Nordic League

Last updated
Nordic League
AbbreviationNL
Leader Archibald Maule Ramsay
Founded1935
Dissolved1939
Ideology Nazism
Political position Far-right
National affiliation Nordische Gesellschaft
Slogan"Perish Judah"

The Nordic League (NL) was a far-right organisation in the United Kingdom from 1935 to 1939 that sought to serve as a co-ordinating body for the various extremist movements whilst also seeking to promote Nazism. The League was a private organisation that did not organise any public events. [1]

Contents

Development

The Nordic League (NL) originated in 1935 when agents of Alfred Rosenberg's Nordische Gesellschaft arrived in Britain to establish a UK version of their movement. [2] The main force behind this new group was Unionist MP Archibald Maule Ramsay who chaired the group's 14-man leadership council. The group's constitution described it as an "association of race conscious Britons" and sought to co-ordinate all far-right and fascist movements whilst giving particular emphasis to anti-Semitism. [3]

The League sought to unite leading figures from across the far right, as demonstrated in April 1939 when a meeting addressed by Ramsay was chaired by a member of the British Union of Fascists who was supported by former British Fascists president R. B. D. Blakeney and Imperial Fascist League member E. H. Cole. [1] Other leading members included J. F. C. Fuller, the United Empire Fascist Party leader and Nazi agent Serocold Skeels, Henry Hamilton Beamish, Arnold Leese and P. J. Ridout. [3] The latter was credited with helping to popularise the NL's slogan "Perish Judah", which was frequently rendered "P.J." in public. [4]

BUF leader Oswald Mosley, fearful of being too closely associated with the League's extremist rhetoric, did not join but he permitted party members to do so which the likes of Fuller, Robert Gordon-Canning and Oliver C. Gilbert did readily. [2] As a result of these links the BUF was able to absorb the National Socialist Workers Party, a small group led by NL member Lieutenant-Colonel Graham Seton-Hutchison. [5]

Front groups

The NL was closely linked to the White Knights of Britain , a secret society otherwise known as the Hooded Men with ritual initiation based on Freemasonry and compared to the Ku Klux Klan that was active from 1935 to 1937. [6] The White Knights and the NL shared the same building as their headquarters. [2] Another group, the Militant Christian Patriots, that was active after the Munich Crisis urging Neville Chamberlain not to become involved in a "Jewish war", was also closely connected to the NL and said by MI5 to be a front organisation. [3] By using this group and another front organisation, the Liberty Restoration League, the NL was able to ensure that high-ranking figures such as the Duke of Wellington, the Duchess of Hamilton, Baron Brocket, and Michael O'Dwyer became involved in their movement. [5]

Response and demise

The NL came under increasing scrutiny after Kristallnacht, particularly for the violence of Ramsay, William Joyce and A. K. Chesterton in their anti-Semitic speeches. [7] Others such as Elwin Wright, who until 1937 was secretary of the Anglo-German Fellowship, called for the shooting of Jews, whilst Commander E. H. Cole condemned the House of Commons as being full of "bastardised Jewish swine". [7] However, such extremist language worked against the NL because its speakers were seen by the public at large as quite mad and so their pro-appeasement arguments were ignored. [8]

Following the outbreak of the Second World War, two leading members, T. Victor-Rowe and Oliver Gilbert, were interned, and the NL largely went into abeyance, with members joining other, more public, anti-war groups. [8] The League had officially disbanded as soon as war was declared although it continued to meet secretly at Gilbert's house until his arrest in late September 1939. [9] Two of its members, Joyce and Margaret Bothamley, left Britain for Nazi Germany after the outbreak of war. [10] Given the association of the NL with Nazism, BUF organiser Alexander Raven Thomson even suggested that Mosley publicly denounce the League as traitors in an attempt to present a more patriotic image, although Defence Regulation 18B came into force before this could be attempted. [11]

Related Research Articles

British Union of Fascists 1932–1940 British fascist political party

The British Union of Fascists (BUF) was a British fascist political party formed in 1932 by Oswald Mosley. Mosley changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists in 1936 and, in 1937, to the British Union. In 1939, following the start of the Second World War, the party was proscribed by the British government and in 1940 it was disbanded.

Imperial Fascist League British fascist political movement

The Imperial Fascist League (IFL) was a British fascist political movement founded by Arnold Leese in 1929 after he broke away from the British Fascists. It included a blackshirted paramilitary arm called the Fascists Legion, modeled after the Italian Fascists. The group espoused antisemitism and the dominance of the 'Aryan race' in a 'Racial Fascist Corporate State', especially after Leese met Nazi Party propagandist Julius Streicher, the virulently racist publisher of Der Stürmer; the group later indirectly received funding from the Nazis. Although it had only between 150 and 500 members at maximum, its public profile was higher than its membership numbers would indicate.

The National Fascisti (NF), renamed British National Fascists (BNF) in July 1926, were a splinter group from the British Fascisti formed in 1924. In the early days of the British Fascisti the movement lacked any real policy or direction and so this group split away with the intention of pursuing a more definite path towards a fascist state. The group had 60 members at its creation, and around 500 at its height.

National Socialist League British Nazi political movement

The National Socialist League was a short-lived Nazi political movement in the United Kingdom immediately before the Second World War.

John Beckett (politician) British politician

John Warburton Beckett was a British politician who was a Labour Party MP from 1929 to 1931. During the 1930s, he joined the fascist movement, first in the British Union of Fascists and later as a founder of the National Socialist League. During World War II, he was interned in Britain.

Hastings William Sackville Russell, 12th Duke of Bedford was a British peer. He was born at Cairnsmore House, Minnigaff, Kirkcudbrightshire the son of Herbrand Russell, 11th Duke of Bedford and his wife Mary Du Caurroy Tribe, DBE, RRC, FLS, the aviator and ornithologist. He was known for both his career as a naturalist and for his involvement in far-right politics.

Rotha Lintorn-Orman

Rotha Beryl Lintorn Lintorn-Orman was the founder of the British Fascisti, the first avowedly fascist movement to appear in British politics.

Jeffrey Hamm

Edward Jeffrey Hamm was a leading British fascist and supporter of Oswald Mosley. Although a minor figure in Mosley's prewar British Union of Fascists, Hamm became a leading figure after the Second World War and eventually succeeded as leader of the Union Movement after Mosley's retirement.

Alexander Raven Thomson, usually referred to as Raven, was a Scottish politician and philosopher. He joined the British Union of Fascists in 1933 and remained a follower of Oswald Mosley for the rest of his life. Thomson was considered to be the party's chief ideologue and has been described as the "Alfred Rosenberg of British fascism".

The British People's Party (BPP) was a British far-right political party founded in 1939 and led by ex-British Union of Fascists (BUF) member and Labour Party Member of Parliament John Beckett.

The British Brothers' League (BBL) was a British anti-immigration, extraparliamentary, pressure group, the "largest and best organised" of its time. Described as proto-fascist, the group attempted to organise along paramilitary lines.

Robert Forgan was a British politician who was a close associate of Oswald Mosley.

R. B. D. Blakeney British Army general

Robert Byron Drury Blakeney, generally known as R. B. D. Blakeney, was a British Army officer and fascist politician. After a career with the Royal Engineers, Blakeney went on to serve as President of the British Fascists.

Graham Seton Hutchison British Army officer, author and fascist activist

Lieutenant-Colonel Graham Seton Hutchison was a British First World War army officer, military theorist, author of both adventure novels and non-fiction works and fascist activist. Seton Hutchison became a celebrated figure in military circles for his tactical innovations during the First World War but would later become associated with a series of fringe fascist movements which failed to capture much support even by the standards of the far right in Britain in the interbellum period. He made a contribution to First World War fiction with his espionage novel, The W Plan.

The British League of Ex-Servicemen and Women (BLESMAW) was a British ex-service organisation that became associated with far-right politics both during and after the Second World War.

British fascism is the form of fascism promoted by some political parties and movements in the United Kingdom. It is based on British ultranationalism, and had aspects of Italian fascism and Nazism both before and after World War II.

Neil Lanfear Maclean Francis Hawkins was a British writer and politician who was a leading proponent of British fascism in the United Kingdom both before and after the Second World War. He played a leading role in the British Union of Fascists and controlled the organisational structure of the movement.

British Fascists British fascist political party

The British Fascists was the first political organisation in the United Kingdom to claim the label of fascist, although the group had little ideological unity apart from anti-socialism for much of its existence, and was strongly associated with conservatism. William Joyce, Neil Francis Hawkins, Maxwell Knight and Arnold Leese were amongst those to have passed through the movement as members and activists.

The Militant Christian Patriots (MCP) were a short-lived but influential anti-Semitic organisation active in the United Kingdom immediately prior to the Second World War. It played a central role in the ultimately unsuccessful attempts to keep the UK out of any European war.

References

  1. 1 2 Benewick 1969, p. 289.
  2. 1 2 3 Dorril 2007, p. 425.
  3. 1 2 3 Thurlow 1987, p. 80.
  4. Thurlow 1987, p. 81.
  5. 1 2 Dorril 2007, p. 426.
  6. Thurlow 1987, pp. 80–81.
  7. 1 2 Thurlow 1987, p. 82.
  8. 1 2 Thurlow 1987, p. 83.
  9. Dorril 2007, p. 465.
  10. Thurlow 1987, pp. 170–171.
  11. Dorril 2007, p. 493.

Bibliography

  • Benewick, Robert (1969). Political Violence & Public Order: A Study of British Fascism. Allen Lane. ISBN   978-0713900859.
  • Dorril, Stephen (2007). Blackshirt: Sir Oswald Mosley and British Fascism. Penguin Books. ISBN   978-0-14-025821-9.
  • Thurlow, Richard C. (1987). Fascism in Britain: A History, 1918–1985. Blackwell. ISBN   978-0-631-13618-7.