Fascism and regionalism in interwar Alsace

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between regionalism and fascism in interwar Alsace. Although fascism is usually characterized as hypernationalist, the relationship between regionalism and fascism in Alsace suggests something more complex. On the one hand, French and German fascist movements sought local legitimacy by co-opting issues of regional identity. Hypernationalism would have fallen on deaf ears. On the other hand, the Alsatian Bauernbund, a regionally based fascist movement, adapted fascist principles to strictly regional aims. The goal of fascism, in this case, was not necessarily national. A better way to understand the range of fascist interaction with regional identity is to see fascism as aggressively espousing the politics of spatial identity in a political environment that generally downplayed ethnic, regional or national sensitivities. Fascism offered a hierarchy of identity or belonging that embraced the socially powerful relationships of family, region and nation.