A black and white photograph of students demonstrating
Students at the University of Vienna saluting in a torchlight parade together with the Rector, Hans Übersberger, in 1931.
ÖNB Bildarchiv. H 780 B

The Wiener Holocaust Library and the European Fascist Movements 1918 – 1941 project are pleased to announce a new temporary exhibition, This Fascist Life: Radical Right Movements in Interwar Europe.

Fascist political parties, militia and movements emerged across Europe in the years after the First World War. United by ultra-nationalist ideas and similarities of style and action, these movements shaped, and in some places remade politics and society. They mobilised on the streets to attack their opponents and to support the accession to power of fascist parties in countries such as Italy, Germany and Austria. Later, they helped to enable German occupations and the Nazis’ policies of persecution and genocide across Europe.

Drawing upon The Wiener Holocaust Library’s unique archival collections, first assembled in the 1930s by Dr Alfred Wiener as part of his fight against fascism, as well as the expertise of an international group of experts in interwar fascism, this exhibition focuses on the experiences of rank-and-file members of fascist movements in the interwar period. It explores the world of the young and socially diverse fascist activists and examines their motivations and activities.

Today, as extreme right-wing radicalism grows in strength in Europe and elsewhere, this timely exhibition looks back to the first manifestations of the destructive phenomenon of fascism.

You can now download the European Fascist Movements 1919-1941 App and identify places where fascist groups were active during the 1920s and 1930s, and to get a glimpse of what life was like during the ‘age of fascism’.

Exhibition Event Series

Past Events

Missed out on one of our events? Recordings are available below.


  • Virtual Exhibition Talk: “The Mussolini of the North”: A Transnational Look at Finnish Interwar Fascism

    With Professor Marja Jalava. Wednesday 3 November 2021.

    In this virtual exhibition talk, Professor Marja Jalava took a transnational approach to Finnish interwar fascism, focusing on the Lapua Movement and the Patriotic People’s Movement.


  • Virtual Exhibition Talk: Between fanaticism and mediocrity: Swedish and Dutch fascism, 1923-1940

    With Dr Nathaniël Kunkeler. Thursday 13 January 2022.

    In this virtual exhibition lecture, Dr Nathaniël Kunkeler explored the rise and decline of fascism in Sweden and the Netherlands, explaining their appeal to ordinary fascists in spite of unfavourable conditions and the mediocrity of the objects of their devotion.


  • Hybrid Conference: Echoes of Fascism. Panel discussion: Fighting Fascism Today

    Hybrid Conference: Echoes of Fascism: The Radical Right in the Twenty-First Century. Wednesday 19 January.

    Please note: the first few minutes of this discussion are not available due to unforeseen technical difficulties.

    In this hybrid panel discussion, the speakers discussed and explored the themes and issues surrounding fighting fascism today.

    Chair: Matthew Feldman (Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right) Speakers: Joe Mulhall (HOPE not hate); Dave Rich (Community Security Trust); Bethan Johnson (Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right)

    This one-day conference was organised in partnership with The European Fascist Movements 1918-1941 project, the Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right and HOPE not hate.


  • Hybrid Conference: Echoes of Fascism. Keynote Lecture (online) by Ruth Wodak: ‘Collective Amnesia’

    Hybrid Conference: Echoes of Fascism: The Radical Right in the Twenty-First Century. Wednesday 19 January.

    Keynote Lecture: ‘Collective Amnesia: Normalizing a rhetoric of exclusion’.

    Ruth Wodak (Lancaster University/the University of Vienna) delivers her online lecture exploring the “collective amnesia” and discussed how rhetorics of exclusion have been normalised in today’s society.

    This one-day conference was organised in partnership with The European Fascist Movements 1918-1941 project, the Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right and HOPE not hate.


  • Hybrid Conference: Echoes of Fascism. Keynote Lecture by Julie Gottlieb: ‘Memory Boom and Bust’

    Hybrid Conference: Echoes of Fascism: The Radical Right in the Twenty-First Century. Wednesday 19 January.

    Please note: the first few minutes of this discussion are not available due to unforeseen technical difficulties.

    Professor Julie Gottlieb (University of Sheffield) closed the Library’s hybrid conference with an in-person lecture that traced the changing representations and reputations of some of the key female figures of Britain’s fascist movements from the 1920s-1940s.

    This one-day conference was organised in partnership with The European Fascist Movements 1918-1941 project, the Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right and HOPE not hate.

Press Coverage

We have been delighted to receive the following press coverage for this exhibition: