Synchronising projections: corporatism in transnational radical nationalism across Germany, Austria, and Italy, 1925-1934

Abstract

This article scrutinises the impact of corporatism within the framework of informal fascist networks between Germany, Austria, and Italy before the consolidation of the National Socialist and Austrofascist regimes in 1933/34. In particular, it examines the intertwining of previous local traditions of socio-political organicism across the German NSDAP and Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten, the Austrian Heimwehren and Italian fascism as a convergence process. It shows that corporatism represented a key notion orienting the relational agency of right-wing groups towards a common, transnationally circulated vanishing point and thus ultimately worked as a projection towards a mutually shared, even if only vaguely specified, horizon. Resonating with the core fascist expectation of a nation-state eventually purged from enemies and minorities through violence, this produced a synchronisation of expectations among movements and enabled their mutual networking beyond the tensions of the time, real-political conflicts, and overall dispositional incommensurability.

Keywords

• fascism
• corporatism
• NSDAP
• Stahlhelm
• Heimwehren
• relationalism