When It Happened Here: The Transnational Development of American Fascism, 1920-1945

Advisors: Volker R. Berghahn (Columbia), David Stevenson (LSE)

From the 1920s through the 1940s, while fascism pervaded Europe, hundreds of right-wing extremist groups operated in the United States, primarily in Midwestern states like Michigan. Using archival sources from the United States, Germany, and the UK, this dissertation sheds light on a system of transnational ideological exchange that challenges the scholarly consensus, which claims that fascism is a purely nationalist and European phenomenon. Instead, the dissertation argues that together Americans and Germans constructed a hybrid ideology by combining Americanism with National Socialism in a united front against the perceived ills of Jewish Communism.