Cover photo: mc005, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
1945 Was Not the End: Neo-Nazis, Europe and Moscow
From Rostock to Moscow: how a defeated ideology keeps coming back, and who profits from it.
About
In August of nineteen ninety-two, in Rostock, a crowd applauded a burning apartment block with sunflowers painted on its façade. Forty-seven years after the defeat of Nazism, Europe believed it was finished with it. This audiobook follows the same pattern from Weimar to the elections of September twenty twenty-six: a crisis, anger, and a crowd deciding what to applaud.
How do neo-Nazis differ from the far-right parties? What interests do Europe's far right share with Moscow, while Moscow claims to be fighting Nazism? And what did democracies, from Germany and Greece to Denmark, do when the crowds began to gather again?
Sources
- Holocaust Encyclopedia (USHMM) — "Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Rise to Power, 1918–1933" — https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-nazi-rise-to-power
- Wikipedia — "Socialist Reich Party" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Reich_Party
- Wikipedia — "Lichtenhagen riots" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rostock-Lichtenhagen_riots
- Der Bundespräsident (Germany) — Steinmeier's speech for the 30th anniversary of the Rostock-Lichtenhagen riots (25 Aug 2022) — https://www.bundespraesident.de/SharedDocs/Reden/DE/Frank-Walter-Steinmeier/Reden/2022/08/220825-30-Jahre-Rostock-Lichtenhagen.html
- Wikipedia — "National Socialist Underground" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Underground
- Foreign Policy — "Marine Le Pen Expels Her Father From National Front, Party He Founded" — https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/08/20/marine-le-pen-expels-her-father-from-national-front-party-he-founded/
- Al Jazeera — "Germany's AfD expelled from far-right EU parliament group" — https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/23/germanys-afd-expelled-from-far-right-eu-parliament-group
- Wikipedia — "Freedom Party of Austria" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Party_of_Austria
- Al Jazeera — "German far-right AfD wins Saxony-Anhalt election, falls short of majority" — https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/6/far-right-afd-wins-vote-in-germanys-saxony-anhalt-state-exit-polls
- Wikipedia — "2026 Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state election" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Mecklenburg-Vorpommern_state_election
- RFE/RL — "Austrian Far-Right Party Signs Cooperation Pact With United Russia" — https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-austria-freedom-party-pact-putins-party/28185013.html
- CNBC — "Russian links to EU far right exposed by French loan" — https://www.cnbc.com/2014/11/25/russian-links-to-eu-far-right-exposed-by-french-loan.html
- Anton Shekhovtsov — *Russia and the Western Far Right: Tango Noir* (Routledge, 2017) — https://www.routledge.com/Russia-and-the-Western-Far-Right-Tango-Noir/Shekhovtsov/p/book/9781138658646
- US State Department — "United States Designates Russian Imperial Movement and Leaders as Global Terrorists" (2020) — https://2017-2021.state.gov/united-states-designates-russian-imperial-movement-and-leaders-as-global-terrorists/
- Wikipedia — "Nordic Resistance Movement" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_Resistance_Movement
- Wikipedia — "Putin's invasion of Ukraine speech" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putin%27s_invasion_of_Ukraine_speech
- Human Rights Watch — "Justice Delivered in Greece" (2020) — https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/10/07/justice-delivered-greece
- Wikipedia — "Death of Pavlos Fyssas" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Pavlos_Fyssas
- Times of Israel — "Greek court upholds convictions in neo-Nazi party trial" (2026) — https://www.timesofisrael.com/greek-court-upholds-convictions-in-neo-nazi-party-trial/
- Neos Kosmos — "Prominent Greek neo-Nazi exits prison, vows return to politics" (2026) — https://neoskosmos.com/en/2026/09/16/news/greece/prominent-greek-neo-nazi-exits-prison-vows-return-to-politics/
- Al Jazeera — "'Anti-immigrant left' wins election as Danes reject far-right" (2019) — https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/6/6/anti-immigrant-left-wins-election-as-danes-reject-far-right
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