Product Description

If you thought Nazism died with Hitler, think again. In The Beast Reawakens, journalist Martin A. Lee documents the revival of fascist ideals from the wake of the Second World War to recent violent incidents in Europe and America. Defeated in war, many Nazis built new and profitable lives for themselves, stirring political intrigue and serving as role models to a new generation of white supremacists like Americans Francis Parker Yockey, whose book Imperium became the bible of anti-Semitism, and Willis Carto, who continues to run several ostensibly mainstream policy groups that deny the Holocaust ever took place. Often forced underground yet certain of their cause, this second generation of extremists can be linked to such recent violence as the Oklahoma City bombings, the shocking lynching of James Byrd in Jasper, Texas, and the abortion clinic bombings by Eric Rudolf, who remains a fugitive. With extraordinary detail and insight, The Beast Reawakens examines the many strands of rightwing extremism worldwide to put the current fascist resurgence in contemporary perspective.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #801335 in Books
• Published on: 1999-10-12
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.84 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 560 pages

From Amazon.com
If you thought Nazism died with Hitler, think again. In The Beast Reawakens, journalist Martin A. Lee traces the resurgence of fascist ideals from the prominent Nazis who escaped prosecution following World War II to the present-day incidents of right-wing violence in Europe and America. One only has to look at the current situation in the Balkans to see that fascism is alive and well. Lee begins his troubling account by reminding us of the many prominent Nazis who, after the war, built new and profitable lives for themselves fomenting political intrigue, while providing role models to a new generation of neo-Nazis all around the world. This underground Nazi culture might have remained out of sight had it not been for the fall of Communism. In the confusion following the end of the Cold War, right-wing nationalist movements sprang up all over Europe, taking root especially deep in formerly communist areas such as Croatia, Bosnia, and Romania.

According to Lee, "the Beast" doesn't restrict itself to Eastern Europe by any means; skinhead violence against immigrants is on the rise in Germany, while right-wing politicians in France, Italy, and other western European countries are increasingly finding a willing audience for their national and racial polemics. And lest American readers be lulled into a false sense of security, Lee warns that the United States is hardly immune to this kind of hateful rhetoric. He warns that many of the militia groups currently operating today share the same glorified attitude toward violence, the same irrational hatred of foreigners and ethnic minorities that mark the worst excesses of fascism in Europe.

From Library Journal
Lee (Acid Dreams: The CIA, LSD, and the Sixties, Grove Atlantic, 1987) traces neo-Nazism from the fall of the Third Reich to Oklahoma City. In this journalistic account, he uses certain personalities to trace a continuous thread of fascism over the 50 years. One of his main characters is Otto Skorzeny, the daring SS officer who became a favorite of Adolf Hitler. Skorzeny helped many Nazis escape from Germany and others gain positions in the intelligence agencies of the superpowers at the beginning of the Cold War. Lee has written a compelling work that should find an audience in public libraries, especially in light of recent interest in militia groups.?Dennis L. Noble, North Olympic Lib. System, Port Angeles, Wash.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Lee's work chronicles the activities, publications, and Fuhrer-imitators active since 1945 in Germany mainly, and in France, Belgium, the U.S., and Russia peripherally. Lee splits the fascists into two generations: those unregenerate ones who survived the defeat and their present-day admirers. A connecting figure between the generations was Otto Remer, a self-important SS kook whose claim to fame was suppressing the anti-Hitler coup in 1944. Neo-Nazi groups loved to listen to that bedtime story, and Remer obliged them for decades until he died in the 1980s. Lee also tracks the profitable postwar life in exile in Spain of Otto Skorzeny (commando rescuer of Mussolini) and connects him with the pro-Nazi sentiment of some Arab leaders in the 1960s. Lest readers dismiss this as dusty history, Lee convinces, through thorough research of what must be turgid contemporary fascist literature, that current advocates of ein Reich, ein Volk, und ein Fuhrer are a violent and odious lot, however debatable their actual threat may be. A sentinel against complacency, Lee keeps tabs on the fringe. Gilbert Taylor