Europa: The Last Battle

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Europa: The Last Battle
Europa, The Last Battle IMDb movie poster.jpg
Promotional poster
Directed byTobias Bratt
Written byTobias Bratt
Produced byTobias Bratt
Edited byTobias Bratt
Release date
  • 2017 (2017)
Running time
12 hours [1]
CountrySweden
LanguageEnglish

Europa: The Last Battle is a 2017 [2] English-language Swedish ten-part [3] neo-Nazi propaganda film [11] directed, written, produced, and edited by Tobias Bratt, [12] a Swedish far-right activist associated with the Nordic Resistance Movement, a European neo-Nazi movement. [13] [14] It promotes antisemitic conspiracy theories, many in relation to World War II including Holocaust denial. [8] The film has been promoted across multiple social media platforms by individual users, particularly white nationalists and other conspiracy theorists. [9] [13]

Contents

Narrative

Europa: The Last Battle promotes various antisemitic conspiracy theories, claiming that Karl Marx was part of a centuries-long plan by Jews to spread communism and take over the world [1] [15] and that Jews control the world's money supply [8] and are conspiring to engineer the downfall of the white "Aryan" race by encouraging immigration and interracial relationships. [5] It includes out-of-context quotes from Marx and Moses Hess's book Rome and Jerusalem to promote the idea that Jews are behind the evils of the world, and claims that Stalin supposedly having Jewish wives proves that Jews were controlling him. [15]

The film also engages in historical revisionism to claim that Jews started World War I and II as part of a plot to establish Israel by provoking the Nazis into acting in self-defence. [3] [16] [17] It also claims that Jews caused Germany's defeat in World War I, which is commonly referred to as the stab-in-the-back myth, and that Adolf Hitler was fighting against a global Jewish plot. [16]

Gregory Davis, a researcher at the United Kingdom-based anti-racism group Hope not Hate, said the film "denies the proven reality of the Holocaust whilst providing justifications for the violent antisemitism that fuelled it", adding, "Its mix of blatant falsehoods and slanted portrayal of real events gives it no historical legitimacy whatsoever, and it serves only to demonise the Jewish people and whitewash the crimes of the Nazi regime." [8]

Promotion

The film has been promoted by white supremacists [2] [18] [19] and antisemitic conspiracy theorists, [2] [20] the British conspiracy newspaper The Light [21] and QAnon conspiracy theorists on Telegram. [25] It has also been shared on platforms such as Instagram, [13] BitChute, [4] Rumble, [26] TikTok [8] [15] and the Telegram chat of Disclose.tv, [7] a German disinformation outlet with a following that includes Holocaust deniers and neo-Nazis. [7] [27] [24] YouTube and Facebook have blocked the film from being uploaded, but links to the film on other sites can be shared. [13]

As of June 2023, Twitter was running advertisements for major brands such as Disney, Microsoft and ESPN next to tweets from verified users sharing long clips from the film. [9] [10]

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. 1 2 Piper, Ernie; Wildon, Jordan (October 22, 2021). "Telegram COVID-19 Conspiracy Group Rife With Antisemitism". Logically . Archived from the original on July 13, 2023. Retrieved July 13, 2023. The link to the antisemitic documentary Europa: The Last Battle, a 12-hour film that among other claims asserts that Jews created communism with a goal of 'total world domination', has been shared multiple times in the chat, sometimes multiple times per day.
  2. 1 2 3 "Europa The Last Battle". Anti-Defamation League. Archived from the original on March 26, 2023. Retrieved March 26, 2023.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Gilbert, David (May 26, 2021). "QAnon's Antisemitism Is Finally Being Displayed in Full". Vice . Archived from the original on March 26, 2023. Retrieved March 26, 2023. But last week, the underlying antisemitic content that GhostEzra had always been pushing came to the fore in a series of posts on their Telegram channel that left no doubt about just how extreme the account was. It began by promoting the neo-Nazi film "Europa – the Last Battle" a 10-part film that claims Jews created Communism, and deliberately started both world wars as part of a plot to found Israel by provoking the innocent Nazis, who were only defending themselves.
  4. 1 2 Siapera, Eugenia (July 24, 2023). "Alt Tech and the public sphere: Exploring Bitchute as a political media infrastructure". European Journal of Communication . 38 (5): 446–465. doi: 10.1177/02673231231189041 . ISSN   0267-3231. For example, the antisemitic and neo-Nazi film Europa – the Last Battle (2017), a 10-h film which is banned from YouTube, is found across several Bitchute channels.
  5. 1 2 Doerer, Kristen (August 9, 2021). "From Flat Earth to Holocaust Denial, the Conspiracy Theorist Podcast That Nearly Scored an MMA Legend". Right Wing Watch . Archived from the original on March 2, 2024. Retrieved March 2, 2024. The "flat_earth_truther_6_million" account has 17 video posts of the film "Europa: The Last Battle," a neo-Nazi revisionist film that paints Jewish people as conspiring the downfall of the white "Aryan" race through encouraging immigration and interracial relationships...
  6. "QAnon's Antisemitism and What Comes Next". Anti-Defamation League . September 17, 2021. Archived from the original on March 26, 2023. Retrieved March 26, 2023. By May 20, he was posting links to neo-Nazi propaganda film "Europa: the Last Battle" and to the Wikipedia page for "crypto-Judaism."
  7. 1 2 3 Thomas, W. F. (January 12, 2022). "Disclose.tv: Conspiracy Forum Turned Disinformation Factory". Logically . Archived from the original on October 26, 2022. Retrieved March 26, 2023. Some share outright neo-Nazi propaganda, encouraging others in the Telegram chat to watch Europa - The Last Battle.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 Pope, Felix (March 2, 2023). "TikTok is still hosting Nazi propaganda, despite warnings". The Jewish Chronicle . Archived from the original on March 26, 2023. Retrieved March 26, 2023.
  9. 1 2 3 DeGeurin, Mack (June 17, 2023). "Twitter Runs Ads for Disney, Microsoft, NBA Alongside Neo-Nazi Videos". Gizmodo . Archived from the original on June 28, 2023. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
  10. 1 2 Tangalakis-Lippert, Katherine (June 19, 2023). "Advertisers are returning to Twitter after Linda Yaccarino calmed fears over content moderation. But now brands like Disney, Microsoft, and the NBA have ads placed next to neo-Nazi propaganda". Business Insider . Archived from the original on June 27, 2023. Retrieved June 23, 2023.
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  12. Troubles with Identity - The Philosophical Salon (written by Slavoj Žižek)
  13. 1 2 3 4 "Antisemitism in the Digital Age: Online Antisemitic Hate, Holocaust Denial, Conspiracy Ideologies and Terrorism in Europe" (PDF). Hope not Hate. October 13, 2021. p. 34. Archived (PDF) from the original on November 16, 2023. Retrieved September 23, 2023.
  14. "The Nordic Resistance Movement". Anti-Defamation League . Archived from the original on January 2, 2024. Retrieved January 9, 2024. Films viewed by the NRM in such sessions include the Swedish-produced antisemitic propaganda miniseries, Europa – the Last Battle, which praises Hitler and claims that Jews started both World Wars, and Dennis Wise's revisionist film, Adolf Hitler: The Greatest Story Never Told.
  15. 1 2 3 Malliagros, Thiago Vahia (February 26, 2024). "Europa: The Last Battle – the antisemitic documentary going viral among the far right". The Skeptic . Archived from the original on March 13, 2024. Retrieved March 14, 2024.
  16. 1 2 Williams, Arron (February 2, 2023). "False: The First and Second World Wars were started by Jewish nationalists trying to create Israel". Logically. Archived from the original on February 3, 2024. Retrieved March 27, 2023.
  17. 1 2 Gill, Gerard (December 8, 2021). "Fascist cross-pollination of Australian conspiracist Telegram channels". First Monday . doi: 10.5210/fm.v26i12.11830 . ISSN   1396-0466. Archived from the original on April 27, 2023. Retrieved February 8, 2024. In the QAnon channel, a poster opines that "The power of the mainstream media is waning ... People are instead finding alternative media sources ... Real people, not algorithms, are sharing documentaries like Europa: The Last Battle ...". These information sources are respectively an anti-Semitic revisionist history of WWII...
  18. Pantuso, Phillip (October 4, 2022). "White supremacists leave flyers in Chatham and Ulster County". Times Union (Albany) . Archived from the original on June 24, 2023. Retrieved June 24, 2023.
  19. Hosseini, Raheem (November 10, 2023). "Neo-Nazis are exploiting the Israel-Hamas conflict to stoke another crisis: A 'race war'". San Francisco Chronicle . Archived from the original on December 5, 2023. Retrieved December 5, 2023.
  20. Smith, Peter (January 11, 2022). "A Holocaust Denier Is Travelling Across Canada Building Up The Country's Newest Far-Right Militia Movement". Canadian Anti-Hate Network . Archived from the original on September 27, 2022. Retrieved March 8, 2024.
  21. Lawrence, David (June 30, 2022). "Turning Off "The Light": the conspiracist newspaper promoting the far right". Hope Not Hate . Archived from the original on March 4, 2023. Retrieved March 4, 2023.
  22. Gilbert, David (October 18, 2021). "QAnon Is Becoming Even More Antisemitic". Vice. Archived from the original on March 26, 2023. Retrieved March 26, 2023.
  23. Gilbert, David (November 5, 2021). "Meet the Antisemitic QAnon Leader Who Led Followers to Dallas to Meet JFK". Vice. Archived from the original on March 27, 2023. Retrieved March 27, 2023.
  24. 1 2 Thomas, W. F. (February 11, 2022). "Telegram: The Social Network Where Conspiracies Meet". Logically. Archived from the original on March 26, 2023. Retrieved March 26, 2023. Similarly, in the group for Disclose.tv, a sketchy news aggregator site that began as a paranormal and conspiracy theory forum, users shared links to other channels filled with neo-Nazi propaganda.
  25. [17] [3] [22] [23] [24]
  26. Paterson, Alex (October 16, 2023). "The RNC is partnering with the Republican Jewish Coalition and Rumble — a virulently antisemitic platform — for the third GOP debate". Media Matters for America . Retrieved August 17, 2024.
  27. Schumacher, Elizabeth (February 8, 2022). "Disclose.TV: English disinformation made in Germany". Deutsche Welle . Archived from the original on October 26, 2022. Retrieved October 26, 2022. Piper and Thomas found what they described as "hate speech and Holocaust denial" flourishing in Disclose.TV's groups on the Discord app and Russia-based messaging service Telegram.