Organising National Socialism: Nazi Organisation in Sweden and the Netherlands, 1931–1939

Nathaniël Kunkeler

doi:10.1017/s0960777321000230

Abstract

This article compares the party apparatuses of the National Socialist Movement of the Netherlands and the National Socialist Workers’ Party of Sweden. These two parties, founded in the 1930s, both to some extent mimicked the organisational model of Hitler's party in Germany. While this has been frequently noted, the deployment of this model in practice has not been analysed in any detail. The article explores the specific characters of the Swedish and Dutch fascist party organisations diachronically vis-à-vis propaganda, member activism and internal cohesion, highlighting their changes, successes and failures. The comparison reveals that the party apparatus was highly dependent on the specifics of national infrastructure, demographic distribution and urbanisation and the physical landscape, with notable consequences for internal party cohesion and morale. In the final analysis the relative appeal and popularity of the parties is shown party be the result of how the Nazi organisational model was deployed in practice within each national context.

Highlights

The German Nazi Party’s reputation grew rapidly with their first electoral breakthrough in the late 1920s
Party organisations with similar structures emerged around Europe in what has been termed a second wave of fascism, often copying the entire Nazi hierarchy of regional party leader (Gauleiter), district leader (Kreisleiter) and so forth.[2]
It might be unnecessary to pander to this perception.’[89]. This comparative study has aimed to clarify the means of production of fascist culture and propaganda; it has investigated the organisational basis and challenges of the NSB and NSAP as a means of gaining a better understanding of party culture, and by extension their appeal

Summary

Introduction

The German Nazi Party’s reputation grew rapidly with their first electoral breakthrough in the late 1920s. There are several things which make this particular comparison of a Swedish and a Dutch party feasible: their contexts are similar enough in that they were both active in comparatively stable liberal democracies and were fighting their battles in similar pluralistic electoral systems.[13] Neither country had participated in the First World War, which had important implications for the kind of social base the fascist parties could draw on They both shared the same organisational indebtedness to the NSDAP. The article moves to an analysis of the challenges and limitations that the NSB and NSAP faced in the Netherlands and Sweden, comparing the parties’ very different capacities for coordination and centralisation and their consequences for morale and mobilisation These capacities were a crucial foundation for the party culture and electoral success, if not in any straightforward fashion. Many new parties were in this regard effectively in an experimental stage; so that there is still much to learn about how it related to political culture and success in this crucial decade of European history

History of the NSAP and NSB

Power and Administrative Structure

Propaganda Organisation

Findings

Conclusion