NEO-NAZIS AND NEO -FASCIST
Erica Zeman
Which groups or individuals are most responsible for promoting anti-Semitic ideologies in Europe?
For this article I will zoom in on three European countries, which have promoted for centuries anti- Semitic ideologies: Germany, Italy and Rumania, in which neo-Nazis and neo-Fascist have increased in numbers after the 7th October Hamas massacre against Israel.
Italy: The President of the Senate, Ignazio La Russa, feels nostalgic towards the period of fascism under Benito Mussolini (1922-1945) a time in which life was apparently simpler with regards to housing, pension and health care for families. It might be the desire for a social society that cries out to hear the shouts of orders and the demands for obedience. Italy seems to have forgotten the ‘Italia Resistenza,’ the resistance group, fighting first secretively and then openly against El Duce and the occupying Third Reich German Nazi Army from 1943 onwards.
Mussolini is called ‘great ‘again by the neo-fascist leanings of the National Alliance, the Successor of the Italian Social Movement, and the Brothers’ of Italy Party, whose President
is Prime Minister Georgia Meloni.
Although Georgia Meloni detached herself from the MSI, she can’t deny the growth and interest in Mussolini’s Neo National Fascist mentality. Young and older men use Mussolini’s fascists salute unashamedly in every of their gatherings. The discussion in the European Parliament criticised Georgia Meloni for her silence in the reappearance of Fascist behaviour. The salute was viewed as a ‘small gesture’ and of no further political importance by Nicola Procaccini, Italy’s European Parliament Representative.
Antonio Scurati, an Italian writer, who has researched the life and Ideology of B.Mussolini , said in one of his speeches in 2024, that all neo-fascist groups and popular politicians of today take Mussolini as a module. The Italian population takes these imitations of this new Black shirt fascism as a threat, yet so far, no constitutional ban of these anti-Semitic salutes and rallies has been declared.
Where are the neo-fascists groups centred in Italy?
Neo-fascist groups acted against the Italian Jewish Community in Milan, Modena, Genoa, Rome, Livorno, Pisa, Florence, Trani, Turin, Udine, Fiuggi, and Venice. An American orthodox Jewish couple and a French Jewish father with his young son visiting Italy as tourists. The mature man encountered anti-Semitic slurs and physical violence.
The ‘Free Palestine/Hamas supporters in Italy gave also vent to their anger and hatred towards Jewish people and Israel. Local dissatisfactions are regularly blown out of proportion. Instead of sensible discussion with the local councils and sport companies how to keep sports and cultural events separate from political perceptions, a complete shut-down of reasoning takes place. For example:
In Udine, a city in north-eastern Italy, the authorities called for assistance of 1,000 policemen to protect the football fans, the Italian and the Israeli team from hooligans of ‘Free Palestine ‘activists’, which were busy demolishing streets and the environment. It is not the agitators paying for the resulting chaos, it is the councils, which pay the heavy price of repairing the damages done. Europe becomes a fatalistic place as soon support is given to the ‘Palestine cause”. It is Hamas supporting Palestinians, who are systematic aiming to sever any European political, cultural, entertainment, educational and marketing exchange agreements with Israel. ‘Free Palestine’ is not free in their habitual lies, the methods of enforcing guilt, intimidations of the public and the pretence of requesting humanitarian financial support for ‘charities’.
On the 27&28 December 2025, Georgia Meloni ordered the arrest of 9 Hamas supporters pretending to work for Muslim Charities in Genoa and Milan. The assets found in private settings were Euros 6-7 million. Mohammed Hannoun, President of the Palestinian Association in Italy collected alone Euros 4 million.
Rumania, a country which is among the European States the poorest, has, as Germany and Italy, a longstanding legacy of religious, in this case Orthodox Church, antisemitism. During the establishment of a new political era, Rumania’s antisemitism became a state- operandi at the time the two principalities became one centralised administrated Nation in 1862.
Raul Carstocea, writing for the European centre for Minority Issues in 2014, speaks of the variety and the patchwork of anti-Semitism from the 19th Century to present days in Rumania. The intensification of anti-Semitism in that country took place from 1927 with the added establishment of the Iron Guard, the main antisemitic and fascistic organisation at that time. It prospered as the Rumanians experienced an alarming rate of changing governments and a weak representation of Rumanian Monarchy. The National Christian Party elected in 1937, followed by the Royal Dictatorship of 1938, and the subsequent Dictatorship of Ion Antonescu (1940-1944) encouraged the existence of this antisemitic Legion until 1941.
Why do I mention all these historical facts?
It took Rumania until 2004 to accept and acknowledge officially its co-operation with the German Nazi Holocaust. But, as in the past so in the present; the supressing and banning of an antisemitic organisation, although important and necessary, does not mean that it has vanished. The names can be erased from the paper, but the Iron Guards existence reappeared openly by the name of ‘Totul Pentru Tara’ (All for the Motherland) and the ‘Noua Dreapta (New Right) in 2000. Both Legions claim their legacy from the founder of the Iron Guard Legion: Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (13.10.1899-30.11.1938) who was a dominating Antisemite in connection with the Orthodox Church. Codreanu was not hesitant to use terror to reach his goals of a communist and foreigner free Rumania.
Nuoa Dreapta has not been banned, but is apparently under legal restrictions.
Similar leniency towards terror shows the neo Nazi group ‘ Unitatea 731’ which sent death threats to journalists R. Philip and R.Mogildea of PressOne during their investigation of
this organisation in May 2025.
The Elie Wiesel National Institute in Rumania focuses on researching Rumania’s involvement during the Nazi Regime. It also educates Rumanian educational Institutions about the Shoah/ Holocaust. Since the 7th October 2023 Palestinian/ Hamas massacre against Israeli citizens and Asian workers, the verbal online abuses of Rumania’s ultra nationalists against the Elie Wiesel institute have not stopped. According to the report of Memri 25 online news, Alexandru Florian, the general director of this Institute and his Researcher Adina Marincea are regular victims of either antisemitic slurs or sexiest verbal abuse. At present 12,000 Jewish people live in Rumania with unease and on edge with regards to their future.
Rumania acknowledged a ‘Palestine State’ in November 1988 and agreed to establish a Palestinian embassy in the same year. According to the ‘Conversation news’ online, Spain, Ireland and Slovenia demanded in June 2025 the Suspension of the EU-Israel Association with Israel. Germany, the Czech Republic and Hungary vocally did not agree with this plan, and neither did Rumania gave its approval.
The whole avenue collapsed as 27 European Member States must give their anonymous agreement for such an exclusion. Rumania benefited from being a Member State of the EU as well as in their trade connections and exchanges with Israel. The latter has weapon production commitments with Rumania and vice versa, which the Rumanian Government firmly protects, in spite of harassing ‘Free Palestine’ demonstrations to sever any link with the Elbit Systems company.
Germany has been shaped into an antisemitic country since Charlemagne’s rule (800-814) and his strict separation between the Jewish and the Christian families in towns, cities and provinces. Nico Voigtlaender and Hans-Yoachim Voth point out in their research paper;’ Persecution Perpetuated, The Medieval Origins of Anti-Semitic Violence in Nazi Germany,’
that Germany’s modern antisemitism is rooted in the fear of the unknown particularly during the horrendous disease of Black Death, which took three-and half of the former 11.5 million Franks-German population.
Although the cause was unknown, the Jewish Communities were blamed for spreading this fatal illness. Many French and German Jewish communities were massacred, due to the ignorance of non-Jewish communities believing that their wells were poisoned by Jewish people. Voightlaender and Voth draw a direct line to the brutality of this Medieval period occurrence to the repeating equal intensity of violence during the Nazi Regime (1933-1945)
In my understanding the Black death retaliation against the Jewish communities exposed a further escalation of the already existing antisemitism towards Jewish people. A complexity of fear of the different, strange and unfamiliar mingled with the fear of being disloyal to present authorities had always tidal waves of reactions and repercussions in Franks- German-Saxony people and areas
The German city of Dessau has the worst reputation of anti-Semitic violence in the past as in the present. Government agencies are ready to detect and track neo-Nazi movements.
Let us keep the focus on this fear combined with violence a little bit longer as it zooms right into the mindset of neo-Nazi groups in present days. Matthew Collins, a former British neo-Nazi group member of Combat 18, describes the sole motivation to live as the hatred towards everyone and everything, a life like a dead man walking! Combat 18 is present in Germany, the Netherlands and in the U.K. Although it was banned in 2019, M. Collins explained that banning a neo-Nazi group meant little for the recipients of the ban, because a change of name and a deceptive representation of their aims, was all that was needed to continue their hideous terror acts. In Germany Dr. Walter Luebcke, a Christian Democratic Union, (CDU) politician was murdered in his home by Combat 18 neo- Nazis, and the Halle Synagogue shooting with the perpetrator, the neo-Nazi Stephan Balliet murdering two worshippers and injuring several other members of the Synagogue, occurred only a few months later. There are other neo-Nazi groups such as the Atom Waffen Division Germany, and the Blood and Honour Germany neo-Nazi organisation with similar terrorising tendencies.
Another incidents in which neo-Nazis and Palestinian Hamas supporters seemed to have found common ground was their most recent attempt (December2024) to vandalise the car and to burn down the house (2025) of Andreas Buettner, a German Government Commissioner combatting antisemitism in the Brandenburg area. The German authorities congratulate Mr. Buettners’ unperturbed stance and have shown in the last year a relentless determination to keep their promises of holding a tight surveillance on any antisemitic hate speeches, demonstrations and social media. The German government has shown great interest in working together with Israel in Security issues. There is a line of hope in spite of all the present menace of antisemitism.
