes: institutional, cultural, and religious. In addition, ideas and concepts were exchanged within the network and a post-war European conservative canon was established.

MARIUS HUBER (Berlin) took a look at the same time period in the German region in his lecture. It was dedicated to the Nationalrevolutionäre Aufbauorganisation, which was active in West Germany during the Cold War and campaigned for the reunification of Germany from a nationalist perspective in order to enable a position of power in Europe. Huber illustrated how, in addition to typical right-wing positions such as anti-capitalism, anti-Americanism and anti-communism, there was also an anti-imperialism that used the language of decolonisation discourse. Huber explained the links to Henning Eichberg and Wolfgang Strauß and presented relevant magazines (such as “wir selbst”, “Ideologie & Strategie” and “Rebel”), some of which were modelled on left-wing publications. These examples also made clear how right-wing groups turned to international national movements (for example in Afghanistan, Libya or Palestine) and transferred demands for decolonisation to the BRD.

A small step further into the present moved RICHARD ROHRMOSER (Mannheim) with his lecture, which opened the second panel. In his talk, Rohrmoser unfolded the judicial scandal surrounding NPD member Günter Deckert, who was convicted of incitement to hatred following a revisionist conference in Weinheim in 1991 and the appearance there of US Holocaust denier Fred Leuchter. The Mannheim court’s judgement, which was perceived as lenient, was followed by protests and a reform of the relevant paragraph 130 of the German Criminal Code. Rohrmoser showed how Deckert’s renewed conviction to only a suspended sentence led to outrage among the population and in politics and how the ideological closeness of the judge Rainer Orlet to Deckert was subsequently uncovered. Rohrmoser’s lecture used the case study to illustrate how firmly anchored revisionist and right-wing extremist views still were in the German population and state institutions after 1945.

ELENA BÖS (Munich) and PAROMA GHOSE (Munich) showed that this still applies to some parts of the music scene. In their lecture, they gave an insight into popular music genres such as metal, rap and K-pop and illustrated how performers make use of Nazi symbols and terms. They pointed out that such borrowings do not necessarily mean approval, but are also used for critical debate. However, their analyses showed that music is used in various ways to effectively spread and normalise National Socialist ideas. Bös presented metal bands such as “Slayer” and “Ad Hominem”, while Ghose referred to Kanye West, racism-critical approaches by the singer Nura and Marine le Pen’s racist attack on the French singer Aya Nakamura. The lecture showed how the music scene is being used by right-wing actors and how the leisure space is becoming increasingly politicised. This development is further reinforced by the fact, as Ghose noted, that controversy creates attention and thus makes the music scene particularly susceptible to radicalisation.

The third panel was opened by NINA OSENBRÜGGE (Mannheim). Drawing on a large-scale framing experiment conducted in Germany, France, Hungary, and Greece with around 8.000 respondents, Osenbrügge examined how exposure to violent extremist threats influences radical political and religious attitudes. The findings indicated that such incidents tend to reinforce existing in-group radicalization rather than trigger cross-ideological co-radicalization between left- and right-wing camps. Osenbrügge also noted that while right-wing attacks produced small effects on left-wing respondents, the overall level of radical attitudes remained low across contexts. The paper thus offered a nuanced reassessment of the co-radicalization hypothesis, emphasizing the importance of framing and contextual perception in shaping extremist attitudes.

Turning from quantitative approaches to more biographical perspectives, the conference continued with a lecture by SOFIA MIOLA (Pavia). Miola traced the intellectual trajectory of Adriano Romualdi – son of the Italian neo-fascist politician Pino Romualdi – who, before his early death in 1973, sought to construct a “European” identity for post-war far-right thought. The paper showed how Romualdi’s writings combined a critique of liberal modernity with Indo-European cultural references and spiritual elitism, positioning him as an intermediary between Italian neo-fascism and the emerging New Right. By situating Romualdi’s work within a broader network of translations and re-editions that continue to circulate, Miola illustrated how Romualdi’s legacy contributed to the intellectual normalization of far-right discourse in Europe.

Continuing with a different national and historical setting, DARIA VILKOVA (Kyiw) traced the transmission and transformation of Dontsov’s “integral nationalism” from interwar émigré circles to contemporary Ukraine. Vilkova highlighted how Dontsov’s early shift from leftist positions toward radical nationalism, rooted in the experience of a “nation without a state”, shaped his propaganda style and ideological outlook. The analysis demonstrated how elements of his thought – revolutionary elitism, spiritualized nationalism, and ethnonational exclusivity – survived Soviet repression through clandestine networks and re-emerged symbolically amid today’s wartime rhetoric. The case study illustrated how far-right ideological frameworks can adapt and regain relevance in moments of national crisis.

Broadening the scope from individual trajectories to transnational networks, two lectures by ARTEMISIA ATHANASIOU (Athens) and NEVEN VUTEV (Sofia) examined cross-border and regional dynamics within Europe’s far-right landscape. Athanasiou traced the origins of cooperation between Greek and Italian right-wing movements to student exchanges in the 1960s, showing how organizations such as the National League of Greek Students in Italy (ESESI) and the cult surrounding Mikis Mandakas forged enduring ideological bonds – later echoed, for instance, in Giorgia Meloni’s reference to Mandakas as a “European martyr”. Vutev, by contrast, compared far-right movements across Romania, Slovakia, Poland, and Bulgaria, distinguishing between “originalist” groups drawing on interwar religious and nationalist traditions and “symbolic adopters” borrowing eclectic imagery from global right-wing trends. The presentation concluded with a warning against treating Eastern Europe as an exceptional case, arguing instead that its movements exemplify broader processes of adaptation and symbolic exchange within the European far right.

The final panel addressed both the cognitive foundations of radicalization and the methodological problems of researching the far right in periods of transformation. CIAN LIN (Bergen) opened the panel. The lecture situated the study in Taiwan’s complex landscape of overlapping national identities and low religiosity, showing how these factors shaped moral intuitions differently than in Western contexts. Applying Moral Foundations Theory to a survey of 1.097 participants, Cian found that moral dimensions of Loyalty and Authority – rather than Purity – best predicted susceptibility to partisan narratives and information bias. Individuals with strong in-group loyalty tended to trust politically aligned sources irrespective of factual accuracy, a mechanism that may also help explain media-driven radicalization in Europe.

Concluding the conference with a lecture, PABLO DEL HIERRO (Maastricht) identified the late 1980s and early 1990s as a “missing piece” in the historiography of Europe’s far right, arguing that the collapse of bipolar geopolitics compelled movements to redefine their ideological frameworks and alliances. With anti-communism losing its mobilizing power, new narratives arose around immigration and globalization, while examples such as the Italian MSI’s transformation into Alleanza Nazionale illustrated the strategic adaptation of former neo-fascist actors. The lecture described the early 1990s as the “heyday of denialism”, marked by intensified far-right publishing activity. It concluded by noting the methodological challenges of studying this period and pointed to hard-to-access archives – such as those of far-right foundations, bookstores, and Interpol – as well as the need to view the far right as a historical continuum rather than a series of isolated “waves”.

The final discussion focussed on key findings from the conference and possible points of contact or urgent concerns for the future. There was a widespread desire to focus more strongly on (South-)Eastern Europe. The suggestion to rethink the terminology in relation to the topic under discussion and to sharpen up terms also met with broad approval. The conference’s focus on transnational perspectives was appreciated and considered valuable, especially with regard to the international exchange that was made possible during these days. Overall, there was a call for close cooperation across disciplines and national borders.

Conference overview:

Keynote Speech
Massimiliano Livi (Trier): “Transformation of the Neo-Conservative and Far-Right Political Culture Since the 1970s”

The Extreme Right in the Context of the Cold War

Carlos Domper Lasús (Zaragoza): “The Theorists of Democracy for the Abendland During the Cold War and the Transnational Organisations Around Which They Mobilised”

Marius Huber (Berlin): “Right-Wing Solidarity. The West German ‘National Revolutionary Movement’ During the Cold War”

German Holocaust Relativisation

Richard Rohrmoser: “Fred Leuchter and Günter Deckert – Protagonists of Transnational Holocaust Denial”

Elena Bös (Munich) / Paroma Ghose (Munich): “Springtime for Hitler. Popular Music, Nazi Symbols, and the Problem of the ‘Apolitical’”

Networks, Radicalization and Violence

Nina Osenbrügge (Mannheim): “Extremist Violence & Co-Radicalization of Right-Wing Extremist, Left-Wing Extremist, and Religious Fundamentalist Attitudes”

Biographical Approaches

Sofia Miola (Pavia): “Adriano Romualdi: A Voice of his Generation in Search of a European Far-Right Identity”

Daria Vilkova (Kyiw): “From Secret Publications to Battlefield Slogans: The Legacy of Dmytro Dontsov’s Nationalist Ideology”

Transnational Connections

Artemisia Athanasiou (Athens): “Transnational Entanglements of the Greek and the Italian Extreme Right: Building the Bond”

Neven Vutev (Sofia): “Subcultural Legacy or Symbolic Adoption: Typologies of the Far Right in Eastern Europe”

Psychology and Challenges

Cian Lin (Bergen): “Moral Foundations and National Identity: Insights from Taiwan’s Political Psychology for Understanding Radicalization Pathways”

Pablo del Hierro (Maastricht): “The Importance and the Challenges of Studying the Far Right at the End of the Cold War”