By Martin A. Lee, '75, Little Brown and
Co., Livingston NJ, 1996, $24.95 hardcover.
The beast that Martin A. Lee tracks from what at first seemed to be its tomb but turned out to be its lair, is fascism. Violent, totalitarian,
racist and yet romantically populist, fascism arose in Western Europe this century. The Allies at first agreed to curb and crush the movement after
the defeat of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Lee shows, however, how the Cold War gave fascists the room and financial resources they
needed to survive and maneuver between the US and Soviet Union.
Lee interviewed hundreds of original fascists and their offspring and pored over mounds of European and US intelligence reports. The
result is a gripping and unsettling history that traces the direct links between the first-generation fascists and current varieties that include
Russian national-communists to European skinheads and right-wing politicians, and also American extremists in militia, religious, news media,
political and white-supremacist groups.
Lee discussed his book with Michigan Today:
Michigan Today: How did you come to write this book?
Martin Lee: Since the 1980s, our government and news media were depicting terrorism an activity of Arabs, Islamic fanatics, Third
World extremists and so on. But at least since the '90s, the worst acts of terrorism in terms of numbers of people hurt or killed were
neo-fascist attacks. I thought the one-sided picture should be balanced.
Hitler's bodyguard, the long-lived Maj. Gen. Otto Ernst Remer who died this October, is a key figure in your book, as is Col. Otto Skorzeny, whose widow you interviewed. How did you get so many fascists to meet with you?
I never presented myself as anything but an American journalist. Sometimes it was like pulling teeth to get them to say anything useful.
But I found that to get beyond their suspicions about me as a journalist and beyond their antipathy towards Americans, they would talk if I
asked questions about how they viewed the world, what their political opinions were, rather than, `What did you do along with Klaus Barbie?'
I'm not talking about skinheads--they are a one-note thing--but about the more interesting leaders, the smarter folks. We could talk
philosophy, Nietzsche, Tibetan Buddhism among the more intellectual fascists. So when conversation turned to details, they were more forthcoming.
MT: Did you learn anything that surprised you in the process?
If we think of traditional categories of extreme left at one end and right on the other - if that's the prism - then exploring neo-fascists
will shake up one's political categories. It doesn't work that way. It opened my eyes along the way. For example, in one section I focused on
Egypt in the 1950s to show how the former Nazis were playing the US and Soviet Union against one another. In a great many more recent
situations I found European fascists aligned to some degree with Arab groups and movements. It's not that surprising, though unfortunate. The
more radical Palestinian groups get support from neo-nazis--those
that want to drive the Jews into the sea get neo-nazi support. But
fascism transcends all racial and religious distinctions, there are Jewish, Islamic, Christian and Hindu fascists.
MT: How do you account for the strong dislike for the United States and the fondness for Russia, including Soviet Russia, among
the fascists?
The fact that US society is a melting pot, a society that tolerates or encourages the flourishing of people of different ethnic groups and
races, really rankles them. They looked at Russians as an essentially "pure white" people compared with the "mongrelized" Americans.
MT: You describe a sort of virus-like adroitness of the fascists as they adapt to shifts in political and economic conditions from country to country.
Astute fascists realize that they must distance themselves from the way old fascists look--Klan garb or swastikas would be a give-away.
The political danger comes not so much from those marginal folks as those who don't wear swastikas and sheets. Clearly, when one hears
a politician like a Zhironovsky in Russia, Le Pen in France, Haider in Austria or a Pat Buchanan denouncing both the big businessmen who
rip off the American workers and denouncing welfare "moochers" and immigrants--those who have less--that is a classic practice. That
should raise the antennas. That smells fascist to me.
Also, they are de-emphasizing white supremacy and explicitly racialist-genetic themes in lieu of greater emphasis on culture. The
European neo-fascists come off almost as pluralistic and quasi-tolerant to every culture. But they think that each of these cultures must remain separate.
MT: Is anyone effectively combating fascist ideology?
Many anti-fascists feel a groundswell working against them. Their efforts are noble but seem not to have impact because most have
been aiming at the typical target--the overt racialist or nazi. It's more difficult to counter a David Duke saying, "All white people should be
proud of their heritage, just as all Black people should be."
I hope the book helps people distinguish between who is a fair-minded populist and who is a racialist populist today. People may
find such a distinction helpful.
MT: What are the biggest threats internationally from the reawakened beast?
The thugs and the sections of the police corps who share an affinity with them are not being punished for violent crimes against people
whose politics they oppose. The lassitude with which law enforcement, particularly in Germany, has pursued neo-nazi criminals has
encouraged attacks on immigrants and others. Three cab drivers were arrested in Germany for giving foreigners a ride without asking to see credentials
to show that they were legal immigrants. The cabbies got 20 months. That's a bigger penalty than skinheads received for kicking pregnant
women or even killing people. Germany is powerful and sets the tone.
The Michigan Law Quadrangle: architecture and origins
By Kathryn Horste '78 PhD; photos by Gary Quesada; U of Michigan Press, 1997, $29.95 cloth.
An armchair tour of one of the gems of American academic architecture, the Gothic Law Quadrangle completed in 1933. The rooms, tapestries, windows, the amusing sculptured corbels, the doors, the halls, construction process, the tower with its elements of 16th
century English civic and church architecture--all are depicted and discussed in concise and fascinating detail. A biographical sketch of the
major donor, William Wilson Cook '82 Law, is included. Horste also reports the roles of Deans Harry B. Hutchins (later U-M's president) and
Henry M. Bates and of President Clarence Little. But the emphasis in this 150-page work is on the visual--more than 60 color photographs and
much else to look at besides. A coda on the Allan F. and Alene Smith Law Library Addition designed by Gunnar Birkerts attests to the
successful marriage of old and new styles in the
Quad.--JW.
The Diversity Machine: The Drive to Change the "White Male Workplace"
By Frederick R. Lynch '67, the Free Press
. . . Fall 1997
