Paul Jankowski (born July 8, 1950) is an American historian and the Raymond Ginger Professor of History Emeritus at Brandeis University.
Raised in Europe and the United States, Jankowski attended Balliol College, Oxford for both his undergraduate and graduate degrees, [1] completing his doctoral dissertation on Simon Sabiani and the rise of fascism and the French Parti Populaire Français in Marseille. [2]
Jankowski specializes in the history of modern France and modern Europe, the history of war, and the history of international relations in the interwar period. [3] In addition to his study of Sabiani, he has published books on the Stavisky affair, political scandals in France, and the Battle of Verdun. His latest book, All Against All: The Long Winter of 1933 and the Origins of the Second World War, is a narrative history of several events and developments, primarily in Europe and the United States, between November 1932 and April 1933, including Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany, the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt as president of the United States, and the first Japanese attacks against China.
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.
The Stavisky affair was a financial scandal in France in 1934, involving embezzler Alexandre Stavisky. The scandal had political ramifications for the Radical-Socialist government after it was revealed that Prime Minister Camille Chautemps had protected Stavisky, who died suddenly in mysterious circumstances.
Serge Alexandre Stavisky was a French financier and embezzler whose actions created a political scandal that became known as the Stavisky Affair.
The history of fascist ideology is long and it draws on many sources. Fascists took inspiration from sources as ancient as the Spartans for their focus on racial purity and their emphasis on rule by an elite minority. Fascism has also been connected to the ideals of Plato, though there are key differences between the two. Fascism styled itself as the ideological successor to Rome, particularly the Roman Empire. From the same era, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's view on the absolute authority of the state also strongly influenced fascist thinking. The French Revolution was a major influence insofar as the Nazis saw themselves as fighting back against many of the ideas which it brought to prominence, especially liberalism, liberal democracy and racial equality, whereas on the other hand, fascism drew heavily on the revolutionary ideal of nationalism. The prejudice of a "high and noble" Aryan culture as opposed to a "parasitic" Semitic culture was core to Nazi racial views, while other early forms of fascism concerned themselves with non-racialized conceptions of the nation.
Nazi Germany was an overwhelmingly Christian nation with similarly overwhelmingly self-identified Christian leadership. A census in May 1939, six years into the Nazi era and after the annexation of mostly Catholic Austria and mostly Catholic Czechoslovakia into Germany, indicates that 54% of the population considered itself Protestant, 41% considered itself Catholic, 3.5% self-identified as Gottgläubig, and 1.5% as "atheist". Protestants were over-represented in the Nazi Party's membership and electorate, and Catholics were under-represented.
The Francist Movement was a French Fascist and anti-semitic league created by Marcel Bucard in September 1933 that edited the newspaper Le Francisme. Mouvement franciste reached a membership of 10,000 and was financed by the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini. Its members were deemed the francistes or Chemises bleues (Blueshirts) and gave the Roman salute.
Robert Owen Paxton is an American political scientist and historian specializing in Vichy France, fascism, and Europe during the World War II era. He is Mellon Professor Emeritus of Social Science in the Department of History at Columbia University. He is best known for his 1972 book Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, which precipitated intense debate in France, and led to a paradigm shift in how the events of the Vichy regime are interpreted.
The 6 February 1934 crisis was an anti-parliamentarist street demonstration in Paris organized by multiple far-rightist leagues that culminated in a riot on the Place de la Concorde, near the building used for the French National Assembly. The police shot and killed 17 demonstrators, nine of whom were in far-right organizations. It was one of the major political crises during the Third Republic (1870–1940). Leftist Frenchmen claimed it was an attempt to organize a fascist coup d'état. According to historian Joel Colton, "The consensus among scholars is that there was no concerted or unified design to seize power and that the leagues lacked the coherence, unity, or leadership to accomplish such an end."
Italian fascism, also known as classical fascism or simply fascism, is the original fascist ideology as developed in Italy by Giovanni Gentile and Benito Mussolini. The ideology is associated with a series of two political parties led by Benito Mussolini: the National Fascist Party (PNF), which ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, and the Republican Fascist Party (PFR) that ruled the Italian Social Republic from 1943 to 1945. Italian fascism is also associated with the post-war Italian Social Movement (MSI) and subsequent Italian neo-fascist movements.
François "Lydro" Spirito was a French gangster. He was one of the leaders of the French Connection, and inspired the film Borsalino, which featured Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo.
Paul Bonnaventure Carbone was a Corsican criminal involved in the Marseille underworld from the 1920s until his death in 1943. He was known as the Emperor of Marseille. Associated with François Spirito, who would become one of the leaders of the French Connection, Carbone inspired the film Borsalino which featured Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo.
Simon Pierre Sabiani was a French businessman and politician. He served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 1928 to 1936.
Nazism, the common name in English for National Socialism, is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Nazi Germany. During Hitler's rise to power in 1930s Europe, it was frequently referred to as Hitlerism. The later related term "neo-Nazism" is applied to other far-right groups with similar ideas which formed after the Second World War.
The Nationalist faction or Rebel faction was a major faction in the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1939. It was composed of a variety of right-leaning political groups that supported the Spanish Coup of July 1936 against the Second Spanish Republic and Republican faction and sought to depose Manuel Azaña, including the Falange, the CEDA, and two rival monarchist claimants: the Alfonsist Renovación Española and the Carlist Traditionalist Communion. In 1937, all the groups were merged into the FET y de las JONS. After the death of the faction's early leaders, General Francisco Franco, one of the members of the 1936 coup, headed the Nationalists throughout most of the war, and emerged as the dictator of Spain until his death in 1975.
The Young Egypt Party also known as the Green Shirts was a fascist Egyptian nationalist political party. It is notable for counting a young Anwar Sadat as a member.
Henry Frédéric Chéron was a French lawyer and politician who became active in local politics in the Calvados department of Normandy while still a young man, and always maintained his roots in Normandy. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies and then to the Senate, and held various ministerial posts between 1913 and 1934. He generally held moderately conservative views, believed in fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets, and felt strongly that agriculture was the foundation of France's prosperity.
Albert Oustric was a French entrepreneur and banker. He was the son of a cafe proprietor, and held various jobs before managing to raise capital for a hydroelectric power generation company. He founded a small bank in 1919 and specialized in turning around enterprises that were in financial difficulty through debt consolidation and the sale of shares at inflated prices. He invested in a wide range of industries from mining to leather goods and retail banking. His group was bankrupted by the economic crisis that started in 1929, and many small depositors were ruined. Oustric was found guilty of fraud and embezzlement and spent several years in prison. A commission of inquiry found that several politicians had protected Oustric, including the Minister of Justice. The Senate tried and acquitted them.
François Albert was a French journalist and politician. He was violently anti-clerical. Albert was Minister of Education in 1924–25, and Minister of Labor in 1933. As education minister he promoted secular state schools, state support for education of poor children, and reform of the curriculum to place greater emphasis on sciences and modern languages.
Albert François Marie Dalimier was a French politician. Between 1932 and 1934 he was Minister of Labor, Minister of the Colonies (twice) and Minister of Justice in four of the short-lived cabinets of that period. He was forced to resign during the scandal of the Stavisky Affair in January 1934, since his advice as Minister of Labor may have made the embezzlement possible.