Donald Trump’s “horse whisperer,” Steve Bannon, has traveled the speaking circuit throughout Europe, pushing for an alliance of far-right wing parties he calls “The Movement.” The idea for a “Fascist International” is nothing new. Central Intelligence Agency archives contain multiple references to a resurgent Nazi dream, cultivated in the rubble of World War II, to create a “European Reich” stretching from “Dublin to Vladivostok.” This Fourth Reich, unlike the Third Reich, was to be a corporate-controlled supranational entity.
The Third Reich would have never risen had it not been for the cult of personality wrapped around Germany’s Fuhrer Adolf Hitler. Thanks to Bannon’s relationship with Trump, the framing of Trump’s cult of personality as a unifying factor is how the former Trump campaign manager and White House strategist is attracting European far-right leaders and rank-and-file members to his “Movement.”
What is not known, at this time, is whether the CIA, under Trump appointee Gina Haspel, is actively or passively assisting Bannon and key European far-right figures in establishing The Movement. The CIA has a rich history of assisting Nazi officials in escaping from Europe after World War II. It also helped nurture neo-Nazi groups in Europe and Latin America as a bulwark against Communism. CIA archives are replete with reports detailing the connections between the CIA and neo-Nazi groups.
WMR has prepared a 51-page report on Bannon’s Movement, a country-by-country survey of the political parties that are being targeted for membership in the far-right alliance, and a brief history of neo-Nazi parties and groups in Europe and around the world. The report, titled, “The Rise of the Fourth Reich and Donald Trump,” is available to WMR members for a nominal e-store charge.
WMR’s survey of the current far-right landscape in Europe concluded the following:
- Average electoral support for the far-right in national, European Parliamentary, and regional elections is the strongest in eastern Europe, particularly in Hungary and Poland. The highest vote for the far-right is 71.9 percent in the Hungarian province of Eszak-Alfold. The lowest percentages for the far-right are found in southern Europe, with Sardinia and Basilicata in Italy accounting for 0.1 percent of the vote for the far-right.
- Twelve regions of Europe have seen the far-right score an average of over 50 percent in elections. These regions are in Hungary and Poland.
- The largest average percentages of the vote for far-right parties in Western Europe are in Switzerland’s cantons of Nidwalden (45.2 percent) and Obwalden (43.1 percent).
- The largest vote share for far-right parties in the United Kingdom is in Essex (4.5 percent). The figure does not include the UK Independence Party (UKIP), which insists it not far-right, however, based on the party’s increasing anti-Muslim xenophobia, it could be placed in the category of far-right. UKIP is also among the first parties that say it will join Bannon’s The Movement.
- Most European far-right parties, although largely neo-Nazi in tradition, legacy, and dogma, have shed their anti-Semitic activities and achieved an accommodation with Israel. Many far-right leaders have been invited to Israel, where they have been warmly greeted by that nation’s right-wing prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. The far-right and Israel have made a common pact against Islam. The most pro-Israeli leaders of the far-right are found in the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, England, Czechia, and Italy. Far-right parties in Greece, Hungary, and Poland have proven to be less willing to enter into an accommodation with Israel. Many remain anti-Semitic, particularly Golden Dawn in Greece and JOBBIK in Hungary.
- Exiled Nazi leaders after World War II attempted to create an organization like The Movement. It was known as the Association of European Nationalist Movements.
- The penetration of the Trump administration by far-right activists like Bannon, Sebastian Gorka, Stephen Miller, and others is unprecedented in U.S. history.
- The Movement was registered as a corporate entity in Belgium in January 2017, around the same time that Trump was inaugurated as president.
- Bannon does not want “ethno-nationalist” parties in The Movement. These encompass Europe’s secessionist movements. Bannon supports strong nation-states. He also realizes that most secessionist movements have sizable compositions of left-wing groups. This is particularly the case with groups in Catalonia, Scotland, Corsica, Euskadi (Basque Land), and Wales. Bannon has made an exception for the Flemish Vlaams Belang, a charter member of The Movement.
The Movement represents as much a clear and present danger to democracy in Europe as did Hitler’s Nazis and Mussolini’s Fascists in the interregnum between the First and Second World Wars.
Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.
Copyright © 2018 WayneMadenReport.com
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).
